Description
Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States & American Indian Nations explores the promises, diplomacy, and betrayals involved in treaties and treaty making between the United States government and the Indian Nations of the United States and Canada. This 272-page volume released in 2014 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. The museum developed an exhibition about treaties and their essential nature to America. 368 treaty relationships of mutual respect were concluded between 1777 and 1868 in the United States alone. One of the first treaties in the exhibition and the book is the Treaty of Canandaigua between the Haudenosaunee (the Six Nations, or Iroquois Confederacy) and the fledgling United States. One of the earliest treaties made, it was signed by Cornplanter, Red Jacket, Handsome Lake and President George Washington in 1794. This early part of the book contains the commentary by Richard W. Hill called Linking Arms Together and Brightening the Chain: Building Relations through Treaties. This section also includes the commentary by Mark G. Huirsch, The Two-Row Wampum Belt. Guest curated by Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee), the story is woven through five sections: Introduction to Treaties; Serious Diplomacy; Bad Acts, Bad Paper; Great Nations Keep Their Word; and The Future of Treaties. This fully illustrated 272-page book features more than 125 historical and contemporary objects and photographs along with writings on the nature of laws, treaties and diplomacy by some of the country’s foremost scholars of history and treaties between the U.S. and Native Nations, including contributions by Robert N. Clinton, Philip J. Deloria, Raymond J. DeMallie Jr., Jennifer Nez Denetdale, Matthew L.M. Fletcher, Richard Hill Sr., Susan Hvalsoe Komori, James Riding In, Lois J. Risling and Lindsay G. Robertson. The book illustrates how and why centuries-old treaties remain living, relevant documents for both First Nations and non-Indigenous in the 21st century.