Native Leaders Research Articles

“A King in Every Countrey”: English and French Encounters with Indigenous Leaders in Sixteenth-Century America

Beginning with Columbus’ 1493 report of kings among the “Indians,” European expeditionaries regularly perceived Indigenous leaders as kings during the first century of colonialism in the Americas. English and French narratives of the sixteenth century, following the models of early Spanish and Portuguese accounts, brought to light the existence of Aboriginal monarchs throughout the Americas, from the Arctic to Brazil and from New England to California. Popular compilations of travel accounts only cemented the trope in the European imagination. The ubiquity of such kings in early English and French colonial writing reveals the conceptual frameworks through which colonizers perceived the New World and the logic of the strategies they devised to conquer it. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, English and French views diverged, with the latter demonstrating a general reluctance to use the term “king” for Native American leaders. By contrast, English sources would continue to employ the vocabulary of kingship for this purpose into the nineteenth century.

The Many Tongues of the King: Indigenous Language Interpreters and the Making of the Spanish Empire

General language interpreters of Lima's High Court of Appeal (Audiencia) played a significant part in gaining access to the Spanish system of justice for the indigenous populations of Peru. These interpreters worked as translators in lawsuits, notarial transactions, and other legal and administrative procedures conducted or supervised by the viceroy, the justices of the Audiencia, the public defender of the Indians, and other officials stationed at the viceregal court. But they also served as legal agents and solicitors for native leaders and communities litigating in Lima or aspiring to take their cases to the Supreme Council of the Indies in Spain. Through formal and informal dealings, these interpreters brokered between the king and his native subjects, thus connecting indigenous groups with the Habsburg royal court. The careers of these official translators illustrate the crucial roles played by indigenous subjects in the formation of what can be termed the ‘Spanish legal Atlantic,’ an organic network of litigants, judges, lawyers, attorneys, and documents bridging courtrooms on both shores of the ocean.

Great Constructions in Albania during the Period ‘70-‘80

The Albanian architecture during the XXth century reflects worthily the aspirations of the country’s foreign or native leaders who were in power until the fall of the Berlin Wall. Starting from Zogu, Mussolini, and finishing with Enver Hoxha, they all demanded for the architecture to be personalized according to the state’s ideology, giving a demarking spirit to the main square of the capital, like they wanted to do to all the country. The sober rationalism of the ‘40s created by Bozio, was attempted without success to be substituted by the “Red Doric” of the ‘50s, and then coming back to the rational, but functional language of the ‘60s, a very contemporary voluminous one. Its gazing towards the West gave a little freedom to the ideological solidification that would legitimate the decades that would follow. The ‘70s-‘80s period would be the confirmation of the native architectonic language, with buildings that aggravated the state’s finances as the image of the dictator was aggravating everything else until his last years of life. As a typical mirroring of a disintegrating or delirious regime, it followed its destiny until the last hours, as a typical confirmation of the will imposed from the power-holders, like happens in any dictatorship. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2014.v3n1p379

Conflict in Colonial Sonora: Indians, Priests, and Settlers

Conflict in Colonial Sonora: Indians, Priests, and Settlers

The Last Acolhua: Alva Ixtlilxochitl and Elite Native Historiography in Early New Spain

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size AcknowledgementsI am very grateful to Susan Schroeder, Amber Brian, and Brad Benton for bringing our group of Ixtlilxochitl scholars together, and to David Tavarez for helping to launch our project. I have also benefited greatly from the expertise and patient guidance of Camilla Townsend, Kris Lane, and the editors of the Colonial Latin American Review. Finally, I thank Dana Velasco-Murillo and Kevin Terraciano for their generosity, support, and advice.Additional informationNotes on contributorsPeter B. VillellaPeter B. Villella is Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. His research centers on the legal, political and intellectual histories of native leaders in colonial Mexico, as well as their contributions to the development of Mexican national historiography.

