The city of Anchorage sits on the homeland of the Dena’ina tribe. The Anchorage Museum installed “This is Dena’ina Ełnena” on its facade as part of its land acknowledgment efforts to recognize the Indigenous people of a place.
Now that more of us are paying attention to those who were living in North America before First Contact, a tool has been created that lets us check which tribes lived where we live now.
I sent my zip code by text to (907) 312-5085 and learned I live on former Nipmuc and Pawtucket land. The return text (enabled by land.codeforanchorage.org) also taught me how to pronounce Massa-adchu-es-et. Now I need to look up how the Nipmuc and Pawtucket tribes are or aren’t related to the Wampanoag, as I always thought it was Wampanoag land in this part of Massachusetts.
You can find information about the land initiative in an article called “We’re Still Here” at the Washington Post.
I was also interested in an article at the74million.org about the history that Rhode Island’s indigenous children get in public school.
“Growing up in Charlestown, Rhode Island, Chrystal Baker remembers reading a textbook in history class that said the Narragansett Indigenous people, who have lived in southern New England for tens of thousands of years, were extinct.
‘We’re not extinct,’ the young student ventured, nervous about contradicting the lesson, but feeling she had to speak up. ‘I’m a Narragansett.’
“No response came from her teacher or classmates, recalls the Chariho Regional School District alum, who graduated in 1986.
“ ‘It just didn’t matter,’ she told The 74. ‘You were insignificant.’
“Now, decades later, Baker has two children in the same school system who have navigated similar experiences of hurt and invisibility. …
“ ‘In history class, it’s mostly the history of the colonizers,’ said her daughter Nittaunis Baker, 19, who graduated from Chariho High School in spring 2021 and now attends the University of Rhode Island.
“ ‘We didn’t really talk about Native people that much.’ …
” ‘There is no United States history, there is no Rhode Island history, without Indigenous history,’ the West Warwick mother told The 74.” Read how the state is now handling indigenous history at the74million.org.
Photo: Asher Lehrer-Small/ the74million.org.
Chrystal Baker and her daughter Nittaunis on the water at the University of Rhode Island’s bay campus, where the 19-year old studies marine biology. They belong to the Narragansett tribe.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
Time for the history of the Americas pre-colonial times to be taught! Thanks.
Thanks for all you do, too!
I have been wanting to do this. Someday soon.
You mean blog about it? That would be great!
I agree that history of the pre- colonial should be included in studies. Love that jacket of the one on the right.
We need to know whatever there is to know. Knowledge can’t hurt us.