“We Have Nothing to Celebrate”

American Indians were not alone in facing the question of whether or how to participate in nationalistic birthday celebrations. Indigenous Australians had been publicly confronting that country’s celebration of the arrival of the white colonists since 1938 (their sesquicentennial), which they renamed as a “Day of Mourning.” Indigenous people also marked January 26, a date tied to the arrival of British settlers in 1788, “Invasion Day.” In 1988, they paired counter celebrations of aboriginal survival of two hundred years of colonialism with a dismissal of the “Masturbation of the Nation,” signaling their rejection of the frenzied reverence of Australia Day.Footnote ⁶

American Indians’ response to the nationalistic fervor building in the 1970s first centered on the observance of Columbus Day when it became a paid federal holiday in 1971. It was at this time that Indians began lobbying to replace it with Indigenous Peoples’ Day. The nation’s anniversary, however, was more clearly tied to the Fourth of July. There is no record of a longer history of Indigenous resistance to that annual revelry or public contestations, like Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech asking, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” The bicentennial proved to be the first time that the U.S. government invited active pan-Indian participation in the national celebration.Footnote ⁷

As early as 1972, mainstream newspaper headlines captured the range of positions Native Americans seemed to hold with regards to the upcoming bicentennial, from “Indians Want More Say in Bicentennial Plans” and “Indians Plan to Boycott US Bicentennial,” to the offensive “Indians on US Bicentennial Warpath.” The Los Angeles Times asked the fundamental question that emerged for most Native Americans, “What Do You Celebrate?” The most inflammatory language drew disproportionate media attention and concern from the organizers, who feared embarrassment, disruptions, and violence. American Indian Movement leader Russell Means (Oglala Sioux) charged that, “It takes a ‘helluva lot of gall’ for the Bicentennial Commission to plan ‘without even consulting native Americans.’” He also threatened, “the American Indian movement will not let white Americans enjoy the birthday celebration.” When pressed to say more, he “refused to go into detail ‘because we don’t want the National Guard there.’” Means’s confrontational rhetoric epitomized the male-coded response to the bicentennial and played into white concepts of male Indian resistance.Footnote ⁸

Native opponents expressed displeasure and distrust at being excluded from the bicentennial planning efforts, which dated back to July 4, 1966. Moreover, national Native newspapers carried strident messages of opposition and defiance from their contributors. In 1975, the chief of the Coquille, Jerry Running Foxe, pronounced of the white American’s handling of the nation’s land that “in less than two hundred years he has overpopulated, over polluted and almost stripped it of all its natural resources.” Lillian Peterson (Kupatini), active in AIM’s Portland, Oregon, chapter, argued that “1976 should be called the Year of the Dinosaur, the celebration of the beginning of the end, the decline and fall of Western Civilization.” Building on their own history of resistance and contemporaneous rights movements of the 1960s and early 1970s, many vocal activists rejected outright the premise of a celebration.Footnote ⁹

Grace Thorpe (Sac and Fox), law student, legislative aid to a senator, daughter of famed athlete Jim Thorpe (born Wa-Tho-Huk), and an Alcatraz organizer, asked the question many Indians were thinking: “Who would want to participate in the 200th year of the rip-off of our country?” She was incredulous that non-Indians questioned why Indians would not want to celebrate. Thorpe did suggest, “If the government would say, ‘okay, we’ll honor all your old treaties on water and fishing rights and we’ll give back the land that was stolen,’ that would give us Indians something to celebrate.” Thorpe and others suggested what tangible actions on the part of the federal government would be necessary in order for Indians to participate in the nation’s 200th anniversary; first and foremost, they demanded that the federal government uphold and restore historic agreements made across those two hundred years.Footnote ¹⁰

When Natives like Alice Liljegren (Micmac) asked, “Why should I celebrate 200 years of genocide,” they met resistance from many non-Indians who suggested that Indians should effectively “get over it.” Responding to the question of why Indians and whites had not reconciled their animosity as the Germans and Japanese did with the United States just a few years after the Second World War, Thorpe zeroed in on one key difference: the United States “didn’t take their land away from them.” American Indian Movement ally Richard Erdoes said that “For Indians to celebrate the bicentennial would be like the Japanese celebrating Hiroshima.”Footnote ¹¹

From coast to coast, there was no love lost among Native Americans for the 1976 celebration, and land was central to all who objected. No Maine Wabanaki participated in 1976 because they refused to celebrate the “loss of aboriginal land.” Maine’s indigenous people had a lot of company; responding to an informal survey by the national Indian newspaper Wassaja, many Indian leaders stated, “We have nothing to celebrate. We have lost our land, and it should be noted in any observance of the Bicentennial.” In Michigan, Mrs. Alvina Anderson declared, “If I have anything to say about it, Indians won’t participate in Leelanau County’s Bicentennial celebration until they have something to celebrate.” She joined Thorpe, Liljegren, and other women in making a counteroffer: that the way to win Native participation “would be the government’s observance of our treaty rights, including hunting and fishing.”Footnote ¹²

South Dakota encountered the bicentennial amid heightened social and political tension between Indians and the state. Calvin Jumping Bull (Oglala Sioux), the great grandson of Sitting Bull, charged that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) “investigating and harassing people” did not help the necessary conversation about how the Black Hills had been “given to the Indians by treaty in 1868, only to be taken by nonIndians later.” Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve (Rosebud Sioux) believed that there might be demonstrations at Mt. Rushmore to “try to explain the problems we have, but right away the federal agencies like the FBI start investigating and harassing people if there’s a chance there might be problems. They’re the ones that cause the problems.”Footnote ¹³

The Minnesota Chippewa refused to participate in a bicentennial flag raising ceremony, which was to include their flag and a procession of their drummers followed by “two representatives of the American Indian Movement on horseback carrying the AIM flag.” After the white Minneapolis organizers insisted that the AIM men “pledge allegiance to the American flag,” the White Earth Reservation chair Reuben Rock told the state organizing commission that, “tribal officials could not participate” if AIM members would be banned. Robert E. Powless (Oneida) opined that the very same people being disparaged as militant and violent would be heralded in fifty or one hundred years as patriots (Figure 1).Footnote ¹⁴

Figure 1.

Native Americans resisted the bicentennial celebrations and Akwasansne Notes (Mohawk Nation), a national newspaper, created resistance sources for the Native American Revolution Bicentennial, celebrating 200 years of resistance. Akwasasne Notes (Mohawk Nation), Shrine of Hypocrisy poster, “always remember—your fathers never sold this land,” Native American Solidarity Committee’s (NASC) 200 Years of resistance branded imagery, 1976 SCLP0191 political posters, Labadie Collection, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.

