Who was here first?
(This post originally appeared on our Facebook page on July 10, 2021.)
“Mom, who were the first people to live in Buckfield?”
We were driving through the village, and as usual my four-year-old was asking thoughtful questions about what he was looking at. I wracked my brain--I’ve learned a little about Buckfield’s history so I mentally scrolled through family names I knew. The Bucks? I was pretty sure, but I had heard some other names too; Allen, Spaulding, Tyler.
Then I stopped. Felt a knot form in my stomach.
The Wabanaki. Specifically the Arosaguntacook band of the Abenaki, whose name had probably been changed to “Androscoggin” by a white “colonial administrator” in the 17th century.
Why did I not immediately answer correctly? Why were white settlers my first thought?
This is racism. Despite my best intentions and my everyday work; the bias injected into my education, the books I’d read, the conversations I’d had, the media I’d consumed, and therefore my very perspective and memory led me to mentally pass completely over a group of people who were here for thousands and thousands of years before the town’s “settlers”.
How would you have answered that question?
Please check out this important website and learn about the first inhabitants of the land you live on.
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| Source: Wikimedia Commons |
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