This Interactive Map Shows Which Indigenous Lands You Live On

[Judi Lynn]

The nonprofit behind the tool wants people to learn the history of the spaces they inhabit

Jacquelyne Germain
October 13, 2022



A screenshot of Native Land Digital’s interactive map Native Land Digital

Earlier this week, Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebrated the history and culture of Indigenous communities in the United States. Now that the holiday’s over, here’s one way to keep learning more: Find out which Indigenous lands you live on using an interactive map.

Since 2015, Native-Land.ca has helped people discover more about the history behind the spaces they inhabit. Victor Temprano is the creator of the tool, though it is now overseen by Native Land Digital, an Indigenous-led nonprofit.

At first, the map functioned as a “resource pointed at settlers and non-Indigenous people to, in a not-too-confrontational way, start thinking about Indigenous history,” Temprano told Mashable’s Heather Dockray in 2018.

Today, the group is focused on improving both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people’s relationship with the lands around them. Per the group’s website, its goal is to “create and foster conversations about the history of colonialism, Indigenous ways of knowing and settler-Indigenous relations.”

More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/interactive-map-shows-you-what-indigenous-land-you-live-on-180980920/

[Leghorn21]

1. Fantastic!!

Many thanks for posting, Judi Lynn!!

[niyad]

2. Thank you for sharing this fascinating information. Bookmarrking.

[nuxvomica]

3. I live in Mohican and Schaghticoke country

I new about the Mohicans because this is the setting for Last of the Mohicans but I didn't know the Schaghticoke were a nation. I thought it was a Dutch word. An interactive map is a great way to spark people's interest.

[mountain grammy]

4. Very interesting..and educational..

thanks for posting.

[wnylib]

5. The map is interesting, but needs a

statement with it that it is not all comprehensive. There are many tribal nations not named on the map. It might be due to the great number of them making it hard to fit the print of all their names. Since some of them are well known, it doesn't seem likely due to not knowing about them.

So if people take the map at face value, they might think that there were less tribes, and therefore less people, than there actually were.

In present day NY, the Seneca, Mohawk, Cuyuga, and Oneida are missing. In Ohio, the Shawnee are missing. The Southern tribes of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Tuscarora (later moved to NY) tribes are not named. In northwestern PA, the Erie are left out. Other tribes not indicated are the Attawandaron (aka Neutral), Huron, and Petun (Great Lakes region), Pequod and Narraganset (New England), and farther west, the Navajo and Hopi. The Navajo call themselves Dene, and there is a Dene designation on the map farther north in Canada where they lived before moving into the Southwest, so their absence in the Southwest might be due to using original North American homelands. But doing that does not show the effect on them in the Southwest when European Americans moved in to settle that area. There are probably many more tribes not indicated on the map than the ones that I mentioned. I only named the ones that I know of offhand.

[sl8]

7. If you view the map on their site, there is a pop-up disclaimer/explanation:

https://native-land.ca

This map does not represent or intend to represent official or legal boundaries of any Indigenous nations. To learn about definitive boundaries, contact the nations in question.

Also, this map is not perfect -- it is a work in progress with tons of contributions from the community. Please send us fixes if you find errors.

If you would like to read more about the ideas behind Native Land or where we are going, check out the blog. You can also see the roadmap.

[wnylib]

8. Thanks. Then it will grow, I hope, as more names are added.

But I wonder why so many were left off before the map was made available to the public since there are many reliable books on the Native people of North America that give the names and local maps of tribes in the various regions. Thec regions covered in those books include Eastern Woodland, Southeast, Great Basin, Pacific Northwest, Rocky Mountains, Great Lakes, and Plains. A little research in creating the map would have told the map makers more than what they have depicted.

[Cobalt Violet]

9. Most of those are there but you have to zoom in.

It is a work in progress.

[wnylib]

10. I did zoom in. Which of the missing ones that I mentioned

are actually there if you zoom in?

