Bluffton University Students learn there is more to the story of indigenous people than what is learned out of history books.
The Mennonite Central Committee put on an interactive demonstration on the loss of land and lives that occurred when European settlers came to North America. They put blankets on the floor to represent the land that was inhabited by Native Americans and slowly they were removed to signify the loss of land due to settlers and to the lengths that the Europeans went to get the land away from the natives. They hope the students learn there was more to history than what they learned in school.
“Even in your history books, there may be alternative histories in that as indigenous people, as native people, as a people who were first here, we are still alive,” says Erica Littlewolf the Coordinator for the Indigenous Visioning Center for Mennonite Central Committee. “We are less than 2% of the population, but we still remember this history and carry this history. I think Thanksgiving is a perfect example, of you have one story and many native people mourn on that day, as it is seen as a day of mourning.”
While many school districts may not be teaching what happened to the indigenous people when European settlers came to North American, Littlewolf says there are a lot churches and community groups that are finding alternative ways to educate themselves to the history of the Native Americans.
