 Welcome to our panel. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our panel. As long as the grass grows and the water runs, treaties with native nations and their relevance today. I'm Peggy Mainer, the executive director of the MICA Group. MICA is a national, native-led nonprofit organization that, through grants and technical assistance and partnerships, supports tribal nations in reaching goals they set for themselves. It's going to be my joy and honor in a minute to introduce our moderator, Walter Echohawk, but just one housekeeping note. We only have 50 minutes for our presentation today, so we don't know at this point if we're going to have time for questions. So I'm sure that some will arise, and I'd like to encourage you to put your questions in the chat. We will be watching the chat, and if we have time at the end to answer some of them, we will. But if you would like, and you have a burning question, and you want to put your contact information in the chat with your question, we'll get back to you maybe later this week and answer your question. So it's my joy and honor to introduce Walter Echohawk. Walter is the president of the Pawnee Nation Business Council. He's an author, attorney, and legal scholar. And most of all, to me, he's a friend. Walter has anchored the Micah Group's Cultural Resource Fund Projects Board since 2015. Gosh, it's hard to know what to say about him. His books are so wonderful. He's the author of a number of books, and this is my favorite. I'm going to hold it up. It's called Sea of Grass, and it's subtitled A Family Tale from the American Heartland. I highly recommend it. And my husband, Andy, told me to be sure and mention In the Light of Justice, which is a 2013 book of Walters that we're both lawyers that we really, really value, refer to often, and think very highly of. Walter was the staff attorney of the Native American Rights Fund for a number of years. And in that capacity, he represented tribes, Alaska natives, and native Hawaiians on really all the well-known legal issues in the modern era of federal Indian law. And he's been at the center of the tribal sovereignty movement. He's worked on so many different interesting issues, and I've had the pleasure of being able to talk to him about a lot of them. But he's worked on religious freedom, prisoners rights, water rights, treaty rights, and repatriation rights. He's admitted to practice in many courts, most notably the US Supreme Court. Since he left the Native American Rights Fund, Walter has represented various Oklahoma tribes. And one of the things that I think is so interesting that he's done is he served as a justice on both of the Supreme Courts of the Pawnee Nation and the Kickapoo Nation, and also taught federal Indian law at Tulsa University, Lewis and Clark, and the University of Hawaii. So Walter, I didn't do that justice, but I would like to welcome you as our moderator. And I would like to turn it over to you. Thank you, Peggy, for that very kind introduction. And folks, I'm very glad to be here with this very distinguished panel that we've assembled. And we're all, of course, very honored to be part of this historic preservation convening and to address treaties, which in Native America are a very important part of our histories and of the Native nations here in the United States. And today, as the moderator of our distinguished panel, my tasks are to set the stage for the panel, talk a little bit about our treaties. Secondly, I have the distinct honor and pleasure of introducing our panelists to you. And then thirdly, as we get into it, I'll assist in prompting the dialogue discussion. We have a quite Q&A sort of a format that we've among the panelists here. But so let me just, without further ado, turn to my first task here to set the stage, what are treaties here in the United States in Native America? I guess when you talk about Native Americans, we're talking about America's indigenous peoples, which are the American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians. And there are about nearly 5 million American Indians today that belong to over, well, 562 federally-recognized Indian nations that maintain a government-to-government relationship with the United States government. And under federal law, these 562 tribal nations are deeply embedded into our domestic political system. The Supreme Court has described them as domestic-dependent nations that came into the Union through their treaties under the protection of the United States government. And so the legal framework for defining the legal rights and responsibilities and relationships among indigenous nations and the United States and the States is called federal Indian law. And the hundreds of treaties that were entered into by the Republic with its Native nations for over 100 years since its foundation constitute a big pillar of federal Indian law. Many of our rights derive from these treaties. And these are 369 treaties, at least at my last count. I think the panelists may refine that number for us. But these treaties were made between tribal nations and the United States. They were ratified by two-thirds of Senate vote, signed into law by the President of the United States. And under the treaty clause of the Constitution, these treaties are the supreme law of the land and are enforceable as such. They not only have historic importance, but they also have modern-day importance as well. Seen in the recent McGurk versus Oklahoma decision handed down by the Supreme Court in the last summer of 2020, which held that under the treaties establishing the Muskogee Creek Nation, the government entered into these treaties, setting aside a huge swath of our, excuse me here, state of Oklahoma for the Muskogee Creek Reservation and that that reservation has never been abolished. And so these treaties are alive and well today. And I wanted to talk a little bit about them and then introduce our panelists. But