This week, ACHP Office of Tribal and Indigenous Peoples Director Ashley Fry attended the 2024 White House Tribal Nations Summit at the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. The Tribal Nations Summit, established by Executive Order 13647, is the flagship annual convening of the federal government and Indian Country, and reflects the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to strengthening Nation-to-Nation relationships.
The Summit brought together President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Cabinet officials, federal executive agency heads, and Tribal leaders invited from all federally recognized Tribes for direct government-to-government engagement.
As an active member of the White House Council on Native American Affairs (WHCNAA), the ACHP participated in the Summit, connecting with Tribal leaders and federal colleagues, and sharing the accomplishments the agency has been working to advance for the past year. A primary focus of the ACHP’s participation in the WHCNAA is to ensure historic properties and sacred sites are considered at all levels of government, particularly those significant to Indian Tribes, Native Hawaiian Organizations, and other Indigenous Peoples.
During the Summit, the White House released its 2024 White House Progress Report for Tribal Nations. The ACHP’s work was highlighted in the Indigenous Languages, Knowledge, and Culture section on pages 87 and 88 for its policies recognizing the role of Indigenous Knowledge in historic preservation.
The report called attention to the ACHP’s Indigenous Knowledge and Historic Preservation Policy Statement, saying: “An overarching goal of the policy is to ensure the Indigenous Knowledge of Indian Tribes, Native Hawaiians, and other Indigenous Peoples has an equitable and ongoing role in the decision-making process, recognizing the history of federal-Tribal/Native Hawaiian relations has not consistently or effectively accounted for this information.”
The report also included the ACHP’s recent Exemption for Indigenous Knowledge-Informed Activities by Native Hawaiian Organizations: “This exemption constitutes a Section 106 program alternative that exempts from Section 106 review certain federally funded, licensed, or managed restoration, rehabilitation, preservation, and reconstruction activities proposed, directed, authorized, or supported by Native Hawaiian Organizations. It applies to all undertakings as defined in the National Historic Preservation Act, including landscaping practices, agricultural activities, restoration of water features, restoration of historic pathways, restoration of sacred and traditional sites, installation of interpretive signs, return or incorporation of Indigenous names, and the reconstruction or restoration of traditional Native Hawaiian buildings and structures.”
President Biden also announced at the summit the designation of the former Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania as a national monument, highlighting the boarding school’s role in a more than 150-year practice of forcing Native American children into the schools far from their homes, where they were subject to emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. In December 2023, ACHP Chair Sara C. Bronin wrote to congressional leaders to express the ACHP’s support to Congress for the proposed Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act, particularly the provisions addressing the memorialization and preservation of burials associated with the schools. The ACHP’s support for this Act was premised on key principles within the revised and updated Policy Statement on Burial Sites, Human Remains and Funerary Objects it issued earlier in 2023. This Policy Statement, among other things, supported the implementation of the Secretary of the Interior’s Federal Indian Boarding School Investigative Report and also encouraged consultation on and acceptance for the potential repatriation of human remains associated with Indian Boarding Schools.
For any questions regarding the ACHP’s involvement in the WHCNAA or the Tribal Nations Summit, please contact Ashley Fry at afry@achp.gov.
Learn more about the ACHP’s Office of Tribal and Indigenous Peoples.