Our Land Acknowledgement: The Ho-Chunk People

As an exercise in Beloved Conversations, I researched my homeland’s indigenous people. I was born in Danville, Illinois, on the banks of the Vermillion River, noted for its red clay, which became the name of Vermilion County. The indigenous people who lived on this site before the settlers arrived, were the Piankeshaw, and the river was named the Piankeshaw. This tribe, which was part of the Miami Confederacy of Indians, was very peaceful. Eventually, the Piankeshaw were driven out by the Kickapoo about 20 years before Dan Beckwith settled this land.

Our church is built on land originally used by the Ho-Chunk people who originated around Green Bay and expanded west as far as the Mississippi and south as far as St. Louis. This is announced at the beginning of each worship service. I wanted to learn more about this native people. I found a Wisconsin PBS program which is both educational and artistic, an interview of a Ho-Chunk elder named Andrew Thundercloud. If you are curious, as I was, check out this 27-minute youtube.com video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7YteKiTSXk

This week I received an email from the Smithsonian’s NMAI, the National Museum of the American Indian, which has an education page on their website. It just introduced a film for youngsters that introduces Indian Removal. I recommend this 3-minute video.

https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/removal/#makesensePage

Submitted by Teresa Wilmot