from the inception of our republic in 1776, all the way into the 1770s or 80s, this was the treaty era of our republic and treaties that I've described played a primary means by which the United States interacted with the tribal nations here in North America. The treaties and through the treaties, the United States pursued its various Indian policies of the day for over 100 years in terms of land acquisitions, war, peace, trade and friendship, military alliances, the removal, civilization, education policies. All of these policies were conducted by the United States government through the diplomatic arm of the government. They were seen as foreign affairs, Indian affairs in that era were under the jurisdiction of the War Department and the treaties that were entered into by the protocols of the tribes and diplomatic arm of the government served vital purposes of the signatories. The land acquisitions, the Supreme Court also says that the tribes entered into the union through their treaties under the protection of the United States government. They were established a political protectorate where the government committed itself to look after the well-being of the native nations. They laid out the boundaries of the tribal nations. They laid out matters of war, matters of peace, matters of trade and friendship, and engineered and implemented the Indian policies of the United States. And to the native tribes, they reserved our permanent homelands that we still have today, the things that tribal people think are important, and the treaties and the reserved rights, the explicit words in those treaties, promises made form a foundation for the native rights that we see today that are enforced by the courts. And so the treaties that we're going to be talking about here today constitute a major source of federal Indian law. And so with that overview, if I would like to turn to my second task here to introduce our distinguished panelists for you, first of all, we have Pamela Wright, who will be speaking first. And she is the Chief Innovation Officer of the National Archives. And as such, she's responsible for igniting innovative projects across the agency, as well as formulating and implementing online public access to the National Archives Holdings. And she holds a degree in English and History from the University of Montana. And I'm looking forward to Pamela's remarks. Secondly, we have Anna Naruta-Moya, PhD. And Anna is a specialist in locating and creating access to hard-to-find information, such as these treaties. And she's the Project Director of the Innovative Treaties Explorer Project, which is a part of the Indigenous Data Archive Project that's led by the New Mexico's Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. She is a certified archivist and has served as an archivist for the Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, and the US National Archives. Anna also serves as a member of the Research Advisory Committee of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, assisting them in searching for documents from the government and church-run Indian boarding schools. And she has received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. And then finally, we have Sherri Thomas, Juris Doctorate from Taos Pueblo in New Mexico. And Sherri is the Associate Dean of Institutional Culture and Equity, and also the Library Assistant Director for the University of New Mexico School of Law. She is a member of the Taos Pueblo and grew up on the Navajo Reservation. At the law school in the UNIM, she manages the library collection and teaches courses in legal writing, research, copyright law, and also other areas of law, including federal, Indian, and tribal law. So folks, we have a very fine panel. And what we'll do at this stage is I would like to call upon Pamela first, if she would give her the floor. And then we'll go to Anna. And then after Anna, we will have entertained some questions amongst the dialogue. And Sherri will help me with the color commentary on the Q&A set we've got in store for you. So with that, Pamela, floor is yours and welcome. Thank you so much. It's exciting to be here. And I'm very excited to share with you today some of the work that we're doing at the National Archives that's feeding into the IDA Treaties Explorer that Anna will speak to. But first, I want to acknowledge that I'm coming to you from my home in Silver Spring, Maryland, which is situated on the ancestral homelands of the Nakhach tank peoples. Next slide, please. The National Archives in Washington, DC, has in its custody ratified Indian treaties from the year 1722 through 1869. Located within Record Group 11, which is the general records of the United States government, the treaties are numbered 1 through 374 and were maintained by the Department of State until they were legally and physically transferred to the National Archives back in 1935. This series contains handwritten treaties. As a rule, the manuscript treaties are accompanied by a tested Senate resolutions of ratification, printed copies of the treaties, and manuscript copies of presidential ratifications and confirmations of the treaties. Some treaty files contain copies of messages from the president to Congress, copies of messages or letters of instruction to the treaty commissioners and journals and correspondence of the commissioners. The negotiation of formal treaties with Native Americans by the United States government follows a custom established by Great Britain and the colonial governments. Treaties were made with Native American peoples by the Continental and Confederation Congresses and continued under the Constitution adopted in 1789. These treaties are both historically important and intrinsically valuable. Historically, the ratified Indian treaties serve as one of the basic sources of documenting the US government's policies toward Native American nations, including the extinguishing of title