Native American Childhood Experience Essay

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November; the time when Thanksgiving rolls around and schools begin to display decorations of leaves, cornucopias, turkeys, pilgrims, and Indians. To elementary aged children this time means little to nothing except a week of no school, plenty of food, and loads of time with family. America has begun to train children from elementary school age to only associate Native Americans with Thanksgiving and pilgrims. America breeds children from day one to view Native Americans as a Thanksgiving tale or a page in a textbook but never takes the time to teach them about the day to day struggles that Native Americans still suffer from. Kindergarten is the first memory that I have of Native Americans. In the month of November, I was taught about how …show more content…

Another memory I have of Native Americans is when I questioned my father about the Indian burial ground located beside our home. One day I was playing in the woods beside my house when I found a sign that said something about a grave site. I ran in the house to ask my dad about what this meant. He went on to tell me about how Will Rogers’ great-great-grandmother, Susannah Cordery, was buried in the land near my house. He also showed me an article that had hung on our wall for years that I never noticed. It talked about the Cherokee tribe of Native Americans who lived on the land my home was built on. This peaked my interest on Native Americans and urged me to pursue research on the Native Americans that are still living. After researching on the Cherokee tribe and Susannah Cordery’s family, I found out many interesting facts about the land my house was built on. I learned that the Cherokee tribe had a road that traveled right through where my back yard was that took them to the Chattahoochee River. This is where they would perform rituals, have meals, and sleep. I found it so intriguing that before I even existed there were Native Americans I had learned about in school, living where I lived now. People that had such a large impact in history are now just a page in a textbook and had a small portion of school’s

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