Please do your own research. The information I share is only a catalyst to expanding ones confined consciousness. I have NO desire for anyone to blindly believe or agree with what I share. Seek the truth for yourself and put your own puzzle together that has been presented to you. I'm not here to teach, preach or lead, but rather assist in awakening the consciousness of the collective from its temporary dormancy.
For many of us, our understanding of Native American history ends up a bit simplified. We hit a few major milestones in our history courses, bounce through some examples from entertainment (for better or worse), then watch it fade into the background without it impacting our lives.
But we’re missing so much! The umbrella term “Native American” refers to an immensely diverse history of Indigenous peoples who lived everywhere from the Arctic to the southern tip of South America over tens of thousands of years. And while that’s a far more complex history than can fit in a single month’s worth of attention, we can start expanding our perception by considering just a few of the lasting contributions Native Americans have made to society.
Checks and Balances: Brian McKenna, anthropology professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn explains that when the thirteen colonies were fighting, Onondaga leader Canassatego encouraged them to set boundaries to distribute power. He shared the Iroquois Great Law of Peace as an example on how to set checks and balances. In fact, Benjamin Franklin invited the Iroquois Grand Council of Chiefs to speak to the Continental Congress in 1776 to give advice.
Corn: Author and historian Patrick J. Kigler reminds us that corn was carefully cultivated by Indigenous peoples from wild grass into an edible crop 10,000 years ago. Later, Native Americans taught Europeans how to grow it. And it’s far from the only food source adapted from the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. From Peruvian potatoes to chocolate from the Mayans to staple crops like beans and squash, Kigler estimates that 60 percent of our foods originated from Native American origins.
Kayaks: Designed by the Inuit of the Arctic, kayaks—small, narrow boats with a sealed cockpit—were originally built using wood or whale bone frames covered by animal hides. Today, “the design is still essentially the same,” says Dr. Gaetanna De Gennaro, supervisory specialist at New York’s National Museum of the American Indian and member of the Tohono O’odahm tribe.
Snow Goggles: The Inuit are also who we can thank for the predecessor to today’s sunglasses. They used goggles made from wood, bone, antler, or leather to prevent overexposure to sunlight as it reflected off the snow. De Gennaro says, “They’d put a slit in there, to simulate the way that you can squint. It cut down on the ultraviolet rays that got into the eyes.”
Raised-Bed Agriculture: Mentioned in Emory Dean Keoke and Kay Marie Porterfield’s book, American Indian Contributions to the World, Indigenous peoples from South and Central America made advancements in enriching soil for use in raised garden plots. Called “chinampas” and used in lakes or on swampy land, this technique is a forerunner to today’s raised-bed vegetable farming.
Topical Pain Relievers: Keoke and Porterfield reference a range of anesthetics and topical pain relievers in their book: jimson weed ground into a plaster for use on abrasions, capsaicin from hot peppers for topical pain relief, and teas brewed from American black willow bark which contains the chemical salicin, an active ingredient in modern aspirin.
Syringes: While the technology didn’t appear in European nations until the 1850s, Native Americans used syringes fashioned from animal bladders and hollow bird bones to inject medicines into the body.
When it comes to managing the impact humans have on our planet and the mounting effects of climate change, Professor McKenna says the Iroquois have some advice: “The Iroquois have the seventh generation principle, which dictates that decisions that are made today should lead to protecting the land for seven generations into the future.”
Take Away: If your understanding has been narrow, this year’s Native American Heritage Month is the perfect time to begin expanding your perspective. As Dr. De Gennaro says, “People don’t realize the ingenuity or the knowledge that native people had, and continue to have about the world around them.”
It is no secret that the United States of America has a deeply dark and disturbing history in regard to how Native Americans were treated in this country. After wiping out large portions of the indigenous populations with European diseases, the federal government took to forcibly assimilating the remaining population in government institutions.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, hundreds of federal schools were set up across the country in which Native children were taken from their families and tribes to be re-educated into the American way of life. Within these facilities, tens of thousands of children were both physically and sexually abused as “teachers” forced them to talk, dress and act “American.”
In these boarding schools, children were prohibited from speaking their Native American language and forced to assimilate into society. The abuse they suffered at the hands of staff was often times fatal and many of these schools began digging mass grave sites as a result.
