Museum Showcasing American Indians Rooted In Oklahoma History

Our nation’s capital is filled with some of the finest museums and monuments in the world, and one museum is deeply rooted in the history of Oklahoma.

The National Museum of the American Indian opened its doors 11 years ago and has since welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors.

What they saw was primarily focused on the culture of the tribes - their way of life - but now, the mission is beginning to shift.

“We're turning in a much more historical direction,” said exhibit developer, Carolyn Gilman.

Gilman is the driving force of an exhibition the museum calls its most ambitious yet; its focus, the treaties between the United States and Indian Nations.

“We realized shortly after we opened the museum that we needed an exhibit that explained the history and the trajectory of Indian nations,” Gilman said.

And, more often than not, that trajectory led to Oklahoma.

An interactive exhibit in the museum highlights six different tribes, all making different choices to try to protect their ancestral lands and their way of life.

Eventually, all but one, the eastern Cherokees, followed a long and bloody path to Oklahoma.

Treaties made and treaties broken, it’s the story of tribe after tribe in America.

But the exhibit is much more than just a look back to a tragic past. Gilman said the treaties used to pry Indians off their land have now become the bedrock of their fight for justice.

“In the 20th Century, Indian people were able to use treaties to turn the table and reassert many of these rights they'd been guaranteed in the 18th and 19th centuries,” she said.

The struggle is far from over.

Gilman said a key point of the exhibit is that treaties still affect how people live today and how they'll live in the future.

Rather than being overwhelmed by the sadness of past injustices, she hopes Native Americans and, indeed, all Americans take away from this exhibit the promise of a better future.

Gilman said, “In the end, Indian people are just asking the United States to live up to its own word and to be the kind of nation is has always wanted to be.”

The treaty exhibit has had such an impact the museum will leave it up, at least, another five years. They're hoping it will serve as both a reminder and an inspiration for those who visit.