The Dynamics of the Careers of Migrant CEOs

This paper explores the careers of migrant CEOs using a qualitative approach. In order to understand this topic, we focus on France as it is a leading economic power with a long colonial and migration history. Interviews with migrant CEOs, native French CEOs, organizational leaders, and institutional actors were conducted and analyzed. Career experiences of native CEOs were utilized in order to have a benchmark while institutional actors provided corroborating and contextual information. The findings indicated extensive and strong boundaryless and protean elements in the careers of migrant CEOs. These elements apparently enabled them to surpass barriers in their way toward the executive suite. Such barriers included: linguistic competence, lack of French elite educational qualifications, subtle cultural norms of behavior and thought, deficiencies in social capital, and overt discrimination. The following career strategies were identified: adaptation/adjustment, overcompensation, differentiation, and the rebound. The former two aimed at assimilation into the system whilst the latter two aimed at taking advantage of differences. Though agency apparently played a major role in the achievements of migrant CEOs, contextual factors could also be identified in the form of institutional openness to ethnic diversity. The limitations of the research are discussed along with its implications for theory and practice.

로잔세계복음화운동에 나타난 주요 선교신학적 주제들의 고찰 ― 로잔언약, 마닐라선언, 캐이프타운 헌신을 중심으로

World evangelization needs to be conducted by both older churches (sending churches) and younger churches (receiving churches) because the distinction between the former and the latter has disappeared. God uses great resources from the younger churches for world evangelization.The church, defined as all Christian churches without regard to denominational distinction, needs to understand the urgency of the evangelistic task. More than two-thirds of mankind have yet to be evangelized and there is a great receptivity to the gospel in many parts of the world. The church should be ashamed that so many souls have been neglected and unreached for Christ.The church needs to understand the significance of evangelism as it relates to different world cultures. Missionaries need to be sensitive to different cultures through which the gospel can be effectively communicated to different people groups. The gospel message needs to be presented in such a way that it can be meaningful to the people.The church needs to develop indigenous leadership to enable native leaders in every country to evangelize their people, plant the indigenous churches according to their needs, and extend God's kingdom. Christian leaders are not born but made through appropriate training and education. The church needs to follow Jesus Christ in terms of making disciples of all nations.The church needs to understand the spiritual conflict involved when the church is active in world evangelization. Churches are engaged in constant spiritual warfare with the principalities and powers of evil seeking to overthrow the Lord's church and frustrate its mission of world evangelization. The church needs to equip itself with the word of God and prayer.The church needs to understand the importance of religious freedom and the seriousness of religious persecution throughout the world. The church needs to pray for world leaders and call upon them to guarantee freedom of thought, conscience, and freedom to practice and propagate religion according to God's will. The church needs to understand the power of the Holy Spirit and to believe the Holy Spirit will help the church to effectively carry out world evangelization. World evangelization calls for conviction of sin, faith in Christ, a new birth, and Christian growth. The church needs to be filled with the Holy Spirit to become the true missionary church.The church needs to believe in the imminent return of the Lord Jesus Christ to consummate His salvation and His judgement. The church needs to remember that God will perfect His kingdom which anticipates the new heaven and new earth where righteousness will dwell and God will rule forever.The Lausanne Movement for World Evangelization is based on the Great Commission and the Great Commandment. The Lausanne theology of missions is based upon the Lausanne Covenant, the Manila Manifesto, and the Capetown Commitment which were officially adopted as the promise, the declaration, and the devotion of the church to carry out the world evangelization until the return of Jesus Christ.

Look Local: The Value of Cancer Surveillance and Reporting by American Indian Clinics

