Chronology of American Indian History

ing lands. The BLM ignore the Danns’s claims and
sends federal agents to impound their cattle. (See
also entries for FEBRUARY 20, 1985, and for JULY
17, 2005.)

McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Commission
confirms Indians’ state tax exemption.
A Navajo (Dineh) woman named McClanahan
sued Arizona for a tax refund after it withheld taxes
from her salary in 1967. All of her wages that year
had been earned on the Navajo Indian Reservation,
which she maintains made that income nontaxable.
When Arizona courts refused to grant her the refund,
McClanahan appeals to the Supreme Court. After
a review of the Navajo’s treaties, which include no
provision allowing Arizona to collect taxes from tribe
members, the Court finds in McClanahan’s favor.

The old Narragansett reservation is listed
on the National Register of Historic Places.
The remains of a Narragansett village on the tribe’s
old reservation in the Charlestown section of Bos-
ton is protected from destruction by its addition to
the National Register of Historic Places. This his-
toric site includes the Narragansett Indian Church,
built by Indian masons in 1859, and the ruins of
many Narragansett houses constructed during the
18th and 19th centuries.

January 31

Calder v. Attorney General of British
Columbia upholds Canadian Natives’
land claims.
In the case of Calder v. Attorney General of Brit-
ish Columbia, Frank Calder, the president of the
Nishga Tribal Council, claims before the Canadian
Supreme Court that his people have never formally
given up control of their lands in British Columbia.
In a lower-court hearing, Calder stated, “What we
don’t like about the government is their saying this:
‘We will give you this much land.’ How can they
give it when it is our own?”
Although the Canadian Supreme Court rules
against Calder on a technicality, it does recognize

that Canada’s Natives had a legal claim to their lands

before the arrival of Europeans in North America—

a claim that can only be extinguished through legal

means, such as treaties or land purchases.

February 6

American Indian Movement protesters

are arrested following a riot in Custer,

South Dakota.

About 200 members of American Indian Move-

ment (AIM) travel to the town of Custer, South

Dakota, to protest the local police’s actions follow-

ing the death of Wesley Bad Heart Bull, a young

Indian man. Bad Heart Bull was brutally stabbed to

death by a white man at a local bar, but his assailant

was charged with involuntary manslaughter rather

than with murder.

Seeking justice, the protesters confront the

police on the steps of the Custer courthouse. The

heavily armed officers, who decide to allow only

AIM leaders to enter the building, forcibly hold

back Sarah Bad Heart Bull, the victim’s mother.

The police send tear gas into the crowd, and the

protesters begin to riot. Although no one is killed,

several AIM members are beaten, and a nearby city

building is burned to the ground. In the aftermath,

27 protesters, including Sarah Bad Heart Bull, are

arrested for rioting.

February 28

American Indian Movement (AIM) activists

take over Wounded Knee.

Some 200 Oglala Lakota traditionalists and mem-

bers of the American Indian Movement (AIM)

seize control of a Catholic church, a trading post,

and a museum near the site of the Wounded Knee

Massacre, during which nearly 300 Lakota were

slaughtered by the U.S. Army (see entry for DE-

CEMBER 29, 1890). The action is intended to bring

attention to the campaign of terror launched by

tribal chairman Dick Wilson against traditional

Indians and other political opponents on the Pine

Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. With funds