Exhibition Audio Tour
Drum sounds in this audio tour are courtesy of Oka Homma, a Chicago-based southern plains style Drum group.
Table of Contents
Stop 1: Introduction
Rose: Hello, and welcome to the Newberry Library. I’m Rose Miron, a non-Native historian and Director of the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies here at the Newberry.
Analú: I’m Analú María López. I am Huachichil and Xi’úi. At the Newberry, I am the Ayer Librarian and Assistant Curator for American Indian and Indigenous Studies.
Dave: I’m Dave Spencer. I am Diné and Mississippi Chata and Executive Director of the American Indian Center of Chicago.
Doug: I’m Doug Kiel, citizen of the Oneida Nation and Associate Professor of History at Northwestern University, and we are the co-curators of the Indigenous Chicago exhibition.
Meredith: I’m Meredith McCoy, a descendant of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe and Assistant Professor of History and American Studies at Carleton College. I’m one of the co-directors of the Indigenous Chicago project.
On this tour, the co-curators and I will take you through five centuries of Indigenous history on the land now known as Chicago. You’ll encounter events you are probably familiar with, but may not know how Indigenous people took part. You’ll also discover lesser-known parts of history that have been overlooked or actively erased. You’ll see works by contemporary Native artists that were commissioned for this exhibition, photographs and visual representations of Indigenous people in Chicago across time, and colonial documents that we have re-examined and re-contextualized to emphasize Indigenous presence on this land since the beginning of time. The items you will see come primarily from the Newberry Library’s significant collection of print materials related to American Indian and Indigenous history. However, our interpretation of these materials and the stories we feature here have been created in close collaboration with Indigenous people who live in Chicago today, as well as communities that have a historical connection to this place. Together, we chose to organize these items thematically, instead of chronologically. While this may initially feel unsettling – our intention is purposeful. We want you to reconsider the familiar histories you may have heard about Chicago and emphasize that Zhegagoynak, Gaa-zhigaagwanzhikaag, Zhgaagoong, Šikaakonki, Gųųšge Honąk, Sekākoh, or Shekâkôheki, which are some of the many Indigenous names for Chicago, has always been an Indigenous place.
The items you will see here represent only a fraction of a vibrant, complicated, and dynamic story of Indigenous people in Chicago in the past, present, and future. We will be your guides to these stories, but there’s no right way to take this tour. You can listen to each stop in order as you walk through the exhibition, explore this tour online, or pick and choose which stops to listen to based on what you’d like to learn more about. However you choose to experience this exhibition, we’re glad you’ve decided to join us, and if you’re interested in learning more about the broader Indigenous Chicago project, we encourage you to check out our website, indigenous-chicago.org.
Stop 2: An Established Native World
Rose: Standing in this gallery, you can see how deeply Indigenous people impacted the landscape of what is now Chicago, and how the city we know today would not be possible without them.
Narrator: This is Nicolas de Fer’s 1718 map, the title of which translates to: The course of the Mississippi, or St. Louis, famous river of North America in the vicinity of which one finds the country called Louisiana.
Rose Miron, Director of the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the Newberry, co-director of the Indigenous Chicago project, and co-curator of the Indigenous Chicago exhibition.
Rose: When we look at colonial maps like this, we have to understand that we are looking at a snapshot in time that was created by colonial officials who did not fully understand Indigenous traditions and lifeways. Native nations were not stationary. They moved seasonally within their territories, and the images of Indigenous people that we see here are sometimes exoticized.
Narrator: We’re also looking at a snapshot that is not only second-hand, but also about forty-five years old. Nicolas de Fer never actually set foot in North America. Instead, he relied on the accounts of French missionaries and explorers like Louis Hennepin and René Robert Cavalier de LaSalle that were written in the late seventeenth century.
Rose: In spite of this, it’s important to focus on what the map can tell us. There are Native people everywhere on this map. We see them in canoes, hunting, and being in relation with each other. This was not a vacant landscape but an established Native world into which Europeans had to integrate themselves. You can see this theme repeated across several other items in this first gallery. Early narratives like those of Jacques Marquette, in the center case of this room, highlight how dependent early settlers were on Native people for survival and navigation. In the same case, a map oriented around Native villages shows us that as late as the nineteenth century, settlers were still living in a world that was primarily shaped by the location and actions of Native communities. Even the ways we travel through the city today are profoundly shaped by Native travel routes, which, as shown on the large map by Albert F. Scharf at the back of this room, were the foundation for many of the diagonal streets we drive on today.
