We have constructed this timeline to demonstrate how Indigenous policy and activism has progressed over time. We highlight four ways in which Native resistance has taken form over the years: refusal, selective engagement, resurgence, and media. The timeline itself is divided into the four eras that outline Indigenous responses to federal interventions on Native Nations: assimilation and allotment, reorganization, termination and relocation, and self-determination. Our hope is that this timeline can serve as an entry point to understand Indigenous resistance and resilience throughout history. Please refer to the key to interpret the color code of activist strategies interwoven throughout the timeline. You can click on the titles to find more information.

Refusal: Indigenous activism often includes refusal of colonial systems, rules, norms, stereotypes, definitions, knowledge systems, and ways of being. Refusal can involve intentional non-compliance with the federal or state laws. In the 1960s and 70s, refusal consistently manifested in the occupation of important sites to raise awareness and force government response. Today, refusal is once again rising to the fore, as decolonization is increasingly emphasized as a guiding principle in Indigenous activism. 

Resurgence: The revitalizing traditional Indigenous ways of living: everything from languages to arts, music, foodways, knowledge systems, and connections to the land. Continuing to practice Indigenous ways of life is an act of resistance against a colonial system that prioritizes assimilation. It is a reminder that Indigenous people have always lived here, and continue to live here. 

Selective Engagement/X-Marks: Choosing when you use or interact with colonial structures in order to advance your goals. Some examples of this are working in academia or participating in U.S. democratic processes. It also means making hard decisions in moments when you have few options based on what you think is good for your people, such as signing treaties. 

Media: Information and art have always been strategies to both build internal communities and engage in external-facing activities. Interspersed throughout the timeline we have included some books, films, newspaper events, and art projects composed by Indigenous writers and artists. These works are only a small and non-representative demonstration of Indigenous media.

1766-1870 Colonial Intervention

• 1776: The United States imposes a settler-colonial framework on Turtle Island.

• 1831: Cherokee Nation v. Georgia– Trust Responsibility is officially discussed as a legal obligation in which the federal government has an obligation to act in the best interest of Native nations. This trust doctrine is one of the most important principles in federal Indian law. However, there is a legacy in which the things that Native nations say their communities need, the government does not agree, and therefore does not comply. This power dynamic is reflective of a guardian and ward relationality that allows the government to endanger Native people under the guise of protecting their “best interest”. That being said, trust responsibility is a critical legal advocacy mechanism for demanding that the US government supports tribal sovereignty as well as the health, welfare and safety of Native citizens.

1871-1934 Assimilation and Allotment Era

• 1871: Congress formally ended treaty-making. Government did not want to engage with Native nations anymore and had developed overwhelming military, economic and political power to suppress tribes’ resistance.

• 1883: Courts of Indian Offense were established on reservations to enforce federal regulations that banned dancing, Indigenous religion, polygamy and traditional customs.

• 1885: Major Crimes Act established federal jurisdiction over 16 crimes on reservations.

• 1887: Dawes Act was established and proposed to convert reservations to individual plots. The government drew a plot, and allotted land to everyone that lived there. Unassigned land went to the settlers as it was characterized as “surplus”. Therefore, reservations kept getting smaller and smaller, effectively reducing Native land and resources in addition to linking US citizenship to private land ownership.

• 1924: American Indian Citizenship Act granted US citizenship as a result recognizing tribal citizenship and property. 

Shutdown of Press and Arrest of Leaders

1894: Hawaii, anti-annexation (pro-independence) newspapers are shut down and indigenous leaders of the movement are jailed.

1934-1946 Reorganization Era

• 1934: The Indian Reorganization Act ended allotment, indefinitely extended trust status of Native land, recognized tribal governments and initiated plans for economic development. Although Native rights are acknowledged, the IRA ordered Native communities to remake their governments like their own and retained supervisory authority over tribes. This formal paternalistic shift authorized the government to manage tribes as a community rather than a nation, that is subordinate to the State.

• 1934: The Johnson-O’Malley Act initiated social reform. The federal government began to work with state and local governments to manage the provision of education, medical, agricultural and social welfare services to Native people. 

1946-1961 Termination and Relocation Era 

• 1952: The Bureau of Indian Affairs enforces the Voluntary Relocation Program. This policy encouraged people to leave reservations for the cities with the purpose to dispossess Native communities. In practice, people were barely given anything to survive in the city and the government would sell their land after they left.

• 1953: The enactment of Public Law 280 extended legal and civil state jurisdiction over reservations without tribal consent in California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon and Wisconsin. This law is evidence of the government’s anti-sovereignty agenda that aimed to upend trust between tribal nations and the federal government.

1961-1973 Self-Determination Era

• 1964: The Economic Opportunity Act was signed into law by President Johnson as part of the legislation aimed to alleviate poverty; and provided funds, and pathways to apply for money, to tribes through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. 

• 1978: The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) states that all state court proceedings dealing with rights of Native children should be opened to legal intervention by tribes and represent the child. Essentially, ICWA gives priority to family, other tribal members and other native homes. ICWA is instrumental in protecting Native children and families while enforcing tribal sovereignty.

• 1993: The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was drafted. This document outlaws the discrimination against indigenous people and promotes their right to Native nationhood. In 2007, the Declaration was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. 

• 1994: The Indian Self-Governance Act authorizes tribes to negotiate with Congress on a nation to nation basis.

• 2004: United States v. Lara court case rules that tribes have inherent legal authority to prosecute non-Native people for crimes committed within their jurisdiction.