this is about an hour and a half. >> i am a professor at the university of michigan. i am honored to be here and a member of the board of trustees. this is the final question in the symposium. the question seeks to part four of the exhibit, which you will hopefully have a chance to see which followse, case study examples and thematic analysis, including some things that might resonate with the panel we just had. it seeks to sum up, pull together, congeal the insides of the divot on the side of the data we have had today. part of what we are about is reclaiming history. the easy part is about making invisible stories visible. it has been one of the fundamental goals of this great museum. harder as weart is do live in a largely ahistorical time. the culture that shapes those students tend to focus a lot on the new, the now, the future. as if time begins at this moment right now. or maybe yesterday, last week, or at test last year. meaning that problems may have a history, but the history doesn't really matter. the people i work with, students, largely, attempt to figure those things out. solutions are developed with very little reference to the past, which is why too often i hear these kinds of claims, dismissive claims like -- sure, treaties were broken and we feel like about it, in fact we to feel badly about it, but once they were broken they became kind of nonfunctional, right, so can we just move on? a very future oriented approach to not thinking about the past, which is the other problem with history, that the fuehrer and simple passage of time or history actually renders the thing that we call history obsolete. as this exhibit demonstrates, nothing could be farther from the truth. the nations relationship that we heard today is an eternal, critical part of the fabric of the united states itself. it is not only about history, it is about our shared future. i would like to introduce our panelists today. schnells served on the mission indian community since 1995 and serves as the chairman -- excuse me, the chairman of the senate since 1997 and is the president of the national congress of american indians and along with the gaming association. following him will be matthew thecher, a professor at university's indigenous law and politics center, the chief justice of the supreme court appellate judge for various tribes. he will be followed by kevin go over, the director of the cesium, a former professor of law at arizona state university from 97 to 2001. use the assistant secretary for indian affairs in the department of the interior. really, the person who -- who i think we all always need to keep in mind when we think about the, when we think about the exhibit or these things, our good friend, suzanne , the president of the morningstar institute, founded in 1984. a writer, curator, policy advocate with more than one million acres of land. she has developed key laws, including important national policy advances for the protection of native american ancestors, cultures, arts, languages, and religious freedom. known as the guest curator and editor of this project. i think she is something of a national treasure. [applause] about 5:15, atl which point there are three wonderful things waiting for you. the first is a book signing. the second is the preview of exhibit. the third is a delightful reception. those are always a treat. the food is always fantastic, the company is always great. i would like to close by reading something that suzanne wrote is not only about considering all the negative things that come along with treaties, but the positive possibilities to. the preservation and restoration of treaty rights can be the foundation of a harmonious and moral relationship between and among the natives in the night dates, a relationship in which each party is committed not only to the redemption of its own interest, but the well-being and progress of the other. it is hoped that the final story written,ill never be which is how is a great need address the podium whenever they want. [laughter] >> good afternoon, everyone. >> good afternoon. >> i know it is that time of day, right after lunch, livening it up a little bit around here. i am the chairman of the show ofsion tribe and the grace god allows me to have the greatest job in the world. i will lay into anyone who thinks that with greater job than me. have had thes opportunity, but there has been not just a person, so to speak, moreo one who cast away than this man last year. so, we have a video that we want to start out with first, a short video of delete frank junior. >> this is a continued story of the u.s. person -- u.s. versus washington on the decision that and then with shellfish we were having a legal argument on the right of the shellfish in the sound here. in -- the expert witnesses asked me -- one of the expert witnesses to come up to the court wednesday to testify in front of the federal court. i was telling the story of who we are and how we got here. i walked into the courtroom that but for the people, and it was right in front of the judge. then i sworn in. and they got caught onstage to testify. i was asked to comment on a book called "the creation of us, the indian people throughout the pacific coast." some of them were dated, real beauty for the day. everythingoast today and the seals and sea lions, all of our plans, you know? life was playful out there. beautiful, white sands on both sides. sun shone. they were talking to each other and they said that they were still empty. empty of people, their life was empty. so, we need some more life here. pretty soon the raven came over. heree sits on a clam right and our people, the little children came out running. grandma, grandpa, uncles and aunts, they all came out and started running down the beach. the beach was so beautiful. all of a sudden all the clams in the beach like they do, they just started coming up and the ravens said -- you know, this is what we need. we need our life, we need a happiness. and he has family? , alleals and sea lions that swims out there, the salmon was jumping in the river and everything. so, the story that i told that were not many questions asked about how the story is about. this is the story that was handed down to us. the creation story is different and along thet coastline. other tribes have creation stories about the eagles and the other animals. this is just one of our stories of how it all happened and how we are here today and how we protect our national world and resource. the animals, the clam beds, the oyster beds, everything that is down in that beautiful land under the sea that nobody sees, there is a forest under there, alive forest of life and that is what we are protecting. we have to continue to protect that because this story is very important and the indian people are