A new study conducted by the interior department has given us glimpse into the deeply disturbing nature of these schools. The study found more than 50 burial sites, in which they suspect tens of thousands of native children have been buried — and, they expect that number to grow.
The study is far from complete, but some of the findings are being released as they focus on trying to identify the children and their tribal affiliations.
“The consequences of federal Indian boarding school policies – including the intergenerational trauma caused by the family separation and cultural eradication inflicted upon generations of children as young as four years old – are heartbreaking and undeniable,” Deb Haaland, the interior secretary, said in a statement.
The study uncovered the fact that hundreds of schools, ran and funded by the federal government, operated in 37 states, with many of them in Oklahoma, Arizona and New Mexico.
The US government ran several hundred of these schools while it provided funding to Catholic, Protestant and other churches who ran their own schools to “civilize” Native Americans.
“It is my priority to not only give voice to the survivors and descendants of federal Indian boarding school policies, but also to address the lasting legacies of these policies so Indigenous Peoples can continue to grow and heal,” Haaland said.
Haaland, who is Laguna, said they have found 53 mass graves of children who died or were killed in the government facilities. The number of children buried in these graves sites could total in the “tens of thousands,” according to the study.
“Many of those children were buried in unmarked or poorly maintained burial sites far from their Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, the Native Hawaiian Community, and families, often hundreds, or even thousands, of miles away,” the report said.
It was nothing short of genocide and it happened in this country, sponsored by and carried out by this government.
Though the current US regime is attempting to make a truth and healing commission in an effort to set things right, Native Americans in the United States still face an uphill battle — up to and including many of them being stripped of their right to vote and or senselessly killed.
Native American people are killed in police encounters more than any other ethnic group and their killers often escape accountability. As TFTP reported, Ashland County Sheriff’s Deputy Brock Mrdjenovich shot and killed a Native American child on Bad River Indian Reservation in northern Wisconsin and face no consequences.
It should come as no surprise that a county riddled with mass graves full of Native children thinks that putting them on reservations and apologizing is somehow “justice.”
(LifeSiteNews) – As work continues on developing a vaccine for COVID-19, left-wing philanthropist Melinda Gates says that “black people” and “indigenous people” in America should be immunized against the virus before whites.
“One of the reasons we are so involved in this is that you don’t want the first vaccines to go to the highest-bidding countries,” said Gates, wife of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Fox Business reports. “There are 60 million healthcare workers [around the world]. They deserve to get the vaccine first, they’re the ones dealing with this on the front lines, trying to keep us all safe.”
“Then you have to start to tier from there, based on the countries and the populations,” she continued. “Here in the United States, it’s going to be black people who really should get it first and many indigenous people, as well as people with underlying symptoms, and then elderly people.”
Mrs. Gates’ remarks came during the couple’s virtual appearance at the Forbes philanthropy summit last week.
While many frame a vaccine as a prerequisite for fully reopening society, the prospect of making it mandatory remains controversial for a number of reasons.
While mainstream media often fixates on parents who oppose vaccines based on hotly-debated fears over side effects, they tend to overlook another group that supports vaccines in general while having an ethical conflict with vaccines derived from aborted babies’ cells.
“It is important for people to understand why so many are suspicious of the philanthropy of Bill Gates and his ilk, and why so many react with suspicion to the medical opinions of a certain sector of our elites,” LifeSiteNews’ Jonathon Van Maren explains.
“It is because they lie to us about abortion, day in and day out, and tell us that destroying a child in the womb is “health care” and “an essential service.”
It is because they tell us that the birth control pill has no side effects and is also health care, that the abortion pill is safe, that abortion has no negative impact on women, and hundreds of other lies that we know to be lies.”
During last week’s event, Bill Gates accused the US government of withdrawing from “global problem-solving” and “just trying to cast blame” by withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO) over its initial response to the coronavirus outbreak, namely its adoption of Chinese misinformation.
The Trump administration emphatically rejects claims that abandoning the WHO constitutes abandoning the COVID-19 relief effort.
“The United States continues to be the undisputed leader in foreign assistance,” James Richardson, director of U.S. Foreign Assistance Resources at the State Department, said last month, noting that the US is currently responsible for “49 percent of all government and multilateral assistance” in response to COVID-19.
