Broken Treaties
Title: Broken Treaties (Federal Indian Policy)
Subject: Broken Treaties with the Tribal Nations by the U.S. Federal Government
Created: 2015
Medium: Graphic Design
Software: Adobe Illustrator CS6
Dimensions: 36″x48″
Article
“Between the Revolutionary War and the aftermath of the Civil War, over the course of almost a century, the United States and Native American nations signed some 368 treaties that would define their relationship for centuries to come.
The treaties keyed off the fundamental idea that each tribal group was an independent nation, with their own right to self-determination and self-rule. But as white settlers began moving onto Native American lands, this idea came into conflict with the relentless pace of westward expansion—resulting in many broken promises on the part of the U.S. government.
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Fort Laramie Treaty – 1868
In this treaty, signed at Fort Laramie and other military posts in what is now Wyoming, the U.S. government recognized the Black Hills of Dakota as the Great Sioux Reservation, the exclusive territory of the Sioux (Dakota, Lakota and Nakota) and Arapaho people. But after gold was discovered in the Black Hills, miners and settlers began moving onto the land en masse.
Native resistance to the treaty’s violation culminated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, after which government troops flooded the region. By that time, Congress had ended the nearly 100-year-old practice of making treaties with individual Native American tribes, declaring in 1871 that “henceforth, no Indian nation or tribe…shall be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty.”
In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled that the Black Hills were illegally confiscated, and awarded the Sioux more than $100 million in reparations. Sioux leaders rejected the payment, saying the land had never been for sale. Controversy continues over the sacred land—as well as other broken treaties.”
– History.com, Broken Treaties With Native American Tribes: Timeline
Download the 8.5″x11″ poster (.pdf), Print – Broken Treaties (Federal Indian Policy).
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Creative Commons License
This work by David Bernie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may download, share, and post the images under the condition that the works are attributed to the artist.
