Primary Sources: Native Americans - American Indians - Indigenous Americans: Law & Government

A collection of U.S. statutes from the late 1700s through the 1800s concerning Native Americans. Provided by Yale's Avalon Project

Documents on the U.S. Department of the Interior's website.
"The Buy-Back Program seeks to support tribal sovereignty by providing individual American Indians opportunities to get cash payments for voluntarily transferring their fractional land interests. Upon transfer, the interests will be held in trust for the benefit of the tribe with jurisdiction over the land. As an additional incentive to individuals to transfer their fractional interests, each sale will trigger payments to a scholarship fund for higher education for American Indian and Alaska Natives (up to $60 million)."

Extract from President Chester Arthur's First Annual Message to Congress December 6, 1881

"... is a public law library devoted to federal Indian and tribal law." It includes various resources including some primary source materials.

" This Project is a cooperative effort among the University of Oklahoma Law Center and the National Indian Law Library (NILL), and Native American tribes providing access to the Constitutions, Tribal Codes, and other legal documents. Project Coordinators are David Selden (NILL) and Marilyn Nicely (OU).

Tribal constitutions and codes are the heart of self-government for over 500 federally recognized tribes, and are the lifeblood of Indian sovereignty. The University of Oklahoma Law Center Library and the National Indian Law Library work with tribes whose government documents appear on this web site; these tribal documents are either placed online with the permission of the tribes, or they are U.S. Government documents, rightfully in the public domain. "

"On June 18, 1934, Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA, sometimes known as the "Indian New Deal"). When the bill was being considered that spring, Congress held hearings to learn what tribes around the nation thought about it. This document from the National Archives contains the testimony given by tribes in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Ho Chunk leader Henry Roe Cloud played a prominent role at the meeting. The 1934 act reversed the federal government's 50-year-old policy of Indian assimilation that had tried to force Indians to give up their languages, cultures, and identity in favor of white culture. Instead, it encouraged Indian nations to form tribal governments and to conduct their own internal affairs. These new tribal governments drafted constitutions and provided tribes with political bodies that could assert their sovereign rights."

"The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which became known as the Indian New Deal, dramatically changed the federal government’s Indian policy. Although John Collier, the commissioner of Indian affairs who was responsible for the new policy, may have viewed Indians with great sympathy, not all Native Americans viewed the Indian New Deal in equally positive terms. In this 1970 interview with historian Herbert T. Hoover, Amos Owen, Mdewakanton Sioux tribal chairman, gave a mixed verdict on the Indian Reorganization Act."

"The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which became known as the Indian New Deal, dramatically changed the federal government’s Indian policy. Although John Collier, commissioner of Indian affairs who was responsible for the new policy, may have viewed Indians with great sympathy, not all Native Americans viewed the Indian New Deal in equally positive terms. In this 1968 interview with historian Joseph H. Cash, attorney Ramon Roubideaux, a Brule Sioux, denounced the Indian Reorganization Act as “a white man’s idea” of how Indians should live and argued that it “set the Indian people aside from the mainstream of American life and made them a problem.” " GMU History Matters

"The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which became known as the Indian New Deal, dramatically changed the federal government’s Indian policy. Although John Collier, the commissioner of Indian affairs who was responsible for the new policy, may have viewed Indians with great sympathy, not all Native Americans viewed his programs in equally positive terms. Antonio Luhan, the husband of the wealthy writer Mabel Dodge Luhan and a Taos Pueblo Indian, was a friend and supporter of John Collier. In this letter to Collier, which he dictated to his wife, he reported on his efforts to persuade other Indians that Collier was their friend and that the reorganization act would bring positive change."