late edit: DISCLAIMER: The pictured map is not actually a representation of the territories before colonisation. It’s a hypothetical map of what countries there might have been had the continent not been colonised, thus all the names and borders are fictional and have never existed.
For good actual maps, check out native-land.ca.
This map has some really weird boundaries that totally don’t match reality. Here’s a more accurate map: https://native-land.ca/
Even this map is questionable, especially in all of eurasia.
unfortunately it doesn’t seem to work in firefox
Yeah the map is shit but I appreciate someone pointing this out right now while there is a peak in awareness of the struggle of colonized people.
It’s unfortunate that people only start talking about it when something like what is happening in Palestine breaks news for being so especially horrifying.
The fact is that this shit is going on right in our own back yard and has been for centuries and we should absolutely have solidarity with Palestine and their fight against the genocidal Zionist entity but we must also recognize that we have an important responsibility to fight against the bigger genocidal settler colonial entity that enables them and that is the US.
Bookmarked, this is amazing
Holy cow! This is awesome! Thank you very much for sharing this here!
Haida Gwaii is the name of the island, not the nation. And the Salish are coastal. Totally wrong. :/
It is the name of the island. But not Vancouver Island.
Yeah, sorry if I wasn’t clear. Haida Gwaii isn’t even on the map!
Are there any other white North Americans here that grew up in mild reverence of your alleged mixed Native American heritage, and then find out later (through DNA tests or what have you) that there isn’t even the slightest trace of native in your bloodline, and all of your relatives (who have Cherokee art in their house and shit) have all been terribly misled by some weird family rumor for decades?
Like, I suppose the silver lining here is that it’s probably a good thing to have more white people out there who respect and are sympathetic toward the plight of native genocide, but holy fuck, boys… It doesn’t seem as though anyone in the family has an explanation for it. Every last person just grew up accepting that our Grandmother/Great Grandmother/Family Matriarch was half Cherokee.
It’s my understanding that this is a common thing in Appalachia, and while my family is from the Great Lakes, my Great Grandparents fled Kentucky during or shortly after the Harlan County strikes, so I imagine the rumor began all the way back then. Though this rumor only gets weirder for those familiar with the miner strikers when you note my (confirmed) descendency from one of the primary villains of that period, who was most certainly not of Cherokee blood. But who am I to say whether or not he engaged in coitus and/or matrimony with someone believed to have been.
It’s becoming quite the scandal in Canada, where academics are claiming indigenous heritage to get sweet teaching gigs. Buffy St.Marie is the latest greatest liar.
Elizabeth Warren
Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren
Not to say she gets to claim tribal membership, but her DNA test corroborated her family story. I never understood why she got so much shit for that.
It’s up to the tribe if she can claim membership or not. Many tribes require that you can prove direct descendancy from someone on the final rolls of the Dawes act. No amount of native DNA will gain you access if you can’t prove direct descendancy. Tribes with casinos and casino money are especially guarded about letting people in, sometimes excluding groups who meet the criteria and have proof. There was a group of about 50 people who sued a tribe to be admitted when I was younger. They wanted in, because getting in meant you were financially set for life. They had all the proof needed to get in, but still lost the case. It’s hard to win in court against groups that have billions of dollars, especially if those groups make the rules.
Right, Warren claimed Cherokee ancestry, not tribal membership. A story was passed down in her family and the DNA test results are in line with that story. She learned about the culture, visited the lands, and even published a cringey cookbook. By all accounts, her beliefs about her heritage were sincere and plausible, if embarrassing.
Wait, it actually did? I thought the whole issue was that she “lied” about it to get special treatment in admissions for schooling.
So these asshats going on about “Pocahontas warren” aren’t even correct? They’re just mocking how DNA transfer happens over generations? That would absolutely be on brand, mock someone for your own ignorance…
Yes, though it didn’t “prove” ancestry to the high standards required for tribal membership, which requires linking one’s ancestry back through specific names using official genealogical records. She is estimated to be 1/32 Cherokee ancestry, exactly in line with her family stories, and the same as the current chief of one of the Cherokee nations. But, to be clear, we should also be respectful of the Cherokee nation’s political sovereignty in determining membership.
That is exactly what happened to me. I didn’t find out until I took a 23 and me test. I didn’t believe the results, took the Ancestry.com test, got the exact same results. Had some interesting conversations with family after that, but basically, no one is willing to accept it’s been a lie the whole time.
