Chronology of American Indian History

P

which they also vow to defend Indian religious tra-
ditions and to help Indians recover sacred objects
and protect sacred sites.

1988

Studies show Canadian Inuit suffer high
levels of PCB contamination.
Canadian researchers discover that the milk of
Inuit mothers in the Hudson Bay region contains
more than twice the amount of the toxic chemical
PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl) considered safe
by the Canadian government. The Inuit have been
exposed to the carcinogen by eating fish contam-
inated by PCBs emitted into the atmosphere in
warmer regions to the south. PCBs were also
dumped into the Arctic by military installations.

January 9

The offices of Akwesasne Notes are bombed.
Amidst disputes among various Mohawk fac-
tions on the Akwesasne reservation in New York
State, a firebomb destroys the Nation House, the
building that houses the offices of Akwesasne Notes
(see entry for 1968). The most widely read
Indian-operated newspaper, Akwesasne Notes has
reported on indigenous resistance movements
throughout North and South America for 20 years. In
its first issue after resuming publication, the paper con-
demns the rebel faction suspected of the bombing.

“With the gambling, the cigarette

smuggling, the violence[,]... it

is understandable why those

criminal elements amongst

us are opposed to a free

press disseminating infor-

mation about the illegal and

immoral activities around us.

... They almost succeeded in put-
ting us out of business[,]... but
we will survive.”
—from an Akwesasne Notes
editorial following the firebombing
of the newspaper’s office

February

The Lubicon protest Glenbow Museum

exhibit.

The Indians of the Lubicon Lake band pro-

test against The Spirit Sings, an exhibition at the

Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta, created to

coincide with the Calgary Winter Olympics. One

of the show’s corporate sponsors is involved in com-

mercial enterprises on lands claimed by the Lubicon.

In the 1930s, the Canadian government promised

the band’s traditional homeland would be set aside

for them as a reserve, but it allowed non-Indians to

overrun the area after oil and mineral deposits were

discovered there.

February 1

Two Tuscarora take over a newspaper

office.

Two Tuscarora Indians, Eddie Hatcher and Timothy

Jacobs, hold 17 people hostage for 10 hours in

the office of the Robesonian, a newspaper serving

Lumberton, North Carolina, in the center of

Lumbee Indian territory. The men claim to have

uncovered a drug ring involving several prominent

people in the town and demand that the paper

investigate injustices committed by local police to

Indians and African Americans in the area. Several

hostages later express their sympathy for their cap-

tors and their cause. In another show of support,

an editorial in the Robesonian refers to Hatcher and

Jacobs as “our conscience.”