Figure 1. Long description

The poster depicts Mount Rushmore with the faces of four U.S. presidents replaced by a Native American man wearing a feathered headdress. The background shows the iconic mountain carving. At the top left corner, there is a logo for the Native American Solidarity Committee’s 200 Years of Resistance campaign. The text at the bottom reads, ‘always remember - your fathers never sold this land.’ The poster is part of the Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan.

The nationally distributed Akwesasne Notes spoke for Native Americans deeply opposed to the bicentennial, most especially evident in the Native American Solidarity Committee’s (NASC) “200 Years of Resistance” branded merchandise. The imagery Notes used centered on the depiction of an Indian crowned with black hair and feathers, with the words: “the native american revolution bicentennial 1776–1976” encircling it, creating a pointed symbol to resist the official branded bicentennial symbol, with its white five-point star inside a stylized star of red, white and blue. The paper’s resistance issue sold out of its first run of 10,000; another 10,000 copies were printed in early winter 1975. The NASC, in the years leading up to and including the bicentennial, seized the opportunity to engage with demands for freedom and self-determination. The group invited Native participation in forums in Los Angeles and Philadelphia on July 4, 1976, to make their demands for “jobs, equality, liberation, justice, peace.”^{Footnote 15}

Although Indians consistently expressed resentment, they also acknowledged a longstanding relationship with whites and the U.S. government and aspired to a peaceful coexistence. American Indian Movement leader Vernon Bellecourt (Ojibwe) proclaimed on July 2, 1976, “We are going to blow out the candles on America’s birthday cake.” However, instead of doubling down, he reframed what was to come with optimism: “But we are a peaceful people. We will do it with truth. And maybe, in another hundred years, we’ll sit down together for dinner again, and light the tricentennial candles.” The fight for rights continued to be within the political and legal system, and with an eye toward a shared future.Footnote ¹⁶

A Different Style

Native women played a significant role in enhancing communication among hundreds of Indian tribes, securing funds and dignity for Indians, and navigating the terms on which they would participate in the bicentennial. A few dynamics converged in the late 1960s that set in motion the opportunity for Native women to take on leadership roles in the bicentennial planning. The selection of Thomasine Ruth Hill as the 15th National Miss Indian America for 1969–1970 elevated her as a national political leader. Chosen by a panel comprised entirely of white non-Indians at the All-American Indian Day in Sheridan, Wyoming, Hill was expected, “Through speaking engagements, public appearances, conferences, and other events” to represent and advocate “for their respective tribal nation, culture, and land while promoting the contest and encouraging positive Indian–white relations.” Her selection reflected white supporters’ desire to have young, attractive, eloquent Native spokeswomen represent their people. What white benefactors could not have anticipated, however, was that the Miss Indian America women who embraced the competition had an eye toward carving out an independent voice for her people (Figure 2).Footnote ¹⁷

Figure 2.

Thomasine Hill (Crow [Apsáalooke], Pawnee) was an active member of the National Indian Youth Council and served on the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission. Thomasine Hill after she was elected Miss Indian America XV, with Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail (Crow [Apsáalooke]) met with Senators Mike Mansfield and George Aiken of Montana on January 23, 1969. Source: Courtesy of the Montana History Project.

Figure 2. Long description

A woman wearing a traditional patterned shawl stands on the left. Next to her, a man in a suit smiles. In the center, a young woman in a sash labeled ‘Miss Indian America XV’ and a crown stands. To her right, another man in a suit holds papers. Behind them, an American flag and a portrait of a woman adorn the wall.

Hill entered the world of politics at the convergence of an emerging Red Power movement and a growing women’s movement. She also appeared on the scene at a time when young people were challenging the status quo, particularly on behalf of Native Americans through the NIYC. Hill’s extensive speaking engagements placed her in non-Indian, organizational and governmental settings, principally among white men.Footnote ¹⁸

She used this important experience and her standing as a student at the University of Arizona to coordinate with other students in the AmerInd Club, a national 1972 conference to formulate a Native response to the bicentennial. A newspaper reporter heralded her as “part of the establishment and one of its sternest critics.” As a member of the John D. Rockefeller Student Task Force, she asserted herself as a “vehement critic of the bicentennial commission.” Hill worked within government systems to be a voice of dissent for their continued disregard of Native representation.Footnote ¹⁹

The 1972 Arizona bicentennial conference offered Indians an opportunity to talk, listen, develop, and make the case for a unified position. University of Arizona students and the AmerIndian Club appeared to sponsor the event, but the money trail suggests they had significant financial help. No student group could afford to bring “150 representatives of more than 30 Indian tribes in 20 states” to a three-day conference and publish the proceedings. In addition to the university’s support, nearly three dozen individuals, organizations, and companies (banks and utilities) contributed financially to the conference—including the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission (ARBC). Despite the effort of the white establishment, including governement and industry to sway their partcipation, four of the ten groups that discussed tribal and community involvement voted to boycott the bicentennial altogether.Footnote ²⁰

Those who acquiesced to Indian participation wanted to ensure that Indian people were appointed to the ARBC. Moreover, the group requested that if any state proposed an Indian program, it would be reviewed by Indian people; in addition, it insisted that Indians be appointed for service on the state commissions. Hill served as the youngest member and only Native American on the national planning group, but it does not appear that any state commissions met the request for Indians’ inclusion. Hill concluded her letter from the group to President Richard Nixon with the admonition that “The American Indian involvement in the American Revolution Bicentennial Observances is an act of faith and hope that the next 100 years will be more promising than the last 200 years.”Footnote ²¹

By 1972, while many vocal male Indian leaders decided on rejection and boycotts, female organizational leaders like Hill, Clydia Nahwoosky (Cherokee), and LaDonna Harris (Comanche) advocated a more nuanced, integrated approach, which promised (according to Harrs), to “‘educate the rest of America’ to Indian realities.” Harris continually insisted on honest dialogue and avoiding images of a romanticized past “for Europeans to come over and look at.” She denounced the only role seemingly allowed Indians: “We are tired of being quaint tourist attractions.”Footnote ²² Americans, both politicians and everyday people across the nation, seemed only to recognize the mythologized, singular, static image of nineteenth-century Plains Indians perpetuated in television and movies. Frustratingly, promoters claimed that most European tourists wanted to see this trapped-in-amber image.Footnote ²³ Nahwoosky made clear, however, that Indians would not be the entertainment for a national celebration of whites. As she stated in a U.S. Senate hearing, “This must be the celebration of a new beginning … in which pluralism is recognized as the hallmark of the American experiment, and pride in difference its unique strength.”Footnote ²⁴

Nahwoosky further challenged the notion that 1976 was cause for celebration of the past or present. She believed, “no American can truly celebrate, in speeches or fireworks, the events of Sand Creek, Washita or Wounded Knee.” Moreover, she said, “who can celebrate the unemployment, the bad health and the poor housing which characterize the lives of so many American Indian, Eskimo and Aluet people.” It was not a question; it was a statement. She argued that the bicentennial should “be a time for heightened self-awareness and correction of inequities (Figure 3).”Footnote ²⁵

Figure 3.