important to this land. [applause] >> thank you. it is great to be here with you today. thank you to the national museum of the american indian for sponsoring this event. kevin, thank you for hosting us here today. you and your staff do amazing work for the nation and the world. take a slightly different approach to the topic being discussed today. is true that great nations keep their word. then i think we have to start by questioning whether we can consider the united states to be a great nation. i don't say that lightly. at least when it comes to native people, the united states has not kept its word. the colonies did not keep their word when they drove our eastern land infrom their pre-war days. our first president did not keep his word. george washington promised the seneca is that he would not let another state or person cross their lands, promising that he would protect them and all their rights. the united states could or did whenrotect the muskogee the citizens of georgia wanted their land two years after they signed a treaty in 1790. later they were sadly sent west on andrew jackson for smart,. the united states declared oklahoma to be indian territory. until the non-indians decided they wanted it. the u.s. held lotteries. winners graced to stake claims. seaboard andn across the plains to the coast, the nation went crazy for one thing after another. gold. lumbar. for. the buffalo. you name it. at step along the way, promises were made and promises were broken. there are literally hundreds of examples. in horse creek treaty signed 1851 promised eternal peace. the pottawattamie signed more than 40 treaties and ongoing efforts in the homelands. ,he leaders were defrauded bribed, cheated, and filled with alcohol. whatever it would get to take them to sign away their land. for hours.on every tribe or nation could tell you many stories about how they out of their land. great-grandfather . his great-grandfather -- my dad is still alive, his thet-grandfather signed elliott treaty for our people in 1855. when he signed that treaty is said that we could take the fish as we always have. taking it multiple times. generations were harassed and the wordor believing governor stevens. that no whited man, specifically calling out the white man -- not making that up -- said that no white man it.d live there without apparently white women were ok. the chinese were ok. hispanics were ok. blacks were ok. he specifically said no white man. if you visit the checkerboard reservation someday you will see how well the promise was kept. showing on an island in the sea, president grant signed any legal executive order that took away half of our reservation. yesterday was constitution day. the constitution says that only congress can amend or revise a treaty. they will never recognize that as legitimate. just last summer we bought back thatand that contained original boundary. that was when the council signed the documents to give back the historic boundary. i can tell you that there was not a dry eye in the room. they had tears coming down the .heeks it was humbling to think how many generations of our elected leaders had hoped that they would come. to get back all the rest of the property that wasn't our original boundary. how many of the tribal people here have the story of land taken her room -- taken illegally by the united states government? that is everyone here today. we know the history. we know what happened to our children as they were taken to boarding schools and lands that were broken up. our resources that were excluded -- exploited. that hadr traditions been under constant assault. great nations either do not have to keep their words, or the united states is not a great nation. which is it? like so many indian people, incredibly patriotic. why our people have fought and died in the armed forces defending this country in greater percentages than any other ethnic group. grandfather, two great uncles, father, korea, vietnam. we fought for this country before it even accepted us as citizens. he fought for and believed in this country before we were given the right to vote. i think in many ways that indians sometimes believe in this country more than most americans. maybe that is just because we were here first. because we love this land first. blood and bones of our ancestors are deeper than the soil. maybe we are patriotic just because we love fireworks. if you really want to celebrate independence day, you just need to go to an indian reservation. in your lifetime. to witness the celebration. we really know how to celebrate independence day. it may be unsafe, insane. they also show that indian people believe that the united states is a great nation. you can see it in the cemeteries on veterans day or memorial day. when the flags are flying at half staff. you can see it in the results of our efforts and we get disproportionately high voter turnout and determine the ,utcome of important elections from the local level to the county level, to the state level, to the federal level. i think that you can see it when the children ask to have our history taught. ,y components of u.s. history we know that their history is rounded up in the story of how this great nation came to be. we love this country. we have known that we were apart part of it since time immemorial . other governments around us knew country,uld love this despite the incredible, painful history. promises,l the broken despite the words not kept because we had believed in the idea of the united states, even when the united states could not live up to that idea. we have believed in the idea of the united states before it was a country. when those who founded the united states look for governing structure to support the truth that they thought was self evident, they looked to the , the fivenfederacy great nations. without the example of those nations living together in ,armony, even when we disagree the promise of america might not have come together. come back here year after year. sometimes for me it is week after week. sometimes with the pundits and the evidence saying that the congress won't do anything, we still believe in the constitution that says the treaties are the supreme law of the land. sometimes i think that indians believe in our constitution more than anyone else. continuing to believe what the constitution says is true investing to show the words of the treaties that matter, by calling this a great nation giving its word, we refute the skeptics. we answer the question that i is thet the beginning, united states great nation? while our history in this nation might be brutally painful, when the wrongs done to our people are real, history is not the end of the story. we believe that even though the united states has not kept its word so far, it might. and it is getting