The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians has announced the successful repatriation of cultural items and ancestors from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University and the Yale Peabody Museum.
GOOD NEWS
An Innu community in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec has signed a deal with the federal and provincial governments to officially recognize its jurisdiction over child and family services.
The agreement signed today allows for the implementation of a new law establishing a governance framework designed by and for the Uashat mak Mani utenam community.
The law will go into effect in September, replacing the provincial Youth Protection Act in the community’s jurisdiction.
The federal government said in a news release that the law will ensure that decisions about children’s welfare are made by the community in accordance with their customs, language and values.
Today’s signing marks the first Indigenous community in Quebec to enter into a three-party agreement under the federal framework of the Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families.
Ottawa has also committed to investing funds through 2030 to support the Innu community’s assumption of responsibility for child and family services.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 10, 2026.
LINK:
We can learn a lot from these discussions. And it's the right time to do it. - Trace
LINK:
I call this an opportunity. We see what his-story did and didn't do... This outpouring of Native Voices is remarkable - and I think long overdue. What grade do you give America?
Leave a comment_- and thanks!
Trace
A lifelong resident of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Susan "Cricket" Fedorko (Grand Portage Band of Chippewa - Oijbwe) has contributed her writing to four anthologies on the subject of being adopted and has done numerous media interviews. Her Chippewa Oijbwe birthmother, a famous supermodel, died in 1997, a short distance from Susan's home. Suzie always knew she was adopted at the early age of 11 months. She discovers at the age of 40 who her biological family is. Suzie discovers her birth mother is the first Native American supermodel "Cathee Dahmen". Suzie is currently 64 and has been reunited with her biological birth family 24 years.
p.s. It amazes me that Suzie and I were both handled by Catholic Charities in Minnesota, and raised Catholic. We each called the agency when we became adults and they refused to help us. We had to fight to get information, which was very hard and traumatic for us but we found our families....I didn't know Suzie until years later but we have so much in common.- Trace (born in St. Paul, MN)
Suzie contributed her story to the book series Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects. Read Two Worlds, Book 1. She has an amazing story!
LINK:
https://www.youtube.com/live/k3sv3Xe23Wc?si=Azvf7SyxKm8Mz3RN
American 250: A Republic Built on Native Land Live Stream
What we’ll explore:
THIS IS AWESOME👇💓
By Regan Duceman | Jun. 29, 2026
RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) - Black and Indigenous community organizers gathered June 29 at Camp Mni Luzahan to announce the launch of the Day One Movement, a coalition focused on land back and reparations with a stated goal of building a nation that works for all over the next 250 years.
“In order for us to build a path forward, we have to acknowledge the past,” said Nick Tilsen, a community organizer in the He Sapa.
Organizers described the movement as a response to what they called a false narrative dividing poor, working class, Indigenous, Black and immigrant communities. They said they will not be celebrating July 3 or July 4, instead focusing on the changes they say need to happen starting July 5 and over the next 250 years.
“We know that there has been a division, a perpetuated false narrative between poor folks, between working class folks, between Indigenous folks, Black folks, and immigrants,” said Brenda Pérez, an immigrant labor rights organizer. “And we know that our struggles are one, but we know that those in power continuously work towards pushing us apart.”
Organizers also framed the movement as an act of resistance and vision-building.
“So we’re here to build something new. So, as we resist the rise of authoritarianism and fascism in the United States and around the world, we’re also here out of love, to radically envision a nation that would work for everybody,” Tilsen said.
Alongside the movement’s launch, organizers unveiled a bill of essential rights, citing what they described as serious flaws and intentional gaps in the existing U.S. Bill of Rights.
“For generations we have lived by the U.S. Bill of Rights, a document that provides some foundation of essential rights and freedoms for all people, but contains serious flaws and intentional gaps,” said Jacy Bowles, a community organizer and climate justice activist.
The bill includes the following rights:
Although the movement is launching in South Dakota, organizers nationwide will showcase artwork confronting America’s legacy of Indigenous dispossession and Black enslavement over the coming days.
“So we are here to say that we are going to organize, we are going to heal, we’re gonna coordinate, and we are going to build a better future together,” Pérez said.
AWESOME WEBSITE!👇👇👇
For more information, visit dayonemovement.org.
