Why Native History Is Under Attack with Shannon O'Loughlin

 WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED👇

Not Your Ordinary Transportation Service

 

Not Your Ordinary Transportation Service – SheDrives with Purpose

by MBC News | Jul 16, 2026

Photo: SheDrives with Purpose

Regan Gamble, the Owner of SheDrives Ltd. in Edmonton, is excited to be one of 120 Indigenous entrepreneurs selected as a semi-finalist for the 2026 Pow Wow Pitch competition. 

“I’m so honoured,” said Gamble. 

The concept for her transportation business was driven from a desire to assist other women in need, whether fleeing from domestic violence to helping those who struggling without a vehicle needing a safe ride. 

“I think of our Elders, they don’t have transportation to go to a lot of places they want or need to, whether it’s just for medical appointments, or to pick up their prescriptions,” said Gamble. 

SheDrives is more than just a transportation service. 

“The moment a woman gets into the vehicle, there’s this sense of security … safety, comfort,” said Gamble. “We start off with a handshake, a hug. There’s just a cultural safety.” 

Her service has helped so many women, and Gamble recalls instances where she used her own experiences to comfort others and to let them know they were going to be ok. 

Gamble belongs to the Beardy & Okemasis First Nation in Saskatchewan.  Her spirit name is “Shining Star Winged Woman.” 

Both a Sixties scoop survivor and an Indian residential school survivor, Gamble spent nine years in Duck Lake then began a relationship when she was 15 years old when she had her son.  

Due to all the trauma she had endured, addiction took over her life for many years. 

“We get older and when we work on ourselves, when you put the work in, you just want to be a better person and do better in your life,” said Gamble. “You’re so hungry for it.” 

She just celebrated three years of sobriety. 

After watching Pow Wow Pitch with her boyfriend, he suggested she should apply for the competition. 

“I was watching and it was at a pow wow and they were doing their live pitch,” said Gamble. “I’m like, I can do that and went online and waited until they were having their next Pow Wow Pitch competition.” 

Gamble prepared for her 1-minute pitch by practising over 200 takes to perfect her pitch.  

“It was built on so much love and care,” said Gamble. “Everything was done so proper, I did ceremony, I brought protocol.” 

Although the process has been nerve-wracking, she said, “I’m just really so blessed and honoured to have gotten this far.” 

If she wins the competition, her plans are to build a sustainable model for SheDrives. 

“I want to expand,” said Gamble.  

The next steps would be to get another vehicle and get the safety permits and licensing in different municipalities. 

For more information about SheDrives LTD. visit:www.facebook.com/SheDrives

STORY BY  Danielle Dufour  VIA 

Wildfire Smoke, Tribes evacuated, CBC news updates

Republicans blast Canada over wildfire smoke, air quality in northern U.S.

(July 16, 2026) Republican members of U.S. Congress are slamming Canada's federal and provincial governments over what they claim is inaction in preventing the wildfires currently spreading smoke and poor air quality across much of the northeastern U.S., in addition to Central Canada.

The criticism comes in a sharply worded letter from four Michigan members of the House of Representatives, addressed to Prime Minister Mark Carney.

It accuses Canada of failing to conduct adequate forest maintenance to reduce the risk of wildfires and warns that the U.S. "will look elsewhere, and act on our own" if more action isn't taken.

"This is the third consecutive year we have had to write to Canadian officials about a crisis that Canada has the tools to prevent and has chosen not to," write the four Michigan Republicans — John James, Jack Bergman, John Moolenaar and Lisa McClain — in a letter dated Wednesday.

"Our hospitals are once again treating children, dialysis patients and older residents for the effects of smoke that did not originate anywhere near them."

The Republican lawmakers say they are "done accepting apologies in place of action," and float the idea of taking cross-border fire prevention into U.S. hands. 

READ:  https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/widlfires-smoke-air-quality-michigan-congress-republicans-9.7272538

 

More than 800 active fires

There were 858 active fires across Canada as of Thursday, according to data from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

Smoke from wildfires in northwestern Ontario has been causing poor air quality and reduced visibility across for much of the southern parts of the province, according to Environment Canada.

The smoke has also triggered air quality warnings for states close to the Great Lakes, stretching from Minnesota to Maryland, with the U.S. air quality index ranging from unhealthy to hazardous.

Ontario's forest fire officials say there are 136 active fires in the northwest region, with 63 classified as out of control. Another 44 fires are burning in the northeast.

The province has said there have been 483 fires in Ontario so far this year, up from 351 as of this time last year and above the province's 10-year average by mid-July of 320.

Neighbouring Manitoba's latest official figures show 137 active fires, and a total of 261 so far this year.