better. if you look through the exhibition that brought us here today, you will see dozens of exhibitions bringing us back to before they came here in this town. to the building behind us and the one down the street say that you promised us better. you can do better. you can keep your word. you can be great. even just in my lifetime, look at how far we have come. self-determination, self governance, the indian education gravestive american protection act, native american the violence against women act, even the affordable care act. pick a legislative acronym in the last 40 years and it probably speaks to indian progress and in holding the united states to its promises, in keeping its word to being great. i ask you, is the united states a great nation? i would say yes. but not as great as it can be. today it is a better nation and i believe that the best days are not just for the united states, but for our indian nation. they are ahead of us. i hope that we can look back at these last 25 years to say -- ok , this is definitely better. the greathe words of movie, "smoke signals," that in the beginning when the traffic reporter is doing his traffic report, it is a good day to be indigenous. thank you, god bless you all. [applause] >> how's that for raising the stakes? thank you so much for having me. thank you for inviting me to participate in the book. i don't really know what i'm doing here. i did not negotiate any treaties. unless you count the time i was on the phone with the superintendent who complained about how much money we spent on photocopies the year before. so, yeah. i am going to talk about about the michigan indians. i could only see the outline, but i will tell you what, it scared the hell out of me, it looked a lot like the back of a man with a giant money year. i thought that this was a good some of the old stories that i know nothing about. these are some of the things i have learned over the years. so, there is a lot of good stuff around the negotiation of these treaties to learn. i'm going to talk about treaties the michigan indians. under the treaty negotiators from the old days, hopefully i .ill use that same trick i hope that you remember the name. life of whatout in we know around the 19th century, best characterized as historical gossip. 21, this gives you a sense of how the michigan indians treated their leaders. it is aver, autolock, river that goes most of the way across the state. they have the benefit of being the first tribe to deal with the demands on their land. at an indianp treaty negotiation that did not involve them in 1821. they sent a guy who said -- just go look and see what is going on. find out what the white guys are doing. he came back and said that he had a great time. [laughter] cloudy around what happens then. he gets banished or killed, were banished and killed. he was not authorized to go there and sign a treaty with anybody. about a decade later via pottawattamie were negotiating treaties a few years after the indian removal act. southren't even further of the grand river and had the was problems, the land capable of having a longer growing season with money for american farmers. communities signed treaties in 1833 that were removal treaties. left before the removal started. some of them did remove to kansas, iowa, and oklahoma. some of them came back to the northern peninsula of michigan. there are about seven of those nations now. the only one that stayed in the context of these the only one that stayed in the context of the history of the underations was a family the name of a guy named leopold ok again. if you are imagine those brazilian soccer players, that is kind of how he got his name. during the war of 1812 or something thereafter, he was seen using a human rib to beat somebody to death or something like that, so they called him the rib. that is the name of the tribe now. leopold was negotiating for his family. he wasn't the head pottawatomie by any stretch of the imagination, but he did say to all of his family members and the people who lived in his lodge, if any of you touch a drop of alcohol, i will kill you. if you see anybody touching drops of alcohol, i will kill them too. they all touched the alcohol, but he didn't kill them. he went into the tent with an american treaty negotiator with a knife hidden under his belt and said, only one of us is coming out of here. he came out, and he promised a few things to the treaty negotiator. sure, we will become catholics and all of that good stuff, but we are not leaving. his community was able to stay in southwestern michigan. the first thing they did was , but they moved right back down there to where they are now , the st. joseph river valley. there is a long history that goes to how they became federally recognized by an act of congress in 1994 that i'm not going to get to, that it gives you a sense of what kind of acts and men of will that you have to be, people of will that you have to be to maintain a community overrun really by the indian removal act. we are going to head a little bit north to the grand traverse band rivers asian -- reservation. a guy who lived on the eastern -- and don't forget his name. it means little feather. liken him to the boba fett of michigan indian tribes. if you know anything about boba fett, there is a creepy thing he carries around his shoulder, and they are scalps. he carried scout that he had earned in the war of 1812, american scalps, so you can only imagine a guy who travels from what is now basically traverse city, michigan all the way down to washington, d.c., actually meets the president andrew jackson in the d.c. that must have been a surreal experience, the indian fighter against the indian fighter, so to speak. lead speaker for the michigan ottawa and chippewa tribes who traveled all the way withto d.c. to negotiate lewis cass and henry schoolcraft. this was a really bad idea for the michigan ottawas to go to d.c. treaty negotiations you saw later on in minnesota and wisconsin involved tribes negotiating on their home turf where the american negotiators would come to visit the indians in their large. with 6000-8000 indians overseeing the operation. he was only one of 32-36 people from the michigan indian territory to go down and negotiate this treaty, that he was still pretty tough. he said, there's no way we are going to sign a treaty giving away what ended up being about one third of the entire landmass of the state of michigan. for a couple of days, he was winning, but henry schoolcraft was the treaty negotiator. he was the michigan indian agent. indian,ed a michigan going by the american named jane schoolcraft. about michigan indian leadership. he knew about the ogre muck, and he knew how villages were governed and how their relationships together worked. negotiationsty were supposed