Any input on the categories for the indigenous peoples of North America? [closed]

Question

What I've done so far:

• Added brief definitions to Category:First Nations and Category:Native Americans.
• Grouped both those categories under Category:Indigenous peoples of North America.
• Removed Category:Native Americans from Category:US History.

What I also propose doing: Removing all the battles from Category:Native Americans. They are already under Category:American Indian Wars, which is itself a subcategory of Native Americans, so I think it's redundant to have them in both. Also, I feel it puts too much emphasis on violence in the history of the Native Americans, which I'd argue is catering to a historical bias.

Does that work for everyone? And does anyone have any additional suggestions for these categories?

Comments

Yes, please remove the battles from the category : Native American.

Where do I start putting our American Indian nations of New York State ? I have loads of historical NY people to place them under.

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You could create a category specifically for nations in New York. That's what Erin did with Category:British Columbia First Nations.

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Are we using the Native American or American Indian ?

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American Indian seems to be the preference within the US. Further reading (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_name_controversy ) doesn't really show a  consensus, but American Indian was, according to the 1995 census, preferred by 50% of indigenous people in the US, which is more than any other term. I guess that's as close to a standard as we'll find!

Answer 1

Well -- Since you asked for input -- The majority of American Indians do not like to be referred to as a Native American - they prefer to be classified under their tribal name.  They consider it to be offensive to be referred to as a Native American (their tribal identity is lost). They were made captive with the title American Indian, they fought under the title American Indian and have obtained their freedom under the title American Indian (Cherokee). This is what they refer to themselves as, if given a choice between Native American or American Indian.

This term became  popular in the 1960s and 70s during the Civil Rights Movement.  This was a label - that once again was placed on these people without their consent. Please don't forget we are not just the United States of America - we do have the Cherokee Nation within our borders.

Native American is anyone that is born in America -- so that could be - The United States of America, Canada, Mexico, South America orLatin America.

Native Americans are not restricted to the United States of America - Hence we are broken out into Canadian Indians and American Indians with Mexico being Mestizos.

 If you don't want to use the term American Indian (prefered by American Indians), Canadian Indian or Mestizo, then consider using the term Original People of the United States, etc. or Indiginenous People of United States etc.

Then break it down into their specifc tribes.  Our "American Indians" are a very proud people and they prefer to be classified under their tribe - Commanche, Apache, Cherokee etc.

As always - this is just a suggestion and not meant to offend anyone..

Comments

I definitely don't mean to not split the category up by tribe; to be clear, this is just a larger category to group the tribes together. We've already created categories for a lot of the First Nations in Canada.

The problem I'm having is that the terms used are different between Canada and the US. No one says "Indian" here, though I understand that's a popular term in the states. "Canadian Indian" is not a term I've ever heard. But if "American Indian" is a better choice for the American tribes (another potential issue being tribes that cross our present-day border), we could always change that one. Category:Native American was what already existed when I found it, and according to Wikipedia is fairly standard in the US, so I didn't change it. I wouldn't want to apply it to Canadian tribes, since First Nations is pretty standard here.

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The term Native American is more or less a forced terminology that is used to be policitcally correct - it's not the chosen term. Like being taught, here in the USA, that spelling Honor and Honour, color and colour, potato and potatoe, tomato and tomatoe are both acceptable -- clearly it's not cause it offended folks here.

The term American Indian is preferred unless you are a politician or the gov... this term was chosen at the time we switched and started using African American - which is stupid cause they are Americans just like our Indians..

What you are running into is the good old USA political correct syndrome.. Such as no longer referring to a blind person as blind but - visually challenged or impaired..and deaf people are hearing impaired, short people being vertically challenged and my personal fav.. dead people are living impaired...

We celebrate Native American Month in our American Indian National  Museum...  Since the USA is so diversified we try to please everyone.. so some highly paid individuals decided the American Indians must be offended by that term since African Americans were offended by certain terminology.  Problem is nobody took the time to ask the American Indian if they were offended - thereby ended up offending the very people they were trying not to..

Right now - the American Indian Coalition as part of the American Indian Movement is trying to get the Washington Redskins to change their name - since Redskin is offensive.

I bring this up to point out that American Indians call themselve American Indians because that is what they prefer.  The majority of the US refers to them in written and offical capacities as Native Americans.  But they/we prefer American Indian.

Once again no offense is intended to anyone.

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Just so you know, I'm not offended by the spellings "honor" or "color", and DO in fact think they're correct, within the American dialect of English. In that conversation, it was US-centrism I was opposed to, not US spelling itself. (I feel the need to point this out because I'm actually very interested in linguistics and would hate to be seen as someone who thinks one English dialect is more "correct" than another!)

As for the category, if American Indians is the preferred term by the people themselves, we'll go with that. I guess people (myself included) tend to think of that term as incorrect/offensive because it's based on a misnomer by people who thought they'd found a different continent than they had.

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The same is true for most Canadian indigenous people - they describe themselves by the nation; it is the government that coins words like 'aboriginal', 'First Nations' etc.

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I don't hear Canadians referring to themselves as 'tribes' - I think that is an American term.  Terms here are more likely 'First Nation' of even Band

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A First People's Project is being setup to categorize all Indigenous populations..  For Turtle Island (North America) groups will not be organized under Canada, US, Greenland, Mexico, etc but under First Peoples, with subgroups in geographic areas where those people may live.