Agraria_Journal_WINTER_2022

BY MICHAEL CHARLES, PH.D. AGRARIA JOURNAL 2022 5 With no federally recognized Indian tribes in the state of Ohio, it is no surprise that Indigenous peoples and histories are often forgotten or ignored throughout the region. According to the 2020 census, the American Indian and Alaska Native population accounts for 2% of the Ohio population (over 230,000 people). And yet, after hundreds of years of erasure, our Indigenous peoples still struggle for visibility and appropriate representation. In my six years of living in Ohio, I had countless interactions where people told me I was the first Indian they had met, often immediately followed by many ignorant questions. How many Ohioans are familiar with the names of the Indigenous peoples who stewarded this land for millennia? How many have spent time visiting the sacred sites such as the Serpent Mound or the Newark Earthworks? How many have been taught about Tecumseh’s campaign of Indian resistance, the Greenville Treaty, or the removal of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands and forced assimilation into settler society? Although most citizens understand that there is a brutal history of Indian genocide and displacement in the foundation of this nation, many believe the story ends here. They neglect the survival of our peoples, the wealth that was built off our removal, and the remaining impacts on Native peoples today. Indigenous Lands Built Land Grant Universities Indigenous lands granted to The Ohio State University. The map is is a screenshot of an interactive tool created by High Country News and is available for viewing at landgrabu.org .