to land, reduction and denial of water, mineral, fishing and hunting rights and the legal status of tribes. Next slide, please. So I just wanted to give you a little look at what a treaty looks like in the National Archives catalog. The National Archives catalog has over 150 million digital copies of permanent federal records, which is amazing, but it also makes it very difficult to find exactly what you're looking for. And this is why we're so happy to work with the IDA Treaties Explorer, which is dedicated to these particular documents and is a great resource to use. In the catalog, you can zoom in and out of each page, which is critical, as you can see from this picture with handwritten documents. You can see how many pages are in the file at the bottom. You'll see all those pages. A blue tag on the top right corner of each page indicates that someone from the public has added metadata tags or transcriptions for the page. These are done all by the public and of the 374 treaties, 358 have been transcribed. And we're gonna continue transcribing until they're all done. And we will share those transcriptions then with the Treaties Explorer that Anna will speak about. From NARA's catalog, you can download these documents, each one as an individual JPEG, or you can download the whole thing as a PDF file. Some of these records have been in very delicate shape and you will see that when I show you some of these. And they took hundreds of hours of preservation efforts, requiring the expertise of our preservation staff at the National Archives before we could even begin to digitize them. Next page, please. So here's a zoom in on one of those pages. And I just wanted to show you that some of the files include drafts that have edits and annotations that may be very helpful to researchers trying to understand some of the intent behind the documents and what the initial drafts look like. And here on this one, you can see in blue on the left, it says strike out. It's one of the draft pages. Next slide, please. The files often include the manuscript instrument of ratification signed by various presidents over time. And here we have the signatures of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Pierce. This is one of the many reasons these are kept in our vaults at the National Archives. Next slide. So some of the treaties include hand-drawn maps and they're amazing. And this is treaty 57 between the United States government and the Delaware, Potawatomi, Miami. People's dated September 30th, 1809. And the next slide shows a close-up. It's a zoom in on that same map. And again, this is one of the advantages of digital as you can really go in and look closely at some of this hand-drawn work. And this one says boundary established at the Treaty of Jeffersonville and outside the shot, it says the word district. So you can read the entire thing. And you can also see there's a fork of a river. It's amazing, these records are really fascinating. Next slide, please. So the treaties demonstrate the evolution of record keeping and treaty making from the use of parchment or animal skin to paper. The signatures and pictographs that appear on the treaties capture the prominent figures in U.S. history and Native American tribal history. The early treaties are generally written on large sheets of parchment and many contain pictographs next to the names of the indigenous signers. One such treaty containing pictographs is treaty number 45 between the United States and the Wyandotte, Ottawa, Chippewa, Muncie, Delaware, Shawnee and Potawatomi signed in 1805 that Fort industry on Miami of the Lake. And this is one of, oh, this is a screenshot up from that treaty. Next slide, please. And here is a closeup of that page that shows some of the pictographs that make these treaties so fascinating just on their physical grounds. All right, next slide, please. So here is a treaty, it's number 14 between the U.S. government and the Shawnee at the mouth of the Great Miami River in 1786. And what might catch your eye initially on this are the red and sometimes they're yellow wax seals for some of the signatures that are meant to attest to the authenticity of the signatures. We'll go to the next slide. But when you look closer, again, you can see that not all of the signatures have wax seals and this particularly shows you the intrinsic value of these documents that are unlike any of the other federal documents that we have. Here you can see the pictograph markings of the half king of the Wyandots, the crane of the Wyandots and Captain Pipe of the Delaware. The next slide, one of the unique treaties is number 96 between the United States and the Kwa Pa Nation signed at St. Louis on August 24th, 1818. And it contains this amazing hand drawn sketch map located at the very top of the treaty. Next slide. And here's a zoom in of that map and what I assume is a reservation area described in the treaty. And you can see the faded red lines in the zoom in. There's also some blue lines on the map as well that are faded. You have to look very carefully to see it. Having these digitized in color is critical to understanding these documents. Next slide. I just also wanted to show you this is another close-up of that treaty and the map that's pretty amazing. Treaty 156 is between the United States and the Winnebago Indians signed at Prairie Duchenne, Michigan Territory on August 1st, 1829. It contains strings of Wampum attached to the top of the treaty. And the next slide shows you a close-up there is a closer look at the treaty and those incredible beads that were attached to it. Ratified treaty number 290 is one of the first treaties where the federal government said it would provide schools. The implementation of native boarding schools all starts in this treaty. People often remark how Carlisle was the first school but it was only the first non-reservation boarding school opening in 1879. The OIA, the Office of Indian