LaDonna Harris (Comanche) led Americans for Indian Opportunity and used her position in Washington, D.C. as a Senator’s wife to shape public opinion, featured here in 1975. Source: Photo by Steve Larson, in author’s possession.

Starting in the 1960s, LaDonna Harris established herself as a fierce advocate and a successful intermediary—aided by her move to Washington, DC, when her husband Fred Harris served as Democratic Senator from Oklahoma from 1964 to 1973. Already a respected political voice for Native Americans, Harris created and led the economic national organization Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO) in 1970, building on her earlier efforts in Oklahoma. The organization leant “professional expertise to Indians to help them negotiate ‘joint ventures, for coal and timber rights especially.’” Reflecting on her activism compared to the militancy of AIM men, Harris characterized her activist style as different but still “as radical.” “They were angry and had a right to be angry, and that was their style of correcting things,” she said. In contrast, she held teas and dinner parties, all with the goal of reaching “anyone who might have an impact on Indian policy.” She embraced gendered tropes of political persuasion in advancing these complementary approaches.Footnote ²⁶

By August 1972, representing 145 tribes and 250,000 Indian people, nearly one-third of the estimated Indian population, Harris, Nahwoosky, and other Indian leaders held a press conference lambasting the ARBC. They requested a larger Indian presence on the commission and $225,000 in earmarked funds as a quid pro quo to earn their participation. The women’s comments leaned more toward the opportunity to value American pluralism, while the male leadership frequently reflected more anger at the disregard and poor treatment of American Indians. Even with their diversity of approaches, pan-Indian leaders remained unified in confronting the federal government’s commission, trying to engage in efforts to make meaningful change and secure substantial funding.Footnote ²⁷

“Indian Attack”

White bicentennial organizers approved a plan for Americans from each state to send covered wagons that would roll into Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1976. It was to be a reversal of the wagon trips undertaken in the nineteenth century, this time heading west to east. The promotional entertainment program booklet for the Wagon Train included a brief history of the role Indians played in the experience of whites moving west. The author acknowledged that the scene of “hundreds of whooping Indians in warpaint charging from the hills toward a circle of covered wagons” “occurred more times in films than it did in history.”Footnote ²⁸

The Washington state organizers wanted their twentieth-century wagon travelers, pulled by horse and mule, to have what the movies fictionally suggested was an “authentic” experience. They invited the Puyallup tribe to participate in the event by dressing “in warrior garb” and staging “an attack on the covered wagons.” For more than ten years, white locals and police officers in the Pacific Northwest had been harassing, beating, and arresting Native people fishing in the rivers. To celebrate white colonizers, however, they continued a long tradition of relishing Native men as pretend aggressors. Whites invited Indian men to form a “war party” to “play” Indians for the entertainment of whites, just as they had for decades in shows and movies. The Tribal Chair of the Puyallup Indian people declined the offer from the bicentennial Wagon Train to participate.Footnote ²⁹

From the nineteenth century Wild West shows to mid-century amusement parks across the country, Americans had been sold fake Indian attacks as entertainment. Fantasyland, a storybook amusement park opened in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 1959, for instance, included “Apache Indians” attacking and setting fire to a wooden fort. The park also operated a Wagon Train and “kids on board grabbed toy guns supplied with each wagon and shot it out with the Indian attackers.”Footnote ³⁰

Stone Mountain in Georgia created one of the largest of these parks in 1962. A 1966 newspaper enticed readers with the quip that “the show is strictly for tourists with set notions about telling the good guys from the bad guys, and the Indians are always driven off by sharp-shooting passengers in the infernal iron horse.” Indeed, the author of the article noted, “youngsters taking the trip are encouraged to bring along toy pistols to help drive off the real Indians.” The children were not alone, as one report described a “woman who pulled a cap pistol out of her purse and jumped off the train to ‘shoot it up’ with the Indians.” Stone Mountain also went further in developing a white victim narrative, with a college-aged woman playing a train passenger who had her dress ripped off by Indian attackers “12 times a day, and 25 times on Sunday.” Ultimately, she was left in just her petticoat, and the audience was left with a clear delineation of whites as innocent victims and Indians as violent, rapacious aggressors. This served to remind whites of the captivity narrative, with Native men always aggressors in pursuit of white women. Audiences never saw Indian women as victims of abuse by white men, and organizers rarely had any place for children in their romanticized, gendered telling of history.Footnote ³¹

Dark skinned animatronics or made-up teen boys portraying Indians tried to scare passengers on a railroads traveling through “dangerous lands” at risk of Indian attack. One advertisement for a park in North Carolina used violent imagery to promise attacking “Indians.” “Hold on to your scalp—and keep your loaded camera handy to capture the fun, thrills, and excitement when Indians attack the train and capture old Fort Boone,” read the ad.Footnote ³²

The 1976 invitation to the Puyallup arrived in the national context of this binary: white good, Indian bad. The entertainment industry, from Buffalo Bill’s shows to Hollywood, had exploited and established Indian men as the dangerous enemy for almost a hundred years. Indian men had historically been welcomed to showcase their skills and to assume a faux costumed warrior identity and played aggressors, “attacking wagon trains, settlers’ cabins, and Custer’s forces.” Organizers wanted to provide ersatz danger and guaranteed excitement for the white wagoneers.Footnote ³³

Native women in the 1970s led the resistance to these white tropes. Tribal Chair Ramona Bennett dismissed the invitation “as a ridiculous insult to the Indian community.” Furthermore, she said, “We have no reason to attack a train going east. Our only regret is that the size of this train is too small.” In addition to wishing that whites would go back to where they came from, Bennett took the opportunity to teach a history lesson to an audience of wagon train and bicentennial supporters. She explained, “Most Americans know that the Indian society did not irrationally attack anyone with a peaceful purpose.” She dismissed the expectation of participation by the Puyallup explaining, “We are too deeply involved in your courts … for the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (Figure 4).”Footnote ³⁴

Figure 4.