YOUTUBE:
https://www.youtube.com/@Dayonemvmt
Fifteen days after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, the new nation signed its first international treaty with the Wolastoqey and Mi’kmaq Nations of present-day Maine. It’s a history that historian and Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians ambassador Osihkiyol Crofton-Macdonald wishes more Americans knew. Brown University assistant professor and Narragansett Nation citizen Dr. Mack Scott III is working to get Black and Indigenous histories better integrated into the K-12 curriculum in northeastern schools. This includes histories like how Narragansett citizens fought in the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, a unit long celebrated as an all-Black unit. We’ll hear from Native historians about reclaiming these narratives along with their tribes’ stories from 1776.
“America 250 presents an opportunity to move beyond incomplete narratives and toward a fuller understanding of this country’s history,” she writes. “It is a chance to recognize that Tribal Nations stood at its beginning and remain essential to its future.” |
The Mohicans were one of the few tribes to side with the Americans during the Revolutionary War and served alongside George Washington’s forces as soldiers, scouts and intelligence gatherers. |
“We carried knowledge that could not be mapped,” Holsey wrote. “We moved between worlds, providing intelligence, protection, and leadership at a time when the outcome of the war remained uncertain.” |
Many Mohicans also paid the ultimate sacrifice, such as in August, 1778, at Kingsbridge in present-day New York when about 40 warriors were killed in one of the most devastating losses suffered by Native forces supporting the U.S. during the war. |
After the war, General Washington visited the Mohicans in their hometown of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and celebrated with an ox feast. |
A generation or two later the Mohicans would be forced from their homes in favor of new European immigrants. |
The tribe eventually settled in Wisconsin, where it still has a reservation today. |
“We were not observers to the founding of the United States. We were participants in it,” Holsey wrote. “But when the war ended, the promises we believed in did not materialize.” |
The tribe endured and governs itself as a sovereign nation maintaining and revitalizing its traditions and culture. |
“The ideals of liberty that defined the Revolution were not applied equally. The gap between principle and practice became a defining feature of federal Indian policy—and remains so today,” Holsey writes. “This is a truth that must be told alongside any commemoration of America’s founding: We helped secure freedom for a new nation while fighting to preserve our own existence.” |
She wrote the U.S. must remember the contributions of Mohicans in creating this country, and honor its treaty obligations. |
“A commemoration without accountability is incomplete,” Holsey writes. “Recognition without action is insufficient.” |
Tribal and Japanese American descendants reclaim their history on their terms each spring during an annual pilgrimage to the Amache incarceration site on the arid shortgrass prairie 225 miles southeast of Denver. They meet at the Amache National Historic Site and the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site. Descendants say the partnership helped to liberate them from the weight of the federal government’s denial of fundamental rights.
“Finding more cultural connections between our groups and our heritage has been really healing,” said Aya Sugiura, during the blustery May cedaring ceremony at Sand Creek. Her grandmother was among 10,000 Japanese Americans imprisoned at Amache between 1942 and 1945.
“The connection between the Amache site and the Sand Creek site is just one of many connections we were able to draw,” added Sugiura, who was among 10 youths who participated in a 2024–25 ambassador cohort assembled by the Amache Alliance, the Sand Creek Massacre Foundation, the National Parks Conservation Association, and the University of Denver Amache Project. “The name Amache was taken from a Cheyenne woman, Amache Prowers, or Walking Woman—her father was (murdered) at Sand Creek,” she said.
KEEP READING: https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/america-turns-250-tribal-and-japanese-american-families-gather-reclaim-their-history
Hosted and reported by Rebecca Nagle and featuring leading Native historians, First America unveils how the founders’ treatment of Indigenous nations—and their resistance—shaped US democracy. The show does not simply add another blemish to the image of the founding fathers, it reveals the real story of why the colonists rebelled, what kind of government they created, and, crucially, how our current political moment was 250 years in the making.
Fashion designer D'Arcy Moses reflects on his journey and his vision for the future.
By Chevi Rabbit, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
(ANNews) – For D’Arcy J. Moses, fashion has never simply been about clothing.
It became a path back to identity, a form of ceremony, and ultimately a way to rebuild a life shaped by separation, loss, and resilience.
Born Dene and impacted by the Sixties Scoop, Moses was taken from his family as an infant and raised by a non-Indigenous family on a farm outside Camrose, Alberta.
“I’m a ’60s Scooper,” he says. “I was adopted out as an infant. The church took me away from my mother, and I was raised by non-Native people on a farm in Alberta.”
Growing up disconnected from his culture, he found himself drawn to another world – one found in the glossy pages of fashion magazines. “My mother used to have Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue magazines, and I was enamoured by them,” he recalls. “High fashion – haute couture – that’s what first really sparked my interest.”
