Click the images below, or the following links, to expand the view or download a PDF: American Indian Heritage Month Timeline and American Indian Heritage Month Facts & Figures.

American Indian Heritage Month

1600s – 1700s

1614 Pocahontas marries English Jamestown colonist John Rolfe in Virginia, bringing temporary peace between English settlers and Algonquians
1758 First North American Indian reservation is established in New Jersey

1800s

1824 Bureau of Indian Affairs is established
1830 Indian Removal Act gives president the power to negotiate removal treaties for American Indians to move west of the Mississippi. About 4,000 Cherokee die as a result.
1834 Congress bans alcohol sales on American Indian lands
1851 Indian Appropriations Act of 1851 gathers American Indian tribes and places them on reservations
1871 Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 dissolves the status of Indian tribes as sovereign nations
1887 Congress passes Dawes Act, dividing reservation lands into privately owned parcels
1890 Roughly 300 Sioux are killed at Wounded Knee in last battle with federal forces

1900s

1912 Jim Thorpe, an athlete of the Sac and Fox tribe, wins two Olympic gold medals
1924 Indian Citizenship Act classifies American Indians as “citizens”
1929 Charles Curtis becomes the 31st vice president of the United States, the first person with significant acknowledged American Indian heritage to reach this level of the executive branch
1930 Apache Scout William Major becomes an officer of the 25th United States Infantry
1934 Congress passes Indian Reorganization Act to protect American Indians from loss of lands and provide funds for economic development. Also helps re-establish tribal governments
1963 Lyndon B. Johnson bestows the Presidential Medal of Freedom on its first American Indian recipient, Annie Dodge Wauneka of the Navajo Nation.
1968 Indian Civil Rights Act grants American Indians most protections under the Bill of Rights and 14th Amendment
1972 The American Indian Movement seizes the Bureau of Indian Affairs national headquarters and presents a 20-point list of demands
1973 American Indians occupy Wounded Knee in South Dakota
1978 American Indian Freedom of Religion Act allows “American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut and Native Hawaiian [people] … inherent right” to free exercise of their traditional religions
1980 Supreme Court orders U.S. government to pay $122 million to Sioux Indians for land illegally taken in South Dakota in 1877
1982 Supreme Court supports tax levied by the Jicarilla Apaches in New Mexico, allowing tribes to tax production of oil, natural gas and other minerals on reservations
1988 Congress passes Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, protecting American Indians’ gaming rights
1989 National Museum of the American Indian opens in Washington, D.C.
1990 First National American Indian Heritage month is celebrated (November)
1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act provides process for museums to return American Indian remains and artifacts to tribes upon request and protect their grave sites
1990 Native American Languages Act protects “the rights and freedom of Native Americans to use, practice and develop Native American languages”
1992 Foxwoods Casino opens on Pequot Reservation in Connecticut
1997 U.S. military allows American Indian soldiers to use peyote in their religious services

2000s

2000 The U.S. Mint issues a dollar coin with the image of Sacagawea, the Shosone woman famed for guiding the Lewis & Clark expedition through the western United States
2002 U.S. Navy Commander John Bennett Herrington, a Chickasaw citizen, visits the International Space Station, becoming the first American Indian astronaut in space
2005 National Collegiate Athletic Association bans use of “hostile and abusive” American Indian mascots in postseason tournaments
2009 Federal government settles dispute with American Indians, claiming they were swindled out of billions of dollars in oil, gas, grazing, timber and other royalties overseen by the U.S. Department of the Interior since 1887
2009 Congress passes and President Obama signs Native American Apology Resolution
2011 Judge clears New York state to tax cigarettes sold on American Indian reservations
2012 Senate approves the HEARTH Act that allows tribal governments to lease
tribal lands
Kevin Washburn of the Chickasaw nation is nominated by President Obama as the assistant secretary for Indian Affairs

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