The Winnemucca Indian Colony of Nevada is a

federally recognized tribe This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States of America. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes were legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United ...

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 cultural ...

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 r ...

Indians in northwestern

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

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. Humbo ...

. 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 state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

in suing the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

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 expl ...

at the

Nevada Test Site The Nevada National Security Site (N2S2 or NNSS), known as the Nevada Test Site (NTS) until 2010, is a United States Department of Energy (DOE) reservation located in southeastern Nye County, Nevada, about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of th ...

, 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 bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...

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 nuclear weapons' effectiveness, Nuclear weapon yield, yield, and explosive capability. Testing nuclear weapons offers practical information about how the weapons function, how detona ...

on their lands as a violation of the 1863 Western Shoshone

Treaty of Ruby Valley The Treaty of Ruby Valley was a treaty signed with the Western Shoshone in 1863, giving certain rights to the United States in the Nevada Territory. The Western Shoshone did not cede land under this treaty but agreed to allow the US the "right to t ...

. 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 an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

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 USA 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 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 ...

Today

The Winnemucca Indian Colony of Nevada's tribal headquarters is located in Winnemucca, Nevada. Judy Rojo is the Tribal Chairman recognized by the federal

Bureau of Indian Affairs The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States federal agency within the Department of the Interior. It is responsible for implementing federal laws and policies related to American Indians and A ...

. The tribe is governed by a five-person tribal council.

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 P ...

Sarah Winnemucca Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins ( – October 17, 1891) was a Northern Paiute author, activist (lecturer) and educator (school organizer). Her maiden name is Winnemucca. Her Northern Paiute language, Northern Paiute name was Thocmentony, also spelled To ...

, she published the first autobiography by a Native American woman, ''Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims'' (1883),'' considered "one of the most enduring ethno-historical books written by an American Indian."Omer Stewart, Review: "Gae Whitney Canfield, 'Sarah Winnemucca of the Northern Paiutes', Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma, 1983"
''Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology,'' 5(2), 1983, accessed 12 February 2014

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