Those magazines offered a glimpse of possibility. By his mid-teens, Moses understood that creativity would define his future. “I knew from a young age that I was creative, but I didn’t realize until my mid-teens that I wanted to get into clothing design.”
Current fashion designs by D’Arcy Moses.
Years later, after moving to Vancouver and Toronto, that childhood fascination began to take shape professionally. Along the way, Indigenous Elders recognized his talent and introduced him to the art of regalia making. “In my early twenties I was in Vancouver. I had some Elders take me under their wings and introduce me to regalia making.”
While refining his craft, Moses worked relentlessly to support himself. “I worked two or three jobs at a time – waiting tables, working in a sawmill, a lumber mill of all things. And in the evenings and weekends, I would just create.”
That persistence eventually paid off. “I had a few lucky breaks,” he says. “One of them was the Toronto Festival of Fashion, and the next day one of my garments ended up on the cover of The Globe and Mail, which was really big news at the time.”
CBC's road trip series Land of Living Stories explores inspiring stories of community spirit from across Saskatchewan. In our latest visit, CBC-Radio Canada hit the road to Buffalo Narrows. This is one story in a multi-part series from that community.
WARNING: This story contains details of abuse.
When Darlene Petit first moved back to Buffalo Narrows, Sask., she wouldn't eat or even touch a wild rabbit, though her husband Mervin often went out to set snares. When he would bring her onto his boat, she'd take a book and read while he fished.
But their relationship over the years has reconnected her to a life and culture she almost lost, when she was taken from her family in Buffalo Narrows as part of the Sixties Scoop.
"Mervin was a big, big influence in my life, teaching me my cultural background," the 62-year-old said, explaining how her husband showed her the joys of catching their own food, from rabbit to wild chickens to moose. Thanks to him, she reconnected with the traditions of her Métis and First Nations ancestors.
"I started fishing and learning how to catch fish, and now I can outfish anybody," she said, laughing.
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| Mervin Petit grew up fishing and hunting; within half an hour, he pulls up 30 fish in a net. It's a passion he's passed on to his wife, Darlene. (Campbell Stevenson/SRC) |
Now the pair can often be seen sitting quietly in their boat, watching the bears and deer in the distance, or setting a net and hauling up fish they share with others in the village.
It's a fight to keep these cultural traditions alive, as people are losing touch with ways of life that go back hundreds of years, said 61-year-old Mervin. That's why he's so keen to help anyone who's interested learn how to hunt, fish and prepare food.
"I want everybody to feel that, all the young people, all the older people that don't know this stuff, I want them all to understand this stuff and keep doing it," he says.
The pair say they don't need to rely on groceries, but instead eat the wild game and fish they catch themselves. It's a self-reliance they want to pass on to future generations.
"You're gonna need this more than ever in the coming years because of all the stuff that's going on now in the world; it's so expensive living," Mervin says.
While Mervin's memories are deeply rooted in fishing and trapping, Darlene was taken from her family when she was three. She was relocated to Lebret, Sask, 780 kilometres south of Buffalo Narrows, and bounced from foster home to foster home.
It was a traumatizing time.
"I was bathed in hot Javex water and things like that," she said. "And then when you're in foster homes, you're abused by other children that are in the home."
Fortunately, her mother successfully fought to regain custody of her children, and Darlene was finally reunited with her family when she was 12.
KEEP READING👇
New research from the University of Kansas has found that the landback movement, in which land is returned to its original occupants, has grown rapidly across the country as well.
READ: https://phys.org/news/2026-06-landback-indigenous-country.html
Steven Ross and his mother Charlotte Ross have followed different educational paths, but both are celebrating graduations.
"My mom was a major inspiration in my life to go to university," Steven said.
"She started with a rough childhood and she climbed all the way to the point where she is now and for me that's a great inspiration."
He recently graduated from the University of Saskatchewan's Indigenous Teachers Education Program (ITEP) in Saskatoon with an education degree in kinesiology and is already doing interviews for teaching positions in the province.
Both Steven and his mother are members of the Montreal Lake Cree Nation, about 220 kilometres north of Saskatoon.
His mother Charlotte graduated from the University of Victoria with a PhD in Indigenous language revitalization through the Department of Indigenous education where she focused her studies on adult Cree silent speakers.
Silent speakers are those who understand a language but they can't speak it themselves — they usually respond with one-worded answers or give an English response, according to Charlotte.
"What were the impacts, why was this the case?" she said.
"It came down to trauma and having safety in language learning."