As of June 24, the United States is estimated to have seen more than 2.4 million COVID-19 cases, with more than 123,000 deaths and a million recoveries. More than 40 percent of those deaths have come from nursing homes.
We’ve all heard that sad story about “The Trail of Tears” – the one about how mean old “racist” President Andrew Jackson(terms: 1829-1837) rounded up the Indians of the Southeast (mainly Cherokees from Georgia-Tennessee-Carolinas) and force-marched them off to Oklahoma. The various treks, ranging between 700-1000 miles, are said to have caused the deaths of 4,000 Indians / Native Americans (quietly downgraded to 3,000) who were buried in unmarked graves along “The Trail Where They Cried.”
There is just one little problem with this unchallenged narrative — it is not totally false, but it has been grossly edited and wildly embellished, mainly for the purpose of besmirching the great name of the heroic American figure who paid off the National Debt down to zero and “killed the bank” (America’s Central Bank). Let us examine some of the problems with this attack against “the White Man” in general — and Jackson in particular — and set the record straight about “The Trail of Tears” once and for all.
1. Andrew Jackson slays the multi-headed monster of the 2nd Bank of the United States in 1833. // 2. Jackson survives an assassination attempt. The Rothschild Globalists have always hated Jackson for paying off the National Debt and killing the Central Bank — which was finally reborn as the “The Federal Reserve” in 1913. //
3. The false propaganda tale of “The Trail of Tears” is just another manifestation of that hatred towards Jackson.
10 PROBLEMS WITH THE OFFICIAL STORY
1. Judging historical figures out of the context of their times can be misleading.
We do not believe that right and wrong are “relative” concepts, of course. However, we should tread very carefully when pulling any historical personage out of the context of his day and condemning him according to some of the arguably more enlightened attitudes of contemporary times. After all, back in the day, many good and noble men saw nothing wrong with owning slaves, provided they were well-cared for. Does that mean that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson himself and even the estimated 3,700 Black slaveholders (here) were all “evil?” We don’t believe so.
Similarly, let’s not childishly tag all men from the past with the stupid term “racist” so easily just because they foresaw potential problems arising from different races living within close proximity of each other — a sad historical reality of human existence which has afflicted mankind ever since the Cro Magnons knocked off the Neanderthals. It was simply the way of the world back then.
2. Not all Indians were exactly angels.
What modern day libtards refer to as “toxic masculinity” ™ is not unique to White males. Many innocent White people as well as some of the more docile Indian tribes were persecuted and slaughtered by some of the more violent Indian elements. So let’s dispense with all this “evil White Man” talk. Over the course of the centuries of interaction in the Americas, atrocities were committed by both sides. Notwithstanding the many cases of Indians and Whites getting along nicely, the proximity to each other was often problematic in some areas, for both races.
3. The Indian Removal Act was approved by Congress and the Senate.
Jackson was not a dictator issuing Executive Orders to relocate the Indians. In 1830, the US Senate passed the Indian Removal Act by a vote of 28 to 19; and the House of Representatives passed it by a vote of 101 to 97. The Act granted the president authority to negotiate treaties that swapped Indian lands east of the Mississippi River for reservations in the West, and said nothing about removal by force.
This policy of using money and land instead of force was later continued by President Martin Van Buren, after Jackson left office in 1837.
1. Black slave-owner Nicolas Augustin Metoyer of Louisiana and his other family members owned 200 slaves. Was he “evil” too? 2. Not all Indians were peaceful. There were many cases of White women and children being slaughtered. 3. Senate and House majorities also supported Indian relocation in exchange for western reservations.
The slaughter of Jane McCrea in 1777. These types of incidents and counter attacks by settlers were still occurring in the 1830’s.
4. Jackson was more of a realist than a “racist.”
Many northerners opposed the plan. Jackson regarded these northern critics as hypocrites because Indian tribes had become nearly extinct / assimilated in the North — where Indian hunting grounds gave way to family farms as state law replaced tribal law. If the Indians of the south and their culture were to survive, it could only be done in separation, not integration. The wise words of America’s greatest President made perfect sense for that time:
“Humanity has often wept over the fate of the aborigines of this country and philanthropy has long been busily employed in devising means to avert it, but its progress has never for a moment been arrested, and one by one have many powerful tribes disappeared from the earth.