This U.S. Environmental Protection Agency air quality index map from 12 pm ET on Thursday shows unhealthy to hazardous conditions across much of the northern part of the country, from Minnesota to Maryland. (AirNow.gov)

#60sScoop artist achieves childhood dream

Photo by Doug Kretchmer | Anishinaabe artist Jackie Traverse stands before a mural on the wall of the Creative Native Art Gallery (592 Selkirk Ave.), which she owns.

 

Winnipeg - Jackie Traverse knew at a very young age that she would one day be an artist. She was inspired in part by her 14 year old uncle who was always making art.  In spite of her family being torn apart in the ‘60s scoop with her siblings being removed from the family, she was always drawing and making art growing up.  A member of Lake St. Martin First Nation, she grew up in poverty in the North End and said she had fond memories of visiting her granny on Pritchard Avenue near McGregor.

At 21, she moved into an apartment in a small block at 592 Selkirk Avenue.  It is there, she told me, that, while still making art, she started down the road of addiction.  At 34, she made the decision to get serious about art and enrolled in the University of Manitoba’s Fine Arts 4 year course.  She graduated in 2009.

Jackie’s art was a passion of hers, but she was also passionate about drugs as well and the weekend partying and drug use started seeping more and more into her daily life. And while her art work has been shown in various galleries over the years (including Wah-Sa and Canadian Plains galleries in Winnipeg and Spirit Gallery in B.C., among others) it was the isolation during COVID that she really started taking herself more serious as an artist and realizing that the drugs were quite detrimental in her progress as an artist. In 2022, she was one of four Indigenous artists to have her art featured on a stamp through Canada Post as part of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

KEEP READING:  https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/our-communities/correspondents/2026/07/15/local-artist-achieves-childhood-dream

 

Media Bias (ongoing)

 

The People the Declaration Called ‘Savages’ Were Mostly Ignored in the Celebration 250 Years Later

And yet Native Americans were largely absent from US corporate media opinion pieces about America’s semiquincentennial.

I found 79 opinion articles about the 250th anniversary published between May 30 and July 4 in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and USA Today. Only three explicitly mentioned “Native American,” “Indian” or “Indigenous”; another referenced the genocide without using those terms. None gave Native Americans more than a line or two.

READ:  https://fair.org/home/the-people-the-declaration-called-savages-were-mostly-ignored-in-the-celebration-250-years-later/

The Fight To Save Indigenous Languages

 

Canada Ignoring First Nations solutions

In March 2026, the CHRT approved the $8 billion deal that transfers control of child welfare services to First Nations in the province.

READ MORE:  https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/caring-society-tells-chiefs-canadas-child-welfare-plan-ignores-first-nations-solutions/

Blackstock said in her decades of advocating for reform, she’s learned to recognize that Canada’s plan is a delay tactic.

“I see Canada delay, delay, delay, and try to fragment, divide and conquer, [give] partial information, those types of things, and these are patterns that are so familiar even to the tribunal that they give them a name called “the old mindset.” Blackstock said.

 

Northern First Nation razed by wildfire

 

Miles Morrisseau
ICT

The Namaygoosisagagun (Collins) First Nation has been destroyed by a fast moving fire that came on so quickly, people were forced to carry out an emergency evacuation; including some forced to flee by boat.

Residents reported having only minutes to gather their belongings before homes were overtaken by the flames.

Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Linda Debassige released a statement regarding the devastation, saying all community members have been accounted for pending a full assessment.  

“It is with heartfelt sadness that I share that our member First Nation, Namaygoosisagagun First Nation, has been devastated by an unexpected and fast-moving wildfire that advanced toward and through the community, causing extensive damage and destruction to homes and community buildings,” Debassige said in the statement. 

KEEP READING:  https://ictnews.org/news/canada/namaygoosisagagun-first-nation-in-northern-ontario-surrounded-by-wildfire-as-members-flee-in-boats/ 

NAGPRA updates

 

Pinal Apache Child Returning Home to San Carlos After More Than 150 Years

July 13, 2026 - by News Director

SAN CARLOS — More than a century and a half after losing his life during military operations (uh, massacre) in the Pinal Mountains, a Pinal Apache child will finally return home to the San Carlos Apache Reservation.

The National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring, Maryland, has officially published a Notice of Inventory Completion in the Federal Register.  The notice, issued under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), clears the final legal pathway for the child’s remains to be returned to tribal leaders.

Historical Records Document Tragic Timeline

According to federal inventory records, the child — believed to have been under 12 years old — was killed in July 1870 in Arizona’s Pinal Mountains.  The death occurred during military operations involving scout units serving under U.S. Army Lieutenant H.B. Cushing of the 3rd Cavalry’s F Troop.