Stop 3: Native People in Chicago After Removal
Rose: In most narratives of Chicago history, Native people disappear after forced removal in the 1830s. But the reality is much different. This case shows a few examples of the many Native people who lived in and traveled to Chicago well after the removal period.
Narrator: These are two articles from the Chicago Tribune, one from 1872 announcing the death of Potawatomi treaty representative Alexander Robinson, or Chechepinquay, and another from 1875 narrating the visit of Kanaka Maoli, or Native Hawaiian, King David La’amea Kalākaua. We also have a twentieth-century photograph of the Ojibwe Hardy Family and the autographed pointe shoes of Osage ballerina Maria Tallchief, who founded the Chicago City Ballet in 1981 with her sister Marjorie.
Rose Miron, Director of the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the Newberry, co-director of the Indigenous Chicago project and co-curator of the Indigenous Chicago exhibition.
Rose: Looking at these items, you can see the variety of reasons that led people to return or relocate to Chicago after the removal period. Chechepinquay returned and lived the rest of his life on land reserved for him in the 1829 Treaty of Prairie du Chien. He and other Neshnabé gigdownenes (or representatives at treaty councils) like Sauganaush and Shabbonay often traveled between the land that was reserved for them in treaties and the homes of relatives that moved further west.
The Tribune article about King David La’amea Kalākaua shows an entirely different reason for Indigenous people being in Chicago in the late nineteenth century. During his reign, King Kalākaua made several visits to the US, and his trip to Chicago in 1875 was part of a monthslong national tour. Since the trip took place almost twenty years before the Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown, his visit was likely similar to that of other foreign diplomats—including a range of activities from sightseeing to meetings with government officials.
Narrator: As we move further into the twentieth century, we see a significant increase in Native people moving to Chicago. This started in the early twentieth century as children who attended Indian boarding schools were encouraged to move to cities rather than return to their home communities, but really took off in the mid-twentieth century with the US Bureau of Indian Affairs’ urban relocation program.
Rose: The Hardys were one of many families that moved to the Chicago area as part of the relocation program. And it’s really important to understand that this program was part of a much larger effort to assimilate Native people, in this case by encouraging them to leave their homes and relatives. Bureau of Indian Affairs officials circulated staged propaganda photos like this one on fliers that were distributed on reservations. These were certainly successful in getting people to move to cities, but ultimately failed in terms of their goals for assimilation and separating Native people from their relatives. Instead, what we see is the creation of new, intertribal communities that persist in the city to this day.
Stop 4: Treaties
Doug: In many ways, Chicago is an excellent case study for treaties between Native nations and the US government. The treaties made about this land vary greatly in the conditions under which they were negotiated, and the tactics US officials used to get them signed.
Narrator: This is a speech made by Myaamia leader Mihšihkinaahkwa, or Little Turtle, at the 1795 Treaty of Greenville negotiations, the first of four treaties that ceded land in Chicago. The other three treaties that ceded land here are the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis, the 1829 Treaty of Prairie du Chien, and the 1832 Treaty of Tippecanoe. Each of the materials on this wall represents one of those treaties.
To understand the complicated nature of these land cessions, we first have to understand what a treaty is. A treaty is a nation-to-nation agreement that defines mutual obligations between parties – in this case, Indigenous nations and the United States of America. For Indigenous people, who had long-standing practices for recognizing territorial boundaries that pre-date colonization, these were seen as agreements that had the potential to create respectful and mutually beneficial relationships. But settlers did not recognize Indigenous legal systems as valid. They saw treaties as transactional and used a variety of strategies to secure land that were not based in respect and reciprocity.
Doug Kiel, citizen of the Oneida Nation, Associate Professor of History at Northwestern, and co-curator of the Indigenous Chicago exhibition.