But true philanthropy reconciles the mind to these vicissitudes as it does to the extinction of one generation to make room for another.… Philanthropy could not wish to see this continent restored to the condition in which it was found by our forefathers. What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?”
5. Jackson (and later Van Buren) had the best interests of the Indians at heart.
According to historian H. W. Brands, Jackson sincerely believed that his population transfer was a “wise and humane policy” that would save the Indians from “utter annihilation.” Brands writes that, given the “racist realities of the time, Jackson was almost certainly correct in contending that for the Cherokees to remain in Georgia risked their extinction.” Jackson believed that his paternalism and federal support were generous acts of mercy.
In his autobiography, Van Buren praised Jackson’s vision of Indian removal and thus, preservation.
“No man ever entered upon the execution of an official duty with purer motives, firmer purpose or better qualifications for its performance. We were perhaps in the beginning unjustifiable aggressors (toward the Indians) but we have become the guardians and, as we hope, the benefactors.”
1. Jackson (Image 1) and Van Buren’s (Image 2) attitudes towards the Indians were paternalistic and benevolent, not cruel or tyrannical. 3. Cherokee leader John Ross (half White) — negotiated the transfer deal with the US Federal government, and profited from it. He never spoke nor wrote about any mass deaths.
6. The Indians were well-paid to relocate and received lots of new land.
Unlike, say, the dispossessed and terrorized Palestinians of 1948 and beyond, the Cherokees of the 1830’s actually negotiated the terms of their relocation with Washington DC. The Cherokees, though under pressure, were actually well-paid with removal costs running at about $3 million and another $3 million by 1849. In today’s money, $3 million would represent as much as $90-100 million. In essence, the Indian relocation was an eminent domain deal, not unlike the transactions which clear out the residents of city blocks in order to make way for bridges, tunnels, skyscrapers etc.
Jackson outlined his policy in his Second Annual Message to Congress, in which he said nothing about the use of force. Rather, his comments on Indian removal began with the words:
“It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation. Two important tribes have accepted the provision made for their removal at the last session of Congress, and it is believed that their example will induce the remaining tribes also to seek the same obvious advantages.”
Further contradicting the misconception of a mass forced roundup at bayonet point is the historical fact that some Cherokees insisted on staying in North Carolina and had a Federal reservation set aside for them there in later years (here).
THIS IS WHAT A REAL “TRAIL OF TEARS” LOOKS LIKE!
1. 1948: 700,000 uncompensated Palestinians flee their homes and farms in terror as Jewish gangs commit massacres. 2. 1967: 300,000 more uncompensated Palestinians are forced out of their lands by the Israeli military. 3. Jewish-run PBS is big on pushing the lie of the Cherokee “Trail of Tears” — but totally silent when it comes to exposing the real, more recent and still ongoing Palestinian Trail of Tears.
7. Only 12,783 Indians were relocated.
Most products of the American “education” system remain under the mistaken impression that mass numbers of Indians from the Southeast United States was herded out to Oklahoma. Texas historian / writer William R. Higginbotham claimed to have spent 20 years researching original archival data from that era. In a 1988 essay published in The Oklahoman newspaper, he informs us:
“In the Cherokee nation’s own files, now on deposit in the Gilcrease Institute in Tulsa, the number of Indians departing the East in 13 main parties is recorded at 12,623, the arrivals West at 12,783. Some stragglers joined on the way. American military counts are almost the same. The Cherokees were being paid per Indian moved.”
Even establishment historians do not dispute the relatively low number of the relocated, though their “official” number is 16,000. (here)
8. The sovereign Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma still exists and is thriving.
“Citizens of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma reside within 14 counties in Northeastern Oklahoma, the tribe composes of descendants of those that were forced removed from lands in Southeastern United States during 1838-1839 time period. In addition to those descendants the tribe also comprises of descendants of ‘Old Settlers’ which were those that had moved from lands in the east prior to 1833 and are subject to the 1828 and 1833 treaties. Over 70,000 Cherokee reside within a 7,000 square mile geographical area, which was never a reservation but rather a federally-recognized, truly sovereign nation covering most of northeast Oklahoma.
