Gabrielle Tayac is a historian and curator at the

Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers. The museum has three ...

. She is a member of the Piscataway Indian Nation, a state-recognized tribe in southern

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

. Tayac is active in matters of Indigenous land and water rights as well as U.S. government treaty compliance.

Early life and education

Tayac was born in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

, New York City. She received her BS in social work and American Indian studies from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

in 1989 and her PhD in sociology from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1999. She is the niece of Piscataway Chief

Billy Redwing Tayac Billy may refer to: * Billy (name), a name (and list of people with the name) Animals * Billy (dog), a dog breed * Billy (pigeon), awarded the Dickin Medal in 1945 * Billy (pygmy hippo), a pet of U.S. President Calvin Coolidge * Billy, a youn ...

Professional life

Tayac began her career at the National Museum of the American Indian as a research consultant in 1999. Previously, she had worked to develop a school curriculum that would present the complexity of native peoples and address contemporary issues such as intellectual property. Tayac helped develop the museum's education department, and her research assisted in shaping its educational role and framework. After the museum's inauguration in 2004, Tayac joined the full-time staff as a curator. She co-curated one of the museums inaugural permanent exhibits, "Our Lives: Contemporary Life and Identity." She was the sole curator of the exhibit "Return to a Native Place: Native Peoples of the Chesapeake Region", which opened in 2007. She also co-curated the traveling exhibit "IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas". Her latest exhibit, "Native New York: Where Nations Rise", is scheduled to open in 2019.

Activism

Tayac has been active on various matters relating to Native American civil rights and

tribal sovereignty Tribal sovereignty in the United States is the concept of the inherent authority of indigenous tribes to govern themselves within the borders of the United States. Originally, the U.S. federal government recognized American Indian trib ...

. She is a co-founder of the League of Indigenous Sovereign Nations, a hemispheric alliance of Native peoples. Currently, she serves as communications director for the Spirit Aligned Leadership Program. In 2014, Tayac marched with the Cowboy Indian Alliance to protest the proposed

Keystone XL pipeline The Keystone Pipeline System is an oil pipeline system in Canada and the United States, commissioned in 2010 and owned by TC Energy and as of 31 March 2020 the Government of Alberta. It runs from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin in Albert ...

. In 2016, she participated in protests against the imprisonment of Leonard Peltier, a member of the American Indian Movement arrested in the Pine Ridge Reservation protests in the 1970s. In 2017, Tayac provided one of the opening remarks at the People's Climate March on President Trump's 100th day in office.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tayac, Gabrielle Living people 21st-century American historians 21st-century Native American writers Harvard University alumni Historians from New York (state) Piscataway people People from Greenwich Village Year of birth missing (living people) Native American curators American women curators American curators Native American people from New York (state) 21st-century Native American women Activists for Native American rights Members of state-recognized tribes in the United States