IntroductionCancer incidence and mortality rates for American Indians in the Northern Plains region of the United States are among the highest in the nation. Reliable cancer surveillance data are essential to help reduce this burden; however, racial data in state cancer registries are often misclassified, and cases are often underreported.MethodsWe used a community-based participatory research approach to conduct a retrospective ascertainment of cancer cases in clinic medical records over a 9-year period (1995–2003) and compared the results with the state cancer registry to evaluate missing or racially misclassified cases. Six tribal and/or urban Indian clinics participated in the study. The project team consisted of participating clinics, a state cancer registry, a comprehensive cancer center, an American Indian/Alaska Native Leadership Initiative on Cancer, and a set of diverse organizational partners. Clinic personnel were trained by project staff to accurately identify cancer cases in clinic records. These records were then matched with the state cancer registry to assess misclassification and underreporting.ResultsForty American Indian cases were identified that were either missing or misclassified in the state registry. Adding these cases to the registry increased the number of American Indian cases by 21.3% during the study period (P = .05).ConclusionsOur results indicate that direct reporting of cancer cases by tribal and urban Indian health clinics to a state cancer registry improved the quality of the data available for cancer surveillance. Higher-quality data can advance the efforts of cancer prevention and control stakeholders to address disparities in Native communities.

Down deep in the holler: chasing seeds and stories in southern Appalachia

This essay, which is the third in the series “Recollections, Reflections, and Revelations: Ethnobiologists and their First Time in the Field”, is a personal reflection by the researcher on his experience and involvement in kinship and friendship networks while conducting agrobiodiversity research in southern Appalachia, USA. Vignettes are given from moving moments spent with Native spiritual leaders, backcountry mountain people, and local co-collaborators in the research process. The author demonstrates how lasting field friendships have helped lead to groundbreaking ethnoecological research.

THE CHURCH AS A PROTECTOR: ANTI-CHRISTIAN CASES AND RESOURCE CONFLICTS IN POST-BOXER CHAOZHOU

This article examines the role of Western missionaries and Chinese Christians as new powerbrokers in the competitive arena of rural politics in South China during the post-Boxer decade (1900–10). Focusing on four well-documented lawsuits involving Christians in the Chaozhou-speaking region of Guangdong province, this study shows that the power relationship between Christians and non-Christians had undergone a qualitative change since 1901. The crushing of the Boxers increased the prestige of Western missions and Chinese churches on the land, and it was this prestige that made it possible for native Church leaders to use the judicial process to effect changes in their favor and to enforce settlement agreements at the county courts. Litigation became an important tool of unifying and empowering rural Christian communities. These case studies not only provide insight into the local management of treaty rights and foreign affairs but also highlight the instrumental role of the churches in China during a time of rapid and profound change.

Via Media in the Land of Morning Calm: The Anglican Church in Korea

Anglicanism has traditionally identified itself as the via media , the “middle way” between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. This study examines the history of the Anglican Church in Korea. What has been its relationship to the Catholic and Protestant churches? Has the via media meant serving as a bridge between the two? Or has it meant maintaining an independent position? The history of Korean Anglicanism reveals a changing and evolving identity. Initially, the Anglican Church was a small, relatively isolated community that sought ties with neither Catholics nor Protestants. But as the Church started to grow and develop, especially after the Korean War, Anglicans assumed an active role in the ecumenical movement, reaching out to both Catholics and Protestants. The shift took place as two significant transformations took place in the Church. First, a new generation of missionaries arrived to rebuild the Church after the war—a group more socially and politically engaged than their predecessors. Second, the postwar years also witnessed the emergence of native Korean leaders in the Church. The missionaries and Korean leaders alike envisioned a vital ecumenical and national role for the Anglican Church.

Timucua in deer clothing: friendship, resistance, and Protestant identity in sixteenth-century Florida

Using the lens of an engraving of indigenous deer hunters in sixteenth-century Florida, this essay explores the formation of a resistant Protestant identity through the French Huguenot attempt to colonize Florida between 1562 and 1565. The French approached the Timucuan people indigenous to that region of Florida through a diplomatic strategy of friendship, hoping to win their allegiance against the Spanish and in favor of the reformed religion. Though their intention was to offer a more appealing alternative to Spanish coercion, the French also practiced dissimulation in these friendships as they pursued alliances with the richest and most powerful native leaders in the region. According to contemporary physiological theory and early reformist critiques of religious hypocrites, these real and feigned friendships put the French in danger of assimilation by the Timucua and at risk of drawing God's providential rage against them, especially when they ran out of food and became dependent on indigenous hospitality. In the minds of the more devout Calvinists at Fort Caroline, friendship with and dependence on the Timucua and relaxed leadership doomed the colony to failure. Artist Jacques Le Moyne interpreted the massacre by the Spanish as a providential punishment from God, and his account offered a cautionary tale that was meant to discipline future Protestant colonists and assure the elect of their immunity to the wilderness and of God's redemption among non-believers.

