World of Difference Diversity Club
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Native American Heritage Month
Information courtesy of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior and US Library of Congress
What started at the turn of the century as an effort to gain a day of recognition for the significant contributions the first Americans made to the establishment and growth of the U.S., has resulted in a whole month being designated for that purpose.
One of the very proponents of an American Indian Day was Dr. Arthur C. Parker, a Seneca Indian, who was the director of the Museum of Arts and Science in Rochester, N.Y. He persuaded the Boy Scouts of America to set aside a day for the "First Americans" and for three years they adopted such a day. In 1915, the annual Congress of the American Indian Association meeting in Lawrence, Kans., formally approved a plan concerning American Indian Day. It directed its president, Rev. Sherman Coolidge, an Arapahoe, to call upon the country to observe such a day. Coolidge issued a proclamation on Sept. 28, 1915, which declared the second Saturday of each May as an American Indian Day and contained the first formal appeal for recognition of Indians as citizens.
The year before this proclamation was issued, Red Fox James, a Blackfoot Indian, rode horseback from state to state seeking approval for a day to honor Indians. On December 14, 1915, he presented the endorsements of 24 state governments at the White House. There is no record, however, of such a national day being proclaimed.
The first American Indian Day in a state was declared on the second Saturday in May 1916 by the governor of New York. Several states celebrate the fourth Friday in September. In Illinois, for example, legislators enacted such a day in 1919. Presently, several states have designated Columbus Day as Native American Day, but it continues to be a day we observe without any recognition as a national legal holiday.
In 1990 President George H. W. Bush approved a joint resolution designating November 1990 "National American Indian Heritage Month." Similar proclamations, under variants on the name (including "Native American Heritage Month" and "National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month") have been issued each year since 1994.Library of Congress
National Endowment for the Humanities
- Common Visions, Common Voices
- Early Multi-National Influences in the United States
- How Teachers Can Make the Most Out of When Worlds Collide
- Humanities magazine -- “The United States of Mestizo”
- National Endowment for the Humanities
- Native American Cultures Across the U.S.
- Not ‘Indians,’ Many Tribes: Native American Diversity
- The Road to Santa Fe: A Virtual Excursion
- Wired Humanities Project, University of Oregon (NEH supported site) (external link)
National Archives
- DocsTeach: Native Americans
- Teaching With Documents: Maps of Indian Territory, the Dawes Act, and Will Rogers' Enrollment Case File
- Teaching With Documents: Memorandum Regarding the Enlistment of Navajo Indians
- Teaching With Documents: Sioux Treaty of 1868
National Gallery of Art
- George Catlin, The White Cloud, Head Chief of the Iowas
- Native and Meso American Education Resources
- NGAkids: George Catlin's Paintings of Native Americans
National Park Service
Smithsonian Institution