Native American Heritage Month

November is Native American Heritage Month, which provides an opportunity to recognize and honor the lives and the important contribution to our society by people of indigenous descent. The indigenous peoples of the Americas were the inhabitants of the Americas before European colonization in the 15th century.

Madison sits on land inhabited by the Ho-Chunk some 12,000 years before white settler forced them out. You may not remember learning about the Ho-Chunk in school. That is because they were formerly called the Winnebago, but the term Winnebago is a misnomer derived from the Algonquian language family and refers to the marsh lands of the region. The Ho-Chunk are a Siouan-speaking Native American people more closely related to the Lakota.

American Indians represent diverse nations of people who flourished in North America for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans. The Menominee, Ojibwe (Chippewa), Potawatomi, and Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) peoples are among the original inhabitants of Wisconsin.  These groups have tribal councils, or governments, which provide leadership to the tribe.

For more than a century, Wisconsin tribes have fought to maintain their sovereignty and self-determination in the face of federal policies of assimilation, allotment, and termination. In the last generation, the tribes' legal status has been clearly defined, their traditional treaty rights guaranteed, and their economic base boosted by gaming and tourism.

Native American are responsible for the invention of snow-shoes, syringes, baby bottles, lacrosse, parkas, kayaks, analgesic pain relievers, and corn. Most people don’t realize that corn is a created plant, not one that occurs naturally.

There are twelve First Nations in Wisconsin. All but the Brothertown Indian Nation are federally recognized.