Developing Native Student Leadership Skills: The Success of the Oklahoma Native American Students in Higher Education (ONASHE) Conference

This article examines the development of leadership skills among Native American college students through the Oklahoma Native American Students in Higher Education (ONASHE) annual conference. It provides opportunities for students to develop and strengthen their leadership skills through interaction with tribal leaders, contemporary and leadership focused workshops, and fellowship with other Native students. A research study was designed to assess the impact of ONASHE on the development of leadership skills among student attendees of the conference. Three major themes emerged regarding Native student leadership development, including developing a positive self-image, community building, and Native role models.

Brothers born of one mother: British-Native American relations in the Colonial Southeast

The arrival of English settlers in the American Southeast in 1670 brought the British and the Native Americans into contact both with foreign peoples and with unfamiliar gender systems. In a region in which the balance of power between multiple players remained uncertain for many decades, British and Native leaders turned to concepts of gender and family to create new diplomatic norms to govern interactions as they sought to construct and maintain working relationships. In Brothers Born of One Mother , Michelle LeMaster addresses the question of how differing cultural attitudes toward gender influenced Anglo-Indian relations in the colonial Southeast. As one of the most fundamental aspects of culture, gender had significant implications for military and diplomatic relations. Understood differently by each side, notions of kinship and proper masculine and feminine behaviour wielded during negotiations had the power to either strengthen or disrupt alliances. The collision of different cultural expectations of masculine behaviour and men's relationships to and responsibilities for women and children became significant areas of discussion and contention. Native American and British leaders frequently discussed issues of manhood (especially in the context of warfare), the treatment of women and children, and intermarriage. Women themselves could either enhance or upset relations through their active participation in diplomacy, war, and trade. Leaders invoked gendered metaphors and fictive kinship relations in their discussions, and by evaluating their rhetoric, Brothers Born of One Mother investigates the intercultural conversations about gender that shaped Anglo-Indian diplomacy. LeMaster's study contributes importantly to historians' understanding of the role of cultural differences in inter group contact and investigates how gender became part of the ideology of European conquest in North America, providing a unique window into the process of colonisation in America.

