America, no Turtle Island!
The name Turtle Island comes from
the Aboriginal Creation story, Turtle
Island was renamed North America after
a Spanish explorer, Amerigo Vespucci
The Anishinaabek are one of the
most widespread nations of the
Aboriginal People of Turtle Island. There
are Anishinaabek people living from The
Canadian Sub-arctic across Turtle Island into Mexico.
Many Native nations say that they are Anishinabek such as the Ojibway
also called Chippewa, the Odawa, the Potawatomie, The Algonquins in
Ontario's North-East and others. There are many nations similar to the
Anishinaabek such as the Algonquin related people in the East Coast, the
Arapaho nation and the Tsitsistas nation, also known as Cheyenne in the
Prairies, and the Yurok nation on the West Coast.
The Anishinaabek language is a widely accepted aboriginal language in
Turtle Island. The word Niiji is an Anishinaabek word originally used by the
Ojibway and Cree to mean friend.
Lately Aboriginal People of Turtle Island often use the term Niiji to
address each other and themselves equivalent to the meaning of the word
Indian. The word Indian originates in one version from Spanish and in another
version again from Spaniards calling Turtle Island Natives people from India,
Indians.
The term Niiji very clearly defines the person as an aboriginal from Turtle
Island other than Inuit. When used today, the term Indian could refer to a
person from India or to a person of any aboriginal nationality on any of the
continents with populations that lead lifestyles similar to those of the
aboriginal people on Turtle Island.
Similar to the term Indians referring to Turtle Island aboriginal people,
the aboriginal people in the Arctic were called Eskimos. The term Eskimo is not
a term that the aboriginal people of the Arctic called themselves but rather a
term used by Europeans that originated from the Cree language calling people
raw meat eaters.
Due to the term Eskimo not being a term the aboriginal people in the
Arctic introduced, the term Eskimo was replaced by what the aboriginal people
in the Arctic call themselves, which is the word Inuit. Inuk means man in the
language of the aboriginal people of the Arctic and Inuit means men in their
language. Their language is called Inuktitut.
The word Niiji has already replaced the term Indian in many cases
among Native youth and elders and it could completely replace the term
Indian just like the word Eskimo was replaced by name Inuit.
Every Native nation in Turtle Island has its distinct language and name.
The name Niiji doesn't replace the names of nations; it replaces the wider term
Indian that covers all Native nations and at the same time clearly refers to the
aboriginal people of Turtle Island and excludes any other aboriginal nation also
referred to as Indians. In Europe, Asia and Africa there are numerous nations
with all of them acknowledging being Europeans, Asians or Africans.
Natives in Turtle Island that address themselves as Niiji, call themselves
Niijis regardless of the nation they are from, just like Europeans, Asians and
Africans call themselves Europeans, Asians and Africans.
People often talk about an Indian language and ignore the fact that just
like there is no one single language spoken by all Europeans, there is no one
single language spoken by all aboriginal people of Turtle Island. The name Niiji
makes it clear that there is not one language spoken by aboriginal people of
Turtle Island due to the fact that, there is no such thing as a language called
Niiji. Just like there is not just one language in any of the continents, there is no
just one language among the aboriginal people of Turtle Island.
The aboriginal people of Turtle Island have chosen to refer to their
continent by the original name for it which is Turtle Island. They have chosen
the flag with the four colors: white, yellow, red and black to be the general flag
representing all aboriginal people of Turtle Island and in some cases also the
non-aboriginals on Turtle Island. They have chosen a general symbol of the
Medicine Wheel with the four colors, as the insignia of Turtle Island. The Turtle
Island aboriginal people's use of the name Niiji to address themselves is only
natural.
The first known European settlement in the Americas was by the Norse
explorer Leif Ericson. However the colonization never became permanent and
was later abandoned. The voyages of Christopher Columbus from 1492 to 1502
resulted in permanent contact with European (and subsequently, other Old
World) powers, which led to the Columbian exchange.
Diseases introduced from Europe and Africa devastated the Indigenous
peoples, and the European powers colonised the Americas. Mass emigration
from Europe, including large numbers of indentured servants, and forced
immigration of African slaves largely replaced the Indigenous Peoples.
Beginning with the American Revolution in 1776 and Haitian Revolution
in 1791, the European powers began to decolonise the Americas.
Currently, almost all of the population of the Americas resides in
independent countries; however, the legacy of the colonisation and settlement
by Europeans is that the Americas share many common cultural traits, most
notably Christianity and the use of Indo-European languages; primarily
Spanish, English, and Portuguese. More than 900 million people live in the
Americas.
The first inhabitants migrated into the
Americas from Asia. Habitation sites
are known in Alaska and the Yukon
from at least 20 000 years ago, with
suggested ages of up to 40,000 years.
Beyond that, the specifics of the
Paleo-Indian migration to and
throughout the Americas, including the dates and routes traveled, are subject
to ongoing research and discussion.
Widespread habitation of the Americas occurred during the late glacial
maximum, from 16,000 to 13,000 years ago. The traditional theory has been
that these early migrants moved into the Beringia land bridge between eastern
Siberia and present-day Alaska around 40,000–17,000 years ago, when sea
levels were significantly lowered due to the Quaternary glaciation.
These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct
pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the
Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. Another route proposed is that, either
on foot or using primitive boats, they migrated down the Pacific coast to South
America. Evidence of the latter would since have been covered by a sea level
rise of hundreds of meters following the last ice age.
Both routes may have been taken, although the genetic evidences
suggest a single founding population. The micro-satellite diversity and
distributions specific to South American Indigenous people indicates that
certain populations have been isolated since the initial colonization of the
region.
Although there had been previous trans-oceanic contact, large-scale
European colonization of the Americas began with the first voyage of
Christopher Columbus in 1492. The first Spanish settlement in the Americas
was La Isabela in northern Hispaniola. This town was abandoned shortly after
in favor of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, founded in 1496, the oldest American
city of European foundation.
This was the base from which the Spanish monarchy administered its
new colonies and their expansion.
On the continent, Panama City on the Pacific coast of Central America,
founded on August 5, 1519, played an important role, being the base for the
Spanish conquest of South America. The spread of new diseases brought by
Europeans and Africans killed many of the inhabitants of North America and
South America, with a general population crash of Native Americans occurring
in the mid-16th century; often well ahead of European contact.
European immigrants were often part of state-sponsored attempts to
found colonies in the Americas. Migration continued as people moved to the
Americas fleeing religious persecution or seeking economic opportunities.
Millions of individuals were forcibly transported to the Americas as slaves,
prisoners or indentured servants.
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history
and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European
influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original
settlement in the Upper Paleolithic to European colonization during the Early
Modern period.
The term Pre-Columbian is used especially often in the context of the
great indigenous civilizations of the Americas, such as those of Mesoamerica
(the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacano, the Zapotec, the Mixtec, the Aztec,
and the Maya) and the Andes (Inca, Moche, Muisca, Cañaris).
Many pre-Columbian civilizations established characteristics and
hallmarks which included permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, civic
and monumental architecture, and complex societal hierarchies. Some of these
civilizations had long faded by the time of the first permanent European
arrivals (c. late 15th–early 16th centuries), and are known only through
archaeological investigations.
Others were contemporary with this period, and are also known from
historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Maya, had their own written
records. However, most Europeans of the time viewed such texts as pagan,
and much was destroyed in Christian pyres. Only a few hidden documents
remain today, leaving modern historians with glimpses of ancient culture and
knowledge. Fascinating American history don’t you think?