Nation to Nation Exhibit Opens at Museum of the American Indian

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Guest Curator Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee) and Director Kevin Gover (Pawnee) pose for a photo next to artist John Trumbull’s 1790 portrait of Hopothle Mico, The Talassee King of the Creeks

At a press preview this morning at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the museum celebrated its 10th anniversary with the opening of its most ambitious effort ever — an exhibit which presents Native Nations’ individual treaties side-by-side in the largest treaties collection ever before seen: Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indian.

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Northern Tsitsistas (Cheyenne) painted deer hide of the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn

The exhibition focuses on eight treaties representing the approximately 374 ratified between the United States and the Native Nations, on loan from the National Archives. Each document details and solidifies the diplomatic agreements between the United States and the neighboring Native Nations. Told from the point of view of the Indian Nations and accompanied by US testimonials, curated by Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne/Hodulgee Muscogee, at left) the story is woven through five sections: Introduction to Treaties, Serious Diplomacy, Bad Acts, Bad Paper, Great Nations Keep Their Word and Reflections.

Featuring more than 125 objects from the museum’s collection and private lenders, like the Navajo blanket owned by General William Sherman, a collection of Plains Nations pipes and beaded pipe bags, peace medals given to Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, and the sword and scabbard of Andrew Jackson (on loan from the National Museum of American History), this exhibit tells the story of our early ancestors and our efforts to live side-by-side at the birth of the United States.