to be a treaty with the michigan ottawa communities in the lower peninsula, and if you know the geography of michigan, it looks a little bit like this. here is the ottawas, and here ojibs. chips, the unfortunately, schoolcraft brought a couple of guys down that were friends, maybe relatives from the upper peninsula. they may have been open amok at one time, but they were not really in charge. after a couple of days, he said, it doesn't matter, i've got these friends of mine from the upper peninsula, and they are going to sign the treaty. when i take it to the senate, they aren't going to care, they are going to rectify it, and you will be completely sol. he and the rest of the michigan ottawa's had no choice but to capitulate at that point. the 1836 treaty contained article 13, which said that hunting and fishing and gathering rights and other rights will exist on the ceded territory until the land is required for settlement. if you've ever flown over the state of michigan, you will see halfway through the upper peninsula, north of the grand river, is all trees. the 1900s, we deforestation all of michigan, but a lot of trees are back. there isn't a big growing season north of midway through michigan, and most of the land up there is either state or federal land. a good large chunk of it. that land has never been required for settlement. thanks to the united states versus michigan and multiple treaty negotiations with the feds and the state, indian people in michigan continue to hunt, fish, gather, and farm on those federal public lands, hundreds and thousands of acres, and this is all because of the people who went to washington, d.c. despite the fact that they didn't get entirely what they wanted, treaty rights are very meaningful to the people in michigan to this day. i am going to jump ahead quite considerably to the future, but i wanted to mention one incident in the 1870's and a small township where grand traverse band is. if you want to wonder what treaty rights meant between the time they were negotiated and likeime indian people, billy frank and hank adams, started exercising treaty there, they were always and indian people had always been negotiating those rights. in the 1870's or 1880's, in bingham township, indians went to vote in a state election. in 1850, michigan said, sure, we will let indians be citizens so long as they are civilized. nobody really knew what that meant. indians went to the voting booths to find out. what civilized meant was signing an affidavit meaning you aggregate your individual treaty rights. they wouldn't do it. andove ahead to the 1970's, the fishing wars have already started in washington state and have begun a bit in michigan. a grand traverse band man who named arthur do hamill was told by his father, whose name was fish, you need to go start fishing. it is time. you did. he was arrested dozens and dozens of times. that we famous quote didn't think of as famous until i decided it was famous a few years ago was something along the lines of, "i respect the law. that is why i broke it." it is a great way of articulating what he had done. he had notoriously been prosecuted in leelanau county circuit court before a man named judge benedict. one of the trials that he had was notorious because the tribal leading -- actually the federal, they paid the money, the leading expert witness helen tanner recounted the story years later at the university of detroit law school, and judge benedict -- it was a friday -- judge benedict had a fishing trip scheduled the next day. he was going to leave that night, and he intended to have the prosecution of arthur do hammer completed by the end of the day. they started at 8:30. 12 hours later, they were still going strong. they finally brought helen tanner up to talk about the treaty. asked thedict question, which is, i have a copy of the treaty. i can read it. i can rule based on the treaty. he asked professor tanner, what do you have to say about the treaty? then he stopped and said, don't answer that question. there was a long pause in the courtroom, and the prosecutor said, i would like to know what she has to say about the treaty. he said, i don't want you to answer that question. somebody in the back of the room, some indian said, we would also like to know what miss tanner has to say about the treaty. said,benedict supposedly if anybody asks about the treaty again, you will be held in contempt of court and jailed. ultimately in the united states versus michigan, professor tanner was able to testify, and as i described, article 13 still has viability in the modern era of michigan indian treaty rights. the last thing i'm going to say before i conclude -- i'm taking findore minute -- i fascinating weird places where indian treaty rights of here in pop culture. have you guys ever heard of "the big lebowski"? "the big lebowski" is based on a guy who was a production assistant for the cohen brothers. was one ofear how he the original cl seven prosecuted by the feds in 1970. martin scorsese did a short documentary about that guy, jeff dowd, and if you look into it, his prosecution was conducted actually by judge bolt of the famous bolt decision. the funny thing perhaps, maybe not so funny, was that jeff dowd was absolutely convinced that judge bolt was completely senile in every way. it may be that he was being mean because bolt did put him in jail for three months. the last one is in relation to julia sweeney. she is one of my favorite actresses, and she was on "saturday night live" for a while and did a great standup monologue about her family called -- i can't remember what it was called, but everybody in her family for some reason one year had cancer. it was funny, trust me. she would call the moment when she was a child -- they lived in rural oregon, and her father worked for the department of justice. he was an assistant united states attorney and a little bit of an alcoholic. he woke her up one night because he was drinking and it was dark. she snuck up on him, and he was muttering to himself, those goddam so-happies. having meso much for here. i hope to see you all at the book signing later. before i end, can we do one last thing? can i do a selfie with you guys? i need my mom to be able to see that this thing she made for me is going to be on tv. [laughter] miigwich. [applause] >> you can tell it's getting towards the end of the day, can't you? [laughter] but you know,ere, i got to thinking, oddly enough, while professor fletcher was apology -- it sort of talked -- popped into my head. one of the things that no one else has mentioned today that i think is important to bring up, because we are talking about the future of the treaty relationship and what it really that the united states made these promises, broke them, and is making at least some progress