[Cobalt Violet]

14. All of them.

Shawnee-https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/Shawnee
Erie-https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/Erie
Attawndron-https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/attiwonderonk-neutral/
Petun--https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/petun/
Pequod- https://native-land.ca/maps-old/territories/pequot-mohegan/
Narraganset --Nahaganset https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/nahaganset/

Dine Bikéyah (Navajo)https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/navajo/
Hopitutskwa (Hopi) https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/hopi/

Cherokee https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/cherokee/
Choctaw,https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/chahta-choctaw/
Chickasaw https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/chickasaw/
Creek https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/Muscogee
Tuscarora https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/tuscarora
Huron, Wendake-Nionwentsïo https://native-land.ca/maps-old/territories/huron-wendat/
Mowhawk, Kanienʼkehá꞉ka https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/mohawk/
Seneca, Onöndowa’ga https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/onondowaga-seneca/
Oneida, Onʌyote’a•ka https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/oneida/
Cuyuga, Odǫhwęja:deˀhttps://native-land.ca/maps/territories/cayuga/

[wnylib]

15. Oops. Originally, I looked at the map

as it appears in the OP, without clicking on the link. I am using my phone, so when I said that I zoomed in, it was by enlarging what is visible on the OP map.

So I opened the link after your post and zoomed in on that map, which did show the tribes that I listed in my first post. Since the map is interactive, just enlarging the copy in the OP did not show me what I was looking for. Had to get into the link to the interactive map for the other tribes appear.

Thanks for pointing it out to me.

[paleotn]

6. This is Wabanaki land I'm sitting on.

Though the Mohicans may have something to say about that. Both think the Mohawks need to stay on their side of the lake.

[Karadeniz]

11. According to kids kidnapped and who wrote about it later, they were kidnapped mainly by

Comanches and had encounters with Apaches. Neither are mentioned in our area on the map. My mother attended Tonkawa Jr College in Oklahoma. At some point, her family lived in Ponca City, OK.

[AZLD4Candidate]

12. Pima is wrong. These are the o'Odham. After teaching there two years, they hate Pima

as a name. Pima was what white people called them.

Same with Papago.

[wnylib]

17. I think that's true for nearly all tribal names.

Most non Natives do not know what the tribes called themselves. In order for non Native people to know which tribes were on the land, it's helpful to communicate to them with tribal names that they recognize. Then they can learn the true names.

Most people know the 5 nation (later 6) confederacy in NY as the Iroquois, but that is what the French called them. The member nations call themselves the Haudenosaunee. Most non Natives would not know who the Haudenosaunee are. In fact, many Native people from other tribes would not know that Haudenosaunee and Iroquois refer to the same people.

The Seneca prefer to refer to their lands today as territories rather than reservations because they are still on land that was theirs long before Columbus. Its size is greatly reduced, but they were not removed to a distant region of "reserved" land. They live on their own home territory.

[AZLD4Candidate]

19. My mother is full blooded Haudenosaunee

[wnylib]

21. Which tribe?

[AZLD4Candidate]

22. Western NY. Tuscarora and Mohawk

She was adopted by an Italian family.

[wnylib]

24. Just wondered when you said that she was "full blooded" Haudenosaunee.

People don't usually identify themselves that way, as Haudenosaunee, unless speaking about the individual tribes as a group. Usually they identify by the tribe they belong to. It is not legal to adopt a Native child outside of its culture and tribe except if both the parents and tribal leaders agree to it. The practice is to seek another Native family to adopt a child.

My paternal grandmother was Seneca, Mohawk, and English. My paternal grandfather was Algonquin and German Swiss. We don't know which Algonquin tribe his family came from because they lived in a tribally mixed village.

ON EDIT: If you are interested, you would likely be eligible to register with one of those tribes, whichever one that her mother's mother belonged to. The Haudenosaunee tribes are matrlineal. I could not do that because my Seneca and Mohawk ancestry is through my father.

[AZLD4Candidate]

25. I know. She says Tuscarora and Mohawk. I got used to saying it that way to my Tohono

students over the last two years in Arizona.

[wnylib]

26. See my edit in my last post regarding tribal membership.

[Deuxcents]

13. Just amazing information and the effort it took/takes to put together.

[stopdiggin]

16. this is a great resource

with a couple of caveats (not at all intended to discredit)

1) a 'time lapse' element would be hugely instructive - in that these peoples, and the areas inhabited, were the farthest thing from static. Shifting, ebb and flow (and the rise and fall of culture, and empire) are the natural order.
and 2) land or territory 'belonged' to a particular group, and a particular point in time, only in the sense that they 'inhabited' said area, and were reasonable effective in fending off encroachment by competitors.

