LAKEPORT — Keeping in step with a national celebration, the Lake County Board of Supervisors (BOS) on Nov. 16 issued a proclamation recognizing the month of November as National Native American Heritage Month. The national designation was not always for a full month, evolving from one day to one week to one month over a period of 74 years.
The U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs website provides some historical context: “One of the first proponents of an American Indian Day was Dr. Arthur C. Parker, a Seneca Indian, who was the director of the Museum of Arts and Sciences, in Rochester, N.Y. He persuaded the Boy Scouts of America to set aside a day for the ‘First Americans,’ and for three years they adopted such a day. In 1915, the annual Congress of the American Indian Association, held at Lawrence, Kansas, formally approved the plan. It directed its president, the Rev. Sherman Coolidge, an Arapaho Indian minister, to call upon the country to observe such a day.
Coolidge issued a proclamation on Sept. 28, 1915, which declared the second Saturday of each May as American Indian Day and contained the first formal appeal for recognition of Indians as citizens. The year before this proclamation was issued, Red Fox James, a Blackfeet Indian, rode from state to state on his horse seeking approval for the celebration of a day in honor of Indian people. He later presented the endorsements of 24 state governors at the White House on Dec. 14, 1915. The first American Indian Day was observed on the second Saturday in May 1916, when New York Gov. Charles Seymour Whitman fixed that day for a state observance.”
Sixty years later, as part of the country’s bicentennial commemoration, President Gerald Ford proclaimed Oct. 10-16, 1976, as Native American Awareness Week. The BOS proclamation states: “This landmark bill honoring America’s tribal people represented a major step in the establishment of this celebration which began in 1976 when a Cherokee/Osage Indian name Jerry C. Elliott-High Eagle authored Native American Awareness Week legislation as the first historical week of recognition in the nation for native peoples.”
A decade later, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed Nov. 23-30, 1986, as American Indian Week. Congress continued the practice in subsequent years.
In 1990, President George H. W. Bush signed into law a joint resolution designating the month of November as the first National American Indian Heritage Month (now known as Native American Indian Month). The resolution (HJ Res. 577) noted: “American Indians were the original inhabitants of the lands that now constitute the United States of America. Native American Indians have made an essential and unique contribution to our nation” and “to the world.”
Introduced by Hawaii Senator, Daniel Inouye, and Congressional delegate, Eni Faloemavaega, of American Samoa, the resolution stated that “the President is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation calling upon federal, state, and local governments, interested groups and organizations, and the people of the United States to observe the month with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.” In 2008, the commemorative language was amended to include the contributions of Alaskan Natives. Every year, by statute and/or presidential proclamation, the month of November is recognized as National Native American Heritage Month.”
The BOS proclamation acknowledges: “Lake County has been home to people for greater than 12,000 years, and the richly diverse cultures of the seven Tribal Nations indigenous to Lake County — Middletown Rancheria of Pomo Indians of California, Koi Nation of Northern California, Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians, Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians, Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake, Robinson Rancheria of Pomo Indians of California and Elem Indian Colony — have informed every aspect of our community’s history…
“Lake County encourages all citizens to join in recognizing the accomplishments and contributions Native Americans have made to our county and salutes those who have sought to honor the important role of tribal leadership in our county’s past, present and future.”