It’s conceivable that someone could have been accepted into a tribe and grew up believing themselves to be Native American, but the whole confirmed-descent-from-primary-villain thing really blows that hypothesis out of the water.
Yeah, it’s very unusual. It doesn’t seem as though anyone in the family has much information about my Great Great Grandmother, who is the alleged link. I’m not sure what became of her during or after all the strife, or if she was even alive or present. It’s almost as though the family history just kind of begins after my Great Grandmother left Harlan behind, and that’s probably very much intentional. She was the youngest of her family, saw her father do some disturbing things (made her older siblings dig holes out in the woods, etc.), and was innocent in all of it herself.
Yes, sort of. Let me tell you my tale.
First, my parents nor grandparents had a significant amount of Cherokee or other American Indian items on display. It’s possible my grandparents did but they had tons of knickknacks and if they did have some they weren’t a significant portion. So that’s a no to one of your questions.
However, I was always told I was 1/16th Cherokee. I don’t remember who told me this originally. It was never a big deal, more just like a fun fact that was shared with me. I never really thought anything of it. At some point in college I remember hearing how all white people believe they’re 1/16th Cherokee. For context, my mother’s family that the ancestry allegedly comes from is from Dahlonega, GA which is sort of the southern most tip of the Appalachian mountains. Well, maybe not the most southern but pretty far down. So the Appalachian part tracks. Also, of course, the Cherokee were from Appalachia so that tracks as well.
So, when my grand parents died we were going through their stuff and we found some paper explaining how we were Cherokee. I don’t want to oversell this paper. It wasn’t a certificate. It was sharpie written on printer paper. But it was a little family tree showing how my mother and her siblings were 1/8th Cherokee. I want to be totally clear. I don’t put faith in this. I don’t necessarily even believe it’s correct or anything. However, it was fascinating to see that my grandparents actually believed it. Moreso that I didn’t make up that I was told this growing up. Does that make sense? Sort of like a reassurance that I wasn’t crazy for believing I was told this. I didn’t necessarily believe the accuracy of the claim, just that the claim was made.
My best guess is that this ancestor who would be my grand parent’s grand parent, may have been partially Cherokee but that was exaggerated. I don’t really know.
I viewed being 1/16th Cherokee growing up like I view the results of my DNA test now. Just some interesting information about my heritage but not exactly important. The way I sort of see Irish stuff now, which 23andme said I was. I don’t feel some great call to return to my roots, but it’s slightly more interesting than it would’ve been otherwise.
So there’s a lot to unpack here but I’ll give it a try:
- You could have native ancestry even if it doesn’t show up in a DNA test. Consider a person with ancestry A has a kid with someone of another ancestry, whose descendants do not reproduce with another person with ancestry A. Then that ancestry would logically show up in these percentages: 100 50 25 12.5 6.25 3.125 <2 <1… But this assumes that it divides evenly, which it does not. Even if it did though, in this example that ancestry might be undetectable after about 8 generations.
- There’s a lot of “I have a native ancestor” narratives out there. Why? Claims to American legitimacy, alleviation of colonial guilt, that one guy in a feathered headdress cried about littering and I’m sad about it too, etc.
- It doesn’t matter. Ancestry is pointless. Your DNA is just a listing of the traits your body was originally constructed on. If a native couple adopt a white kid and raise them on a reservation that child has had more of the native experience than a white passing person of native ancestry raised in Boston. Even more importantly though, none of it changes the fact that colonialism was a crime, we all should have empathy for its victims, and the way forward is by treating people with respect and dignity and trying to repair the damage while preventing it from happening again.
Well, it was a sign of the times but, if you were kinda tan you had to have a story that explained how you definitely weren’t black.
I’m not sure about some of this, like Anasazi were not contemporaneous with the other tribes listed.
I think this map tries to apply European notions of borders and nation states where they don’t really apply.
It’s also wildly inaccurate as it’s a fictional map of an uncolonized America in 2015
Choctaw nation would like a word
For anyone interested in advancing this cause I can’t recommend enough to look into Chunka Luta Network.
https://www.instagram.com/chunkalutanetwork/reel/Cy3nmU-uMMz/
The path to liberation lies in these decolonial struggles, the fight that indigenous people have been putting up against the US imperial project is inextricable from the fight to liberate the people of Palestine. The only way for any of us to be free, ALL of us must be free. That means that there is no fighting against Zionism without also fighting against the US settler colonial project that enables it.