on trying to repair the -- it that was done occurred to me that there are several things that have happened. know, i did make an apology on behalf of the bureau of indian affairs for the historic conduct of the agency. [applause] say at thatl to time that i did not speak for the united states. i had no such authority. onwould have been interrogation to pretend i represented the united states in that way. of the bureauarge of indian affairs, and i can speak on their behalf, and i knew how the employees of the bureau of indian affairs felt about the past and the conduct of the bureau during that long, dark period. so, i did make an apology and sort of detailed some of the wrongs in general terms that had been done. an apology contains several .pecific elements probably the most important is the acknowledgment, the actual acknowledgment of the wrong that was done, and the more detailed, the better the apology. what it specific about is that you did and why that was wrong, the better the apology. the second element is an expression of regret, saying i'm sorry, and that may seem like small potatoes, but it is a key element of apology. the last two are the most important. cease theromise to offensive conduct that has whoever youto you, may be that i am apologizing to. finally, some sort of corrective action to try to not just make amends but to try to repair the damage that has been done by the offensive conduct. i have had this thought before. you should also note, by the way, that congress enacted an apology to the native nations a few years ago. how many of you knew that? most of you didn't, right? there is a reason you didn't. almost nobody noticed because it was in the middle of a several-hundred-page defense appropriation authorization was there, and it had been considered, and it had gone through committee, and interestingly enough, it was sponsored by senator brownback, now the governor of kansas, very conservative, but he felt very strongly that that was something the united states could do, is apologize for its historical conduct. are not thatrs interesting, to tell you the truth, because the longer the bill was under consideration, the weaker it got, and the specificity of the offensive conduct virtually disappeared. i thought it was significant for this reason -- that the united states was beginning to adopt the native narrative about this history between the indian nations and the united states. the united states was beginning to say, you know, what you have been saying for all of this time, it's true. those things did happen. i got to thinking about that in we've hadxt, that some comments from folks who heard that we were working on a treaty's exhibition, even a few who have actually seen all or some of the exhibition, just going, wow, you think you are going to get away with this? do you think you can really say these sorts of things? you are a federally-funded museum. you are right here at the foot of capitol hill. this iseally think that something that the museum is going to be able to do? nobody said, you shouldn't do it, but everybody's going, man, you may have the tiger by the tail now. a lie to say i never even thought about that. [laughter] i will be posting my resume to -- [laughter] linkedin, just in case. and i'mt about it, absolutely convinced that people want to hear this story, that americans can handle the truth, notwithstanding what jack nicholson says. the act itself is an apology. if you read the act, there is an acknowledgment of wrongs, not a complete roster. if every indian lined up for their individual apology, we would be there for a very long time, but there is a set of findings where the united states is acknowledging, yes, we, our agents, our institutions did these things. the establishment of the museum -- it seemss to me to me, is an expression of regret, an apology saying, we offer you this, we offer you this place, this ground in our capital city and in our greatest financial center. we offer you this space to have two tell your story. -- to tell your story. that's an extraordinary opportunity and one that is absolutely clear to me. people say, are you sure you should really be criticizing the united states? my answer is always, what did they think we were going to do? [laughter] given the opportunity to tell the native story, what did they think we were going to do? the great thing about it is, by giving us this opportunity, they are also saying, we are now willing to listen. we are willing to hear it. we want to know about it, and we can handle the truth. say, a magnificent opportunity that we must always veryry careful with, be responsible, do our very best butys to tell the truth, not to be afraid either to tell the truth. it,hey are willing to hear we cannot be afraid to say it. what we are doing in this treaty's exhibition is the treaties of that -- exhibition is the beginning of that. the museum had some important work before we got to this point. building these facilities was no mall matter, and it took fully 15 years for the facilities to be opened and operating. when this building opened 10 years ago, it saw as its first priority to empower native people to tell their own story. through its community cure ration process, through the opening of exhibitions where our curators set aside their desires and expertise and their wishes for what it might look like and allowed native nations themselves to tell the stories they wished to tell. we got a lot of criticism for made but the point was that native people can tell their own stories, and it's not the story you are expecting. that is done. that has been achieved. i was in kansas city last night at a world-famous art museum where they've just opened an exhibition of plains indian art. that 15 yearsu ago, this exhibition would look nothing like it does now, and what you see throughout that gallery is the voice of native people telling the story behind this superior art that is being created. is way the art is presented as superior art, extraordinary. happened 15t have years ago, and i believe it is very much because of the work of that that sort of exhibition has now become mainstream and we will continue to see exhibitions of that type in handling native art and native culture. we here at the national museum of the american indian now turn our eye to history in a very serious way. we all know that history is mistaughted talk -- throughout our formal education system. i think about all of the enzyme learned about indians in my formal in da -- formal education, and i have spent my last 40 years unlearning those things. moai, to beat the able to say to everyone, these are the things that are true, and to have people believe it because we are, after all, a and aonian museum, smithsonian, as you also know, is never wrong. [laughter] while to gets