Doug: The treaties that ceded land in Chicago give us a few good examples of these tactics. First, many treaty negotiations began on unequal footing. The US government frequently called tribes to negotiations after enacting violence against our communities, or when tribes were in dire need of supplies. Such was the case in the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, which ended a conflict known as the “Northwest Indian War,” and in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis, which US officials strategically scheduled at a time when Neshnabé communities needed support. Once treaty negotiations began, US treaty commissioners aggressively sought the signatures of Native leaders, and when they could not acquire the signatures they desired, they went to other leaders, or even entirely different communities. As a result, many tribal nations contested treaties that they believed were signed by unauthorized individuals. This is what happened in the 1795 Treaty of Greenville. Neshnabé leaders who lived at Chicago protested the treaty, arguing that the Neshnabé who signed the agreement were not from Chicago and did not have the authority to cede the land there.
Narrator: In addition to the four treaties that ceded land in Chicago, two treaty negotiations were held at Chicago, but did not cede land there. The 1821 Treaty of Chicago ceded land in present-day Michigan and Indiana, and the 1833 Treaty of Chicago ceded land in present-day northern Illinois and Wisconsin.
Doug: These two treaty councils held at Chicago give us more examples of the US government’s tactics. Treaty commissioners often intentionally held negotiations far away from the lands that were to be ceded. Because treaty talks typically occurred over several weeks, and entire communities traveled to attend them, this exhausted the resources of communities that were required for these long journeys and made them more likely to need the payments and supplies offered. US officials also used the threat of violence to convince Native leaders to attend treaty talks and cede land. This is what happened after the Bad Axe Massacre at the end of the 1832 Black Hawk War. During negotiations for the 1833 Treaty of Chicago, American officials suggested that the Neshnabé might experience similarly violent outcomes if they did not relinquish their final land claims and remove themselves from their homelands.
These treaties and many others were fundamentally unfair agreements, but it’s too simple to say that our ancestors had no idea what they were signing. Native leaders had well-established practices of diplomacy across language barriers, and many worked hard to retain certain rights to things like hunting and fishing, and secure things like education for our communities. In many cases, they made difficult decisions that considered both the interests of their relatives at the time of signing as well as those of future generations. Though many treaties were broken, the rights guaranteed in these agreements and the inherent sovereignty of our nations persist to this day.
Stop 5: Landscape Changes and Reclamations
Doug: Maintaining relationships through reciprocal care is an important aspect of Indigenous approaches to land that prioritize the health and well-being of humans, lands, waters, animals, and plants.
Narrator: Reciprocity is defined by mutual benefit. For Native people, this didn’t mean that the land went unchanged, but that their interactions with it both enabled their ability to survive and benefited the environment. The removal of Indigenous people from these lands interrupted these reciprocal relationships, making it impossible for them to care for important ecosystems. This lack of care, as well as significant changes settlers made to the earth, negatively impacted both animal and plant species.
Doug Kiel, citizen of the Oneida Nation, Associate Professor of History at Northwestern, and co-curator of the Indigenous Chicago exhibition.
Doug: From the moment settlers arrived in this region in the late 17th century, they envisioned changes to the landscape that would suit their economies. Both the mouth of the Chicago River and the Chicago portage were previously shallow waterways that were an ideal habitat for many types of plants and fish and were well suited for canoes. However, since larger ships often ran aground in these shallow waters, settlers began planning to alter the waterscape.
Narrator: This case includes William Howard and F. Harrison’s 1830 map of the mouth of the Chicago River Illinois with the plan of the proposed piers for improving the harbor and William C. Alden’s map showing the lakeshore.
Doug: These plans propelled Native removal and began as the final treaties were being signed. Congress earmarked funding for harbor improvements in 1828 and 1831 and construction began in 1833. US officials broke ground on the Illinois-Michigan Canal in 1836, and plans to reroute the river and create a harbor suitable for larger ships also began in this period. The buzz around these engineering projects drew waves of American settlers and land speculators who expressed their disdain for the marsh-dominated region. As a result, US officials began several draining projects along the southern section of Lake Michigan starting in 1832, ultimately destroying 367,485 acres of wetlands.
Several infrastructure projects, and later the Great Chicago Fire, also resulted in huge deposits of sand and rubble into Lake Michigan, extending the lakeshore further east. This land did not exist when treaties were signed, so it remains unceded.