Affairs, the predecessor to the BIA would not have opened Carlisle had they not already had experience with on-reservation schools such as Yakima's 19 years before as shown in this treaty. And then we have ratified Indian Treaty number 369 even though the last Indian treaty was signed between the US government and the Nez Perce on August 13th, 1868 and ratified in 1869. Legal issues and rights continue to be contested in the course today, of course, on one such treaty which reflects the ongoing claim to watering land rights of the proposed construction of an oil pipeline by the US near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. That's this treaty number 369 between the US and the Sioux and Arapaho Indians signed 1868 at Fort Laramie Dakota Territory. And then I just wanted to say that we've been thrilled to work with Dr. Anna Neruda-Moya and her team who have created the IDA Treaties Explorer which has all kinds of terrific features and additional information to support better access to an understanding of these treaties. And here are some other links that I'm hoping will be useful to you. I would encourage you to check out the National Archives BIA Photos Explorer. It holds 18,000 Bureau of Indian Affairs photographs. NARA also has a webpage portal for Native American records and it's all pulled together in that third bullet that I have there. And over the past year, the archivist has published a series of blog posts acknowledging the indigenous peoples who previously lived on the lands of every one of our over 40 NARA facilities across the country. And then finally I wanted to let you know that we are currently working hard to develop the 1950 census website. It will go live in April of 22. This census includes population schedules of selected Native American reservations, which is new. And we are learning more every day about which ones are in there and which ones are not. And so we want you to stay tuned and we're eager to share more with you. So thank you very much. And I'll pass it over to Anna. Thank you, Pamela. All right, I'm here to share with you about the Digitreaties Project, a project of Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, the National Archives and the National Archives Foundation made possible by a generous anonymous donation to the National Archives Foundation. Next slide, please. The Indigenous Digital Archive is a collaborative project of the City of New Mexico Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, the New Mexico State Library and the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. And we'd also like to acknowledge our funders and Knight Foundation Institute Museum and Library Services and Clear Digitizing Hidden Collections. Next slide, please. This project actually originated from tribal constituents expressing need in strategic planning sessions with our then new director, Della Warrior, the museum's first ever native director. And in these sessions, constituents ask for more archives education and more online accessibility for documents relating to them. Next slide, please. We chose these partnerships in part to spread training and then to create stronger leaks in communities back to the resources of these institutions. Next slide, please. We have an advisory panel member made up of native and non-native scholars, community leaders and archives and libraries, practitioners that we work closely with. Next slide, please. And we started out with what was then otherwise not available online, working with records of the historic boarding schools that the government started for Native Americans. Next slide, please. Thank you. And we put, thank you. I'll try to speak a little closer to the mic. We put things online according to principles of respectful online access. You can go to the Indigenous Digital Archive and read a little bit more about our thoughts and practices for that. Next slide, please. It's very important to us that everyone feels comfortable with what's online and we proceed according to what the community wants to put up next. We also have been able to run a pilot project of Indigenous Digital Archive Fellows from the 23 tribes of New Mexico plus Hopi, people who are supported financially and then also with mentoring as they conduct research with the material that we're making online in the archives. Next slide, please. And that brings us to the Digitreaties Project that we've been able to start with the National Archives and National Archives Foundation. Next slide, please. If you go to digitreaties.org, you can see the IDA Treaties Explorer. Next slide, please. You can search in multiple ways. You can do map views here coming into 1890s map of California that was compiling land sessions in the next slide, please. You can go in a little bit more detail and this map, the set of maps covers for pretty much every area in the US. You can get kind of an index to start researching the land history and what the instruments of transfer were when applicable. Next slide, please. And then we cross-linked through other documents that allow you to search further. So here you can look at those land sessions and then the schedule of sessions start showing you what the treaty was or the statute or other action that made that session into effect, the land transfer. Next slide, please. You can also explore by place. You can go in on the map of the United States and start seeing outlines showing the different land transfers. And to me, this was particularly revelatory. You go in and you see lots of borders over one overlaying the other lots of action and you can see there's a lot of story there. Next slide, please. You can also explore by timeline. So here, again, that's showing some of the same region of the US and the Great Lakes region, specifically focusing on a timeline of documents relating to the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa White Indians. And you can follow, you can click on the