us a to the truth from time to time, but eventually, we get there. the moia itself is an act of contrition itself on -- on the part of the united states. there are some specific provisions notches vowing to cease offensive conduct but to act with corrective action. that is most clear in the repatriation provisions of the m nai act. members of congress were mortified to learn about the indian remains that were in university and museum collections across the united states, institutions that were being funded by the united states in one form or another. thanks again to suzanne's careful and diligent work, congress finally said, enough. that's got to stop. not only must it stop. you must proactively act to back tohese people their homes and back to their native nations. it for granted, and everybody says, geez, that was a terrible thing. it wasn't easy. it wasn't obvious. there are still people out there who say, we shouldn't have to return these things. we stole them fair and square, and they have great scientific value. we should be allowed to retain them. lost, and theyve now have no prospect of winning that argument. progress.make we do get better. our country gets better. itself is an indication of how our country can get better and learn to do the right thing and being willing to learn about itself and then take action to correct what has been wronged. it is not an easy process. there is nothing obvious about what the next phase can be. certainly if enough of us really believe, as president clad sp was saying, really believe in the promise of the united states, then you have to believe that justice is achievable for native americans. it's not going to happen tomorrow. it may not happen in our lifetimes. the one thing that you will learn in this exhibition is indians never give up, and they will always insist on what they believed to be the just outcome. i've got not a doubt in the world that, perhaps not 25 years from now, but sooner, indians will be here right in this place talking about the sorts of issues we are discussing today and reviewing the progress that this daymade since when we've gathered here to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the opening of this museum. i want to thank you all for being here today, for your support. this is your museum, and we want you to think of it that way. yourtories we tell our stories, no matter who you are. you will find your story here. it is only appropriate that suzanne harjo have the final word at this symposium. welcome, suzanne. [applause] >> thank you so much, kevin. are we on here? pardon me for not standing. in 1967 when we met after ceremonies at bear butte, south , the holy mountain, andenne, dakota, arapaho, other elders had called us together and said, stay after ceremony for talk. they wanted to talk about things that were in the nightmares of people, and we talked about museums and other repositories that held our relatives and our sacred objects and cultural patrimony. 1967e developed a -- in that would lead to the development of repatriation laws before reuse the term repatriation. it would be many years before we did that. we looked around and we talk to each other and we shared experiences about this museum or that educational institution or that federal agency that did terrible things to us and to our ancestors and who are holding them as prisoners of war. and they wanted out. they wanted back. and we wanted to rebury them. or bury them for the first time. doing ceremonies objectsuired certain that were in these museums and other repositories. we wanted those things back that for ceremony. keep in mind that we did not have at that time the buffalo herds that we have now on indian lands. thewe hadn't had opportunity to really watch them and how they move, and how they line up from the biggest to the smallest. we did not know their ways except for ceremony. nation's started developing the buffalo herds woulde have today, we look at them and say, that is why we do the buffalo dance that way. we knew knew them at one point. it is like that with the sacred objects. we knew what we were looking for in these repositories. been taken away from us. we knew what had been confiscated when all of our traditional manners and ways were criminalized from the 1880 theo the 1930's in civilization regulations, which we point out in the exhibit it in the book. we knew what we were looking at. we knew what was missing from our ceremonies. it might not be the focal point, but it might be very important pieces that we were looking for. to -- only took from 167 from 1967 to 1989 to craft laws and half congress pass them that would provide a process for the return of our people and of ings for our ceremonies. it was also at that meeting in 1967 that we asked each other, is there any place you have ever encountered? are there any people you have encounter who are doing it right? and we looked at each other and no one had ever been treated well, no one had ever been respected, no one had ever been believed, no one had ever been accommodated. and certainly, our people had not been returned and our sacred objects had not been returned. so, there we began to envision what it would be like for a place that would do it right. and this is the place we envisioned. we envisioned it here. we did not call it a museum. recalled a cultural center. a culturald it center. we said it had to be in front of the capital so that the people in the capital, the policymakers making laws about us, have to look us in the face when they do it. this is that. is absolutely right that we would not have been able eo do this exhibit anytim before now for one thing. those of us who wrote pretty laws,he deadlines in the in the national museum of the american indian act set a rigorous set of deadlines for opening the museum facility in new york, opening the suitland, maryland, site which had rebuilt from the ground up, and opening the museum on the mall, the one we had envisioned 22 years before the legislation was signed. we had to do that. we had to raise money for that. we had to, because we require the public-private partnership. and the native nations were and being capitalized gaining money through all sorts of business enterprises, including some of them, a handful of them, in gaming. so, all of this converged at the same time and we began this glorious enterprise of this museum, this cultural center, this center where we have a place at the table just as the repatriation laws require that we have a place at the table and took us from a situation where we were just the property of the united states or the property of the museums to a place where our human rights were respected. so we moved in that legislation from property to human rights. that is a huge distance. why it took 22 years to do that, that is