Narrator: Land agreed upon in treaties is known as “ceded” land, but much of the land in the United States remains unceded, meaning it was taken forcefully or without treaties. The new land along the lakeshore of Lake Michigan did not exist when the treaties ceding land in Chicago were signed, so many continue to see it as unceded.
Doug: These changes are drastic and have been destructive, but it’s important to emphasize that today, Native people are renewing our relationships with this land and reclaiming traditional lifeways. Some do this through art. On the north wall of the gallery, you can see three teaching blankets created by Potawatomi artist Jason Wesaw that speak to the ongoing connections that removed Indigenous people hold to the land and waterways in Chicago. There is also a long history of renewing and teaching others about traditional land-based practices. The First Nations Garden featured here in a photograph is a great example of this. Organizations like the Chicago American Indian Center and Trickster Cultural Center have long planted and managed Indigenous gardens, and Professor Eli Suzukovich, who is from the Little Shell Band of Chippewa-Cree Nation, continues to teach maple-tapping at Northwestern University.
Stop 6: Recognition of Chicago as an Important Place
Dave: The lands and waters in modern day Chicago have been a crucial transition zone since time immemorial. In particular, the portages at Chicago have been part of significant trade routes linking the upper Great Lakes with the Mississippi River watershed. Knowing where these portages were and how to navigate them required extensive knowledge that Native communities gathered over centuries of trading, farming, and making their homes along Chicago’s waterways.
Narrator: This is Pierre-François Pinet’s seventeenth-century dictionary of the Miami-Illinois language and a 1692 fur trade contract between François Francouer and four voyageurs for the transport of goods and purchase of beaver pelts through Chicago.
Dave Spencer, Diné and Mississippi Chata, Executive Director of the Chicago American Indian Center, and co-curator of the Indigenous Chicago exhibition.
Dave: These two items can tell us a lot about the way that European settlers depended on and oriented their decisions around Native people. As French Jesuit priests entered what is now called the Midwest, they tried to convert Native people to Christianity, often setting up missions to do so. But in order to get Native people to listen to their messages, they had to establish these missions in places where Native people were already living or frequently traveling through. Such was the case with the Mission of the Guardian Angel, a Jesuit mission established in 1696 on the Lower Chicago River near two Wea summer villages, which also included Peoria, Kaskaskia, and Myaamia people. It was at the mission that Father Pierre-François Pinet created this dictionary, recording the language of the peoples he was trying to convert.
Narrator: The page of the dictionary you see here has an important word: paapankamwa, or as it’s written here, paapankamwita. Paapankamwa is the Miami-Illinois word for fox, or renard as it’s listed in French here. When this dictionary was discovered at the Archives of the Jesuits in Canada in 1999, scholar Michael McCafferty was able to distinguish that this was the Miami-Illinois language, rather than another within the larger Algonquin language family because paapankamwa is unique to the Miami-Illinois language.
Dave: In addition to the establishment of missions, and later treaty negotiations, at places that were already important to Indigenous people, the fur trade also shows us that settlers had to integrate themselves into existing kinship networks. Ojibwe scholar Michael Witgen describes this process clearly. Settlers either became ndenwémagen, or relatives, or remained myeg yegwan, or foreigners, and in order to be successful in the fur trade, they had to become relatives. Marriages to Native women often facilitated this, but Native women were not passive participants in these arrangements. Instead, they served as translators and instructors of Native protocols for their husbands. Many, like Marie Magdeleine St. Jean, who signed this contract on behalf of her husband, were directly involved in managing the fur trade business. A century after St. Jean, Kitihawa and Archange Ouilmette, Potawatomi wives of French traders Jean Baptiste Point du Sable and Antoine Ouilmette respectively, are said to have assisted with the management of their husbands’ businesses, enabling them to travel across the Great Lakes region for long periods of time. While Du Sable and Ouilmette are remembered today as heroic founders of the city, their success and well-being depended on Native women who enabled them to exist within a dynamic Native world.
Stop 7: The Chicago Native Community After Relocation
Dave: Today, Chicago is home to a diverse and flourishing Native community made up of people from more than 100 different Indigenous nations across the United States and Canada. Those of us who are part of this community have unique identities as urban Native people—we maintain connections to our distinct tribal nations, but also consider Chicago, and the Native community here, our home.
