Babaamaajimowinan (Telling of news in different places)

TREATIES: GREAT NATIONS IN THEIR OWN WORDS

As children, most of us were taught that America was a largely un-peopled wilderness before Columbus arrived. To a very great extent, schools still teach that the United States represents the flowering of Greco-Roman economic and political thought, transplanted to the New World via European exploration and settlement. This telling of the American story diminishes the critical role played by Native people and nations in the formation of the principles upon which the United States is built. In truth, American ideals such as union, the distribution of government powers, and personal liberty found substantial precedent in the government and cultures of Native nations, perhaps even more than they did in the monarchies of Europe.

The mythology of America as the expression of European values disserves not only the Native peoples of the continent, but also the individuals who founded this country. While American children learn of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, they are told very little of Native diplomats such as Tamanend, Cornplanter and Canasatego with whom the Founders engaged at the country's birth. The simplified version of our country's history fails to comprehend the complexities of cultural exchange and political and military confrontation between very different peoples, complexities that continue to shape the American experience.

The mission at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian is to correct and make more complete the American narrative. They firmly believe that the history of the United States cannot be understood unless people understand the history of Native America. Few subjects make this point more clearly than the history of the Indian treaties made by the United States. Indian treaties are central to the legal foundation of what has become the greatest nation in the world. The American founding fathers who drafted and advanced the Constitution also established the United States' treaty relationship with Indian nations.

Working together, the NMAI and Native nations have an opportunity to correct and complete the American narrative, erase damaging stereotypes and misunderstandings, and create a generation of Americans who understand that the history of the Native nations is also the history of America.

For the National Museum of the American Indian, the Treaties exhibition marks the first major venture into telling a comprehensive history of tribal relations with the United States. The museum has chosen Treaties because of the breadth of the subject and the many opportunities it presents to address both historical contemporary issues.

For nearly a century after independence, relations between the Indian nations and the United States were conducted primarily by treaty, from the promises made by George Washington to the peace treaties with the warrior nations of the Plains. The Native statesmen who made these treaties believed the promises of the United States were good and that they ensured the futures of Native nations for all time.

While Americans may have some vague understanding that treaties were made with the Indians, how many today know that Indian treaties are part of the supreme law of the land? How many realize that the treaties established a government-to-government relationship between Indian tribes and the United States, or recognize the continuing impact of that precedent? This exhibition attempts to answer these questions.

About the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian

The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian is dedicated to the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is the first national museum dedicated to the preservation, study, and exhibition of the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of Native Americans.

The museum's mission is to celebrate Native nations and to educate the general American public about the importance of the historical and contemporary cultures of the Native peoples of the Western Hemisphere.

The museum on the National Mall has welcomed more than six million visitors since its opening in 2004. The museum takes pride in its collaborative partnerships with Native leaders and culture bearers, who guide the design of exhibitions, the execution of programs, and the care of cultural material in the collection.

Encompassing approximately 800,000 objects that span 10,000 years of history including works of extraordinary aesthetic, religious, and historical significance, as well as articles produced for everyday, utilitarian use.

These works represent more than one thousand indigenous nations. The museum's collection is considered to be the largest and most extensive assemblage of Native American art and artifacts anywhere.

The collections span all major culture areas of the Americas, representing virtually all tribes of the United States, most of those of Canada, and a significant number of cultures from Central and South America as well as the Caribbean.

Chronologically, the collections include artifacts from Paleo-Indian to contemporary arts and crafts. The museum's holdings also include film and audiovisual collections, paper archives, and a photography archive of more than 300,000 images depicting both historic and contemporary Native American life.

Chartered in 1989 by Congress as "a living memorial to Native Americans and their traditions," the museum's mission is to promote deeper knowledge and understanding of the historical and contemporary cultures of Native peoples. It also promotes Native artistic achievement and scholarship, while providing a forum where discussion and experience can inspire understanding.

The NMAI has three facilities, including the George Gustav Heye Center, an exhibition and public program facility in New York City, and the Cultural Resource Center, a state-of-the art home for the collection in Suitland, Maryland. But the museum in Washington, D.C., set amid a natural landscape and hewn of golden Kasota limestone, stands as a primary reminder to the people of the United States that they have a nation-to-nation relationship with America's first peoples.

Founded with the mission to promote the "increase and diffusion of knowledge," the Smithsonian Institution has a 161-year record of remarkable educational, cultural, and scientific achievements. When combined, its nineteen units represent the largest museum in the world. Fittingly, it is a world renowned center of research, education, and exhibition.

Eileen Maxwell and Michael Meuers also contributed to this article.

 

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