Today its jurisdictional service area encompasses eight entire counties along with portions of six others. As one of only three such federally-recognized Cherokee tribes, the Cherokee Nation has both the sovereign right and the responsibility to exercise control and development over tribal assets, including more than 66,000 acres of land and 96 miles of the Arkansas Riverbed. Tribal citizenship is granted if a lineal descendant from the Final Roll of the Dawes Commission 1907 of the applicant can be proven through birth and death records.”(here)
Andrew Jackson: the benefactor of Cherokee culture? Believe it! Whereas northern tribes have long since gone extinct / blended out (as Jackson had said), the racial Cherokees of Oklahoma still exist as a sovereign nation in an area almost as large as the stolen nation of Israel — with a population many times greater than in 1830!
Cherokee Stand Watie moved out west on “The Trail of Tears.” Years later, he became the leader of the Cherokee Nation and attained a general’s rank in the Confederate Army during the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865). Watie commanded the Confederate Indian cavalry of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi — made up of Cherokee, Muskogee and Seminole. He was the last Confederate general in the field to cease fighting at the end of the war. — And oh, by the way, Waite owned at least 800 Black slaves. (here)
9. The “Trail of Tears” term was actually coined decades later.
Higginbotham:
“The phrase “Trail of Tears” entered the story much later. In 1958, Gaston Litton, former archivist at the University of Oklahoma, attributed it to a remark by a Choctaw Indian to a Baptist preacher about an Indian Territory road. It reached print for the first time in 1908, 70 years after the exodus, when all the participants were dead.
From then on it spread like an advertising slogan, as if it came from the mouths of the 1830-40 Cherokee Indians who had never heard or used it.”
Noted Oklahoma scholar Gaston Litton — author of “Cherokee Cavaliers” — traced the first use of the propaganda term “Trail of Tears” to 1908 — 70 years after the event!
10. The death toll was grossly exaggerated.
The commonly accepted and endlessly repeated figure of “4000 dead” represents a quintessential case of a hearsay bit of data embedding itself in the public mind to such a depth that none dare question it (sort of the like the “6,000,000” dead Jews of Holohoax fame, or the phony “350,000” from the mythical “Rape of Nanking”). Such a death toll would mean that 33% of the trekkers died (Higginbotham’s numbers), or 25% (if you believe official numbers of 16,000 relocated). Either case is impossible! How could that many people have died on treks undertaken on established trails, in the generally warm / mild-weathered south, with horse-drawn wagons packed with provisions, on journeys that should have lasted only 2-3 months? Where are the “4,000” bodies? What documentation is there to support such a high death total?
Higginbotham:
“The act caused a spate of articles about how the Cherokees lost 4,000 or more dead on a terrible trek, described as a “forced” march, presumably indicating they were prodded by bullet and bayonet as they moved during the hard winter of 1837-38.
Voluminous records, including those of the Cherokee nation itself, show no loss approaching 4,000….
T. Hartley Crawford, head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, reported on Aug. 6, 1840, in a private communication to the secretary of war that the death toll among the 13 groups was 447
Other deaths, raising the total to more than 800, took place in parties outside the main groups and were carefully reported to the U.S. government.”
Cherokee removal was investigated by Congress to an extent that can be believed only by reading the Congressional Record. Some reports run to hundreds of pages. The written military record exists in detail in U.S. archives. Nothing like an extravagant death toll among the Cherokees exists. Butler’s (hearsay) is the sole source for such a conclusion. No historian mentions that.
(Cherokee leader) John Ross never made unusual claims for deaths, although he returned to Washington repeatedly after 1838 seeking more money. Not only do the lower aforementioned death totals (447, or 800 if other groups and separate events are counted) seem much more realistic, but when you consider the fact that during those times, about 25 people out of 1,000 would die naturally each year anyway, (here) the “Trail of Tears” doesn’t seem to have been so treacherous after all!
The piece which William Higginbotham (no image available) wrote for the Oklahoman (here) sums up most of the scam, but fails to identify the main motive. He wrote: “It (The Trail of Tears) is too good a story as it stands and too well-fixed to disturb. That makes it all the more dishonest.”
*** CONCLUSION ***
So you see, dear reader, this bullshit about “The Trail of Tears” is nothing more than a romanticized lie, concocted by “the usual suspects” for the devious purpose of attacking the “evil” White Man and tearing down the reputation of Andrew the Great at the same time. For Jackson, like Hitler, shut down the operations of the International Jewish-Marxist banking Mafia which controls our money and our minds to this very day. That’s the truth, and no amount of Fake History can alter it.
