Abstract
The Alaska Native Brotherhood (ANB) (est. 1912) is one of the oldest Indigenous rights groups in the United States. Although critics have accused the ANB of endorsing assimilationist policies in its early years, recent scholarship has re-evaluated the strategies of the ANB to advance Tlingit and Haida governance at the same time that they pursued a strategic commitment to the settler state. Contributing to this re-appraisal of the early ANB, this article examines photographic documentation of the use of the American flag in ANB Halls from the period 1914–1945. I argue that the pairing of the American flag with Indigenous imagery in ANB Halls communicated the ANB’s commitment to U.S. citizenship and to Tlingit and Haida sovereignty.
Highlights
The Alaska Native Brotherhood (ANB) is one of the oldest Indigenous rights groups in the United States
Established in 1912 by Tlingit and Tsimshian leaders at a meeting in Juneau, Alaska, and joined by the Alaska Native Sisterhood (ANS) in 1914, the ANB/ANS won an impressive list of battles in their first fifty years alone: U.S citizenship for Alaska Natives in 1923, one year before Congress granted citizenship to all Native Americans; desegregated schools for mixed-race children in 1929, twenty-five years before Brown vs. Board of Education desegregated public schools in the United States; the first anti-discrimination act in the U.S in 1945; and, in a lengthy lawsuit that began in 1929 and ended in 1968, the recognition of aboriginal titles in Southeast Alaska, which paved the way for the larger Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971.2
The legacy of the ANB has long been complicated by what critics decried as its assimilationist roots, which appeared to undermine—rather than support—Native rights and sovereignty
Summary
Indigenous imagery—and is the only example I have found of an ANB Hall to feature a flag with an image of an American president This display was recorded in three photographs in the Yakutat hall, all from about 1933, where an American flag appeared gathered up on the back wall of the stage with a framed image of George Washington between the folds.[49] One of these three images depicts a gathering of ANB and ANS members seated in front of the stage, wearing their koogeinaa (Figure 7). In 1931, for example, the ANB Grand Camp Convention in Yakutat showcased a gathered American flag with the official banner of the ANB, which had been newly created the year before (Figure 8). The other two photographs from the Yakutat ANB Hall that display the portrait of George Washington beside the gathered flag are in the Alaska State Library Historical Collections: PCA-55-31(ANB. The fact that the ANB showcased this image at its November 1945 Convention—a few months after Roy and Elizabeth Peratrovitch watched bill Governor on 16 February
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