(I'm speaking largely of amer/indian culture, with which I'm most familiar - but would suggest that the same forces and dynamics hold true pretty much around the globe.)

It is no defense of western colonialism (and terror) to point out that depredation of the 'other' was not something unique or unknown ... (turn an eye toward some of the bloody practices, and territorial avarice, subjugation, in central/south America)

[wnylib]

18. Good suggestion for the reasons you gave.

The same thing about territory changing with the ability to occupy and defend land is true of political nation states as well. Look at maps of Europe over the centuries since the Roman Empire ended to see how much their boundaries have changed, not to mention some that just no longer exist, like Prussia. In the present day, look at Ukraine fighting Russia for its existence.

I would include another reason for having a time lapse map. People's territories changed over time as European settlers took over Native land. That was the main reason for the wars between Native people and colonists/settlers. When New England colonies expanded, the Native people on the land were pushed farther west or north into other tribal territories. They had to negotiate with other tribes for living space. That led to the Native alliance under Metacom, aka "King Phillip," that nearly pushed the NE colonists out of North America. Metacom was the son of Massasoit, the chief who had been aligned with the Pilgrims. But continual land encroachment and crowding of Native people led to open war.

The same thing happened over and over with other tribes and territories as Americans moved westward.

[stopdiggin]

20. yes. again, and again.

and the 'plains indian' culture was completely upended and re-written by the introduction of the horse.

and then you had culture/tribes that had effectively assimilated to western standards (although 'assimilation' might be somewhat oversold in this case) only to find out that skin color and bloodline was really the only true standard that the westerners would recognize (Christian belief offering no protection - although that was often the rubric used in various justification and rationalizations)

racism pure and simple - with that too having a long and fundamental human tradition.

[wnylib]

23. And yet, there were European Americans

and Native cultures who worked cooperatively, respecting each other's traditions and customs.

William Penn negotiated with the Native people in southeastern Pennsylvania for territory to settle on. After the Revolution, Chief Cornplanter of the Seneca nation invited Quakers to teach the Seneca people enough of Euroamerican culture to adjust to living among them.

Prior to the American Revolution, Quakers living among Native people had such good relationships with them that when the Quakers needed to travel to attend to business, e g. picking up supplies from a distant trading post or village, they left their children in the care of a Native family until they returned. During the Revolution, when some of the Haudenosaunee tribes joined the British side, they had an agreement with Quakers and other people with whom they had good relationships that they would not harm their land, buildings, or people. Quakers used a piece of cloth to designate their homes and property.

But, eagerness of later Americans and immigrants to have farms, ranches, and villages in the West, spurred on by land speculators, created hordes of people flooding into Native lands and ignoring treaty agreements.

Manifest Destiny did not begin with the westward movement to lands beyond the Mississippi. It began with the earliest Puritan and Pilgrim colonists. They believed that they had a mission to occupy all of America to Christianize it. They compared America to ancient Canaan and themselves to the Israelites conquering the land in a covenant with God. That's how the city of New Canaan, CT got its name.

[stopdiggin]

27. the Supreme Court actually sided

with the Cherokee in the case of the Indian Removal Act ... It made not a whit of difference.

But your examples of good will and cooperation are equally valid to history.
The true demons among us - are those that deliberately stoke distrust, animosity and hatred - oftentimes for reasons of avarice and gain, rather than any true conviction or ideology.

[wnylib]

28. Yes, that was the SC ruling.

And Andrew Jackson defied them, which is why I can't stand to see his face on the $20 bill and think it should be changed. For the new face, I'd like to see someone from one of the tribes that he displaced in defiance of the Supreme Court. Maybe the face of Sequoyah, who developed a written form of the Cherokee language and operated a Cherokee newspaper.

Besides the suffering and death that Jackson's SC defiance caused to the people he forcibly relocated, a president who defies a court order in the name of populist racism does not deserve to be on any money. Should have been impeached and removed.

Not coincidence that Donald Trump held a meeting with Native American leaders under a huge portrait of Jackson. Trump is too ignorant to know this piece of American history, but someone in his circle did and, I'm sure told Trump about it prior to his meeting.