Contact, Mediation, and Myth in Early Latin American Literatures

Contact, Mediation, and Myth in Early Latin American Literatures Joanne van der Woude (bio) Colonial Latin American Literature: A Very Short Introduction. Rolena Adorno. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. 148 pp. Indigenous Writings from the Convent: Negotiating Ethnic Autonomy in Colonial Mexico. Mónica Díaz. Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 2010. 229 pp. On the Wings of Time: Rome, the Incas, Spain, and Peru. Sabine MacCormack. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. 320 pp. The Art of Being In-Between: Native Intermediaries, Indian Identity, and Local Rule in Colonial Oaxaca. Yanna Yannakakis. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008. 290 pp. Michel de Certeau wrote: "By an art of being in-between, he draws unexpected results from his situation"—an intriguing expression that opens Yanna Yannakakis's book. In her work, the citation applies to Native intermediaries, but it seems just as pertinent to scholars and teachers who (seek to) work comparatively. They, too, must distance themselves from their monolingual training and expertise in order to tackle new fields in the hope of "unexpected," or even enlightening, "results." This is true not only for those who work across languages but also for anyone who cultivates [End Page 201] a transatlantic, transcultural, or transhistorical perspective on early America—and so, suddenly, nearly everyone can be called a comparativist, in some sense of the word. I make this point in order to argue for the importance of Latin American scholarship to North American studies. The flourishing field of Latin American literature and history should be taken into account not just out of a sense of duty but because it offers real methodological and theoretical advantages. For those who still wonder why they should care, this review begins by pointing out specific genres and themes that are shared across the colonial Americas, and that would benefit from comparative consideration in criticism as well as in the classroom. Teaching, to be honest, is still complicated: there are few, good, affordable editions and translations of Latin American sources that can be assigned to undergraduate classes and professors harbor an understandable reluctance to assign many texts in translation or are simply hesitant to change time-tested syllabi. Rather than add another voice to the extensive debate about whether early American culture is best taught transatlantically, hemispherically, or both—let alone try to convince or castigate anyone about the need to assign more diverse texts—this overview begins by delineating productive pairings of Spanish writings with more canonical (and therefore usually English) texts. The idea behind this arrangement, which is followed by brief summaries and reviews of the four listed books, is to spark interest instead of inducing guilt, stressing the relevance of Latin American texts to current perspectives on North American literature and history. Fictional dialogues are a popular genre across the American colonies. John Eliot's Indian Dialogues (1671) comes most immediately to mind, as well as its scholarly readings by Kristina Bross, David Murray, and Thomas Scanlan. Although this tract was purportedly written to aid future missionaries, Eliot uses the opportunity to stage wishful exchanges that speedily convert Native leaders while also assuaging the fears of "a colonial audience concerned about the outbreaks of violence with coastal Algonquians" (Bross 119). (For the sake of realism, this piece is perhaps best read alongside another less fictional Eliot tract, though its obvious fakery also, arguably, constitutes its charm.) Christoph Saur's A Dialogue between a Newcomer and a Settler in Pennsylvania (1751), translated from the German by Patrick Erben for Carla Mulford's Oxford anthology (735-44), is a promotional piece for the Middle Colonies, which contains a wealth of information [End Page 202] on colonial Pennsylvania as well as on eighteenth-century Europe. It includes a spirited defense of Pietism, alongside such endearingly honest questions as: "If it would happen to me as it has happened to many people in this country [Germany], and I could not pay everything in cash and had to go into debt, would that be a big issue?" (Mulford 739). Helpful additions to this pair might be Manuel da Nóbrega's Dialogue for the Conversion of the Indians (Castillo and Schweitzer 1556-57) and the dialogue written by Fray Bernardino de...

“Search for and Destroy”: US Army Relations with Alaska's Tlingit Indians and the Kake War of 1869

The Kake War of 1869 was a US Army altercation with the Tlingit Indians of southeast Alaska. In this conflict, the Army's gunship attacked three Kéex' Kwáan Tlingit civilian villages in midwinter, although no active Tlingit resistance was mounted. The Army's intention was to allow starvation and nature's elements to kill the Tlingit survivors of the attack. The conflict transpired fifteen months after Russia sold Alaska to the United States and as the US Army was dispatched to Alaska to oversee its resources, lands, and indigenous population—an undertaking resisted by the Tlingit Indians. In part, the conflict transpired because the two nations, the United States and the Tlingit people, refused to acknowledge each other's claims to Alaskan land and legal systems. A study of the Kake War documents the role of indigenous legal systems in dealing with governing officials, issues of transnational contacts between indigenous people and colonial governments, the dynamic decisions that native leaders made in difficult situations, and the importance of indigenous oral histories in documenting the past.

A Prescription for Freedom: Carlos Montezuma, <em>Wassaja</em>, and the Society of American Indians