timeline and get the documents and start going further. Next slide, please. Moving, we also have a resources section. We have a guide section with video tutorials, workshops on the treaty's historical context and research you can do with this site. Done Graciously by Professor Sherry Thomas, who you'll hear from soon. Introductory materials to the treaties and some curriculum units about the treaties as well. Next slide, please. We also have a sample up of another part, an educational component we're working on is a set of treaties trading cards that we're doing with red planet books and comics. And these are all featuring original illustrations by native artists or details of the treaties and snapshots of what that treaty is. So we're doing an initial set of 24. There's a QR code that leads people right back to the treaty and the other context on digitreaties.org. But this is a way to have a non-screen-based way of exploring with the treaties and getting appreciation for the depth and magnitude of them. Next slide, please. And I think Pamela was showing possibly some of these drawings too. I was hearing from folks, some of the different ways that it's so important to be able to see the original treaties here. The YN dot, speaking with a researcher at the YN dot of Anderton, talking about how important it is to be able to see these clan symbols that people were signing with and it's allowing them to understand more about relationships among their ancestors back at the time. Next slide, please. And again, you can explore multiple areas through timeline and through map here. This is sort of getting at some of the treaties behind the recent Oklahoma decision. Showing the timeline there. And next slide, please. And then the next slide will show us just processing a little bit further on that timeline. And you can see right now it's stopping at 1850 where we're lucky to be doing another round of work on the treaties explorer and also being able to capture some of that work that the National Archives was able to do during the shutdown once they were able to do some of the working in offices again. So in the coming months, you'll see that populated out fuller to the right with the additional documents bringing it all the way up to the full-sided treaties, the ratified Indian treaties that are in the National Archives. Next slide, please. And with that introduction to the online resource, Walter, we're ready for your questions. Awesome. Thank you, ladies. As a lifelong practitioner of federal Indian law, I've had many, many occasions over the years to look at our treaties that the different native nations do have and litigate those treaties, to enforce those treaties. And your presentations have been absolutely fascinating to me as a practitioner of federal Indian law. And it's just, I think historically, very, very, these documents are very, very important. I had envisioned them as a typed up a document that we can look at on paper rather than the parchment paper. Excuse me. Handwritten parchment paper documents. But these treaties, they really do tell the true story of our nation that is etched in American history about how the West was won, how the West was lost, the promises that were made. And these are all vital parts of American history concerning the rise and growth and expansion of our republic across the continent. And so I think that today, many of these histories, you can't read about them in elementary school or college. They're not well-known to the American public. And instead of hard facts, most of our Americans are uninformed about indigenous peoples, indigenous history, indigenous aspirations and the indigenous sector of our society. And so it's good that the treaty's explorer project has been developed. And Anna, Pam, perhaps, could you, in your own words, tell us why that project is needed. Why do we need a project of this nature that could be accessible online? I'll start and Anna can take it away. I think you said it, Walter, that history is not well-known by the American people and I think as a cultural heritage institution, it's our responsibility to tell the stories that many Americans aren't aware of are not familiar with. And the thrill about working with the Digi trees explorer is that it focuses on this particular story and is able to tell it in ways that the National Archives just can't do. So it's wonderful partnering with Anna and her team to get the words out. Anna, you wanna speak? Yeah, I mean, one thing that was really hammered home for me time and time again is researching the treaties is hard. It is amazingly hard, you know, and there's a lot about them, you know, the custodial history is difficult, you know, some of the compilation of land cessations that wasn't made until the 1890s. You know, some of the listings, Deloria, when he's doing the documents of American Indian diplomacy, he describes that, you know, the 1890 compilation was basically somebody going through and cataloging what was in the filing cabinets. So, you know, some of the documents have been hard to find. It's hard to know the resources that you need to bring together to research the stories. So what we wanted to do is sort of take care of some of those initial steps so that somebody doing research, they can start at that point without having to relearn that whole thing and they can start and just go and dive deep in it and, you know, work in their context. Thank you, Anna. You know, to me, American history is incomplete without a full recitation of the true story of its indigenous peoples. And I think that there's a heightened responsibility of historians and historic preservation professionals to know that history and to tell that story. But let me invite Sherri, Sherri Thomas, Dr. Thomas here to elaborate on your thoughts, Sherri, as to the need for a project of this nature, if you would, I'm interested in your take on the need for a project of this nature, especially as it