First of all, the name is wrong. We were NEVER Indians. When Columbus sailed in 1492, he was looking for a water passage route to the East; in other words, China or India.
While enjoying my morning walk today, I couldn’t help thinking about the flood of Euro-centric arrogance that has covered or outright washed away the names, practices and histories of the original inhabitants of this country.
“The very moment I can rid myself of them (the southeastern native tribes )…I shall certainly do so”. Such were the words of the man who would embody a nations’ view of the First Americans. I write, of course, of Andrew Jackson.
Letter from Chief John Ross of the Cherokee, Georgia, 1836. By President Andrew Jackson’s election in 1828, the only large concentrations of Indian tribes remaining on the east coast were located in the South.
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