Indigenous History

Thanksgiving Myths Aim to Silence Indigenous Voices

November 28, 2024 Johnnie Jae, Truthout. Educate! History, Indigenous History, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Resistance, National Day of Mourning, Thanksgiving

For many Americans, Thanksgiving is a time to gather with loved ones, share a meal, watch football and express gratitude. Some Native Americans celebrate Thanksgiving this way as well, because feasting is Indigenous — we also love eating and watching football. Still, the holiday carries a much heavier weight: It is a stark reminder of the violent colonization that began with the arrival of European settlers. The idyllic myths surrounding Thanksgiving align with broader strategies of historical revisionism used to justify settler colonialism by distorting and erasing histories of violence, exploitation and resistance.

Native Boarding Schools Were Genocidal: Healing Starts With Truth

September 10, 2024 Abaki Beck, Truthout. Educate! Boarding School, colonization, Genocide, History, Indigenous History, Indigenous Rights

When I was in middle school, at a majority-white public school in Montana, I was given an assignment to interview a grandparent about their childhood. The questions were designed to help us better understand what we did and did not have in common with each other. When I interviewed my maternal grandmother, I asked her whether there was ever a bully at her school. Her answer surprised me; she said she was the bully. “I always had soap in my mouth,” she said, punished for “talking back” to her teachers—and punished for speaking her first language: Blackfeet. My grandmother was a student at the St. Ignatius Mission and School, a church-run, assimilationist boarding school on the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana.

We Carry The Burden Of Repatriating Our Ancestors

August 9, 2023 Mary Hudetz, Pro Publica. Educate! Indigenous History, Indigenous Peoples, Journalism, Repatriation

We had reached the top of a sandstone mesa when Theresa Pasqual set down her hiking pole and scanned the storied canyon before us. We could see the centuries-old buildings of Chaco Canyon, a site in northwest New Mexico that her tribe’s ancestors, the Ancestral Puebloans, had occupied before eventually establishing other communities in the region. Pueblo Bonito, the canyon’s largest structure, sprawled from near the base of the bluff where we stood, its walls arcing around hundreds of hollowed rooms. Two colleagues and I had traveled to the canyon with Pasqual as part of our reporting on how the nation’s most prestigious museums and universities had excavated Native American cultural sites like this and how they continued to keep what they took.

Black History – Native History: Shared Connections

February 21, 2023 Wakíƞyaƞ Waánataƞ (Matt Remle), Last Real Indians. Educate! Black History, colonization, History, Indigenous History

A number of years ago, following an undoing racism workshop I was a panelist on, a participant approached me to further discuss a point I had made regarding the importance of maintaining cultural identity and reclaiming traditional languages in our decolonization efforts. The individual stated that as a person of African descent they wished they could know who they were and where they truly came from and that they deeply desired to know the traditional songs, ceremonies, and languages of their ancestors. He went on to say that we, Native peoples, were blessed to be able to have access to knowing who we are and where we come from.

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