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I have had opportunities, as members of tribal elders or tribal lawyers have come to visit, to join them in the vault as they experience the same things. Of all the things we have custody of and are responsible for-even the Charters of Freedom-I believe the Indian treaties are the most valuable documents in terms of reading the original language and the government promises, and realizing what was never delivered. So it was from childhood on that I had an interest in those that were here first. I grew up in Massachusetts, a state with lots of Indian heritage, and used to walk the edge of a local lake collecting arrowheads. Over 50 of the treaties are written on large sheets of parchment and several contain pictographs, drawings/maps, and wampum. They are housed in a specially protected area within the National Archives Building in Washington, DC, and are not pulled for use in the Central Research Room. The ratified Indian Treaties, numbered 1–374, were transferred to the National Archives from the Department of State in the late 1930s. Anna Naruta-Moya and her team at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture (MIAC) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to make this access happen. This website provides public access to digital copies of NARA’s series of ratified Indian Treaties.

Thanks to the generous donation from an anonymous donor, NARA collaborated with our digitization partner to launch the Indigenous Digital Archive’s Treaties Portal on Indigenous People’s Day, October 12, 2020.

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