Narrator: Many of the families who live here today are the descendants of those who moved to Chicago in the mid-twentieth century as part of an urban relocation program run by the US Bureau of Indian Affairs. Native people were encouraged to move to cities informally for many decades as part of larger assimilation attempts, and then more formally following the passage of the Indian Relocation Act in 1956. This is an undated propaganda poster showing the Red Lake Ojibwe Burns family in their new home in Waukegan.
Dave Spencer, Diné and Mississippi Chata, Executive Director of the Chicago American Indian Center, and co-curator of the Indigenous Chicago exhibition.
Dave: The Bureau of Indian Affairs circulated posters like these, as well as films like the one playing on the west side of the gallery, in an effort to convince Native families to move to cities like Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. The propaganda materials featured images of the stereotypical American dream: men working good jobs, women completing housework and other domestic tasks like grocery shopping, and of course, television.
Narrator: Though the propaganda materials promised well paying jobs, housing, and support for Native families who chose to move, the reality was much different. Those who relocated were met with harsh racism and discrimination, and the second half of the film on the west side of the gallery shows portions of the documentary The Divided Trail, displaying some of the dire housing conditions that community members experienced.
Dave: Once again, promises were broken. But those who moved here came together to create a new community that was built on mutual aid and support.
Narrator: This is The Chieftain, a newsletter published by the American Indian Church, and a community service directory published by the Native-led organization Native American Educational Services.
Dave: Native people used newsletters like The Chieftain to circulate local news and events, recipes, and available resources—a practice that continues today through email newsletters like those sent by the Chicago Public Schools American Indian Education program and the Chicago American Indian Community Collaborative. Our community also founded several organizations to support families and create spaces for intergenerational gatherings. Many of the organizations listed in this directory are featured throughout the exhibition, and some, like the American Indian Center, American Indian Health Services of Chicago, the Native American Support Program at University of Illinois Chicago, and the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous History, are still open today.
Stop 8: Reconsidering the Battle of Fort Dearborn
Analú: As one of the four stars on Chicago’s flag, the Battle of Fort Dearborn is represented as a founding moment in this city’s history. Walking over the Michigan Avenue bridge downtown, you will see a bas-relief sculpture titled The Defense, which depicts the battle. It is one of many representations that ignore the broader context for the attack and depict Native people as savages.
Narrator: This is non-Native historian Juliette Kinzie’s 1844 Narrative of the Massacre at Chicago and Potawatomi writer Simon Pokagon’s 1899 publication “The massacre of Fort Dearborn at Chicago. Gathered from the traditions of the Indian tribes engaged in the massacre and from the published accounts.”
Analú María López, Huachichil and Xi’úi, Ayer Librarian, Assistant Curator of American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the Newberry, co-director of the Indigenous Chicago project and co-curator of the Indigenous Chicago exhibition.
Analú: Kinzie’s writing is generally known for having inaccuracies and exaggerating the influence of her relatives like father-in-law John Kinzie. But in this narrative in particular, her failure to acknowledge the broader context of colonial violence and her assumptions about the alleged superiority of white American culture are clear.
Narrator: Kinzie was the first writer to call this event a “massacre” and because of her family’s status in Chicago when her writing was published, the term stuck and took on further life in representations of the battle at the 1893 World’s Fair.
Analú: That’s why Simon Pokagon’s 1899 narrative of the battle is so important. Because he was writing for primarily white audiences, he still calls the event a massacre, but gives readers further context that is important for understanding the battle, and draws on first-hand accounts shared by his father, Potawatomi leader Leopold Pokagon, who witnessed the aftermath of the event.
When this battle occurred in 1812, violence against Native communities committed by invading settlers had been occurring for more than 300 years. American encroachment on Native lands was increasing, and Shawnee leaders Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa were working with Potawatomi leaders from the Chicago area like Main Poc to organize a unified resistance to American invasion. In June of that year, Tecumseh and his allies laid out more detailed plans for war, following several American attacks on Indigenous villages, including Tecumseh’s own village at Tippecanoe in present-day Indiana. A plan was formed to attack Fort Madison in present-day Iowa, Fort Wayne and Fort Harrison in present-day Indiana, and Fort Dearborn at Chicago at the same time in August. The attacks would be coordinated through wampum belts, small beads made from shells that were strung together to record histories and communicate messages.
