ABSTRACT
Religious freedom is a fundamental right in America. The urgency of the Founding Fathers’ concern to protect it is seen in that it is the first among the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution begins: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” However, freedom of religion was actively denied to American Indians for a century and a half following the ratification of the Bill of Rights. Only in recent years has the government given attention to the subject. In 1968 and again in 1978 the United States Congress formally acknowledged that the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom extends to American Indians. Encouraging as this might be, however, American Indians still experience difficulties in freely practicing their religions.