She has helped develop a language app with Montreal Lake Cree Nation and is assisting Cree speaker Senapan Thunder and her company Wicihsok, that is also working on Cree language revitalization.
Charlotte was the first person in her family to go to university and she graduated in 1988 from the University of Saskatchewan with a bachelor of arts in Native Studies.
"I never thought I would go to university because I didn't know what it was," she said.
"There were very few role models as with most [First Nations] communities."
She later learned how to read and write in Cree under the late teacher Freda Ahenakew, who assisted with Cree language revitalization and retention in Saskatchewan.
Charlotte credits her parents for instilling education as an integral part of her life while growing up in the small northern Saskatchewan town of Molanosa, on the northeast corner of Montreal Lake.
She had no reason to miss school as it was right across the highway from her home.
"We lived literally a stone's throw away," she said.
"There were no excuses that it was too far, if it was snowing or raining, even in -30 degree weather, all you had to do was open your door and roll out."
Charlotte calls her father a "self-taught independent entrepreneur" who knew how to organize and mobilize. Over the years, he helped to build the roads and highways as a construction worker and also hunted, trapped, was a competitive dog sledder and commercial fisherman. Her mother, she says, was the rock of their home who lovingly raised the children, cooked, cleaned and sewed up her children's clothes when they were damaged.
"My parents were both not able to go to school but highly valued education as they knew it would help us in the future to open doors of opportunity that were never offered to them," she said.
When Charlotte was 14, she and her younger brother were part of the Sixties Scoop, taken from their home and put into the province's foster care system for four years.
She says it was during this time she found her voice to speak up for her family.
"I was able to advocate for myself and my younger brother to not be separated and to also remain in La Ronge where some of my siblings were living," said Charlotte.
While Charlotte's upbringing was disrupted by the foster care system, her son Steven's upbringing flourished. He played hockey, soccer and junior football at Rosetown Central High School in Rosetown, about 120 kilometres southwest of Saskatoon.
That continued into university, where he helped lead a number of senior male sports groups in basketball and track and field, and now into his teaching career. He shifted his studies to kinesiology with a strong focus in Indigenous land-based learning.
"I always talked about being a teacher in Grade 3, 4 or 5," he said.
"I never really took it seriously but it did eventually come to fruition. I wanted to be in education because I wanted to make a better future for our world."
Charlotte's message to other Indigenous families who want to go to university is just go for it, but make sure to do the work and ask for help when you need it.
"You have to reach out for help. Don't be shy, don't be ashamed to ask for help," said Charlotte.
EAST LANSING, Mich. (News 10) - The clock is ticking for universities and museums to return thousands of Native American remains and artifacts from their collections.
In 1990, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act — or NAGPRA — required institutions to return human remains and burial objects to their tribes of origin.
NAGPRA was updated in 2024 and now requires institutions to finish returning Native American artifacts by 2029.
“There were many years when there was a provision in the law about being culturally unidentifiable. And so, this was a substantial barrier for tribes to achieve repatriation,” said Matthew Bussler. “The January 2024 new NAGPRA rule that came out removed that provision, and so that has made this a lot more achievable for tribes to have that work accomplished.”
While Michigan has made progress, thousands of ancestral remains and artifacts in the state still haven’t been returned.
ProPublica shared the following data from its Reparation Database Report:
In Michigan, of the more than 3,200 reported ancestral remains taken from Michigan:
The University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology, with the 25th largest collection of unrepatriated Native American remains in the U.S., says it has made 54% of the more than 1,600 remains taken from the state available for return:
The University of Michigan has made 2,478 associated funerary objects available for return out of more than 11,200.
Michigan State University has made 100% of the 544 Native American remains and 84,900 funerary objects available for return to tribes.
“We have a really good unit on campus... that our doing the best with the resources they have to make sure that they get those ceremonial items, those cultural items, and those ancestral remains back to our tribes,” said Dr. Kevin Leonard, the Interim Director of the Native American Institute at Michigan State University. “I would like to say we are ahead of the curve, but there’s still work that we have to do.”
Dr. Leonard describes seeing Native American ancestral artifacts in museums like going to a cemetery, digging up a grave, and taking whatever you want from inside.
“They’ve basically grave robbed,” Leonard said. “You’ve disturbed their resting sites and taken things that aren’t yours. Those are our ceremonial and our funeral objects, and they need to be in our communities, and those remains of our ancestors need to be returned so they can be laid to rest and aren’t in a box or a display case in a museum.”
Dr. Leonard encourages people to speak with the native community more often. He said, “you don’t have to dig our grave sites” to know the history.
