It's in Our Nation's Soil

Sixty years ago, John Wayne, Gary Cooper and other film-star cowboys galloped across the silver screen killing Indians. Now film producers tell the story from a different point of view. Dances With Wolves, Last of the Mohicans, and many other film and television productions portray frontier expansion in a fresh light. The TBS series, The Native Americans, paints upon a broad canvas, picturing key players, places, battles and tragedies.

But we don’t need film and television to remind us of how intricately our lives are linked to our native American past. Many state, city, town and waterway names find their origin in native tongues. Potomac and Occoquan are two local examples.

Look more closely. We drive Pontiacs and Cherokees. We cut our lawns with mowers powered by Tesumseh engines. Our kids wear Oshkosh jeans. We eat our meals on Oneida dinnerware. We shop at the Waccamaw outlet store. We vacation in our Winnebagos.