American Indian and Alaska Native Records: Online Publications

This page is a quick reference guide to National Archives articles and blogs about American Indian and Alaska Native records.

Last updated on February 10, 2025.

The Text Message Blog

• "Swing into the Bureau of Indian Affairs Decimal Filing System" (2025)
• "'I Trust You Will Be Able to Assist Me': Genealogy Researchers Contact the Bureau of Indian Affairs" (2024)
• "Getting Out the Vote: Indian Reorganization Act Elections on the Rez" (2024)
• "Where to Lay an American Hero? The Burial Controversy of John Rice (Ho-Chunk)" (2023)
• "A Snapshot of Poor Records Storage at the Albuquerque Indian School" (2023)
• “Not ‘the last Chilkat blanket weaver’: The Story of Annie Klaney and the Indian Arts and Crafts Board” (2022)
• “Meet Sgt. Eva Mirabal/Eah Ha Wa (Taos Pueblo); Women’s Army Corps Artist” (2022)
• “‘How about a little football game?’ The Albuquerque Indian School’s Dominating Football Run, 1926–1931” (2022)
• “An Indigenous Woman’s Legal Fight After Forced Sterilization” (2022)
• “The Stories Behind the Names: Death at the Santa Fe Indian School, 1891–1909” (2022)
• “The Grisly Tale of the ‘Colorado Cannibal’ Alfred Packer, as Seen in the Records of the Office of Indian Affairs” (2022)
• “The Story of the 1950 Census P8 Indian Reservation Schedule” (2022)
• “Meet Black Bull: A Story of Blackfeet Genealogy” (2021)
• “There’s No Business Like Show Business: Hollywood Comes to the Wind River Indian Reservation, 1922–1925” (2021)
• “Inside the Still Imaging Lab: Digitization of the Ratified Indian Treaties, 1722–1869” (2021)
• “Back to the Future: Conserving Ratified Indian Treaties, 1722–1869” (2021)
• “Ratified Indian Treaties Digitization Project” (2021)
• “On the Road Again: Max Bigman’s Lecture Career” (2021)
• “Remembering Tony Dedman” (2021)
• “‘Invasion’: The 1918–1920 Pandemic on the Reservation” (2021)
• “Righting a Wrong: The Return of Blue Lake to the Taos Pueblo” (2020)
• “Celebrating Native American Heritage Month with the National Register of Historic Places” (2020)
• “‘The Most Barbarous and Inhuman Practice’: The Elimination of Slavery in the Territories, as Seen in the Office of Indian Affairs Microfilm Series (2020)
• “We Hold the Rock!” (2020)
• “The War after the War: The American Indian Fight for the Vote after WWII” (2019)
• “John Werito Goes to War: A Story of a WWII Diné [Navajo] Code Talker” (2019)
• “Considerable Talent and Great Promise: The Early Years of Navajo Artist Beatien Yazz” (2017)
• “‘We’re not as bad as we look’: Girls’ Education at the Albuquerque Indian School” (2016)
• “From Scouting for Custer to Farming the Plains; The Life and Times of Hairy Moccasin as Seen in the Crow Indian Agency Records” (2015)
• “The Blue Arrow Head” (2012)

Prologue Magazine

• “Homes on the Range: The Bureau of Indian Affairs Industrial Surveys of the 1920’s” (2017)
• “The CCC Indian Division” (2016)
• “'I got to do something to keep my family up’: The CCC Indian Division Offers a New Deal for the Eastern Band of Cherokees” (2014)
• “The Secret Treaties With California’s Indians” (2013)
• “Lead the Way: Researching U.S. Army Indian Scouts, 1866–1914” (2009)
• “A Victor in Defeat: Chief Gall’s Life on the Standing Rock Reservation” (2008)
• “Native Americans in the Antebellum U.S. Military” (2007)
• “Native Americans in the Census, 1860–1890” (2006)
• ‘“Semper Fidelis, Code Talkers’” (2001)
• “The Search for the Site of the Sand Creek Massacre” (2001)
• “Snakes & Scribes: The Dawes Commission and the Enrollment of the Creeks” (1997)
• “Indian Bounty Land Applications” (1993)

Pieces of History Blog

• "The Indian School Journal" (2024)
• “Geronimo, Apache Chief” (2022)
• “Terror on the Osage Reservation” (2021)
• “Carlisle Indian School’s World War I Soldiers” (2021)
• “Remembering Lloyd Oliver, U.S. Marine Navajo Code Talker” (2020)
• “Facial Hair Friday: Donehogawa (Ely S. Parker)” (2020)
• “The Power of American Indian Boarding School Records” (2018)
• “‘Observations’ of Native American Records at the National Archives” (2018)
• “Middle Oregon Treaty of 1855” (2018)
• “Quiet Revelations at Navajo Nation” (2018)
• “The Navajo Treaty of 1868: A Personal Story” (2018)
• “The Navajo Treaty Travels to the Navajo Nation” (2018)
• “The National Archives and the National Museum of the American Indian: A Partnership” (2018)
• “‘A Real Injustice Was Done to These Two Old Scouts’: The VA Claim File of an Indian Scout” (2017)
• “Researching the Osage Murders” (2017)
• “Nation to Nation: Treaties at the National Museum of the American Indian” (2017)
• “Indian New Deal” (2015)
• “Minnie Spotted Wolf and the Marine Corps” (2013)

The Unwritten Record Blog

• "Following Maps from Manuscript to Print in the Bureau of Indian Affairs Irrigation Division" (2024)
• "Irrigation Records from Bureau of Indian Affairs Now Digitized" (2024)
• “The Bureau of Indian Affairs – Photographs Finding Aid: A Closer Look” (2020)
• “Navajo Code Talkers” (2020)
• “Introducing the Bureau of Indian Affairs Photographs Finding Aid!” (2020)
• “Non-Military Photographs of Native Americans Within the Records of the Chief Signal Officer” (2020)
• “Who Has Given More Than the Indian?” (2016)
• “Dr. Paul Owen: The First PHS Optometrist” (2016)
• “The Indian School for Practical Nursing” (2016)

Education Updates Blog

• “Resources Related to American Indians and Native American Heritage” (2020)
• “Native Warriors on Both Sides of the Battle of Little Bighorn” (2017)
• “Native American Fishing Rights: Digitized in Seattle” (2015)
• “The Importance of Treaties for Teaching American Indian History” (2014)

History Hub

• Native American Records Community

National Archives News

• “Stand Up and Be Counted: Native Americans in the Federal Census” (2022)