Esther Ross, who led the successful effort of the Stillaguamish Indian Tribe to gain federal recognition. 1976 Festival of American Folklife, Native Americans program (FAF1976_0956). Source: Courtesy of the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Figure 4. Long description

The portrait features Esther Ross, Chairperson of the Stillaguamish Indian Tribe, at the 1976 Festival of American Folklife, Native Americans program. She is wearing a headband adorned with feathers and stars, and her hair is styled with additional feathers. The background is blurred, focusing attention on her face and attire.

Not all women rejected confrontation, however. Stillaguamish leader Esther Ross strategized that threatening to detain the wagons and camp followers might publicize the tribe’s longstanding plight. As the wagons got underway in June 1975, aiming to build excitement and attention for the trek east, Ross threatened that “the tribe would attack the convoy unless the Department of the Interior immediately granted them official recognition.” Uncertain what the attack would entail, the organizers and the Department of Interior scrambled, anticipating a physical disruption that would generate unwelcome publicity. After centuries of government deceit, Ross did not believe the “special assistant,” who arrived breathlessly the day before the showdown without the tribal recognition the Stillaguamish had been seeking from the United States for nearly fifty years. Having vainly waited on the promised recognition for decades, she decided to “ambush” the train. Her son, Frank Allen, calmly grabbed the reins of the lead horse on June 12, 1975, as it passed near the tribe’s headquarters in Island Crossing; about two hundred Stillaguamish and their supporters poured onto the road to block the wagon train.Footnote ³⁵

In doing so, the Stillaguamish people embraced the tactics of nonviolent disobedience with a verve witnessed in other civil rights movements and demonstrations during the twentieth century, including those carried out by other Indian dissenters. Ross said, with television cameras rolling, that the bicentennial wagon train “symbolized the strength and determination of the American people, but that for Indians it stood for a trail of tears, broken promises, ignored treaties, the loss of pride and dreams and the destruction of a way of life.” Ross traded on the expectation of Indians as violent, dangerous, male warriors to resist the government’s disregard for her people, with a Tacoma newspaper reporting that the Stillaguamish “threatened an old fashioned Indian–wagon train war.” Ross herself asserted, “We stop this Bicentennial wagon train to bring to the attention of the nation that we have no other alternative, short of violence, to bring their plight to light and produce action.” She verbalized the decades and centuries of betrayals and the near impossibility of getting justice from the U.S. government.Footnote ³⁶

However, most of the media coverage, even when it described the confrontation as an “ambush,” still included Ross’s rationale: federal recognition of the tribe. The Stillaguamish, long accustomed to sleight of hand and an interminable waiting game, threatened to attack not wagons or individuals, but the conscience and honor of the federal government. Indeed, the special assistant told reporters that the Stillaguamish had “a legitimate gripe because of the ‘inordinate amount of time’” the government was taking; but there was no government action once the white wagon train was stopped. After another full year went by, Ross sent a frozen salmon to the Secretary of the Department of Interior to remind him of his promise. Perhaps having run its legal course, or its moral one, or bending to the power of the bicentennial year, the federal government accorded the Stillaguamish official recognition as a tribe in October 1976. At their official celebration in December 1976, the Stillaguamish named Esther Ross their Chief to honor her leadership her leadership in the bicentennial wagon train blockade and broader efforts to secure tribal recognition.Footnote ³⁷

Against the backdrop of white children and adults pantomiming Indians dressing up and donning face paint, and performing in parades and evening entertainment showcases at stops along the way to Valley Forge, Native leaders continued, with the help of respectful white media, to bring the painful history of white betrayal, exploitation, and violence against Indians to the national conversation. Reporter Randy Furst reflected on a “day of reconciliation” that took place in 1975 to memorialize the thirty-eight Sioux hanged in Mankato, Minnesota, in 1862. Vernon Bellecourt considered the day, with seven hundred people in attendance, a “kick-off of [a] native American bicentennial”; others characterized it as a “counter bicentennial commemoration.” With death songs, honor songs, and speeches by Indian leaders, Indians mourned their ancestors. Whites not only affirmed that it was wrong to hang the Sioux, but also accounted for those who had participated, with one white woman identifying her own relative as someone who had tied the knots. Later that month, Furst covered “America’s Largest Mass Execution,” along with a larger history of the Sioux in Minnesota, reporting that the governor had declared in 1862, “The Sioux Indians must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of our state.” Bellecourt drew a throughline, comparing the “executions in 1862 to government attacks on AIM today.”Footnote ³⁸

Some articles about the South Dakota bicentennial commemoration included diverse, historical Indian perspectives, along with those of government enforcers. Reporter Bryce Nelson described two flags flying over the land (in modern day Montana) “where Indian warriors wiped out George Armstrong Custer and his cavalrymen 100 years ago this summer.” The U.S. flag and the bicentennial flag were the only symbols, he noted, with “no emblem flying for the once mighty Sioux or for the Cheyenne, who triumphed here on June 25, 1876.” Nelson attributed whites’ disregard for Indian history and their claim to their land as informing Crow chairman Pat Stands Over Bull’s assertion that “The Indian doesn’t feel he has anything to celebrate.” Moreover, celebrating the cruelties that had transpired one hundred years earlier reopened the wounds for Native people. With a perverse belief in white persecution, the state’s Attorney General William Janklow persisted in imagining whites as the victims of Indian attack. The gendered equation of Indian identity with the image of the “Indian warriors” did shape self perceptions among some militant, male Indians in the past as well as within the contemporary AIM. By and large, however, it was whites who relied on such tropes to justify their violent, persistent efforts to force Native Americans farther west, away from the “civilized” east coast. Nelson reported, “Fears of Indian violence in coming days are especially strong in Northern Plains states such as South Dakota,” and Janklow claimed to have “lots of extra police and are prepared for any contingency,” as he anticipated “violent Indian action from Mitchell, SD, west.”Footnote ³⁹

Indian women and men advanced the effort to be treated with respect and dignity. Indians wanted to tell their story themselves. Most significantly, they rejected the plentiful misrepresentations and lies about the past. Through their heavy labors they gave voice to their community’s true history and experiences and in the midst of the bicentennial rollout confronted and undermined the threadbare lies that white American society had perpetuated in defense of a settler colonial project.

“An Unflinching Portrait”

The planning for the bicentennial emerged in a period of intensifying Indian political action. Two federal government programs sought to involve Native Americans in the bicentennial. The first, the Native American Programs (NAP) office, was created to recognize “the special relationship existing between the Federal Government and the American Indian and of the desirability of encouraging Native Americans to become an integral part of the Bicentennial commemoration.” The second was the Indian Awareness Program created within the Smithsonian Institution.