the main reason why. so, there are also give reasons we did not do this foundational exhibit before now. it's enormously complex, the treaty is exhibit. now, everyone will look at this exhibit and say, i know how to do that better. and some will do it better. you will have a lot of treaty exhibits that will be done and a lot of them will be better. this is the first one. and it's so difficult. so, these are the headwaters. launch right just littleto rivers and streams before you can strike headwaters.ters -- think of this in that way. those who come back we'll look back and say, we are going to improve on that, think of us kindly. so, i was the youngest person at that meeting in 1967, except for my daughter who i was carrying on my hip. now that i'm one of the elders, i am looking back and saying, did you really think that you were going to spend all of that time doing this kind of thing? well, maybe i would not have chosen it, but this is how it worked out. and i see that there are very direct lines that have led from that meeting to this time. and one of them is about treaties. treaties are in my family on both sides. i am muskogee. on my dad's side. culturally muskogee. raised in that way. and through my grandmother -- in thecitizenry is cheyenne and arapahoe tribes of oklahoma. i am a cheyenne citizen. and on both sides, and my mother was cheyenne. my mother's great grandfather was bull bear who signed the 1867 treaty of medicine l odge creek which provided for exactly what our ancestors asked president lincoln for and he agreed in an unwritten treaty in 1863. indian territory. we are the ones who wanted to go to indian territory, while the muskogees were dragged at bayonet and gunpoint and many p eople were killed because they did not want to leave their homes. so very different kinds of experiences that i learned about growing up. ,n fact, the muskogee people and maybe other people but certainly the muskogee people, say that the reason that so many muskogee people in oklahoma on the east side of oklahoma are republicans is because andrew jackson was a democrat. every time i go to an atm machine, i get hard publications because it is jackson, jackson, jackson. [laughter] -- i get heart palpitations. we have a long view, a very long memory backward and forward of history. cheyenne people are still waiting for the return of our four reno -- fort reno lands, build on our treaty lands. bear was the first signatory. why? else would sign. everyone knew the treaty would not be valid unless he signed because he was both a chief and the head of the dogman society. dogmen's when the society comprised half the cheyenne nation. his is the first signature on that particular treaty. we are still waiting, though, for the return of the fort reno lands which were supposed to come back to us when they were no longer used for a fort. but we have had the federal agency passing hour fort reno lands out amongst themselves. we have a penitentiary there. renoort -- el penitentiary is on our treaty lands. fromgriculture department time to time puts animals on there. they wanted to put monkeys. they kept the shines and -- the cheyennes out, but they kept the monkeys in. will try by while i an cow whatever animals they have just to make sure i know. one time i went and there were llamas walking around our fort reno lands. we can't go there, but the walk around. at that point, i counted 75. we will see what animals are there. we keep trying to get our lands back. acre by acre. we keep trying to get our waters back bucket by bucket. we do not want everything. we want some of what was guaranteed to us in the treaties that we negotiated in good faith. the united or not states or any particular president, like andrew jackson, lookeen horrible to us, we at it with a long view and say, the united states did not keep its word here or here, but it's beginning to now. and in some cases we believe that. in some cases we do not. depending on who you are or what your family experience is, what your nation's experience is. thishat's how we view theing of word that one of people we interviewed for this treaty exhibit, i don't want to forget him -- maurice john who was on the board of nmai. a seneca man who used to be a tribal leader there. he said, i do not think the treaties have been broken. i think they have been stretched and stretched and stretched to the breaking point. good think they are still treaties. so some people have a view of that. a personic nature of and a country keeping its word. and what we're part of here is the maturation of america. we are giving back to america part of its american history. and this just isn't our history. the treaties are not just ours. the treaties are the united states and the native nations. so, we individual native people are like the individual american citizen who will be coming here and who will be looking at this and same, how can i help my country keep its word? what do i need to do? so, that is what i am hoping for this exhibit. this museum,ed for that it is a place for big ideas. and for attention to small detail. ofthat we can find a way going forward that is as the ago,m -- ever so long provides for peace and friendship forever. that's profound. and that's the basis for all the treaties is peace, friendship forever. now, the treaties of removal, under the removal act, you had to have a treaty. so in some cases, jackson -- i keep mentioning jackson because he is a despicable being in our history. i am sorry, democrats. i am a democrat. but i'm sorry, folks. hey, very terrible things did. and other treaty commissioners coerced native people, they bought them off, they got them drunk. they get a lot of things in order to get that bad paper that would allow them to say, we've got a removal treaty. then people would be hauled off to indian territory. willing than others. people, onceogee they heard there was someone, some group that had signed a removal treaty, they went to senateton, d.c., to the and demanded that the senate vitiate that so-called treaty. we are the muskogee leaders and we did not enter into that. that is an invalid treaty. i bet there is not one person, one american in 1000 who knows what vitiate means. know that it is still a rule of the senate. and that senators can vitiate an action. it never happened if they want to, if they all agree. nationmuskogee creek people were moved against their will and without a valid treaty of any kind and one that the senate had agreed was not a vlid malid move. so by vitiate in that one piece of paper they had from some people who had claimed to be muskogee people and speaking for the nation. level ofests a sophistication that i'm pretty impressed by. many muskogeee people who spoke many languages, for starters. there are many languages within the muskogee confederacy. there