2009 Archives

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2009 Native American News Archive

Native American news and events that occurred in Indian Country in 2009.

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2009 Native American News Highlights

—The federal government announced that it intends to pay $3.4 billion to settle claims that it has mismanaged the revenue in American Indian trust funds, potentially ending one of the largest and most complicated class-action lawsuits ever brought against the United States.

The tentative agreementwould resolve a 13-year-old lawsuit over hundreds of thousands of land trust accounts that date to the 19th century. Specialists in federal tribal law described the lawsuit as one of the most important in the history of legal disputes involving the government’s treatment of American Indians.

—For two decades, researchers have been using a growing volume of genetic data to debate whether ancestors of Native Americans emigrated to the New World in one wave or successive waves, or from one ancestral Asian population or a number of different populations.

Now, after painstakingly comparing DNA samples from people in dozens of modern-day Native American and Eurasian groups, an international team of scientists thinks it can put the matter to rest: virtually without exception, the new evidence supports the single ancestral population theory.

—Acorns and oak trees were once a vital food source for California Indians, and the oak and its fruits still hold great cultural significance. The spread of Sudden Oak Death is of grave concern to California tribes.

Leonard Peltier again denied parole

U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley says imprisoned AmericanIndian activist Leonard Peltier has been denied parole. Wrigley said Friday the next scheduled hearing for Peltier is 2024, when Peltier would be 79 years old. Amnesty International today regretted the US Parole Commission’s decision not to grant Leonard Peltier parole despite concerns about the fairness of his 1977 conviction for murder. The organization called for the immediate release on parole of the activist, who is serving two consecutive life sentences and has spent…

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The fight continues over whether Leonard Peltier should be paroled

BISMARCK, N.D. – The North Dakota reservation where imprisoned AmericanIndian activist Leonard Peltier grew up has made arrangements to incorporatehim back into society should he be paroled, Peltier’s attorney said Tuesday.Peltier is serving two life sentences for the execution-style deaths of FBIagents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams during a June 26, 1975, standoff onSouth Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He was convicted in Fargo,N.D., in 1977. He has claimed the FBI framed him, which the agency denies,and he has unsuccessfully…

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Art contest for Alaska Native artists pays $2,000 to winner

The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is seeking Alaska Native artists to compete in the 2009 American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month Poster Contest. The selected artist will receive $2,000 and their artwork will be reproduced into a poster for nationwide distribution.

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Pope’s remarks whitewashed the genocide of Indigenous Peoples

Hopefully, Pope Benedict XVI will soon formally revoke the 15th century papal bulls which were primarily responsible for the horrible atrocities committed against Indigenous Peoples and then lead the Catholic Church and Western “Civilization” through a process of radical transformation. And by doing so, lead humanity into a new age, wherein Indigenous Peoples will be given their due respect.

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Independent Indigenous Sovereign Nations

The indigenous peoples living in this land are still being denied three of their--endowed by the Creator--unalienable equality rights, or fundamental human rights. The right to absolute root ownership of their scared traditional/ancestral homelands, the right to be recognized and treated as full independent sovereign nations and the--freedom of religion--right to fully re-establish their traditional religions within their sacred ancestral homelands.

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