The ARBC haphazardly created the office of Native American Programs with the appointment of Wayne Chattin (Blackfeet). Throughout his brief tenure, he was constrained by an essentially nonexistent budget, an undermining supervisor, and a small, Denver office. Like many Native leaders before him, Chattin rejected the continual efforts by bicentennial planners to fold Native concerns into larger ethnic or minority committees and conversations, arguing that it was inappropriate to lump them together, as Indians were “Aboriginal and native to this country.” Instead, he asserted “the legal trust status and special relationship American Indians have with the United States” warranted their own office and their own budget. Chattin understood the quid pro quo potential of state bicentennial money and federal funding opportunities to generate Indian participation and made the case for urgency, given that “Indians are on the verge of losing their history and their culture. If we can use the Bicentennial to get people to help us save it, all America is richer.” He reached out to tribes across the nation and encouraged creative, meaningful proposals that centered on money, land, and education, and encouraged tribes and organizations to “utilize the bicentennial (and help from our office) as a vehicle to obtain badly needed funds.” His office helped tribes secure grants “totaling $6.25 million for 56 native American bicentennial related programs.”Footnote ⁴⁰

Chattin threaded the needle to secure Native participation by listening to the voices of those who reacted with skepticism and belligerence. He stressed the concept of a “period of observance” rather than emphasizing celebration. The more neutral language allowed tribes to preserve the past, inform the public about current problems, and secure funding for badly needed infrastructure projects. In adopting a more inclusive position, he opened the opportunity for more women to participate in framing the Native response. By not forcing Indians to literally or figuratively salute the American flag, he forged a way forward for moderate, transactional participation. It was no small feat for Chattin to secure Indian participation in an era when a loud, angry chorus of voices condemned federal and state governments altogether.Footnote ⁴¹

His office encouraged showy, fun proposals that whites expected, including Indian rodeos, golf tournaments, powwows, and other dancing showcases, which were already annual events, incredibly popular among Indians, and organic to their lives. Chattin also appealed to tribal leaders to see the potential for long-term government investments in their community, like building and restoring structures that could serve as tourist sites, with the intention that they be revenue generators not just in 1976 but for the next generation. As evidenced in its facilitation of practical projects like a Shoshone Tribe water and sewer project, as well as its determination to “bring national attention to Native American issues such as ‘treaties, water and natural resources, economic betterment, health, housing, education and general social growth,” the NAP clearly sought to invest funds in structural change. Chattin also supported efforts to fund a reclamation of Indian life, with language, art, and history central to his vision. He saw past the pomp and circumstance and sought the means to address systemic issues that would affect Native people for decades to come.Footnote ⁴²

So, too, did Nahwoosky seek a way forward to encourage the participation of Native peoples—not to entertain whites as male warriors, but to teach them about Native culture, history, and experiences of both women and men.Footnote ⁴³ As director of the Indian Awareness Program, her pioneering vision brought Native American groups to the National Mall for festival performances and demonstrations to audiences of hundreds of thousands of summer visitors to Washington, DC. She introduced a new approach to the Smithsonian Institution, with American Indians interpreting their own histories and cultures. In a 2006 oral history, she recalled, “the main reason I went to the Smithsonian and persisted some at working there was because I thought surely there are some people who will be affected so that they will no longer see us just as wild savage Indians.” While explicitly addressing the stereotype of savagery, Nahwoosky also alluded to the gendered identity of Indians. She sought to provide opportunities for women and men to tell their stories, moving away from mock battles and warriors and toward face-to-face dialogue with women and men showcasing skills in dancing, crafts, and political discourse.Footnote ⁴⁴

Nahwoosky selected the North and South Plains Indians for the first festival and built relationships with new regions each year. This ensured that the festival was primed with participants to host the weekslong 1976 bicentennial festival. The year prior, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) “furnished $300,000 directly to the tribes to support their own varied festivals,” but Nahwoosky used these funds to work with tribal representatives, national Indian organizations, and scholars, to ensure that each group’s festival showcase included “discussions of pressing issues such as the federal policy of termination, land claims, state and federal recognition for unrecognized tribes, and treaty rights.” By showcasing the intersection of politics and culture, she provided “an unflinching portrait of the contemporary lives of Native people” to deepen and complicate the public’s understanding of the pan-Indian experience. Moreover, moving beyond mock battles and sports opened more opportunities for women to engage in music, dancing, crafts, political dialogue, and powwows, offering gender-inclusive engagement and weakening crude stereotypes.Footnote ⁴⁵

This storytelling, developed in the years preceding the bicentennial with Native Americans, culminated with the Smithsonian’s 1976 Festival of American Folklife. It was a public event, recorded on film so that the Smithsonian would have it for posterity. The festival program imagery centered Indian life with dancing, lacrosse, a teepee, and two people on toboggans representing Native Alaskans, like Unangax̂ (formerly Aleut) and the Inuit. This visual representation reflected the festival’s effort to offer a sustained, twelve-week opportunity for Native Americans across the country to share their folklore in a designated section with areas for crafts, a learning center, sports and games fields, a stage, and more. In a venue that supported storytelling, showcasing skills and materials, and music and dancing, Native Americans tribes, including Northern California, Northeast, and Great Lakes, shared their lives. Many included “films on traditional tribal activities,” reflecting bicentennial film proposals by tribes who sought investments in telling their own stories and preserving them for use in tourist and educational programming (Figure 5).Footnote ⁴⁶

Figure 5.

Clydia Nahwoosky (Cherokee) helped bring tribes across the country to the 1976 festival to share their skills, traditions, and political concerns with the American public. Smithsonian Institution and National Park Service, Festival of American Life Program (Washington, DC: 1976), program cover.

Figure 5. Long description

The illustration showcases the 1976 Festival of American Folklife program cover, organized by the Smithsonian Institution and National Park Service. It features a vibrant scene with numerous people engaged in various cultural activities. The top of the illustration includes the text ‘1976 festival of american folklife’ and ‘SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION & NATIONAL PARK SERVICE.’ The central part of the image depicts a diverse group of individuals participating in traditional dances, playing musical instruments, and engaging in crafts. There are scenes of family gatherings, children playing, and people interacting with animals. The background includes trees, tents, and various structures, creating a lively and festive atmosphere. The illustration captures the essence of American folklore and cultural heritage.