A Prescription for FreedomCarlos Montezuma, Wassaja, and the Society of American Indians Julianne Newmark (bio) The presence of Yavapai doctor Carlos Montezuma at the Society of American Indians’ initial April 1911 organizational meeting indicates his early optimism about the sai’s capacity to serve as a positive force toward achieving assimilation and emancipation, what he called “freedom,” for Native people. At the April meeting several Native luminaries came together in Columbus, Ohio, including Montezuma, Charles Eastman, Laura M. Cornelius, and Henry Standing Bear. As The Proceedings of the First Annual Conference explains, the Society was founded with an agreed-upon aim to serve as a voice for Native people across tribes, since at present the Indian “is allowed no voice in his destiny, for it is the paternal hand of ‘the Great White Father’ that assumes the right to guide him” (sai, Report 2). As an organization whose membership would be composed of Native leaders, with non-Natives allowed to participate only as “associates,” the Society began its existence with what seemed a stridently freedom-oriented, pro-Indian agenda and declared that it would use this “race organization . . . as the means by which many . . . vexing problems” would be solved (3).1 While Montezuma’s attitude concerning the productivity and focus of the Society would shift significantly over the subsequent decade, in early 1911 he endorsed the sai’s founding precepts. By October, however, when the first conference occurred, Montezuma’s ambivalence had grown to such a degree that he did not return to Columbus to attend the organization’s first large event. In examining the founding tenets of the Society, as codified in April 1911, we can see precisely upon which issues Montezuma’s growing aggravation with the Society would hinge in the coming years, particularly between 1916 and 1919 (in 1919, the Society shifted in a presumably Montezuma-endorsed direction under President Charles Eastman, [End Page 139] elected in September 1918). Aspects of the “purposes and policies” foretell the points of alignment and disunity between Montezuma and the Society that would develop between 1911 and 1922. His correspondence with Society leadership (particularly Arthur C. Parker) reveals his contributing efforts, whereas his own newsletter, Wassaja (published from 1916, after a half-decade of involvement with the sai, to 1922), captures his points of sharp disagreement with the sai. One founding policy of note declares that the Society itself would “exercise the right to oppose any movement which appears detrimental to the race” and would encourage “broad and free discussion of all subjects bearing on the welfare of the race” at all “conferences and meeting[s]” (Report 7). In Montezuma’s assessment, the sai came to figure as an organization that could only “meet and discuss.”2 As Wassaja’s issues of 1916–1919 show, Montezuma saw the sai’s inaction impeding, rather than facilitating, his multifaceted goal of Indian emancipation. I begin this study by examining Montezuma’s correspondence with and ideological differences from Arthur C. Parker, the sai’s secretary-treasurer and editor of the Society’s journal (later “magazine”). Montezuma’s profession as a medical doctor informed his disagreements with Parker: he preferred surgically precise action over “discussion.” Montezuma’s medically informed approach to problem solving, which was based on treatment and cure, marked his relationship with Parker and his broader experience of the sai as an organization. Other life experiences also created the strong differences in vision between Montezuma and Parker. Montezuma was both an urban Indian (a long-time resident of Chicago) and a person with personal and experiential ties to reservations across the country. As a physician, he served at Ft. Stevenson (South Dakota), at the Western Shoshone agency (Nevada), and at the Colville agency (Washington) between 1889 and 1893. His approach to Native rights issues was also deeply and complexly influenced by his lasting connections to his home Apache communities in San Carlos and Ft. McDowell, Arizona. Despite his disagreements, though, Montezuma did believe in the sai as a collective; he felt that all strong “races” needed organizations that could generate power and political agency. Yet, by 1916, when he saw that freedoms for Native people had not expanded despite the sai’s...

Uniting the tribes: the rise and fall of pan-Indian community on the Crow reservation

Native American reservations on the Northern Plains were designed like islands, intended to prevent contact or communication between various Native peoples. For this reason, they seem unlikely sources for a sense of pan-Indian community in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. But as Frank Rzeczkowski shows, the flexible nature of tribalism as it already existed on the Plains subverted these goals and enabled the emergence of a collective identity even amidst the restrictiveness of reservation life. Rather than dividing people, tribalism on the Northern Plains actually served to bring Indians of diverse origins together. Tracing the development of pan-Indian identity among once-warring peoples, Rzeczkowski seeks to shift scholars' attention from cities and boarding schools to the reservations themselves. Mining letters, oral histories, and official documents--including the testimony of native leaders like Plenty Coups and Young Man Afraid of His Horses--he examines Indian communities on the Northern Plains from 1800 to 1925. Focusing on the Crow, he unravels the intricate connections that linked them to neighbouring peoples and examines how they reshaped their understandings of themselves and each other in response to the steady encroachment of American colonialism. Rzeczkowski examines Crow interactions with the Blackfeet and Lakota prior to the 1880s, then reveals the continued vitality of intertribal contact and the covert--and sometimes overt--political dimensions of visiting between Crows and others during the reservation era. He finds the community that existed on the Crow Reservation at the beginning of the twentieth century to be more deeply diverse and heterogeneous than those often described in tribal histories: a multi-ethnic community including not just Crows of mixed descent who preserved their ties with other tribes, but also other Indians who found at Crow a comfortable environment or a place of refuge. This inclusiveness prevailed until tribal leaders and OIA officials tightened the rules on who could live at--or be considered--Crow. Reflecting the latest trends in scholarship on Native Americans, Rzeczkowski brings nuance to the concept of tribalism as long understood by scholars, showing that this fluidity among the tribes continued into the early years of the reservation system. Uniting the Tribes is a ground breaking work that will change the way we understand tribal development, early reservation life, and pan-Indian identity.

