Indigenous Map of Southern Ontario

Christi Belcourt is a Metis artist who "indigenized" the regional maps and surveys of Albert Salter into a map called "Good Land". 

One side of the map has the English text that most people are familiar with, while the other side uses indigenous place names and commentary.

This level of commentary can be seen in this zoomed in image showing Toronto and areas to the north. Highway 401, running along Lake Ontario is described as a graveyard for animals.

It would be nice to have a higher resolution version where the legend can be read but I can’t find one the Decolonial Atlas or on Belcourt’s web site.

The map title comes from Salters use of the term "good land" repeatedly on his map of the north shore of Lake Huron.

via UWM Libraries

More about the "Good Land" map can be seen on the Decolonial Atlas.

The Disapperance of Native American Land

Native American losses began at first contact with European settlers. "European colonization of the Americas, which began in 1492, resulted in a precipitous decline in Native American population because of new diseases, wars, ethnic cleansing, and enslavement." - via Wikipedia

Native Americans had mostly been driven out of the original thirteen colonies by the end of the American Revolution. The map below shows further land cessations between 1789 and 1816 in the "northwest" region.

via Getty Images

They were pushed even further westward into "strips of land stacked like cordwood" (quoted from Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser p. 49). The designated Indian Territory (lands south of the Osages on the map below) was assigned to the "Five Civilized Tribes".

These tribes, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole were considered civilized because they had adopted Anglo-American practices such as Christianity, capitalism and in some cases the "civilized" practice of slavery. Despite being "civilized" they were still forced off their lands in the southeast and relocated westwards in the Trail of Tears.

The strip in southern Kansas was the Osage Diminished Reserve, an area left to them after signing many bad faith treaties. The rivers of their former land still bear the tribe's name.

Even after being removed from the rest of their land and granted this area of Kansas, it too became overrun with white squatters. These people included Charles Ingalls, father of Laura Ingalls Wilder. They settled on land they did not own and eventually drove the Osage out of Kansas entirely, forcing them to also relocate to Indian Territory. The tribe's base is now in northeastern Oklahoma.

Here is the full map above showing the lands assigned to "emigrant Indians" west of Arkansas and Missouri.

The Chickasaw after a long dispute paid the Choctaw for the westernmost part of their land. 

This map via Wikipedia illustrates the Trail of Tears beginning in the 1830's.

Some Cherokee had settled in northeastern Texas where they signed a treaty with Texas Republic President Sam Houston. In 1839 his successor backtracked on this treaty and sent militia to forcibly relocate them to Indian Territory. Here is a map of their final battle in Van Zandt County, via the Oklahoma Historical Society.

After the Civil War further incursions were made on Indian Territory with lands in the center of the future state ceded for potential white settlement. The western half of Indian Territory became Oklahoma Territory in 1890. Reservations in western Oklahoma were opened to white settlement leading to a series of land runs and drastically shrinking Indian Territory. Here is a map of Oklahoma and Indian Territories that year via Wikipedia. The thick red line divides the two.

Both territories sought statehood but in response to concerns from eastern politicians about creating two new western states they were combined into one state, Oklahoma, in 1907. Congress sought to dissolve the reservations as part of Oklahoma's statehood but the laws were vague and unevenly applied and has led to decades of uncertainty. In 2020 The Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of McGirt v. Oklahoma determined that much of the eastern part of the state remains Native American land. Though this case was primarily about jurisdiction of criminal cases, it has opened up questions about ownership, taxation, zoning and the enforcement of environmental policies.

A 1914 map submitted as part of the McGirt case shows the entire area that was post-1890 Indian Territory as Indian Reservations,

Image from Supreme Court Docket 18-9526 - Appendix p.33

making this by far the largest tract of Native American land in the country.

