The National Museum of the American Indian

Devoted to rectifying our nation’s historical amnesia about the role of Native Nations in the making of modern America

Unbound, A Warrior’s Story, Honoring Grandpa Blue Bird

As an inveterate admirer of contemporary Indigenous art, I am fortunate to have viewed this type of artwork in various locales around our country. During a recent Washington D.C. trip, I spent hours at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) — a venue featuring historically important exhibitions — and saw Indigenous-themed work that was quite different from that in the more traditional museums I have visited. Indeed, touring NMAI’s installations and displays, I felt as though I was taking a crash course in the history and tribulations of Native Americans.

The museum, which opened in 2004, is, “the last open space on the National Mall,” according to “The National Museum of the American Indian: Critical Conversations” © 2008. The book explains that opening the museum, “was a profound act that showed the American government and its people wanted Indians to be part of a national conversation, to finally talk, seriously, and at the highest levels, about things we have never really talked about before.” As the museum shows through various installations, our government has often targeted Indians for removal and destruction. With this history as a framework, NMAI was designed by and is run by Indigenous people, and represents numerous Native American nations.

Unbound, Bear’s Heart, Cheyennes Among the Buffalo

NMAI contains a vast and diverse collection of artifacts, along with explanatory text about Indigenous peoples’ history, from more than 1,200 nations throughout the Americas. Objects, artfully displayed in cases, are from the United States, Canada, Middle and South America, the Caribbean. Mexico and Central America.

Art exhibitions include “Unbound: Narrative Art of the Plains.” The work, described on the NMAI website as narrative art, diverges from the narrative art style depicted in 20^th century American Scene Paintings. (The latter can be seen at the nearby National Gallery of Art on Constitution Avenue.) The exhibition, “juxtaposes historical hides, muslins, and ledger books with more than 50 contemporary works commissioned by the museum,” according to museum didactics. The works, illustrating war deeds, ceremonial events, family life, Native identity, and pop culture, are recorded on buffalo-hide shirts and robes, muslin cloth, ledger books and more. The exhibition, “Water’s Edge: The Art of Truman Lowe,” is a unique Native-influenced display of 50 elegant, minimalist sculptures made of willow branches, feathers, and other organic materials, evoking rivers, streams and waterfalls.

Water’s Edge: The Art of Truman Lowe, Untitled

Among the most intriguing and educational exhibits at NMAI are detailed installations revealing the vast influences that our First Americans have had on our country and culture. Other displays provide profound insights into the history of Native Americans, addressing the travails and injustices they have faced for centuries. (Check out Indigenous Art as a Healing Response to Centuries of Colonization.)

The expansive “Americans” is a bold installation demonstrating how American Indian images, names and stories are infused into our country’s history and contemporary life— as their images, iconography and names have permeated our culture for centuries. (These indigenous people were the first inhabitants in our continent, having arrived here thousands of years ago from Asia, many over the Bering Land Bridge.) Examples include the Land O’Lakes butter maiden, the Cleveland Indians’ mascot, the Tomahawk missile, the Pontiac Chieftan Car Hood Ornament, the Big Chief Writing Tablet and many more.

Water’s Edge: The Art of Truman Lowe, Feather Canoe

Research from the Jim Crow Museum in Big Rapids, Michigan explains that during European colonization, Indian images were used in drawings, engravings, portraiture, political prints, maps, tobacconist figures, weather vanes, coins and medals, books and prints. The “Indian Princess” became an early symbol of America as seen on maps, medals and political documents. During our country’s founding era, the “Indian” was co-opted as a symbol of American identity, particularly by Patriots during the Boston Tea Party.

An installation on NMAI’s third floor describes The Indian Removal Act of 1830. Spearheaded by President Andrew Jackson, the Act focused on Indian nations that he regarded as obstacles to economic development and a threat to national security. The Removal Act, as described by Congress, provided “for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for their removal west of the river Mississippi.” Yet Native leaders and government officials, maintained that the act went against democratic values.

Americans, Battle of Little Bighorn

The Act provided for a country free of American Indians, proposing that those living inside our boundaries, particularly in the South, should leave. They would receive payment and new land west of the Mississippi. “The removal act targeted all Indians within U.S. borders. But it was really focused on a handful of Native nations that owned fertile lands in the South: the Choctaw, Cherokee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Muscogee (Creek). They were called the Five Civilized Tribes because their lives weren’t so different from those of their white neighbors. They farmed, owned businesses, and published newspapers.” (From NMAI’s website!)

The removal of Cherokee nation members, today called “The “Trail of Tears,” forced them to migrate to present-day Oklahoma. They endured hunger, disease and exhaustion, and more than 4,000 died during the journeys. This devastating removal occurred even though the United States had previously made treaties with many Native nations, recognizing them as sovereign territories. Yet the U.S., at the direction of President Jackson, ignored those treaties.

Nation to Nation, AIM Drum

A concurrent exhibition at NMAI is “Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indian Nations.” Kevin Gover, currently Under Secretary for Museums and Culture at the Smithsonian, and formerly director of NMAI, has written lucidly about the treaties in the “American Indian” magazine.

He explains that treaties are at the heart of both Native history and contemporary tribal life and identity, and that approximately 368 treaties were negotiated and signed by U.S. commissioners and tribal leaders and subsequently approved by the U.S. Senate from 1777 to 1868. These solemn vows by our country were not for the most part honored, resulting in devastating treatment of the Native Americans.

Gover quotes the late senator Daniel K. Inouye (D. – Hawaii), the longtime chairman, vice-chairman and member of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs: “Too few Americans know that the Indian nations ceded millions of acres of lands to the United States, or that…the promises and commitments made by the United States were typically made in perpetuity. History has recorded, however, that our great nation did not keep its word to the Indian nations, and our preeminent challenge today…is to assure the integrity of our treaty commitments and to bring an end to the era of broken promises.”

Gover writes, “The National Museum of the American Indian was established by Congress to rectify our nation’s historical amnesia about the role of Native Nations in the making of modern America. Treaties are at the core of the relationship between Indian Peoples and the United States. I have heard many times, from Natives and non-Natives alike, that the Museum must tell the ‘real story’ of the history between the U.S. and the Indian tribes. Telling that story is undoubtedly a part of our responsibility as an educational institution dedicated to increasing and diffusing knowledge about Native history and culture.”

And that story is told lucidly throughout the museum.