This study discusses Native American people’s current attempts to preserve memories of tribal sovereignty through the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, NHPA (as amended through 1992). The paper focuses on the Northern Cheyenne tribe which has been one of the most active native entities in terms of registering their sacred sites and battle sites as the National Historic Sites (NHS) and the National Historic Landmarks (NHL).

In the late 19th century, the Northern Cheyenne tribe fought the Indian Wars. In the mid-20th century, they reclaimed their sacred land, the Black Hills, through the Indian Claims Commission. At the time of the Indian Termination Policy (the 1940s and 1950s), the tribe defended their reservation by establishing the Tribal Land Acquisition Program. During the national energy crisis of the 1970s, they fought against energy conglomerates, successfully canceling the unjust coal lease agreements. The study views the tribe’s current efforts to register tribal memories as national historic sites, as a way to preserve integrity of their homeland as well as to argue against U.S. national history.

In the 1980s, Native tribes defended their sacred sites using the Free Exercise Clause, but lost cases to land developments. One of the federal/administrative responses to these court decisions was the 1992 NHPA amendment which mandates federal agencies to consult with Native tribes in order not to damage their sacred sites. Since the Civish case (2004) declared the historical importance of the Native’s sacred sites, the amended NHPA has encouraged the Native people’s efforts to preserue their land and heritage. The Sand Creek Massacre NHS, the Rosebud Battlefield NHL, and the Wolf Mountain Battlefield NHL are some of the sites which the Northern Cheyenne tribe successfully registered as the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). While the protection of the NRHP is promised by U.S. National Park Service (NPS), the tribe’s motives behind the NRHP applications varies; in some cases, to protect the integrity of the reservation by guarding the surrounding area, and in other cases, to keep tribal memories alive in order to compose a history from their point of view.

The NPS has a history of removing Native tribes from the area designated as National Parks, and now they are willing to embrace some of the tribal memories as a part of U.S. national history. While so far, outcomes of the negotiation between the two parties has been favorable to Native tribes, the NPS’s scope for the NRHP is still limited, mostly to battle sites. It is uncertain as to what extend the NRHP effectively functions as a means for the Native tribes to defend their land. For the Northern Cheyenne tribe, the historical interpretation of the Sand Creek Massacre has been under negotiation with the NPS, and the site’s General Management Plan is still a work-in-progress. The Native tribes’ efforts to register tribal memories as the NRHP continues to pose a deep question to the national narrative of the United States.

Information collected from geological newsmagazines in 2020 is reviewed. First topic is mineral resources such as mineral commodity summary in USA, porphyry deposits, international cooperation for critical minerals, an environmental analysis of the smelters with a use of tree rings, and mineralogy of lithium. Second topic is the pyrrhotite distribution map in USA. It is prepared for construction aggregates to prevent failing concrete. Third, the event that led to closing a geoscience departure is reviewed.

After World War II the federal Indian policy in the United States changed from the Indian New Deal to the Termination Policy to promote the assimilation of Native Americans into American society. The Indian Claims Commission (ICC) which existed from 1946 to 1978 was established to solve the historical land issues with the Indian tribes, and as part of the Termination Policy, decided whether the federal government should compensate the Indian tribes for their loss of lands. Although there are many studies on the history of the ICC, its relations with Cold War policy in the United States have not been sufficiently discussed. This article analyzes the land issues of Western Shoshones through the ICC by considering the development and militarization of the American West after World War II. It explores the responses of the Western Shoshones as well as the federal Indian policy, using the archival records and historical materials.

Politicians from the Western states supported the creation of the ICC and the Termination Policy as well as the land development for promoting regional economies in the 1950s. Based on the Treaty of Ruby Valley in 1863, the Western Shoshone submitted claims for their ancestral land to the ICC in 1951. The Te-Moak Bands council, which was organized in 1938, under the Indian Reorganization Act became the representative of the Western Shoshone in the procedures of the ICC. However, the Nevada Test Site was established in 1951 on their ancestral land and the militarization of the West developed during the Cold War. It became the National Sacrifice Area after repeated tests of atomic bombs caused cancers and other diseases among downwinders including Shoshones.

The traditionalists of the Western Shoshone tried to resist the process of the ICC because they sought not compensation but the return of their ancestral lands. Especially during the 1960s they organized the new tribal movement to claim the lands and even the members of the Te-Moak Bands council joined it in the 1970s. The court battles over the land between the Bureau of Land Management and the Shoshone sisters, Mary and Carrie Dann, started in 1974.

Notwithstanding their conflicts, in 1977 the ICC decided to pay the Western Shoshone about $26 million compensation for the loss of 24 million acres of land and the Court of Claims supported this decision in 1979. Although the Western Shoshone resisted receiving the compensation the decision was never changed. The plan to install the MX missile in the central Nevada in 1979 was abandoned after the storm of protests by local residents including Shoshones. However, the Yucca Mountain in the Nevada Test Site became a proposed site for the permanent disposal of nuclear waste in 1987. Thus the Federal Indian policy through the ICC aimed to incorporate Indian Tribes and their lands into Cold War America against the background of the militarization of the West.