All my childhood I was told/taught that Christopher Columbus founded the New World in 1492.
Am I the only one who received that information…and just automatically believed it was true because it was in all the history books of which I knew?
Did you later find out that this couldn’t be true if he found other people living, sleeping, and eating there when he “ventured” upon the land? Columbus is the one who coined the term “Indians” because he thought he had found India.
Indians, Indigenous People, Native Americans — what should they be called? Either way, whatever your preference may be, November is recognized as National Native American Heritage Month.
Native Americans are known as the original inhabitants of the continent we know as North America and of the nation we call home. Thousands of years ago, they were much kinder and more respectful of the earth and all it provided for them than we are today. When Europeans began exploring and found that the land could be very profitable and earn them much wealth, some of them befriended the Native Americans (until that friendship was no longer needed) while others enslaved, fought, killed, and mistreated them just to take the land; the Europeans did not accept the Native American way of life, and the Americans eventually forced them to be removed from their ancestral lands, which includes a majority, if not all, of the land in Mississippi.
Counties/towns like DeSoto, Hernando, Natchez, Yazoo, Choctaw, and Pascagoula among others are named for the Indian tribes that once resided there. Remembering and celebrating the lives of Native Americans is a must; their lives provide intricate detail in the fabric of United States history, of Mississippi history. What started as a day in 1916, a week in 1986, and a month in 1990, “National Native American Heritage Month celebrates Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and affiliated Island communities. By honoring the cultures, heritages, traditions, languages, and stories of these people, their histories and vital contributions for future generations are preserved” (Rhode Island College).
Let’s keep the history of Native Americans alive. Learn more about their lives by reading literature, watching fact-based movies, and just having genuine conversations with Native Americans with whom we come into contact.
Teach our children and other loved ones about them. We might have more in common with them than we think. After all, their history is linked to our history.