The future of this land will be determined through extensive negotiations between the tribes and state and federal authorities. For a deep dive into the Supreme Court's ruling see Indianz.com

Mapping the Indigenous Diaspora

The Comunidades Indigenas en Liderazgo (CIELO), a non-profit advocacy organization, in conjunction with UCLA created a story map called We Are Here, showing the indigenous diaspora of Los Angeles. This is to counter the "statistical genocide" the US Census creates by lumping these groups under the broad Hispanic/Latino classification. This erases their cultural differences, including 30 different unique groups speaking over 17 indigenous languages. The map shows the locations of these language speakers by color.

Clicking on a zip code brings up a pie chart of the language speakers.

Unfortunately the colors of the pie chart are not the same as those of the map leading to confusion. On this graph the K'iche speakers are yellow but on the map they are green. On this chart they are blue.

The tabulation by zip code also creates confusing dot effects on the map where the shapes of more dense zip codes are emphasized. This graph within the story map shows the universe of languages on the maps.

The organization aims to get the public agencies of the City and County to recognize and provide translation services for these languages. Here is a translation card for the Guatemalan regional dialects - there is a separate card for Mexican regions.

As you scroll through the story map you get videos and map content showing the locations of festivals, conferences and organizations that aim to teach the cultural traditions.

The story map is on view at the Mixpantli: Contemporary Echoes exhibit of Los Angeles County Art Museum (LACMA)

Land Grab Universities

This map from Margaret Pearce appears in the latest High Country News.

Map by Margaret Pearce for High Country News

The article details how the Morrill Act created land grant universities by confiscating Native American land (in purple above). Here is a detailed view since the map above is hard to read at this size.

Map by Margaret Pearce for High Country News

Interestingly the land seizures were not just for college campuses but also lands far away that were taken to grow the university endowments. This map shows parcels of land owned by the University of California. Another map shows Cornell's lands stretching all the way across the country.

Map by Margaret Pearce for High Country News

There is now an interactive website where you can choose a school and see the lands ceded with some nice looking 3D graphics.

 Here a map of many colored dots shows lands taken in the treaties of Mendota and Traverse des Sioux in 1851, relinquishing nearly all Dakota territory in Mni Sota Makoce, “The Land Where the Waters Reflect the Clouds.” The treaty was signed only after withholding rations, threats of violence, and the destruction of agriculture and game.

Map by Margaret Pearce for High Country News

Many more great maps and the article are here, and there's a lot to explore on the interactive website

Mapping the A:shiwi Perspective

The A:shiwi Map Art Initiative is an indigenous mapping project sponsored by the A;shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center on the Zuni Reservation in New Mexico. The project seeks to challenge ideas of what maps are. To the Zuni, or A:shiwi people they are more about telling stories than about scale and direction.

Little Colorado River - Larson Gasper, 2009 via Emergence Magazine

There is an excellent article on this project with videos and maps in Emergence Magazine. According to Jim Enote, the museum's director more native lands have been lost through mapping than through physical contact. These maps seek to reclaim their land, names (including their own people's name) and memories.

Ho'n A:wan Dehwa:we (Our Land) - Ronnie Cachini, 2006 via Emergence Magazine

In the map above the modern road network intersects an otherwise dream-like landscape.

Migration of Salt Mother - Larson Gasper, 2009 via Emergence Magazine

Shiba:bulima - Levon Loncassion

These maps are in a traveling exhibition that has appeared in New York, Los Angeles, Albuquerque and Flagstaff.

Most of these are in the form of traditional paintings but there are also a couple of digital paintings.

"The maps represent landscapes but also historical events, such as Zuni migrations and Zuni relationships to places throughout the Colorado Plateau. The maps also guide viewers through Zuni cosmological processes where water, plants, animals, and even the sky make up the unique Zuni world. The exhibition shows how Zuni see their own history, their ancestral migrations, their ancient homes, and the parts of nature that sustains them."

Major Native American Map Found

A map drawn by Arikara tribal leader, Too Né for Lewis and Clark was recently discovered in the Bibliotheque National de France. Here is a sample.