However, as Tecumseh and his allies made plans, war broke out between the Americans and the British, and Tecumseh and Main Poc immediately joined British forces in Detroit. Still, they sent regular messengers to communicate with their allies, and on August 14, a wampum belt was delivered to Potawatomi leader Mad Sturgeon signaling war should begin. Those at Fort Dearborn had been ordered to evacuate the next day, and it was an ideal time to attack the American garrison. The following day, Potawatomi fighters and their Kickapoo, Sauk, and Ho-Chunk allies attacked the convoy of American soldiers, civilians, and their Myaamia allies about a mile and a half from the Fort.
There’s no denying the battle was brutal and many American soldiers and civilians, as well as Native fighters, lost their lives. But as Pokagon argues in his narrative, many Native people also came to the aid of white settlers. Potawatomis like Leopold Pokagon; Chechepinquay, or Alexander Robinson; Black Partridge; Shabbonay; Wabaunsee; Sauganaush, or Billy Caldwell; and Archange Ouilmette all protected settlers they had built relationships with as part of the fur trade. The white settlers who had integrated themselves into Native kinship networks were living in accordance with Native protocols and were not seen as a threat to Native lifeways, unlike the soldiers and settlers who had begun to farm and settle on unceded land. The attack was ultimately a part of a larger resistance movement to American invasion, not a random act of violence. Indeed, the planned attacks on Forts Madison, Harrison, and Wayne were also carried out just a few weeks later.
Stop 9: Chicago Indian Village
Analú: If you grew up in Chicago, especially within the city, then grassroots organizations such as the Black Panther Party or the Young Lords Organization may be familiar names. But have you ever heard about the Chicago Indian Village organization? A Native-run group founded here in Chicago who also organized with the Black Panther Party, Chicago Indian Village led multiple actions and protests between 1970 and 1972 and advocated for affordable housing, educational, and employment opportunities for Indigenous people living in Chicago.
Narrator: This is a Chicago Daily News photograph from 1970, featuring Menominee mother Carol Warrington with her children in front of a teepee.
Analú María López, Huachichil and Xi’úi, Ayer Librarian, Assistant Curator of American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the Newberry, co-director of the Indigenous Chicago project and co-curator of the Indigenous Chicago exhibition.
Analú: This image comes from the very first action that Chicago Indian Village held in front of Wrigley Field, after Carol Warrington and her six children were evicted from their home. This action began under the leadership of an activist group called the Native American Committee, but shortly thereafter, Ojibwe activist Mike Chosa and others like his sister Betty Jack Chosa and Carol Warrington formed their own organization, the Chicago Indian Village.
Shortly after their first direct action in Wrigleyville, Chicago Indian Village started organizing out of a storefront in the Uptown neighborhood. Over the course of two more years of organizing, they led at least a dozen activist events across the Chicagoland area, beginning with the occupation of a residential building on Ainslie Street for 15 months, through which they advocated for the Native families who lived there to have consistent heat and electricity. They frequently spoke with the media about issues the Native community was facing and even published a newsletter.
Chicago Indian Village’s organizing led to promised units of housing for the Native community by the Chicago Housing Authority and they contributed to several Native-run schools in the city. They also advocated for Native-owned businesses and eventually founded and incorporated the All-Indian Tree Service company.
Stop 10: The Native American Committee
Meredith: I think it’s common to see Native-led education in the second half of the twentieth century as new or reactionary to colonial education systems. But we had our own systems of teaching and learning prior to colonization, and we have long claimed space within mission, boarding, day, public, magnet, and charter schools and built our own education programs outside of them that speak to our teachings and educational priorities. These twentieth-century models are an extension of this history, not a new phenomenon.
Narrator: These are two issues of the Native American Committee’s publication Red Letter, a portrait of Oneida community leader Louis Delgado, who led O-Wai-Ya-Wa Elementary School, and four images of staff and students at Native American Educational Services, or NAES, College.
