P
“When we see these folks
dressed as Indians and wear-
ing war paint, the stereotypes
of Indians come out. They wear
headdresses, which are very
spiritual in nature, very cer-
emonial. It would be like if we
went to a game with a lot of
Catholics and started giving
communion in the stands or
hearing confessions. It wouldn’t
show respect.”
—Roger Head, head of the
Minnesota Indian Affairs Council,
on the 1991 World Series protest
against the Atlanta BravesAutumn
The Seneca agree to a renewal of the
Salamanca lease.
Several months before its expiration, the lease on
lands in the town of Salamanca, New York, on the
Seneca’s Allegany Reservation is renewed for 40
years. The original hundred-year lease was negoti-
ated in 1892, when the United States, eager to take
control of the growing railroad town, pressured the
Seneca to sign an agreement that yielded them very
little income; on some parcels of land, rents were
as low as a dollar a year for the life of the lease.
As legislated by Congress, the new lease grants the
Seneca Nation $60 million in compensation for
the previous unfair agreement and allows for rent
increases of $750,000 a year. It also names the Sen-
eca as the owners of “improvements”—including
homes and other buildings— on the leased land.
The new lease infuriates many residents of Sala-
manca and increases tension between the Seneca
and their non-Indian neighbors. (See also entry for
JANUARY 1942.)
SeptemberAleut skeletal remains are reburied on
Kodiak Island.
Under the terms of the National Museum of the
American Indian Act (see entry for NOVEMBER 28,
1989), the Smithsonian returns 756 skeletal re-
mains for reburial to the Aleut of Larsen Bay, on
Kodiak Island in Alaska. In addition to 5,000 arti-
facts, the remains were collected on Kodiak Island
in the 1930s by anthropologist Ales Hrdlicka while
employed by the Smithsonian Institution.November 26The U.S. government renames the Custer
Battlefield National Monument.
Under pressure by Indian groups, Congress enacts
Public Law 102-201, which changes the name of
the Custer Battlefield National Monument in
Montana to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National
Monument. The law also calls for the construction
of a monument to memorialize the Lakota Sioux,
Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors who defeated the
Seventh Cavalry, led by Lieutenant Colonel George
Armstrong Custer, during the Battle of Little Big-
horn (see entry for JUNE 24 TO 25, 1876). (See
also entries for FEBRUARY 1997 and for JUNE 25,
2003.)December 16Canada announces its plan to create the
new territory of Nunavut.
Acting on a proposal first presented to the govern-
ment in 1976, Canada declares that it will create
the territory of Nunavut, which will be composed
of 350,000 square kilometers of land in the eastern
half of the Northwest Territories. Approximately
85 percent of the population of the new terri-
tory will be Inuit. The Canadian government also
allocates $580 million to fund the territorial gov-
ernment and new Inuit businesses in the territory.
In exchange for the creation of Nunavut, the Inuit
of the eastern and central Arctic agree to relinquish