Too Né drew this map in 1805 or 1806 and it shows how much the American explorers depended on the knowledge of Native Americans.

The map is from the May 2018 issue of  We Proceeded On, journal of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation. It is available as a print copy only but the version above was put online by the Daily Astorian. Here is a quote from the Daily Astorian article:

“Monumental doesn’t fully cover the importance of this discovery,” historian Clay Jenkinson declared, noting that “individuals like Too Né were as important to the success of the expedition as, say, Sacagawea.”

here are a couple more map samples - the entire map can be seen here.

Oh the Places You Should Know

Oh the Places You Should Know is an Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) language place name map of southwestern British Columbia.The non-profit Kwi Awt Stelmexw created it as a means to reclaim Squamish language and cultural identity. The map is for education and advocacy, and not intended to make any claims on the land.

 

The map has clickable icons, listing the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh name, pronunciation, meaning and a description of the location. The main region covers the Howe Sound and the Vancouver area's Burrard Inlet and English Bay coasts. Early transportation was primarily by canoe so most place names were given to landmarks and locations visible from the water.

 

The region includes downtown Vancouver. The beach at the foot of Denman St was "good under foot." I was there once and I do remember it being good under my feet.

Many of the names were collected from a 1937 Sḵwx̱wú7mesh place names map developed by the City of Vancouver and August Jack Khatsalano of the Squamish Nation. An update of the map is available for purchase here.

Tribal Nations Map

Thanksgiving is a time to honor Native Americans, who were here before most of us came over as undocumented immigrants. Aaron Carapella, a self-taught mapmaker from Oklahoma created Tribal Nations Maps. They feature the original names of hundreds of indigenous tribes throughout North America.

In many cases commonly known names of tribes, though in native languages, were given by European settlers. Sometimes these are derogatory names given by rival tribes such as Comanche, a Ute word meaning “anyone who wants to fight me all the time.*”  Carapella  researched the original names and added then to the maps.

There are maps for the continental United States, Canada, Mexico and Alaska. The level of detail varies quite a bit among regions. The Pacific Northwest is one of the most detailed areas.

The maps can be purchased on Carapella's web site. There is a also a high-resolution image on NPR's website.



* source - Encyclopedia Brittanica

Aboriginal Language Map

The Aboriginal Language Map is an attempt to represent all of the language, tribal or nation groups of Indigenous Australia. Large groupings of people are mixed with smaller clans, dialects or individual languages. Created by David R Horton, it is based on language data gathered by Aboriginal Studies Press, AIATSIS and Auslig/Sinclair, Knight, Merz, (1996).

The page has a nice magnifier so you can see the wealth of detail.

Some areas such as this part of the northern coast have some remarkably detailed diversity.

Cities appear on the map but the text is muted so the important details stand out.

In several places they mention that the map is not suitable for native title or other land claims. It is useful though for distinguishing between Waka Waka and Gubbi Gubbi.

Oldest Aboriginal Map of New Zealand

Unfolding the Map, a celebration of the cartography of New Zealand, is on exhibit at the National Library of New Zealand in Wellington. One of the featured maps is a reproduction of Tuki's Map, the oldest known Māori map of New Zealand.

The original map was drawn by Tuki Te Terenui Whare Pirau, a Māori who was captured and imprisoned on Norfolk Island. The map on display is a reproduction drawn by the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs (circa 1940). The original was circa 1793. Tuki made this map for the lieutenant governor of Norfolk Island who was interested in his language culture.

Tuki was from the peninsula north of Auckland in the far northern part of the North Island. This area is greatly exaggerated in size and detail. He knew little of the much larger South Island so it is drawn as a small island at the bottom.

Bonus Map!
Another nice map from the exhibit is this lighthouse chart from 1900.

Here is the legend and a detailed view.

Unfolding the Map "brings together the fascinating maps of the Library's collections and stunning examples of the state of the art today." The exhibit is on display through August, 2016. If you're in the area check it out.