Trail of Tears? Ha! Trail of Smears is more like it.
1. The “critically acclaimed” ™ Broadway Show “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” was a historical musical that went out of its way to slander Andrew Jackson over the “Trail of Tears.” ™ 2. In 2016, the Obama administration decreed that Jackson would be removed from the $20 bill in the Year 2020, and replaced with an image of the negro Union spy Harriet Tubman. President Trump later rescinded that order. Jackson’s place is safe, for now.
The Revival Of Ancient Lost Crops Reveals Surprising Results
The scientific cultivation of lost ancient seed crops has yielded much higher than expected growth rates, challenging assumptions about maize (corn) growth in prehistoric North America.
According to new research ‘lost crops’ might have fed as many people in prehistoric North America as traditionally grown maize.
But the study was not without challenges as no written or oral histories exist about these lost crops, and the more modern domesticated forms are now extinct.
Natalie Mueller is assistant professor of archaeology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, and writing in the Journal of Ethnobiology she describes how “painstakingly” she calculated yield estimates for two annual plants that were cultivated in eastern North America for thousands of years before being abandoned for maizeproduction.
The researchers grew ‘goosefoot’ (Chenopodium, sp.) and erect knotweed (Polygonum erectum), which when grown together were found to be “much more productive” than growing either species individually.
According to a report in Eureka Alert, the researcher explained that when these two plants were grown along with the other known lost crops, they might have fed thousands of indigenous people.
Photo of the ‘goosefoot’ plant
The Search For Ancient Botanical Answers
The first seed caches and dried leaves held as evidence of ‘lost crops’ was gathered in the 1930s by archaeologists in rock shelters in Kentucky and Arkansas, and over the past 25 years professor emerita of archaeology at Washington University, Dr Gayle Fritz, established that the extinct crops had supported local indigenous societies for at least a thousand years and long before maize (corn) became their staple crop.
According to Dr Mueller, the lost crops were made up of “diverse native grasses, seed plants, squashes and sunflowers” of which only the latter two are still cultivated today.
Furthermore, the scientist now knows that these lost crops were “purposefully tended.” But while there are many Native Americanpractitioners, of ethnobotanical knowledge, who know about traditional medicinal plants and wild foods, “as far as we know” nobody knows how the lost crops were grown, said Dr Mueller.
Saving Seeds For Future Catastrophes
In February 2015, a Native American researcher in Vermont, Frederick Wiseman, a retired professor and expert on ethno-botany, reproduced horticulture that existed in his state for centuries before Europeansarrived.
After the scientist spent many years researching and working with the Maya civilization in Guatemala and Mexico, Dr. Wiseman identified and preserved 26 different varieties of plants, including “squash, beans, corn, artichokes, ground cherries and tobacco”, which were all vital to the Abenaki Native Americans of northeastern North America and “would otherwise have been lost in time,” Ancient Origins reported in February 2015.
To further ensure our current knowledge of plants and growing methods are secure from being lost to future generations, a 2015 Ancient Originsarticle explained that scientists founded the Svalbard Global Seed Vaultin Norway that preserves more than 860,000 food-crops.
But the question as to why these “lost plants” were abandoned by indigenous cultures has been a point of debate among archaeologists, said Mueller, who added that people (archaeologists) have mostly “assumed” maize was a lot more productive seeing as it’s still grown today, and it has the lowest cost per unit area.
But not content with “assumptions”, Dr Mueller quantified the yield so that comparisons could be drawn between lost crops and maize growth for the first time accurately.
The researcher said that her team had been motivated by wanting to see “more diverse agricultural systems” and to better understand the knowledge, management and ecosystems of indigenous people of North America before the modern industrial agricultural system.
Pairing Up Plants To Enhance Growth
Before the tests began, the scientist first identified several ecological elements, which had to be accounted for before recreating a stable growth system that was as similar to the ancient ecosystem as possible.
This meant leaving aside greenhouses, pesticides and modern fertilizers. Dr Mueller stated in the study, the bugs that pollinated the pants and the pests that ate them were also considered in the experiments, along with the diseases that affected their growth and the animals the plants attracted.
The new paper specifically details the findings from two experiments, which had been designed to investigate germination requirements and potential yields for the lost crops.
