The Winnemucca Indian Colony of Nevada is a

federally recognized tribe A federally recognized tribe is a Native American tribe recognized by the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs as holding a government-to-government relationship with the US federal government. In the United States, the Native American tribe ...

Western Shoshone Western Shoshone comprise several Shoshone tribes that are indigenous to the Great Basin and have lands identified in the Treaty of Ruby Valley 1863. They resided in Idaho, Nevada, California, and Utah. The tribes are very closely related cult ...

and

Northern Paiute Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ...

Indians in northwestern

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

Reservation

The Winnemucca Indian Colony of Nevada has a reservation at in

Humboldt County, Nevada Humboldt County is a county in the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 17,285. It is a largely rural county that is sparsely populated with the only major city being Winnemucca which has a population of 8,431. Hum ...

. The reservation was established on June 18, 1917, and comprises two parcels of land, enclosed within the urban area of the City of Winnemucca centered on Cinnabar Street, and of rural land on the southern edge of the city west of Water Canyon Road. In 1990, 17 tribal members lived on the reservation. In 2022, a court filing reported that the colony consisted of 28 tribal members.

Recent history

In 2007, the Winnemucca Indian Colony joined non-Natives from

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

in suing the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

to prevent the detonation of 700 tons of

explosives An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An exp ...

at the

Nevada Test Site The Nevada National Security Sites (N2S2 or NNSS), popularized as the Nevada Test Site (NTS) until 2010, is a reservation of the United States Department of Energy located in the southeastern portion of Nye County, Nevada, about northwest of ...

, which is on ancestral

lands. In the 1940s, members of the tribe had been forcibly removed from their lands, which were taken over by the Nevada Test Site, where

nuclear bombs A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear explo ...

were tested from 1951 to 1993. The tribe considers the removal and subsequent

nuclear weapons testing Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance of nuclear weapons and the effects of Nuclear explosion, their explosion. Nuclear testing is a sensitive political issue. Governments have often performed tests to si ...

on their lands as a violation of the 1863 Western Shoshone Treaty of Ruby Valley. The test, called Divine Strake, was eventually cancelled. The

Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) is a United Nations convention. A third-generation human rights instrument, the Convention commits its members to the elimination of racial discri ...

of the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

High Commission on Human Rights ruled on March 10, 2006, that the lands belonged to the Winnemucca Indian Colony and other Western Shoshone tribes. The U.S. does not recognise the competence of the committee to hear complaints from individuals about violations of the rights protected by the

Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Convention may refer to: * Convention (norm), a custom or tradition, a standard of presentation or conduct ** Treaty, an agreement in international law ** Convention (political norm), uncodified legal or political tradition * Convention (meeting) ...

Today

The Winnemucca Indian Colony of Nevada's tribal headquarters is located in Winnemucca, Nevada. William Bills is the CEO/President recognized by the federal

Bureau of Indian Affairs The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States List of United States federal agencies, federal agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior, Department of the Interior. It is responsible for im ...

. The tribe is governed by a five-person

tribal council A tribal council is an association of First Nations bands in Canada, generally along regional, ethnic or linguistic lines. An Indian band, usually consisting of one main community, is the fundamental unit of government for First Nations in Can ...

Notable Winnemucca

Chief Winnemucca Winnemucca ( – 1882) (also called Wobitsawahkah, Bad Face, Winnemucca the Younger, Mubetawaka, and PoitoOntko, Gale. ''Thunder Over the Ochoco,'' Volume I: ''The Gathering Storm''. Bend, OR: Maverick Publications, Inc., 1997.) was a Northern Pa ...

Sarah Winnemucca Sarah (née Winnemucca) Hopkins ( – October 17, 1891) was a Northern Paiute writer, activist, lecturer, teacher, and school organizer. Her Northern Paiute name was Thocmentony, also spelled Tocmetone, which translates as " Shell Flower." Sara ...

, she published the first autobiography by a Native American woman, '' Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims'' (1883),'' considered "one of the most enduring ethno-historical books written by an American Indian."

Notes

References

* Pritzker, Barry M. ''A Native American Encyclopedia: History, Culture, and Peoples.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. . *
Tribal Leaders Directory: 2014 Fall/Winter Edition
Bureau of Indian Affairs, 2015, . {{DEFAULTSORT:Winnemucca Indian Colony Of Nevada Northern Paiute Western Shoshone American Indian reservations in Nevada Native American tribes in Nevada Winnemucca, Nevada Geography of Humboldt County, Nevada History of Humboldt County, Nevada Federally recognized tribes in the United States