The festival program devoted three pages to material largely created by Native Americans identified by tribe. Indian people selected this material, meaning it was not filtered through white interpretation. The descriptive opening attested to the effort to design the Native festival area in a circle, representing “the wholeness of life,” and that architect Dennis Sun Rhodes (Arapahoe) had designed the eastward-facing Learning Center. The circle of cornfields is visible on the program cover, not to separate the Indians (who appear on the outside as well), but to convey with the Three Sisters of maize, beans, and squash the spiritual. Educator Helen Attaquin (Wampanoag) offered a brief lesson in “Indian Education,” which challenged the superiority of “white man’s idea of education” and outlined the legion of problems in Indian education. Attaquin’s essay, like that of Tom Kavanaugh (Little Pony Gourd Clan, Comanche), challenged readers to consider the thinking and experiences of Native peoples. The festival program booklet, as well as the weeklong presentations themselves, reflected Indians’ own storytelling, done with pride and control over their messaging.Footnote ⁴⁷ Nahwoosky understood the importance of having Indians sharing their people, traditions, and skills.Footnote ⁴⁸

Trail of Self-Determination

Following actions at Alcatraz and Wounded Knee, some leaders of the Survival of the American Indian (SAIA) wanted to keep applying pressure to the federal government. In 1976, SAIA planned a three-month cross-country trek to bring the revised Twenty-Point proposal, first drafted in 1972, to President Gerald Ford and Congress in Washington, DC. A small group of Indians under the leadership of the group’s director, Sid Mills (Yakima), and Caleb Shields (Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes), who was the acting director of the Montana SAIA, led the Trail of Self-Determination. It ultimately attracted participation by “as many as 50 different Indian tribes.” The SAIA, founded in 1963 by Janet McCloud (Tulalip and Puyallup), Hank Adams (Fort Peck Assiniboine & Sioux), and others in the Frank’s Landing Indian Community (Washington), eventually included thirty-seven tribes in the greater northwest. The group focused on asserting the treaties that guaranteed Indian fishing rights. Adams emerged as a leader in this fight; he immediately set out to enlist entertainers Marlon Brando and Dick Gregory in the cause, all in hopes of attracting national attention. In 1968, Adams became president of the all-Indian organization, going on to serve for fifty-two years. He advocated for the enforcement of fishing rights within the larger arguments for Native rights that were articulated in the list of Twenty Points that were delivered to the federal government by those who traveled the Trail of Broken Treaties a few years earlier. Working with those same twenty points that Adams helped author, bolstered by the historic backing of the Poor People’s Campaign, the SAIA imagined a new path and a renewed conversation in 1976.Footnote ⁴⁹

White newspaper reporters, who interviewed the Self-Determination Trail participants and visitors to the camps in the evenings, discovered an oppressive police and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) presence and system of surveillance (especially in Wyoming) and helped to bring the group’s messages to a broader public. The participants hoped to help people understand how the U.S. federal government denied Native Americans true self-determination and underlined why they needed it. The Survival Association offered formal presentations and open discussions with visitors at the camp and secured community spaces at each stop to show As Long as the River Runs, a film that argued for Native fishing rights in the Pacific Northwest. Fishing underscored the urgency of the issues, the long history of betraying treaties, and the continued denial of Indians’ self-determination.Footnote ⁵⁰

The Trail of Self-Determination followed the bicentennial covered wagon train. There were some marked differences between the two, however. Most significantly, the Indians had limited money for food and fuel and no logistical support to secure permits or viable campsites. Indians moving east, in a large group, following the wagons, with numbers swelling as they recruited participants at each stop, struggled to explain their lived contemporary experiences, and persuade law enforcement and city leaders of their peaceful intent. In contrast, the bicentennial wagons sponsored by corporations had food, entertainment, and accommodations arranged for them. Even more significanlty, the wagons seized on a romanticized sense of a pioneering American spirit, while the the Indians struggled to be heard, seen, and understood.Footnote ⁵¹

As they made their way to Washington, DC, to ask Congress “to redress a century of broken government treaty promises,” Native participants were met with force. One participant in Ft. Laramie, Wyoming, described how the peaceful group of about sixty people “was met by an estimated 100 state narcotics (from Texas) tactical squad and undercover agents from various states who also persuaded local police to wear flak jackets while on patrol.” This escalated response unnecessarily alarmed the community “by reinforcing rumors that Indians were coming to Ft. Laramie to burn, pillage, and attack the Fort and the townspeople.” A thousand national guards were put on twenty-four-hour alert. Unmarked cars followed the Indians making their way east and officials used extensive surveillance equipment to monitor and record them. Quaker activists later found that the Seattle police, “with help from agencies in other states, kept track of Mexican Americans and American Indians traveling across the country,” including by “intelligence operations in Seattle, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Jackson, Miss.”Footnote ⁵²

Survival of the American Indian aimed to abolish the BIA and establish an Indian Congress that would restore Constitutional treaty-making authority to an American Indian Nation. That newly formed entity would also be able to establish a treaty commission to make new treaties and negotiate with what Shields called “a national commitment to the future of the Indian people.” These demands, along with many others, were to be carried east and presented with the backing of “thousands of Indians.”Footnote ⁵³

The group had a planned stop in Kansas, timed to coincide with the Sovereign Native Women’s Conference, being held at Haskell Indian Junior College. Members of the group chose this centrally located stop, midway along their coast-to-coast journey, as an opportunity to hold their own strategy planning conference. It may be that the stop aligning with the women’s conference had an added purpose. Janet McCloud, an early founder of the SAIA, also cofounded Women of All Red Nations (WARN) in 1974 out of frustration that many younger Indian activists, removed to urban centers, neglected the matrilineal traditions of Native people. McCloud had also approached AIM leadership after Wounded Knee with concerns about the poor, violent treatment of women, including especially domestic violence. One report said that the conference focused on how women might better assist the movement, which could have been a soft push for the SAIA to better involve and value women. It may also have been an effort by SAIA members to appear like they valued women’s participation, even as the men stated their aim of holding their meetings apart from the conference.Footnote ⁵⁴

The convoy grew in size as it made its way east. By the time SAIA activists reached Pennsylvania in late June, a reported 200 Indian people on the trail had been joined by 200 whites, Blacks, and Chicanos. The hundreds of campers struggled to secure food, firewood, and access toilets at each stop, and those designated to speak for the group expressed frustration at being consumed with the time and effort needed to secure each night’s accommodations. Georgia George (Squamish-Klallan), disappointed at receiving only logistical questions, said that she really wanted to talk about the “treatment of Indians by the BIA and the federal government.” Instead of camping permits, she wanted to discuss fishing rights and share their delight that, at one stop, four kindergarten classes visited the encampment “to hear the Indian’s side of the bicentennial story.” The eight speakers who traveled with the group talked to local groups, schools, and the media in an effort to destroy “degrading stereotypes, misconceptions, and fears about Indians.”Footnote ⁵⁵

