for 1947), which placed boarding school students
in the homes of Mormon families to be educated
about Mormonism.
October 13
The New York State Museum returns
wampum belts to the Onondaga.
In a ceremony in Albany, the leaders of the Onon-
daga are given 12 wampum belts by representatives
of the New York State Museum. In 1898 the On-
ondaga had placed five belts in the museum for
safekeeping and later named the institution’s direc-
tor the official Keeper of the Wampum. Three belts
were purchased by the museum with the Ononda-
ga’s consent, while the four others were donated by
a collector in 1927.
November 3
The French government honors the Choctaw
Code Talkers.
The first Indian soldiers to use their native language
as a code for communicating top secret messages,
the Choctaw Code Talkers were instrumental in the
Meuse-Argonne campaign in France during World
War I (see entry for SEPTEMBER TO NOVEMBER
1918). In appreciation, officials of the French gov-
ernment make Choctaw leader Hollis E. Roberts a
Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite (a Knight
of the National Order of Merit), their country’s
highest honor.
November 17
The Senate reports mismanagement of
Indian land and resources.
Following a two-year investigation, a report issued
by the Senate Select Committee on Indian Af-
fairs examines the Bureau of Indian Affairs’s (BIA)
mismanagement of Indian lands and funds. Among
its many allegations of corruption within the agency,
the document reveals that oil companies have
routinely stolen oil from Indian tribes by un-
derreporting the amount of oil they drilled on
reservations. Aware of these practices, the BIA took
no action to stop them. The committee concludes
that Indians should be given more control over fed-
eral funds and programs.November 28Congress votes to fund a Native American
museum in Washington, D.C.
With the National Museum of the American
Indian Act, Congress authorizes funding for a na-
tional museum of Indian culture and history. This
museum will be part of the Smithsonian Institu-
tion and will be built on the last remaining plot
on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Intended as a
“living memorial to Native Americans and their
traditions,” it will house a vast collection of Indian
art and artifacts, including those of New York’s
Museum of the American Indian (see entry for
1916), which merged with the Smithsonian on
May 8. An additional facility for the conservation
and storage of items on display will be constructed
at the Smithsonian’s Museum Support Center in
Maryland. The act also calls for the Smithsonian to
return Native American human remains and funer-
ary objects in its collections to the tribal groups to
whom they belong. (See also entries for 1993 and
for SEPTEMBER 21, 2004.)1990The Working Group on Indigenous
Populations refuses to celebrate the
Columbus Quincentenary.
Through the lobbying efforts of the International
Indian Treaty Council, the United Nations Work-
ing Group on Indigenous Populations (see entry for
JULY 1977) announces that it will reject all plans for
celebrating the upcoming quincentenary of Chris-
topher Columbus’s arrival in North America. The
Working Group maintains that such a celebration
would negate “our existence, our systems of govern-
ment, our cultures, and our pre-Columbian and
pre-colonial history.”