The other movement: Indian rights and civil rights in the deep South

The Other Movement: Indian Rights and Civil Rights in the Deep examines the most visible outcome of the Southern Indian Rights Movement: state Indian affairs commissions. In recalling political activism in the post-World War II South, rarely does one consider the political activities of American Indians as they responded to desegregation, the passing of the Civil Rights Acts, and the restructuring of the American political party system. Native leaders and activists across the South created a social and political movement all their own, which drew public attention to the problems of discrimination, poverty, unemployment, low educational attainment, and poor living conditions in tribal communities. While tribal-state relationships have historically been characterized as tense, most southern tribes particularly non-federally recognized ones found that Indian affairs commissions offered them a unique position in which to negotiate power. Although individual tribal leaders experienced isolated victories and generated some support through the 1950s and 1960s, the creation of the intertribal state commissions in the 1970s and 1980s elevated the movement to a more prominent political level. Through the formalization of tribal-state relationships, Indian communities forged strong networks with local, state, and national agencies while advocating for cultural preservation and revitalization, economic development, and the implementation of community services. This book looks specifically at Alabama and Louisiana, places of intensive political activity during the civil rights era and increasing Indian visibility and tribal reorganization in the decades that followed. Between 1960 and 1990, U.S. census records show that Alabama s Indian population swelled by a factor of twelve and Louisiana s by a factor of five. Thus, in addition to serving as excellent examples of the national trend of a rising Indian population, the two states make interesting case studies because their Indian commissions brought formerly disconnected groups, each with different goals and needs, together for the first time, creating an assortment of alliances and divisions.

Views of Biobanking Research Among Alaska Native People: The Role of Community Context

Views of Biobanking Research Among Alaska Native People:The Role of Community Context Vanessa Hiratsuka, MPH, Jennifer Brown, BA, and Denise Dillard, PhD What Is the Purpose of This Study? • The purpose of this study was to explore the views of biobanking research among Alaska Native community members and leaders across the state of Alaska using a community-based participatory research approach with tribal and federal partners. • The team undertook a partnership approach to outreach to individual tribes and regional tribal health organizations to partner and guide the study team in the conduct of focus groups in different Alaska Native communities. • In the process of considering biobanking research, Alaska Native people spoke of contextual factors that informed their opinions on research participation and the storage of biological specimens in research. What Are the Problems? What Are the Findings? • Community members described an awareness of past clinical research and surveillance projects, including community-stigmatizing research, which influenced their views on future research participation. • There is a need to actively address and dialogue with community leaders and members regarding the community memory of research when engaging in research with marginalized communities. Who Should Care the Most? • Organizations that want to assess health issues affecting a given community collecting or using biobanked specimens. • Organizations interested in assessing the health status of people within Alaska Native communities. • Organizations and researchers interested in improving the health of Alaska Native people. • Organizations interested in forming community-based participatory research partnerships. Recommendations for Action • Increase the role of Alaska Native community members in research. • Through community and academic partnerships, educate all members of the research team on past clinical research and surveillance projects conducted within the community. [End Page 113] Vanessa Hiratsuka, Jennifer Brown, and Denise Dillard Southcentral Foundation Copyright © 2012 The Johns Hopkins University Press