were 16 nations and tribal towns. so that is a lot right there. and not all of them spoke muskogee. one speaks a language more like this te sioux. so, they were speaking all those languages are many of them plus spanish, many of them, plus french, plus english. and in english, they knew enough about process to know about vitiate and as a rule of the senate. and that is in the 1830's. that is a lot of knowledge to have back then. and it is a lot of knowledge to have today. r'm really impressed by ou ancestors and what they were doing. i'm impressed by the united states supreme court when it keeps its word and when it says treaties are to be understood as the native peoples understood them at the time. pretty impressive. i think that suggests a level of sophistication back then that we don't have right now in some cases. people to grow, people to learn, countries to learn. countries do learn. when we were trying to get an apology for the wounded knee massacre on the occasion of the centennial of the massacre, so this was in 1990 that we were trying to get an apology. the wounded knee survivors association, the descendents of had survived the wounded knee massacre, they wanted an apology. so mario gonzalez, their attorney and myself, were trying to get this for them. the south dakota senators would not allow the word apology to be used. would not allow it. so, and a lot of our good friends took to the senate floor and declare that it was an apology. because our people were saying -- the lakota and dakota people were saying -- they won't let word apology. i tried to slip it in. i entitled one draft -- in ologia.m et ap a went to everyone and right at the end, someone said, wait a minute. they eventually agreed that they one of the apology and believed in the people in the senate who said we are passing this because it is an apology. they believed that. and the south dakota senators, one went on to greater glory and now lesser so. and another one is trying to part ofo congress and his platform in indian country is saying, i guarantee you that i will put in a bill for a holocaust museum. so, people do change and people do grow it, and sometimes it is just back and forth sometimes it is in the wrong direction. steadfasteople are that they will not admit that anything wrong happened to the native people. knows what happened to native people. the world does not know the details of the world knows what happened to native people. and that is the big deal thing for us. what we are trying to do as native people, what we are of peopledo s a group who are working our hearts out to bring to everyone this history of treaties and how can we percent, -- present? we distill that down and make it an important statement through time? urge people to abide by protocol, by the words of theties, by the word of united states in the word of native nations? to informt you have the people. and a lot of people do not understand that these are legally binding contracts. these are agreements. these are things that stand through time. that are still being litigated or still being discussed. d inform futuren congresses when they straighten other andlk to each to look at begin some decisions that a been made about treaties that have just been wrong. much time is past. we cannot uphold a treaty for because too much time has passed. what nonsense. no one put a time limit on it. congress did not when it ratified. so you cannot just say, well, let's just apply latches. and why? because it would be too disruptive for the people who land if you applied treaty rights. well, that is like saying ok, the second story guy got all your stuff. but now his descendents have it and have been using it and think it is theirs. so you will have to give it up because it will be too disruptive to his descendents. are allowed to claim those things sa yours.-- as yours. but that was my mother's, that was my grandmother's. that is what we buried our ancestors in. this is that. so we need to really look past look to the little kids that are going to be educated by this exhibit. who canto the teenagers be educated by this exhibit, and look to the policymakers who can still be educated even though they are adults. because i guarantee there is something in this exhibit that someone will hit there had about and say, really? that happened? i had no idea. and if you find only one thing you did not know, you are a genius. inherited more of the collective wisdom then we were able to put together in 11 years developing this exhibit. there have been amazing people working on this exhibit in this museum and starting with the treaty experts, native and non-native, who advised myself and the co-curator and our leading treaty expert. who advised us for years and talk to us about the kind of thing that could be presented , and we also had people who really new exhibits and who knew art. about anow a little bit lot of things, but when you put that collective wisdom together, then everyone has their knowledge increased, and everyone knows a lot about a lot of things. so that is what we were doing. and building more and more people with a greater and -- ier knowledge mass, hope we have been able to do that within this museum. and i know that there are people, very specific people, within this museum the greatest being kevin gover who has been a co-curator for this exhibit in recent years, in addition to being directed. and all of the things he had to do theire. why? because he knows this work. he knows this area of law. he knows it from a particular way of understanding it. and we actually were able to bounce ideas off each other and to say what kinds of people do we want to hold up, what kinds of people do we want to raise up and what kinds of treaties to we want to honor and how can we best do that? so, here we are after all of this time with in exhibit that i hope people will respond well to and would be very interested in knowing good reaction, negative reaction, any kind of reaction that you have -- more of this, and of this, more like this to go for it and do something about treaties in your own area what ever your area is -- in the cansroom, for whatever you do and what area you are involved in. especially education. thisu can bring to bear level of discussion in, on the future generations than we are going to make more and more people who think it's an honorable and a decent and maybe even a cool thing to keep your word. so, thank you very much. i appreciate it. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> we have heard so many wonderful words from our panelists. we are going to allow you to ask questions as we move up to the fourth quarter for the book signing, a reception, and a chance to see the exhibit. please join me in thanking the panelists and we will see you on the fourth floor.