Author Archives: Stephen Carr Hampton

About Stephen Carr Hampton

Stephen Carr Hampton is an enrolled citizen of Cherokee Nation, an avid birder since age 7, and a former resource economist for the California Department of Fish & Game, where he worked as a tribal liaison and conducted natural resource damage assessments and oversaw environmental restoration projects after oil spills. He writes most often about Native history and contemporary issues, birds, and climate change.

Photo essay: An Oceti Sakowin road trip with Nick Estes’ book, ‘Our History is the Future’

Posted on June 12, 2024 by Stephen Carr Hampton

I just got back from a road trip through the lands of the Oceti Sakowin. My traveling companions were my 29-yr old son and Nick Estes, in the sense that we had his 2019 book Our History is the Future: … Continue reading →

Posted in Standing Rock | Tagged #noDAPL, Nick Estes, Oceti Sakowin, Our History is the Future, road trip, Rushmore, South Dakota, spotted elk, Standing Rock, Wounded Knee | 1 Comment

Using blood quantum, will there even be a Seventh Generation?

Posted on May 2, 2024 by Stephen Carr Hampton

This topic won’t go away until it goes away. So here goes. In The Truth about Stories (2003), Thomas King (Cherokee) discusses the blood quantum approach that the government of Canada uses to determine “status Indians,” whereby those born a … Continue reading →

Posted in my own thoughts | Tagged blood quantum, enrollment, indigenous, native american, race, seventh generation, tribal citizenship, tribal sovereignty | 1 Comment

How ignoring Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) set modern ornithology back a hundred years

Posted on April 24, 2024 by Stephen Carr Hampton

This is a re-post from my other blog, The Cottonwood Post, which is focused on birds, birding, and environmental issues. Here I review a new book about the history of American ornithology — and all the stuff the early colonizers … Continue reading →

Posted in my own thoughts | Tagged Audubon, birding, birds, Kaufman, ornithology, TEK, Traditional Ecological Knowledge | Leave a comment

Eclipses and Native Revivals

Posted on April 5, 2024 by Stephen Carr Hampton

Seven years ago, I stood atop a sagebrush bluff in eastern Oregon, waiting for the coming total eclipse of the sun. As we gathered and talked and laughed, the air cooled and the yellow landscape faded into muted tones. Ten … Continue reading →

Posted in news | Tagged eclipse, ghost dance, indigenous, native revivals, Paiute, Tecumseh, wovoka | 2 Comments

My book project – Native American history, 1491 to the present

Posted on February 4, 2024 by Stephen Carr Hampton

Osiyo, relatives! Many of the articles I’ve published and the blog posts I’ve shared in the past few years come from a rather massive book project: a collection of stories, spanning 1491 to the present, coast to coast, hundreds of … Continue reading →

Posted in my own thoughts | Tagged 1491-present, beta readers, book project, Native American history, reviewers, sensitivity readers | Leave a comment

Stories from Gaza, Indian Territory: Two narratives of American bullets

Posted on January 1, 2024 by Stephen Carr Hampton

As the Revolutionary War ramped up, British and Mohawk fighters killed 30 settlers in Cherry Valley, New York. George Washington responded by sending four thousand troops into Haudenosaunee land. This was called the Sullivan-Clinton Expedition. He called for “the total … Continue reading →

Posted in news | Tagged bias, comparison to Native Americans, Gaza, Israel, Massacre, Palestine, parallels, total destruction | Leave a comment

Standing Rock and the DAPL EIS: My public comment letter

Posted on September 30, 2023 by Stephen Carr Hampton

As I described in my last post, we have now finally arrived at the public comment period regarding the DAPL pipeline. This was supposed to be done before the pipeline was built. The water protectors brought us to this moment. … Continue reading →

Posted in Standing Rock | Tagged alternatives, dapl, DAPL EIS, eis, example letter, public comment, Standing Rock | Leave a comment

Standing Rock and DAPL in 2023: The EIS process and the public’s second chance

Posted on September 9, 2023 by Stephen Carr Hampton

UPDATE ON NOVEMBER 13, 2024: We are still waiting for Step 3 on the graphic below. Once the “preferred alternative” is chosen, the Biden Administration must wait 30 days to finalize the Record of Decision. The clock is ticking. Now … Continue reading →

Posted in Standing Rock | Tagged dapl, eis, public comment, public comment instructions, Standing Rock, understanding EIS process | Leave a comment

“White history” on the northern Plains: How the word is not passed

Posted on June 7, 2023 by Stephen Carr Hampton

Full disclosure – I am working on a book. It covers Native history and how it is told today. We can put books about Native history into four categories: 1) older books written by white historians, where Natives are “Indians” … Continue reading →

Posted in my own thoughts | Tagged Cameahwait, chief joseph, Clint Smith, Custer, greasy grass, How the Word is Passed, lakota, Little Bighorn, Montana, Nez Perce, Sacagawea, white history, Wyoming | 1 Comment

The Indigenous Critique: The Dawn of Decolonizing our Minds

Posted on April 22, 2023 by Stephen Carr Hampton

Rather than emanating from the brains of highly-evolved European men, it was actually Native American ideas regarding equality, personal liberty, and leadership accountability that fueled Europe’s Age of Enlightenment, ultimately leading to the American and French Revolutions, as well as … Continue reading →

Posted in my own thoughts | Tagged book, Dawn of Everything, Enlightenment, Indigenous Critique, Kandiaronk, Kondiaronk | 3 Comments