Historical documentation reveals that the child’s partial cranium was transferred to the Army Medical Museum in April 1872 by Acting Assistant Surgeon W.B. Dods via U.S. Army Surgeon C. McCormick. The remains were held in federal institutional collections for 154 years.

Path to Repatriation

Following formal consultations required under federal law, officials established a definitive cultural affiliation between the remains and the San Carlos Apache Tribe of the San Carlos Reservation.

The publication of the federal notice satisfies the statutory waiting period under NAGPRA, thereby legally permitting the physical transfer of the remains on or after Aug. 3, 2026.  The repatriation will allow the San Carlos Apache Tribe to reclaim the child and conduct traditional resting ceremonies according to tribal customs.

For Indigenous Nations across the country, the repatriation process represents a vital effort to restore dignity, heal multi-generational wounds, and honor ancestors whose graves and remains were historically disturbed.

https://gilaherald.com/pinal-apache-child-returning-home-to-san-carlos-after-more-than-150-years/

 **

Sen. Schatz Presses Harvard Over Delayed Return of Native Ancestors

The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology was founded in 1866. U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz pressed Harvard this month to explain delays in returning Native ancestors and cultural items held by the University. | By Barbara A. Sheehan

By Shalini N. Ramchune, Crimson Staff Writer

June 24, 2026

United States Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) pressed Harvard earlier this month to explain why Native ancestors and cultural items remain in its possession, renewing calls for the University to speed up its repatriation efforts under a federal law requiring their return.

In a June 8 letter to Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76, Schatz asked Harvard to provide updates on its compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which requires federally funded museums and agencies to return Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony to their descendants and affiliated tribes.

Harvard was one of 15 museums and universities that received letters from Schatz, the vice chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. The letters asked each institution to provide updates on its NAGPRA compliance and detail barriers to repatriation.

“It shouldn’t take this long to return Native remains to their communities,” Schatz said in a press release. “Indigenous people have waited long enough. It’s time for these museums and universities to stop the delays and finally do the right thing.”

In his letter to Harvard, Schatz asked Garber to account for the University’s progress on repatriation, including how many ancestors and cultural items have been returned and how many still remain in Harvard’s collections.

He also pressed Garber on whether Harvard had met its pledge to complete the “disposition of ancestors and their associated funerary belongings” by 2025, and asked the University to explain any new allegations of non-compliance since 2023.

Schatz’s letter also asked Harvard to provide an update on a Department of the Interior investigation into the Peabody Museum’s handling of the Woodbury Collection, which includes hair clippings from roughly 700 Native American children at U.S. Indian boarding schools in the 1930s.

He also asked when the University applies the “preponderance of the evidence’’ standard, a legal threshold used to decide whether a claim is more likely than not to be true. Under NAGPRA, the standard can affect disputes over which tribe or Native Hawaiian organization has the strongest claim to ancestors or cultural items.Bottom of Form

Schatz gave Garber 30 calendar days to respond. A Harvard spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

The letter marks Schatz’s latest effort to pressure Harvard and other institutions over what he has called slow compliance with NAGPRA.  In a 2024 speech on the Senate floor, Schatz said that more than 70 institutions still held nearly 58,000 Native ancestral remains. He also singled out Harvard as having the third-largest collection of Native ancestral remains and cultural items in the country.

“If you say you’re for equal justice, for doing right by the people of all backgrounds, then act like it,” Schatz said in the speech.

The other institutions that received letters from Schatz include the Ohio History Connection, Illinois State Museum, University of California, Berkeley, Indiana University, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, University of Kentucky, University of Alabama, University of Arizona, University of Florida, University of Missouri, University of Oklahoma, Center for American Archeology, University of Texas at Austin, and Milwaukee Public Museum.

In recent years, Harvard has taken steps to accelerate its repatriation work, including creating a department dedicated to NAGPRA at the Peabody and more than doubling its NAGPRA-dedicated staff.

But the Peabody failed to meet its 2022 pledge to complete the disposition of all ancestors and associated funerary belongings within three years.

As of Dec. 31, 2025, the Peabody had repatriated 5,464 ancestors and more than 20,000 funerary belongings, according to data on its website.  Still, 2,482 ancestors remained in active consultation with tribes, and another 2,161 were pending consultation — leaving 4,643 ancestors in the museum’s possession after the target deadline.

The Peabody has since extended its timeline by two years.  The museum’s NAGPRA dashboard has yet to be updated with June figures, though Harvard has previously said the dashboard would be updated twice a year, in June and December.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/6/24/schatz-presses-harvard-nagpra/ 

 

Every time I see stories about this, I am imaging diggers looting graves - for money, prestige, titles,  but they are still thieves.... Trace

ICT News - July 10, 2026

 Maine sovereignty, Tiktok’s Tunny Rabbit, NHL Gavin McKenna and more

Chumash Roll Out the Welcome Mat for Repatriated Cultural Items

 Sean Larsen for Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians  July 10, 2026 

Santa Ynez Chumash Museum and Cultural Center in the Santa Ynez Valley. (Courtesy photo)

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.

