Trail of Broken Treaties

Trail of Broken Treaties
Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan
Part of American Indian Movement(AIM)
DateOctober–November 1972
Location
Bureau of Indian Affairs building
Washington DC
GoalsNative American sovereignty
MethodsOccupation protest
Parties
Indigenous people from the United States and Canada
US federal government

The Trail of Broken Treaties (also known as the Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan[1] and the Pan American Native Quest for Justice[2]) was a 1972 cross-country caravan of American Indian and First Nations organizations that started on the West Coast of the United States and ended at the Department of Interior headquarters building at the US capital of Washington, D.C. Participants called for the restoration of tribes’ treaty-making authority, the abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and federal investment in jobs, housing, and education.[3]

The protest inspired sizable gatherings of Native Americans throughout the journey, with the caravan described as "over four miles long and included some 700 activists from more than 200 tribes and 25 states" when it departed St Paul, Minnesota, for Washington, D.C.[4]

The eight organizations that sponsored the caravan included the American Indian Movement (AIM), the Canadian National Indian Brotherhood (later renamed the Assembly of First Nations),[5] the Native American Rights Fund, the National Indian Youth Council, the National American Indian Council, the National Council on Indian Work, National Indian Leadership Training, and the American Indian Committee on Alcohol and Drug Abuse.[6] In Minneapolis, AIM headquarters, activists developed a Twenty-Point Position paper to define their demands.[7][8]

  1. ^ Blair, William M. (October 31, 1972). "Indians to Begin Capital Protests" (PDF). New York Times. p. 31. Retrieved December 31, 2020.
  2. ^ Trail of Broken Treaties, Alan C. Downs, ABC-CLIO
  3. ^ Blakemore, Erin (November 25, 2020). "The radical history of the Red Power movement's fight for Native American sovereignty". National Geographic. Archived from the original on November 25, 2020. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  4. ^ "Rising: The American Indian Movement and the Third Space of Sovereignty". Muscarelle Museum of Art (Online Exhibition). Curated by Danielle Moretti-Langholtz, Ph.D. College of William and Mary. 2020. Retrieved 2020-12-30.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  5. ^ "Rapid City Journal, Oct.04 1972 - Trail of Broken Treaties announcement by Russell Means". Rapid City Journal. 1972-10-04. p. 3. Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  6. ^ Smith, Daniel L. (July 26, 2020). "The Takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Headquarters in 1972". History is Now Magazine. Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference 20p was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Phillips, Katrina (June 6, 2020). "Longtime police brutality drove American Indians to join the George Floyd protests". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2021-01-03.