Indian Country in the News: Jan. 27 - Feb. 3, 2012

This week's news highlights include the unexplored history of Native American and African-American slavery in the Midwest, a long-sought victory for the Yakye Axa indigenous community in Paraguay, and a bleak look at the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming:

• NPR: Native Americans As Slaves, Slave Owners In North - "MacArthur 'Genius' Tiya Miles does pioneering research on the relationship between Cherokee Indians and African-Americans. She speaks with host Michel Martin about shedding light on the unexplored history of Native American and African-American slavery in Michigan."

• Amnesty International: Paraguay: Land dispute victory for displaced indigenous community - "A land deal finalized this week between Paraguayan authorities and a land owner in the country’s central region will allow a long-displaced indigenous community to rebuild in safety and dignity, Amnesty International said today. For almost two decades, the Yakye Axa indigenous community have fought a legal battle to return to their ancestral lands while around 90 families were forced to live in destitute conditions alongside a nearby highway."

• NYTimes: An Indian Reservation Where Brutality Has Become Banal - "The Obama administration, which has made reducing crime a priority in its attempt to improve the quality of life at dozens of Indian reservations plagued by violence, recently ended a two-year crime-fighting initiative at Wind River and three other reservations deemed to be among the country’s most dangerous. Nicknamed “the surge,” it was modeled after the military’s Iraq war strategy, circa 2007, which helped change the course of the conflict. Hundreds of officers from the National Park Service and other federal agencies swarmed the reservations, and crime was reduced at three of the four reservations, — including a 68 percent decline at Mescalero Apache in New Mexico, officials said. Wind River, as has been true for much of its turbulent history, bucked the trend: violent crime there increased by 7 percent during the surge, according to the Department of Justice."