Despite its focus on the minutia of survival, the news coverage did also consistently emphasize the SAIA’s political dissatisfaction and often legitimized the organization’s positions. A North Platte, Nebraska Telegraph headline about the “Trail of Determination” got the name wrong but still conveyed the group’s strength. The accompanying photograph featured Bob Olney (Yakima) and the caption explained that “The upside down American flag in this background signifies all Indians as a people in distress.” Gene Heavy Runner (Blackfeet), from Montana, told a Philadelphia Tribune reporter in July that “This is our last trip to Washington to approach the government in a realistic and humanly [sic] manner to deal with our treaty rights. We are the original people of this land and we are at the bottom … of the damn barrel.” Centuries of frustration came to a head in 1976, as SAIA and the trail participants continually sought to make their case for rights and self determination.Footnote ⁵⁶

Representatives like Heavy Runner tried to convey facts and figures about Indians when they were interviewed by the media. Runner argued that Indians needed self-determination to rule themselves and stop the BIA from leasing their lands for development and stripping them of coal, oil, and timber. He sought to underscore why it was so urgent that Native peoples be able to govern and provide for themselves, because the federal government had allowed incredible travesties like 70 percent unemployment for Indians, nearly 10 times as high as that of whites. Even for those who found employment, Indians’ average annual income was only $2,000, while whites had an average income over $15,000. Indians suffered 4 percent higher rates of infant mortality and 10 percent higher rates of teen suicide. The Pennsylvania governor, Milton Schapp (D-PA), admitted, “Equal opportunity has escaped the American Indian. In the Bicentennial year, we must right the wrongs committed against our first Americans.” Sadly, he was one of only a few political leaders to support the group.Footnote ⁵⁷

Heavy Runner said, “we think of this as a spiritual movement. Our spiritual heritage is all that has kept what remains of the Indian way of life alive. It will see us to our goal.” Press coverage also emphasized that the participants on the trail understood what they were doing as spiritual. A reporter found that “visitors to the camp frequently are offered the peace pipe and late into the night the throbbing of drums and the chanting of dancers can be heard from the hillside.” Those on the trail underlined their peaceful response to sharp, dire political concerns.Footnote ⁵⁸

The public, meanwhile, only seemed interested in the romance of the Indians. The appearance of the teepees offered a striking visual for both curious onlookers and newspaper reporters. In one instance, a wagon train convoy asked the Indians to move ahead of them so that they might have a picturesque vision of the teepees as they came into town. The campfire and drums drew attention, attracting “a steady stream of people” to educate about their identity and purpose in making the trip. Not all attention was welcome and some indicated a persistent fear of Indian men as aggressors. Passengers in one car emitted a “war whoop” as they drove by and another person cautioned someone headed to the Indian camp, “Don’t get scalped.”Footnote ⁵⁹

Law enforcement, however, continually intimidated and harassed the group of peaceful demonstrators as they crossed the nation to talk to government leaders. The FBI released teletypes to local law enforcement warning that AIM was planning a violent, deadly attack for the Fourth of July. The FBI claimed in a May 28, 1976, teletype that 2,000 “Dog soldiers,” “armed with M-16 rifles would blow up buildings, shoot policemen and tourists, take ‘action’ against Mount Rushmore and assassinate Gov. Richard F. Kneip of South Dakota [D-SD].” A few weeks later, on June 21, the FBI alerted the media to these purported threats. The agency falsely claimed a revival of nineteenth-century Indian warfare tactics like “sniping of tourists on interstate highways in South Dakota” and “burn[ing] farmers’ and shooting equipment” to be committed by AIM leader Russell Means’s “Hit Men.” Rhetoric scholar Casey Ryan Kelly contended that, “This language ‘reIndianizes’ AIM as nineteenth-century warriors that circle and attack innocent wagon caravans as they cross the Great Plains.” This emphasis on male “soldiers” and warfare had dramatic implications for those following the covered wagon caravan as they approached the nation’s capital. The effort to blur the groups’ identities, discredit AIM, and turn the police and the public against Indians generally compounded what was already a difficult road for those on the Trail of Self-Determination.Footnote ⁶⁰

In their final two stops, the marchers finally had the opportunity to talk to government officials. Their best reception was in Pennsylvania, where both the legislature and Governor Schapp expressed support for their peaceful effort to get a hearing from the president and Congress. He encouraged Pennsylvanians to “listen with an open mind … give serious thought to their grievances.” The group was able to set up camp at Temple University’s stadium in Mt. Airy, a northwest neighborhood of Philadelphia (Figure 6).Footnote ⁶¹

Figure 6.

Trail of Self-Determination participants camped at American University’s soccer field, talking with a local student. Source: Photo by Glen Leach, July 1976. Courtesy of the Washington Spark and the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection, Washington, D.C.

Figure 6. Long description

A group of people is camping at American University’s soccer field. They are gathered around a central area with a record player and speakers. Some individuals are sitting on the ground, while others stand or sit on horses. A local student is seen talking with the participants. The scene includes a teepee in the background and various people wearing different types of clothing, including traditional and modern attire.

From Philadelphia, the Trail participants made their way south to their ultimate destination, Washington, DC. Just as when their Broken Treaty predecessors arrived in 1972, the Trail activists’ arrival on July 2, 1976 was met with silence from a federal government that pretended not to know they were coming, or that they needed a place to stay, and wanted to meet. The SAIA tried to camp on the Mall across from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. When its members were told they could not do so, they proceeded to circle the White House with horns honking. It had the intended effect; a White House official provided a police escort so no one got lost in the unfamiliar city and secured an arrangement with American University that allowed the group to camp on its soccer field for six days (Figure 7).Footnote ⁶²

Figure 7.

Trail of Self-Determination participants, having traveled from Washington state to riase awareness of their political demands, marching in front of the White House. Source: Photo by Glen Leach, July 1976. Courtesy of the Washington Spark and the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection.

Figure 7. Long description

A group of people is marching in front of the White House, holding a large banner that reads ‘Trail of Self-Determination’. The banner features an illustration of a horse and rider. The participants are raising their fists in the air, and the scene is set on a clear day with trees and the iconic White House in the background.

