Search Help

How does this work?
There are many ways to search the collections of the Freedom Archives. Below is a brief guide that will help you conduct effective searches. Note, anytime you search for anything in the Freedom Archives, the first results that appear will be our digitized items. Information for items that have yet to be scanned or yet to be digitized can still be viewed, but only by clicking on the show link that will display the hidden (non-digitized) items. If you are interested in accessing these non-digitized materials, please email info@freedomarchives.org.
Exploring the Collections without the Search Bar
Under the heading Browse By Collection, you’ll notice most of the Freedom Archives’ major collections. These collections have an image as well as a short description of what you’ll find in that collection. Click on that image to instantly explore that specific collection.
Basic Searching
You can always type what you’re looking for into the search bar. Certain searches may generate hundreds of results, so sometimes it will help to use quotation marks to help narrow down your results. For instance, searching for the phrase Black Liberation will generate all of our holdings that contain the words Black and Liberation, while searching for “Black Liberation” (in quotation marks) will only generate our records that have those two words next to each other.
Advanced Searching
The Freedom Archives search site also understands Boolean search logic. Click on this link for a brief tutorial on how to use Boolean search logic. Our search function also understands “fuzzy searches.” Fuzzy searches utilize the (*) and will find matches even when users misspell words or enter in only partial words for the search. For example, searching for liber* will produce results for liberation/liberate/liberates/etc.
Keyword Searches
You’ll notice that under the heading KEYWORDS, there are a number of words, phrases or names that describe content. Sometimes these are also called “tags.” Clicking on these words is essentially the same as conducting a basic search.

Search Results

Yvonne Swan Yvonne Swan
Call Number: KP 396Format: Cass A & BProducers: Carole TravisCollection: Native Americans
Member of the Colville Tribe, Swan speaks about the environmental and health impacts of nuclear power plants and mining on Native American reservations in the US. Also the personal health effects on her family and the genocidal role of corporations on Native American reservations.
Alice Stewart Alice Stewart
Call Number: KP 397BFormat: Cass BProducers: Carole TravisCollection: Native Americans
About the environmental impacts of uranium exposure, mining and nuclear power plants on Native American reservations. Stewart speaks about how hunting, fishing, and agriculture have been destroyed. The Colville Tribe can't survive under the US government because of differences in values and power.
Lilias Jones and Madonna Thunderhawk Lilias Jones and Madonna Thunderhawk
Call Number: KP 398Format: Cass A & BProducers: Carole TravisCollection: Native Americans
Lilias Jones speaks about the uranium spills on the Black Hills Native American reservation and how privately owned corporations neglect the toxic spills. No studies have been funded to determine its effects. Also Native Americans lack power to resist these large corporations. Interview with Madonna Thunderhawk discussing how sterilization, loss of land, and radiation exposure are all elements of genocide committed against Native American populations. Also Native American's refuse to assimilate because of spirituality and connection to the land also the importance of self-determination in resisting forced removals of indigenous populations.
Joann Tall Joann Tall
Call Number: KP 399Format: Cass A & BProducers: Carole TravisCollection: Native Americans
About Tall's personal experiences with the sterilization of Native American women starting in the 1960's. Also about the detrimental health impacts of sterilization as well as contaminated water, radiation exposures, and pesticides. Also about the boarding schools and political obstacles to resisting the destruction of her tribes health and land. Brief mention about the positive impacts of the Occupation of Wounded Knee.
Yvonne Swan and Lisa Michel Yvonne Swan and Lisa Michel
Call Number: KP 400AFormat: Cass AProducers: Carole TravisCollection: Native Americans
Yvonne speaks about Native American spirituality in contrast with religion, which she associates with the history of Christianity. Also about personal spiritual experiences, followed by a prayer of strength and peace, and a song. Lisa speaks about her personal experiences with childbirth and the lack of medical attention during pregnancy and birth. As a Native American woman, she remarks on all the diseases children are born with and how sterilization isn't effective because doctors do not explain the procedure.
Tina Fry Tina Fry
Call Number: KP 400BFormat: Cass BProducers: Carole TravisCollection: Native Americans
Speaks about her personal experiences with traumatic health problems during childbirth, forced sterilization and experimental drugs in her Native American community. Also about a lack of doctors, poor access to care, and medical malpractice.
Fenette Blackbear Fenette Blackbear
Call Number: KP 401AFormat: Cass AProducers: Carole TravisCollection: Native Americans
About her and her children's health problems, distrust in western medicine, and how doctors have either neglected or blamed Native American women for the birth defects of children rather than examining contaminated water.
Jackie Huber Jackie Huber
Call Number: KP 401BFormat: Cass BProducers: Carole TravisCollection: Native Americans
About the range of medical care problems occurring on Native American reservations ranging from miscarriages to high infant mortality rates due to contaminated water. Also government's unresponsiveness and lack of studies and funding that women on the reservation have been working towards.
Alison Stewart Alison Stewart
Call Number: KP 403Format: Cass A & BProducers: Carole TravisCollection: Native Americans
About health problems facing pregnant women and coerced sterilization. Also about Native Americans being exploited by logging companies and mines and the challenges to acting against these corporations. She also discusses her personal health, activism, and the environmental issues facing the Native American community.
Native American Growing Fight against Sterilizations of Women Native American Growing Fight against Sterilizations of Women
Author: Andrea CarmenPublisher: Akwesasne NotesVolume Number: Late WinterFormat: ArticleCollection: Native Americans
Article discussing evidence of the genocidal campaign of sterilizations that the US government is carrying out against Native peoples.