If institutions fail to comply or meet the NAGPRA 2029 deadline, they could face financial penalties.
READ: https://imprintnews.org/top-stories/indian-boarding-schools-oral-history-project-concludes/275393
First America
Merciless Indian Savages | Episode 1 Rebecca Nagle View All Episodes Native people have been written out of the American story."
Without us, you don’t know what happened.
We’ve all been told the American Revolution was fought over taxation and representation. But that’s not what the Declaration of Independence says. According to our founders, in their own words, what they were most upset about was Native Americans. How did we all miss that? Rebecca sits down with historian Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone) to talk about how hunger for Indigenous land drove the Revolution. Welcome to First America, the true story of how the United States came to be, and how our current political moment was 250 years in the making.
CLICK: https://lnk.to/FirstAmerica
Don’t know whose land you live on? Look it up here!
Resources:
– Dig into more of Ned Blackhawk’s scholarship here
Published:
Marie Miller always believed she was an orphan.
It was only later the Calgary woman learned she was taken as a baby from her grandmother’s arms as part of the ’60s Scoop in Winnipeg.
On Tuesday, she finally met the sister she never knew she had—Sally Tripp.
“I can’t believe she’s here,” said Miller, now 71.
“She’s not going home, (but) if she is going home, I’m going home with her.”
“It’s really happening. (It’s) unbelievable,” said Tripp, 72.
The ’60s Scoop was a time from the 1950s through the 1980s where Canadian government policy allowed for the removal of an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 Indigenous children from their families.
They were then placed in non-Indigenous homes.
At just two years old, Miller was put in a foster home in Selkirk, Man.
The home she ended up in was less than 40 minutes from where her birth family lived.
“I went to school with some of my relatives and didn’t even know it,” said Miller.
“I was just very alone; I was pretty much on my own.’
One of her earliest recollections is playing with a doll in a big house with a sunken living room at age nine.
Miller described her childhood with her adoptive parents as unpleasant.
“They were not kind to me growing up at all,” said Miller.
“They were very standoffish toward me.
“There was no kindness or warmth at all; I never felt it.”
Around 12 years old, she knew she “didn’t belong” in her adoptive home.
“It was just a feeling I needed to be with my own people,” she said.
“They would constantly tell me that I was nothing but an Indian and that I was never going to be anything.
“I knew early on I was not comfortable in this home.”
She struggled for years to connect with her birth family via adoption records or any information she could glean from her adoptive parents.
“When all this came out—that it was wrong to take these children in the first place—that’s when records started to disappear and any of the illegal adoptions or shady adoptions were covered up,” said Miller.
After some reluctance, her husband convinced her to use Ancestry.ca for DNA testing.
After sending in her information, a cousin popped up, and they connected.
She then took her birth certificate’s long version, where she matched an address in Winnipeg where her birth mother lived after she was born.
“My cousin almost stopped breathing,” said Miller.
“She said, ‘That’s where I used to live. That was our grandparents’ house.’”
The home remained in the family.
Miller was given a list of potential family members who all turned out to be related.
While connecting with her cousin, she verified blood relations to Miller’s father.
It was one of her cousin’s sisters who told Miller she had a sister.
“I said, ‘Give me her number,’” said Miller.
Miller connected with Tripp on Jan. 17, and the two learned they previously crossed paths.
“We both were at the Winnipeg roller rink at the same time; we both went to Midtown Buffet at the same time,” said Miller.
For Tripp, it has also been a welcome moment meeting her younger sister.
Tripp has extensive knowledge of the family history and says both she and Miller were put in adoptive care in 1955 by their mother, who has since passed.
Their father came to rescue both from adoptive care before they were put up for adoption.
Then, as Tripp tells the story, the authorities came to their home and decided the family could look after her, but the family was not fit to handle Miller and took her from her grandmother’s arms.
Tripp has been looking for Miller for a long time, and Tuesday’s gathering in Strathmore, Alta., brought her closure.
“That first phone call was over 3.5 hours,” said Tripp.
“To find her after all this time. And, you know, the sad part is she didn’t know she had a family.”
The two sisters are set to head to a family reunion in Selkirk on June 28, where they’ll meet with dozens of family members.
“I can’t wait; I got the camper packed,” said Miller.
The two share other half-siblings, but they are each other’s only full siblings.
Miller does have an appointment to get her status card while attending the family reunion, for which Tripp will vouch for her.
Your History Class Was a F*cking Lie by Sean Sherman (Or: How the American Educational System Has Always Been a Racist Propaganda Program...
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