In August 2019 the American Historical Association published the "Statement from the AHA on Domestic Terrorism, Bigotry, and History." You can read the context of this statement draft and the fine draft on the AHA website. Several governing boards of the AHA Affiliated Societies, including the Western History Association's Council, signed the statement in support of its message.

The WHA Council did not, however, think this statement adequately discusses the historical and contemporary violence again Indigenous peoples in North America.

To this end, the WHA governing body did not believe the AHA Statement adequately addressed the violence perpetrated against Indigenous peoples throughout North American history. At the Fall 2019 Council Meeting on October 16, the WHA Council approved an augmented version of the statement on violence with language that more explicitly recognizes this issue. Please read the full version here of the revised statement here. An excerpt from the statement is included below:

Furthermore, the idea of the U.S. as a “nation of immigrants” ignores a simple truth: the lands we currently identify as North America are Indigenous homelands. Indigenous lifeways grew out of these homelands; Indigenous peoples have stewarded and protected these territories for millennia. Colonial and settler violence removed Indigenous peoples from their ancestral homes and interrupted cultures, but despite displacement, Indigenous peoples have persisted and their responsibility for these territories remains intact, as does tribal sovereignty. Indigenous peoples are of these lands.