might relate to our audience that is historic preservation practitioners. All right, thank you so much for the opportunity to talk about this. So when I, in my, so I actually do a lot of outreach to many different groups, particularly librarians. I am a librarian at the University of New Mexico Law Library. And whenever I do outreach, particularly to tribal librarians, I always had so many questions about federal Indian law, tribal law and access to those laws. So when I became involved in this project, Anna asked me to start laying a foundation to fill in some of those gaps in history and understanding because one of the things that happens is that many people who are not indigenous think of indigenous and native peoples as either a romantic concept on the planes, riding a horse, when blowing through their hair or they think of them very in a very derogatory sense. And what we need to understand is that these treaties are not a part, are a part of history, but they are still in effect today. They are still affecting the lives of indigenous people today. We look at the Nodapal movement. We look at the Supreme Court decision on McGirt. And it's really important that we have access to these treaties and that we understand what the legal relationship is between the indigenous people of the United States, the indigenous people that were here in North America before the United States was created. And there were some questions that I want to address in the chat really quickly. There was a question about Spanish land grants. While they do affect indigenous people here in the United States, they're not a part of these treaties. They're really looking as Mr. Echo Hawk just recited. They're really about the expansion from the East to the West. And so you're looking at relationships between the United States and the indigenous people. We're not talking about Britain, Spain, or if we think about Alaska, Russia. So for me, the importance is just making sure that people understand the legal framework that the law that was created by these legal transactions is still alive and still affecting indigenous people today. Thank you. Yeah, you know, there's a lot, today there's a lot of misconceptions, I think about Native people. Many Americans think Native people are extinct. Others are hostage to all kinds of misinformation and racial stereotypes. Many are fellow citizens think that Indian people are on welfare, government payroll, that they don't pay taxes and just have no idea. And sometimes, Native people themselves don't either, that things like healthcare, education, food and other considerations were, inducements were often promised in these treaties. If you read the four corners of these treaties, these were promises made. And as the Supreme Court has said, great nations like great men must keep their word. And I think that part of the National Trust's mission is to tell the full American story. And let me ask you, Sherry, while I have you here, how can these treaties tell us about the full American story? Walter, just real quick, Sherry, I think this might have to be the last question. I'm so sorry, everyone, but we're at time and we need to give space for a break before the next one. But I wanted to say that I am saving the chat. I will try and figure out a way to get the questions answered and responded to. And as I said, also in the chat, Peggy and I are talking about other ways to share this information on Preservation Leadership Forum and the National Trust website. So by the way, I'm Priya. Hi, okay, Sherry, go, take it away. Thank you. Thank you for that. Yes, ma'am. Okay, so this will be our last question, folks. Our last one. So, you know, the importance of understanding the history of native people, starting with them as being treated as foreign nations, governmental entities. That is really important and I think a missing piece to the histories that we learn from elementary school all the way into creating, getting our PhDs and writing our dissertations and understanding that the federally recognized tribes, the tribal people that are enrolled in those federally recognized tribes have an additional political status. And that political status in the history of Indian people really start time immemorial. But when we look at the nation to nation relationship that was started with these treaties and we can see the foundation for the development of the interaction between these governmental entities and how that changes from an overlay, from a type of government or international protocol being introduced and used with indigenous people that had different concepts of how to relate with other governmental entities. And so that to me is one of the most important parts of understanding what treaties are. And as you so eloquently laid out in the very beginning, how a treaty starts and how it becomes a part of federal law becomes based, it has the effect of a statute once it has been ratified by Congress and signed again by the president. Thank you. Thank you, Sherry. Folks, I think this brings us towards the end of our time. And I would just say that this treaties project is really a treasure trove of information, it seems to me because it helps to fill a gap in American history on a vital part of our history, these treaties that not only etch its stone, the true story of our nation and how it was built, but these are also, as I mentioned earlier, living documents that have very profound or relevance today to ensure that the well-being of the native people, promises and are made and received by their ancestors are kept today and those promises that were made because as mentioned by the Supreme Court, great nations like great men must keep their word. And so I thank you for that. And again, I thank everyone for the opportunity of our panel to participate in this eminent historic preservation convening. Thank you. And with that, I believe I'll turn the program back over to the organizers.