Trail of Broken Treaties

The Trail of Broken Treaties (also known as the Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan^[1] and the Pan American Native Quest for Justice^[2]) was a 1972 cross-country caravan of American Indian and First Nations organizations that started on the West Coast of the United States and ended at the Department of Interior headquarters building at the US capital of Washington, D.C. Participants called for the restoration of tribes’ treaty-making authority, the abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and federal investment in jobs, housing, and education.^[3]

The protest inspired sizable gatherings of Native Americans throughout the journey, with the caravan described as "over four miles long and included some 700 activists from more than 200 tribes and 25 states" when it departed St Paul, Minnesota, for Washington, D.C.^[4]

The eight organizations that sponsored the caravan included the American Indian Movement (AIM), the Canadian National Indian Brotherhood (later renamed the Assembly of First Nations),^[5] the Native American Rights Fund, the National Indian Youth Council, the National American Indian Council, the National Council on Indian Work, National Indian Leadership Training, and the American Indian Committee on Alcohol and Drug Abuse.^[6] In Minneapolis, AIM headquarters, activists developed a Twenty-Point Position paper to define their demands.^[7][8]