Meredith McCoy, descendant of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe, Assistant Professor of History and American Studies at Carleton College, and co-director of the Indigenous Chicago project.
Meredith: The Native American Committee and the educational programs it founded are great examples of communities claiming and enacting sovereignty, or control, over education. The Committee was formed in 1969 within the Chicago American Indian Center to support Red Power activism nationally, especially the occupation of Alcatraz Island in California that began that year. Like other local movements for Red Power, they saw the well-being of Native students as a core priority. They went on to found three different Native educational institutions in Chicago that reshaped the education of an entire generation of Native students.
Narrator: The Committee founded Little Big Horn High School in 1971, O-Wai-Ya-Wa Elementary School in 1973, and NAES College in 1975. Little Big Horn High School was initially based at the American Indian Center before moving to another location in the Lake View neighborhood and eventually into what is now Senn High School in Andersonville. O-Wai-Ya-Wa, which is Lakota for place of learning, was affiliated with Goudy Elementary School in Edgewater, and NAES was located on the north side of the city across from Mather Park. NAES was the first Native-controlled private college to offer a four-year degree.
Meredith: These schools provided a number of vital services to Native students. Prior to their creation, Native students reported feeling alienated and misunderstood and were so poorly supported that the dropout rate was as high as 90%. These schools were different—they nurtured Native students by creating culturally sustaining spaces that involved parents and the broader Native community in their education. Each school employed several Native teachers and implemented a distinct curriculum that integrated accurate Native histories and contemporary experiences into instruction. By 1976, the dropout rate at Little Big Horn High School was 11%, and by 1979 O-Wai-Ya-Wa had an attendance rate of 90%. At the college level, NAES combined coursework with community work to develop Native leaders who would be prepared to work for Native organizations.
In Red Letter we can see this investment in the broader community. This issue includes a section about the Native American Committee’s history as well as information about a community meeting regarding the Indian Child Welfare Act and a local conference held here at the Newberry. It also includes images from the Chicago Canoe Club, which was formed within the American Indian Center.*
*The sections about the Native American Committee’s history and the committee meeting are found in the 1980 Red Letter issue displayed. The images from the Chicago Canoe Club are in the 1981 issue.
Stop 11: The Future of Native Education in Chicago
Meredith: Across the United States, we still see significant erasure and marginalization of Native people and histories in schools through textbooks and standards, as artist David Bernie depicts in this piece.
Narrator: This is Ihanktonwan Dakota artist David Bernie’s Indian Country 52 #33 – Reclaiming the Truth.
Meredith McCoy, descendant of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe, Assistant Professor of History and American Studies at Carleton College, and co-director of the Indigenous Chicago project.
Meredith: Recent studies have shown that 87% of state history standards only mention Native histories before the year 1900, and that 75% of state standards do not mention tribal sovereignty or treaty rights. Until recently, Illinois was one of 14 states that made no mention of Native people in their standards at all. These erasures mean that most students do not learn about Indigenous histories, contemporary Indigenous experiences, or the critical place of tribal sovereignty within American law.
But in 2023, after years of organizing, Native activists across Illinois achieved legislative change. Through months of activism and working with state officials, they helped pass House Bill 1633, which requires all Illinois K through 12 classrooms that teach US history or government to have at least one unit about Native history in the Midwest and the state, including instruction about Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination.
This law is the result of work by organizations like the Chicago American Indian Community Collaborative, which has a subcommittee specifically dedicated to educational issues. Other organizations provide direct support to students at multiple levels. The American Indian Association of Illinois and the Chicago Public Schools’ American Indian Education Program both run after-school programs, and the Indigenous STEAM and Learning in Places projects, hosted in part by Northwestern University, offer land-based learning for Native students and families. The Native American Support Program at the University of Illinois Chicago and the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research at Northwestern University are both committed to supporting Native college students at their respective institutions. The D’Arcy McNickle Center at the Newberry Library, which is the first center for Indigenous research outside of a university, also runs programs and fellowship opportunities for students across the United States.
In the wake of this new legislation, many educators and local organizations, including the McNickle Center, are creating curricular resources that can be used by teachers to implement the new mandate. These new initiatives reflect a national trend toward better representation of Indigenous perspectives and priorities in schools.