Every small donation literally saves lives as temperatures are dropping fast and Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota is one of the poorest places in the country. Average life expectancy among men is ~52, and for women ~54. We are securing gas money for collecting firewood, warm clothes and winter supplies, food, and eventually building new housing and a community center.
It is hard to get direct aid to people in Palestine right now but you can fight the genocidal settler colonial project in your back yard by helping us build dual power and save lives.
Do you have any non-facebook links we can use? I’m not clicking on that link.
Mate that link just goes to another social media platform. I’m beginning to think this isn’t really anything worth looking into if they can’t even have a non-enshitified web-presence.
People use the tools they have access to, and some things are more important than worrying about using a platform that works because tool’s owner’s business model or actions are bad.
We are working on building a website and filming a documentary, I can personally attest to what we have been doing with the funding we have received thus far.
I personally visited in august where we provided a whole buffalo for the sundance along with firewood and other winter survival necessities, and some of us volunteering our labor. You want colonized people fighting for existence to have a slick presentation to appeal to your white settler sensibilities? Like yeah we will have a website up eventually but that is so not on the list of priorities while we work to prevent people from dying RIGHT NOW on the rez.
“Mate”…
How am I supposed to know any of that, mate? Get a fucking website setup. Want help? I’ll help you if you want. Takes a few minutes and then you can rant and rave on a real website and not social media owned by billionaire assholes.
shoot me a DM, mate. Lets get it going!
And yes - everyone should be heinously paranoid about online scams. To think otherwise is foolish to retarded.
We are literally building a website right now, but in the meantime people are still fucking dying out there. Last year one elder on the rez was burning his own clothes to keep warm
In the meantime these are tools immediately available to us to reach large numbers of people and building a website and hosting it also costs money.
Right now our focus is getting folks through the winter and then come spring starting construction on new housing and the community center. We have the land and the people to do the work we just need to pay for it. And this will pave the way for more projects in the future such as a youth survival school, community gardens as a push toward food sovereignty, and a buffalo pasture so that they don’t have to go pay a white rancher a fee to hunt them. This will also bolster conservation and repopulation efforts regarding buffalo.
Also we should have a 501c3 set up by the end of the year to lay your skepticism to rest.
Apologies for the hostility but, like, this is an actual life or death situation and I gave you the links to what we have publicly available so far.
Unless I’m remembering middle school wrong, the map seems shy a few hundred tribes.
And many more tribes and communities were outright slaughtered by colonizers before they could even be documented. There are plenty of tribes that are just lost to time or we know nearly nothing about because they have no surviving members.
Indigenous peoples also don’t necessarily view tribes, nations, etc as rigid categories where you’re either one or the other, no exceptions. That in fact is the European view where you can only be part of one empire and where every empire seeks to capture as much land and resources for themselves as possible. You’ll notice that the native-land.ca map has tons of overlapping territories.
I also don’t recall there being lines
If you see the lines as approximations, I’m fine with it. There were no borders in the sense that nation states have them today of cause.
i mean a trivial solution to this is to just use colours with a soft gradient at the edges, you have a rough outline but it’s clear that there is no hard border
Sure. It’s a weird concept seeing these ancient people organized with modern standards in a map like this. I’m sure it would have seemed bizarre to them too.
Now show me a map of their power grid. Or wealth inequality. Etc
You want a GDP map of pre-contact America?
But seriously: don’t call them ancient. That compares them to the ancient people of the old world which they are not. They have a unique history. Call them pre-contact or pre-colonialism or pre-Columbus or something next time
Don’t call them people of the old world. That implies the world is only thousands of years old, which it is not.
Bla bla bla words
My wife is Ojibwe and her tribe illegally migrated several hundred miles west about one generation before Europeans arrived, taking land that belonged to other natives.
This map is nonsense and implies rigid European borders. It ignored the hundreds of independent tribes on the continent. Comparing illegal immigration with colonizing is stupid too. Also the map implies native people never conquered each other or colonized others land which to be clear, is not justifying later European colonization, but we shouldn’t play into the noble savage trope.
Yes, colonizing is much, much worse than “illegal immigration,” which is a term conceived by colonists.
Now do the ones before them.