Tribal members await the arrival of artifacts from Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, and the Yale Peabody Museum. (Courtesy photo)

 

KEEP READING:https://www.noozhawk.com/santa-ynez-chumash-indians-roll-out-welcome-mat-for-repatriated-cultural-items/

 

 

SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA—The Santa Barbara Independent reports that ancestral remains and artifacts have been returned to the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Mission Indians by the Yale Peabody Museum and Harvard University's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.  The repatriation took four years to organize under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which became law in 1990. “Our ancestors and their belongings were stolen from their resting place, a place where their families and communities prayed and grieved, leaving them to rest,” said Kathleen Marshall of the Santa Ynez Chumash Museum and Cultural Center.  The earliest collection of these objects occurred in 1877, she added.  

The remains will be reburied, while the objects will be archived for use in teaching.  Ceremonial items will be used in ceremonies once again. “We are tremendously grateful for [the tribe’s] generosity and trust as we worked through the process to return these important items home,” commented Jane Pickering of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.  To read more about the Chumash, go to "Off the Grid: Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park, California." 

Innu community in Quebec signs deal to take back control of child welfare services

 GOOD NEWS

The Canadian flag on the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, June 2, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

By The Canadian Press|   Jul 10, 2026 

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:

https://halifax.citynews.ca/2026/07/10/innu-community-in-quebec-signs-deal-to-take-back-control-of-child-welfare-services/ 

NOMOAR launched TODAY: We built NOMOAR.com to be released on July 4th 2026, and we did it on purpose.

  

NOMOAR.com

NOMOAR.com (National Online Museum of American Racism) is LIVE by Sean Sherman

A birthday gift for a future of a better America, the last 250 were trash IMO and America better Chickety-Check itself...

Read on Substack

Indigenous perspectives on the American Revolution

 We can learn a lot from these discussions. And it's the right time to do it. - Trace

First America podcaster Rebecca Nagle

It's an incredible series... Rebecca should WIN every award out there for this type of journalism! Megwetch! Thank you Sister!

What Grade Would you Give America?

 

LINK: 

https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/what-grade-does-america-deserve-native-leaders-weigh-in-on-equality-at-250

 

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 

My incredible friend Suzie

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!

TODAY: 1 pm ET | Merciless Indian Savages

 

TONIGHT: American 250: A Republic Built on Native Land Live Stream

LINK:

https://www.youtube.com/live/k3sv3Xe23Wc?si=Azvf7SyxKm8Mz3RN

American 250: A Republic Built on Native Land Live Stream

What we’ll explore:

• As the U.S. approaches its 250th anniversary, is this moment a celebration, a reminder of historical injustice, or both?
• Has the United States lived up to the Declaration of Independence’s promise that “all men are created equal” for Native Americans?
• How do you reconcile being both Native and American, given that Indigenous ancestors were referred to as “merciless Indian savages” in the Declaration of Independence?
• What would make America250 more meaningful and inclusive for Native peoples and Tribal Nations?
• Looking ahead to the next 250 years, what is your greatest hope for Native Nations and the United States?

 THIS IS AWESOME👇💓

 

Black and Indigenous organizers unveil Bill of Essential Rights focused on the next 250 years

Day One Movement launches in South Dakota, calling for land back and reparations

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:

• Right to land back
• Right to reparations
• Right to self-determination and sovereignty
• Right to consent
• Right to basic needs
• Right to religion and culture
• Right to dignity and bodily autonomy
• Right to safety
• Right to move freely and belong
• Right to regenerative food systems and a protected planet

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 

 

Native America Calling: Native historians elevate overlooked history in the wake of America250 celebrations

JULY 1, 2026

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.

 

 

LINK: https://www.nativeamericacalling.com/wednesday-july-1-2026-native-historians-elevate-overlooked-history-in-the-wake-of-america250-celebrations/

 

ICT NEWSCAST | July 1, 2026 | America 250, Greasy Grass and the Menominee bring back a tradition

 

Toward a Fuller Understanding

As America celebrates her 250^th birthday this weekend, Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation President Shannon Holsey is hoping people educate themselves on the role of her tribe in the founding of the U.S.

“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.” READ: https://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/native-american-issues/2021/04/19/stockbridge-munsee-tribe-prove-george-washington-ox-roast-happened/7231006002/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=false&gca-epti=z1180xxe1180xxv000053&gca-ft=150&gca-ds=sophi

As America Turns 250

 

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