Dr Mueller’s new research discovered that a polyculture of goosefoot and erect knotweed grew much more productively than when grown separately as a monoculture.
Additionally, when grown together, these two plants yielded “higher than global averages” for closely related domesticated crops, like quinoa and buckwheat. These results were found to challenge the growth rates of traditionally grown maize.
By the age of 10, most children in the United States have been taught all 50 states that make up the country. But centuries ago, the land that is now the United States was a very different place.
Over 20 million Native Americans dispersed across over 1,000 distinct tribes, bands, and ethnic groups populated the territory.
Today, Native Americans account for just 1.5 percent of the population, and much of their history has been lost, particularly as today’s education system is sadly lacking when it comes to teaching the rich and complex history of the United States.
Here we examine little-known facts about Native Americans, which should be included in every history book.
Tribes
As of January, 2016, there are 566 legally recognized Native American tribes in the United States, as determined by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Prior to European contact, there were over 1,000 tribes, bands or clans, but sadly, some were completely extinguished as a result of disease epidemics or war.
Today, there is not a single accurate historical map that reflects the location of Native American tribes in North America in a single time period, as the post-European contact situation was ever changing, with contact occurring at different times in different areas.
From the 16th through the 19th centuries, the population of Native Americans sharply declined from approximately 20 million, to a low of 250,000. Today, there are approximately 2.9 million Native Americans in North America.
As of 2000, the largest groups in the United States by population were Navajo, Cherokee, Choctaw, Sioux, Chippewa, Apache, Blackfeet, Iroquois, and Pueblo.
Tribes of the Indian Nation (Emerson Kent) Regions
Native American tribes in the United States are typically divided into 8 distinct regions, within which tribes had some similarities across culture, language, religion, customs and politics.
Northwest Coast – Native Americans here had no need to farm as edible plants and animals were plentiful in the land and sea. They are known for their totem poles, canoes that could hold up to 50 people, and houses made of cedar planks.
California – Over 100 Native American tribes once lived there. They fished, hunted small game, and gathered acorns, which were pounded into a mushy meal.
The Plateau – The Plateau Native Americans lived in the area between Cascade Mountains and the Rocky Mountains. To protect themselves from the cold weather, many built homes that were partly underground.
The Great Basin – Stretching across Nevada, Utah, and Colorado, the Native Americans of the Great Basin had to endure a hot and dry climate and had to dig for a lot of their food. They were one of the last groups to have contact with Europeans.
The Southwest – The Natives of the Southwest created tiered homes made out of adobe bricks. Many of the tribes had skilled farmers, grew crops, and created irrigation canals. Famous tribes here include the Navajo Nation, the Apache, and the Pueblo Indians.
The Plains – The Great Plains Indians were known for hunting bison, buffalo and antelope, which provided abundant food. They were nomadic people who lived in teepees and they moved constantly following the herds.
Northeast – The Native Americans of the Northeast lived in an area rich in rivers and forests. Some groups were constantly on the move while others built permanent homes.
The Southeast – The majority of the Native American tribes here were skilled farmers and tended to stay in one place. The largest Native American tribe, the Cherokee, lived in the Southeast.
Native American indigenous cultures map by Paul Mirocha Languages
It is estimated that there were around one thousand languages spoken in the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans.
Today, there are approximately 296 indigenous languages across North America. 269 of them are grouped into 29 families, while the remaining 28 languages are isolates or unclassified.
None of the native languages of North America had a writing system. However, the spoken languages were neither primitive nor simple. Many had grammar systems as complex as those of Russian and Latin.
Native American tribe language map (Flickr) There was (and is) enormous variety between the languages. Individuals from clans or tribes just one hundred miles apart may have been completely unable to communicate by speech. Neighboring tribes often used a form of sign language to communicate with each other.
According to UNESCO, most of the indigenous languages in North America are critically endangered, and many are already extinct.
In the United States, the Navajo language is the most spoken Native American language, with more than 200,000 speakers in the Southwestern United States.
Only 8 Native American languages in the United States have a population of speakers large enough to populate a medium-sized town. These are Navajo, Cree, Ojibwa, Cherokee, Dakota, Apache, Blackfoot and Choctaw.
Less than 20 Native American languages in the United States are projected to survive another 100 years.
The World We Live In 