"This collection of essays by experts on Native American history examines historic agreements in light of recent and ongoing controversies. Claims to ancestral land bases are a prime example: the Canandaigua Treaty of 1794 provides a context for addressing the Onondaga's claim to most of the Syracuse urban area. Treaties provide the foundation for such events as the modern-day rebirth of the Ponca Nation in Nebraska more than a century after a bureaucratic error resulted in banishment from ancestral land. One chapter explores why the U.S. Army still officially regards the tragic events at Wounded Knee in December 1890 as a "battle," rather than a "massacre." Another chapter reveals how treaties and laws have been used to retain and regain gas and oil resource ownership. Yet another chapter examines why so much energy has been expended over the fate of 9,300-year-old hones that have come to be called "Kennewick Man.""--BOOK JACKET.