American Indian History

Tsökahovi "Louis" Tewanima became an Olympian while being forced to attend the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

The Olympic Star Who Just Wanted to Go Home

Tsökahovi Tewanima held an American record in running for decades, but his training at the infamous Carlisle school kept him from his ancestral Hopi lands

A silver shilling recently found at the former site of St. Mary's Fort, one of the first colonial settlements in British North America

Rare 17th-Century Coin Featuring Charles I's Likeness Found in Maryland

Archaeologists found a telltale silver shilling at the likely site of St. Mary's Fort, a 1634 structure built by early English colonists

Game developers consulted with historians to create accurate depictions of 19th-century Native American life. The new version features playable Native characters.

New 'Oregon Trail' Game Revisits Westward Expansion From Native Perspective

Developers hired three Indigenous historians to help revamp the iconic educational computer game

A panel of the "Birthing Rock" petroglyphs in Moab, Utah, prior to its defacement with racist and obscene etchings

Racist Phrase Found Etched on Native American Petroglyphs in Utah

Unidentified criminals wrote "white power" and obscenities over thousand-year-old Indigenous markings on "Birthing Rock" in Moab

If you hike to the Minam River Lodge, thinking about the amazing food, including smokehouse bacon and foraged morels, may keep you going.

What a Vintage Guidebook Taught Me About Oregon's Past and Present

Our writer takes a quirky trip through Oregon, from a wilderness lodge to a Gilded Age saloon to a town hidden underground

The William F. Winter Archives and History Building in Jackson, Mississippi

Mississippi Returns Hundreds of Native Americans' Remains to Chickasaw Nation

Decades after their bones were placed in storage, the state has repatriated the remains of 403 Indigenous ancestors

Archaeologists confirmed the find in late 2019 but only announced the news now due to delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. This drawing shows what the St. Mary's Fort may have looked like.

Researchers Discover Ruins of Maryland's Earliest Colonial Site, a 386-Year-Old Fort

A team used ground-penetrating radar to identify the outlines of a defensive outpost at the St. Mary's settlement

Deb Haaland speaks at the Groundbreaking Ceremony for the National Native American Veterans Memorial, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2019.

Indian Country Weighs In on Deb Haaland's Confirmation as Secretary of the Interior

Seen as "one giant leap for Native women, "Haaland (Laguna and Jemez Pueblos) is hailed for her experience, strength and wisdom

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The Unrealized Promise of Oklahoma

How the push for statehood led a beacon of racial progress to oppression and violence

Five months after a missing panel from Jacob Lawrence's Struggle series resurfaced, a second long-lost painting by the artist—pictured here in 1957—has been found.

Another Long-Lost Jacob Lawrence Painting Resurfaces in Manhattan

Inspired by the recent discovery of a related panel, a nurse realized that the missing artwork had hung in her house for decades

Rioters enter the U.S. Capitol's rotunda as chemical irritants fill the corridor on January 6, 2021.

Curators Seek $25,000 to Repair Artworks Damaged in U.S. Capitol Attack

Rioters vandalized six sculptures and two paintings, in addition to smashing windows, breaking furniture and spraying graffiti

Crafted in Venice, these blue beads traveled all the way to northern Alaska in the mid-15th century.

Venetian Glass Beads May Be Oldest European Artifacts Found in North America

Traders likely transported the small spheres from Italy to northern Alaska in the mid-15th century

Amelia Joe-Chandler, Hogan Teapot, 2013. Hammered copper and cast silver. 7.5 x 11 x 9cm. National Museum of the American Indian, 26/9781.

Learn the Powerful Story Behind This Handcrafted Diné (Navajo) Teapot

From the storage vaults of the National Museum of the American Indian, a small, copper sculpture points to a different sense of place

Taken in 1922, the ship Jose Gaspar passes the Lafayette Street Bridge in Tampa during the Gasparilla Festival

The True History and Swashbuckling Myth Behind the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Namesake

Pirates did roam the Gulf Coast, but more myths than facts have inspired the regional folklore

Portrait of Charles Curtis

Who Was Charles Curtis, the First Vice President of Color?

A member of the Kaw Nation, Curtis served under Herbert Hoover, but he left a troubling legacy on Native American issues

The otherworldly terrain dazzled early explorers. In 1827, trapper Daniel Potts noted that geysers erupted with a roar like “that of thunder.”

The Lost History of Yellowstone

Debunking the myth that the great national park was a wilderness untouched by humans

Hank Adams carries a letter from the White House to Chief Frank Fools Crow (Oglala Lakota) during the siege of Wounded Knee. Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, 1973.

In Memory of Hank Adams, 'The Most Important Indian'

The museum mourns the passing December 21 of Hank Adams (Assiniboine–Sioux, 1943–2020)

“Hogan in the Snow,” ca. 1985. Painted by Robert Draper (Diné [Navajo], 1938–2000). Chinle, Navajo Nation, Arizona. 26/6481

Christmas Across Indian Country, During the Pandemic and Before

This extraordinary year, we asked how the Covid-19 pandemic is affecting people’s families and communities

This popular painting of "The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth" by Jennie A. Brownscombe is an example of how the myths of the holiday became engrained in Americana.

Why the Myths of Plymouth Dominate the American Imagination

A new book shows us a different picture of the English settlers who arrived at the lands of the Wampanoag

Erle Stanley Gardner is best remembered as a novelist. But he was also a lawyer deeply concerned about victims of injustice. “It is too easy to convict innocent persons,” he wrote in a 1959 letter to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

The Case of the Autographed Corpse

The author of the Perry Mason novels rose to the defense of an Apache shaman who was falsely convicted of killing his wife

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