Pan-Indianism
"[3] Some pan-Indian organizations seek to pool the resources of Native groups in order to protect the interests of indigenous peoples across the world.
[5] As a confederation founded on the premise of indigenous unity against American expansionism, it united many of the tribes of the Great Lakes region.
In 1912, members of the Creek, Choctaw, Cherokee, and Chickasaw tribes, united by their opposition to Allotment, formed the Four Mothers Society for collective political action.
In 1923, as a symbolic gesture, Deskaheh, a Cayuga chief, traveled to the League of Nations in Geneva in hopes of obtaining recognition of his tribe's sovereignty, but his request was denied.
In other cases, American Indian tribes struggled to maintain their sovereignty over tribal land that had been granted to them by treaties with the federal government.
The conference recognized the goal of native groups to maintain their position as entities independent of national governments.
[4] The All Indian Pueblo Council, founded in 1922, successfully opposed the proposed Bursum Bill, which legislated rights for squatters on Native grounds along the Rio Grande.
[14] The American Indian Movement was created in 1968 in Minneapolis by Dennis Banks, George Mitchell, and Clyde Bellecourt (all Ojibwe), and Russell Means (Lakota).
The aims of the organization are to protect the rights, treaty obligations, ceremonies, and claims of citizens of the First Nations in Canada.
Protecting Native American sovereignty, natural resources, and constitutional, legal, and human rights is also included in their mission.
[17] The Black Hills Treaty Council was established in South Dakota in 1911 on the Cheyenne River Sioux reservation to prepare a suit in the U.S. Court of Claims.
[14] The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC) was created in 1977 by four tribes--the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Yakama--to "renew their authority in fisheries management.
[19] Each CAP affiliate has its own constitution and is separately funded under the federal Aboriginal Representative Organization Program (AROP).
[19] The Indian Defense League of America was founded in 1926 by Chief Clinton Rickard of the Tuscarora "to promote unrestricted travel across the international border between the United States and Canada.
The Inter-Tribal Environmental Council (ITEC) was set up in 1992 to protect the health of Native Americans, their natural resources and their environment.
The LPDC is a national and international support group working to free Leonard Peltier (Anishinabe and Dakota/Lakota), a man who is serving two life sentences at the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas.
Leonard's status is more well-known overseas, and is considered by some to be a "political prisoner" who was targeted by the FBI during the U.S. government's efforts to curb the activities of AIM and other organizations during the 1970s.
"[27] "NARF is governed by a volunteer board of directors composed of thirteen Native Americans from different tribes throughout the country with a variety of expertise in Indian matters.
NIEA is governed by a Board of Directors made up of twelve representatives, and it has committees that "work to ensure native educators and students are represented in various educational institutions and forums throughout Indian Country and Washington, D.C."[30] The National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) was founded by Clyde Warrior (Ponca) and Melvin Thom (Paiute).
To achieve their goals, the NIYC participated in activist actions such as holding "fish-ins" along the rivers in Washington to protest the treaty-given fishing rights being taken away from them due to a nullified Supreme Court decision.
A Muskogee creek named Chitto Harjo led a rebellion (also known as the Crazy Snake Uprising) against Allotment in Indian Territory.
Although this rebellion ended in the arrest of Harjo and his anti-allotment followers (including some Cherokee), the Four Mothers Society for Collective Political Action was formed in 1912.
Once tribe members approved the plan, "the OEO contracted with the tribal government to operate the project" and provided the necessary budgeted funds.
The occupation started on 20 November 1969 with 79 Indians disembarking on Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay and ended 19 months and 9 days later on 11 June 1971.
Throughout the 1960s, the battle to regain fishing rights that had been previously guaranteed in treaties during the mid-nineteenth century but later restricted after WWII for conservation purposes, continued in the northwestern United States.
These were efforts to reclaim the Black Hills and to insist that the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 be honored and recognized by the United States of America.
[4] A more violent demonstration began in February 1973, when members of the American Indian Movement and the Oglala Sioux occupied the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 located in the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
