Why We Need to Rethink Afro-Indigenous History in the United States

https://lithub.com/why-we-need-to-rethink-afro-indigenous-history-in-the-united-states/

It is true that Indigenous people are often erased in discussions of history and memory. That is the work of settler colonialism in the US. Even more, people see Indigenous people as having vanished; that’s why we have mascots and other forms of racism that are unique to Native people. Mascots perpetuate the idea that Indigenous peoples are either all dead or frozen in time. Therefore, they exist only as a caricature. Indeed, as Philip Deloria reminds us, the US nation-state’s very identity is constructed through “playing Indian.” However, I would pose this question: What if we remembered that those Africans forced to come to the British colony of Virginia were, actually, Indigenous people? How would that help us think differently about early Atlantic encounters between Indigenous peoples from the African continent and those in North America, and beyond?

#humanity #slavery #racism #colonialism #Afro-Indigenous #history #KyleTMays #lithub #LiteraryHub