December
The National Indian Council
is formed.
The first major pan-Native organization in Can-
ada since the demise of the League of Indians (see
entry for DECEMBER 1918), the National Indian
Council is founded as a national lobbying group
representing status Indians (i.e., people registered
as Indian under the Canadian Indian Act [see
entry for APRIL 12, 1876]), nonstatus Indians,
and the Métis. The organization identifies its pur-
pose as the promotion of “unity among all Indian
people.”
1962Edward Spicer’s Cycles of Conquest
is published.
In Cycles of Conquest: The Impact of Spain, Mexico,
and the United States on the Indians of the South-
west, 1533–1960, cultural anthropologist Edward
Spicer documents the ineffectiveness of foreigners’
efforts to assimilate southwestern Indian peoples
throughout recorded history. His emphasis on the
persistence of Indian traditional cultures counters
theories that present Indians represent a “vanish-
ing race.”
The Indian Claims Commission offers
compensation for Shoshone land.
After a 15-year court battle, the Indian Claims
Commission (see entry for AUGUST 12, 1946)
rules that certain lands of the Western Shoshones
were taken from them by gradual encroachment by
whites. The United States holds that the Western
Shoshone are entitled to monetary compensa-
tion but not to the lost land itself. The decision
will cause a division in the tribe, as some tribe
members decide to accept compensation whereas
others, led by sisters Mary and Carrie Dann, con-
tinue to fight to regain their land. (See also entries
for 1973 and FEBRUARY 20, 1985.)
Healing v. Jones addresses Hopi and Navajo
(Dineh) land claims.
A federal court ruling in Healing v. Jones attempts
to settle a land dispute between the Hopi and
Navajo (Dineh) that dates back to the late 19th
century, when an executive order established the
Hopi Indian Reservation (see entry for DECEM-
BER 16, 1882). Within its borders lived a large
number of Navajo who refused to move. As the
Najavo’s population expanded, more and more
land on the Hopi reservation was occupied by
Navajo.
Healing v. Jones determines that most of the
disputed land belongs to both the Hopi and the
Navajo. Aside from a half-million-acre grazing
area to be exclusively owned by the Hopi, the land
in question, measuring approximately two mil-
lion acres, is to be used jointly by both groups. Far
from settling the dispute, this compromise deci-
sion angers the Hopi and Navajo alike.The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) begins
dumping nuclear waste on Inuit land.
In the late 1950s, the Atomic Energy Commission
(AEC) proposed to demonstrate peacetime uses of
atomic energy by using atomic weapons to blast a
new harbor near the Inuit village of Point Hope in
Alaska. The Point Hope Inuit strongly objected to
the project (named Operation Chariot) and wrote
letters of protest to President John F. Kennedy.
In light of the opposition, the AEC abandons
Operation Chariot and instead embarks on an ex-
periment to determine the toxicity of radioactive
material on Arctic plants and animals. Without
informing the Inuit, the agency dumps near Point
Hope 15,000 pounds of radioactive waste from the
U.S. nuclear testing site in Nevada. The waste is
not placed in protective containers but is inserted
into holes in the ground and covered with gravel.
The AEC’s actions will not come to light until the
1980s, when scholars will link the secret waste
dump to the extremely high incidence of cancer
suffered by the Inuit at Point Hope.