Anticipating that the BIA’s leadership might react negatively to the entire group arriving in light of the 1972 takeover by 800 participants, the SAIA sent a school bus group with thirty-one women, seventeen children, and two men to tour the department’s building on July 7. Despite being a dramatically smaller group comprised of women and children dressed in light summer clothing, unable to conceal any weapons on their persons, the government still imagined all Indians as men and considered the coterie to be a militarized war party coming to attack the government. According to newspaper reporting, “The Interior Department and BIA evacuated the building and called in police to block entrances to the building when the Indian group appeared.” After a few hours of standoff, armed police began to violently break up the peacefully assembled group. While the adults anxiously protected the children in the center of a circle, the police “overreacted to the situation” and began to assault the adults on the perimeter, and then ultimately the kids. After they arrested the adults and children, the Indians refused to pay their $10 bond on principle and spent the night in jail.Footnote ⁶³

The next day in court, having rejected the government’s attempt to elicit their promise never to return to Washington, DC, in exchange for their release, the activists were all released without charge—and without apology. Trail of Self-Determination representatives who had stayed behind at the campsite met with Interior Deputy Undersecretary Dennis Ickes, while leaders like Caleb Shields and Ramona Bennet (chairwoman of the Puyallup Tribe) remained in jail. In a surprising turn of events, the following day at the White House, President Gerald Ford met with Caleb Shields, who had just spent the night in jail after trying to tour the agency that governed his people without their consent. Shields recounted to Michael Jetty (Spirit Lake Dakota Nation and Turtle Mountain Chippewa), “We were just in DC to peacefully share our perspective—the next thing you know we’re being beat up, thrown in jail, not even knowing what’s going on—no charges. Folks were raising heck on the outside. The government said they’re not going to charge them with anything—to not make them (the government) look bad.” Shields could not believe it: “In jail for a peaceful sit-down protest and the next day he’s in the White House, welcomed.” The Trail of Self-Determination achieved its aim of delivering the SAIA’s list of demands, but it let the president assert a victory of cordially welcoming a leader of the movement for Indian self-determination to the White House (Figure 8).Footnote ⁶⁴

Figure 8.

Fort Peck Tribal Councilman Caleb Shields meeting with President Gerald Ford at the White House on July 16, 1976, the day after the arrest of dozens of women and children who wanted to tour the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Shields helped guide the Trail of Self-Determination to Washington, D.C. Source: Photo taken by White House photographer, shared by Mike Jetty, and used with permission from the Indian Education for All Unit—Montana Office of Public Instruction.

Figure 8. Long description

Fort Peck Tribal Councilman Caleb Shields, wearing traditional attire, meets with President Gerald Ford at the White House on July 16, 1976. The meeting occurs the day after the arrest of dozens of women and children who wanted to tour the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Shields played a significant role in guiding the Trail of Self-Determination to Washington, D.C. The image captures a moment of historical importance, highlighting the interaction between tribal leaders and the U.S. government during a pivotal time for Native American rights.

“The Bile-Centennial”

Teardrop Clanton of Longwood, Florida, made his case against the 1976 celebration in a letter to the editor headlined “The Bile-Centennial.” He wrote, “After all 200 years of brutal inhuman massacres, extermination of whole tribes, termination, exploitation, it would not be human to participate in celebrating that anniversary. I remind all peoples of the Great Red Race not to degrade and humiliate yourself by participating in this celebration.” The 1976 bicentennial proved to be a time of reflection and action for many regarding Native Americans.Footnote ⁶⁵

There were some symbolic gestures of goodwill by non-Indians. One white New York assemblyman proposed that the state return five wampum belts to the Five Nations in the spirit of the bicentennial. The legislature’s decision to return them after five years of ignored requests from the Iroquois was likely motivated by a lawsuit brought by the Advocates for the Arts, which challenged whether a nation could acquire cultural objects from another nation still in existence. White politicians managed to frame their actions in a way that made them look magnanimous in the bicentennial year.Footnote ⁶⁶

On a grander scale, actor Marlon Brando gave away his land and property near Calabasas, California, to the SAIA. He acted, he said, to inspire others to do the same and to make amends to “save us the trouble of having Indian uprisings on our 200th anniversary,” referring to the nation’s 1976 bicentennial celebration. Brando’s most famous effort for Native Americans was in declining to appear for his Oscar win and instead sending Sacheen Littlefeather to accept it in his absence, whom he believed to be Native. He charged in his Oscar statement that he wanted to hold the motion picture industry to account for its role in portraying Indians as “savage and evil.” However, Brando’s support ran much longer and deeper. He supported Native fishing rights and civil rights, and helped AIM during the Wounded Knee standoff. With his contribution of property and homes to the SAIA, he made a statement that whites and the government should consider giving back the land that had once belonged to the Indians. He hoped to inspire others to take action to support Indian efforts for peace and justice.Footnote ⁶⁷

For Indian people, the bicentennial proved to be an opportunity to strategize anew how best to improve their lives and circumstances in the United States. Harris, Nahwoosky, Chattin, and others made arguments about the merits of taking funding to benefit Native communities with powwows, infrastructure, and resources in support of their spiritual life. Willing to participate in the observation, even as a “counter bicentennial commemoration,” Native Americans understood the value of transactional participation, with benefits yielded through both economic gain and an opportunity to introduce their culture and politics to the nation.

More than limited funding, however, the bicentennial provided Native Americans space in the national discourse to express deep hurts and wrongs. Some pressed local and state governments to restore remains and artifacts to their nation of origin. Others strived to hold on to their land and resources, as well as to restore both their tribal identity and longstanding treaties, and reclaim their land. The year provided a deadline that gave an impetus to seal the deal for those negotiations that were close, as with the Stillaguamish. Native leaders used the bicentennial to make powerful arguments about self-determination to their local, state, and federal government agencies and representatives.

As the historical understanding of the fight for self-determination broadens and deepens, so too will the awareness of how many people nationally, including women, argued for and supported it. The demand that whites move beyond only seeing Indians as nineteenth-century Plains Indian men as warriors in headdresses to truly see and hear contemporary Native people needs to be expanded to include an emphasis on seeing and hearing Native women. As vital participants in the national Native struggle, women helped to shape the movement and its goals. In addition to their shared Native struggle for respect, autonomy, and resources in the United States, Native women felt compelled to form Women of All Red Nations to call for the same within their movement. With men comprising almost the entirety of the politicians, government officials, media reporters, and historians throughout the two hundred years, it is important to listen to women’s voices and concerns to fully understand and analyze this history and our future. The analysis should be expanded to consider how gender shaped the movement. In the case of the 1976 bicentennial observations, women played a central role in advancing Indian voices for respect and self-determination.Footnote ⁶⁸