by happenstance<\/a>. While traveling to Yellowstone National Park in the summer of 1883, President Chester A. Arthur met with Shoshone and Arapaho leaders on the Wind River Reservation and complimented the tribes\u2019 \u201cpractice of industrial pursuits,\u201d according to an account by Lt. Gen. Philip Sheridan at the time.<\/p>\nArticle continues below this ad<\/p>\n
While there, Arthur\u2019s delegation pressed Shoshone Chief Washakie and Arapaho Chief Black Coal to consent to breaking up the reservation they shared into private parcels \u2014 a move aimed at dismantling tribal sovereignty and solving what Arthur termed the \u201cIndian problem.\u201d Both chiefs refused.<\/p>\n
Other early presidential visits to tribal land similarly reflected an era when the U.S. tried to undermine tribal sovereignty and assimilate Native people into white society. Theodore Roosevelt\u2019s 1903 trek to Havasupai land at the bottom of the Grand Canyon preceded the forced removal of that tribe to make way for a national park.<\/p>\n
During his 1927 visit to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, President Calvin Coolidge promoted assimilationist boarding schools.<\/p>\n
Recent presidential visits have focused on tribal sovereignty<\/p>\n
President Bill Clinton made Pine Ridge a stop on his 1999 \u201cNew Markets Tour,\u201d billing the visit as the first by a sitting president to tribal land since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt\u2019s 1934 trip to the Blackfeet Nation in Montana. Clinton acknowledged the federal government failed to meet its obligations to hundreds of tribal nations and called for investment in Pine Ridge’s economy.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe have tried to have a more respectful, more proper relationship with the tribal governments of this country, to promote more genuine independence, but also to give more genuine support,\u201d Clinton said.<\/p>\n
In 2014, President Barack Obama met with Dakota youths and attended a powwow on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, speaking about expanding economic and educational opportunities in Indian Country and promoting tribes’ inherent right to govern themselves. The following year, Obama spent time in the I\u00f1upiaq village of Kotzebue in Alaska, highlighting the impacts of climate change on Arctic communities.<\/p>\n
President Joe Biden made a somber apology <\/p>\n
In 2024, President Joe Biden traveled to the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona to formally apologize for the federal government\u2019s role in separating Indigenous children from their families and forcing them to attend boarding schools run by the U.S. and churches. A probe by Biden\u2019s administration found that in addition to being stripped of their languages and cultures, many of those children experienced physical, emotional and sexual abuse. At least 970 died, and federal officials acknowledged the true number is likely higher.<\/p>\n
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Speaking alongside boarding school survivors and their descendants, Biden called that 150-year era a \u201cblot on American history.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a sin on our soul,\u201d Biden said. \u201cQuite frankly, there\u2019s no excuse that this apology took 50 years to make.\u201d<\/p>\n
The visit marked a rare acknowledgment of the assimilationist policies that shaped some of the earliest presidential encounters with tribal nations.<\/p>\n
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Peters with The Associated Press reported from Cedar Crest, New Mexico. ___<\/p>\n
This story is published through the Global Indigenous Reporting Network<\/a> at The Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FILE – President Barack Obama talks to two young boys during a Native American dance on the Standing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7536,4798,155865,155868,32533,145,126495,155864,24423,86454,23527,2926,23681,59373,155867,107441,87541,86083,117582,86082,86815,88270,107442,117583,59371,59372,61261,61262,82,84,83,14990,12108,155863,155866],"class_list":["post-453649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-barack-obama","tag-bill-clinton","tag-calvin-coolidge","tag-chester-a-arthur","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-donald-trump","tag-franklin-d-roosevelt","tag-gary-batton","tag-joe-biden","tag-montana","tag-north-dakota","tag-oklahoma","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-philip-sheridan","tag-product-30025-ap-alaska-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30027-ap-arizona-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30031-ap-california-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30071-ap-montana-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30081-ap-new-mexico-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30089-ap-north-dakota-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30093-ap-oklahoma-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30105-ap-south-dakota-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30125-ap-wyoming-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","tag-product-32520-ap-online-other-u-s-government-news","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-south-dakota","tag-theodore-roosevelt","tag-trump-choctaw-nation-rally","tag-zach-kraft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}