As part of a recent book discussion, I’ve been reading American Indigenous Democracy: A Call for Interdependence, a collection of essays exploring the history, political traditions, and values of the Iroquois Confederacy, also known as the Haudenosaunee, or People of the Longhouse.

One thing that struck me, even before getting very far into the book, was how little I actually know about Native American history. I’ve spent all but six years of my life in North America, yet I can’t recall ever taking a class in high school or college, or reading a book devoted to the Indigenous peoples of the places I’ve lived. Perhaps those courses simply weren’t offered when I was growing up, or maybe I just wasn’t aware of them. Either way, it’s striking how little I learned about the people whose history is so deeply connected to the places I’ve called home.

And here’s the irony. I’ve always loved hiking, exploring trails, and wandering through the landscapes of these regions. I’ve probably walked countless miles along routes originally established and traveled by Native Americans, without knowing much of anything about the people who came before me.

Thinking back to what I learned growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, I remember Columbus Day, the familiar Thanksgiving story, and plenty of Westerns where the “Indians” were usually portrayed as the bad guys. Looking back, it’s no wonder I learned so little about their actual histories, cultures, or contributions. Even supposedly sympathetic characters like Tonto in The Lone Ranger were presented through stereotypes. Interestingly, tonto means “fool” or “dumb” in Spanish, although the origins of the character’s name are more complicated. It’s striking how deeply these portrayals were embedded in our education and popular culture, and how little they reflected the people and histories they claimed to represent.

What troubles me even more is how little attention was given to forced assimilation, and the systematic efforts to erase their cultures and traditions. We’ve made some progress in recognizing this history, including the long-overdue adoption of Indigenous Peoples’ Day in many places. One change I’d still like to see in my lifetime is the renaming of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to something that better recognizes the identity and sovereignty of Indigenous nations. I don’t know what the right name would be, but surely the best place to start would be by asking Indigenous peoples themselves.

All of this made the book especially thought-provoking for me, particularly with Thanksgiving approaching. A couple of thoughts.

First, democracy in North America has a much longer history than I ever appreciated.

The Iroquois Confederacy developed an extraordinarily sophisticated system of government through the Great Law of Peace. Different nations maintained their identities and sovereignty while working together through shared principles of peace, consensus, and responsibility.

What really caught my attention was the role of Clan Mothers, who held the authority to select and remove chiefs! Think about that in the context of women’s political rights in early American history.

What I find especially troubling is the contradiction at the heart of America’s founding. Benjamin Franklin recognized how the Iroquois Confederacy brought separate nations together through cooperation and shared responsibilities, and saw lessons in that for the American colonies. Yet as the United States gained its independence and established itself as a nation, the very principles of liberty, sovereignty, and mutual respect it celebrated were denied to the Indigenous nations already living here. Their lands were stolen, treaties were broken, and generations endured forced removal and efforts to suppress their cultures and ways of life. It’s hard to reconcile a nation founded on freedom with how it treated the people who had lived here long before it existed.

Second, I’ve been thinking differently about Thanksgiving.

The book discusses the Thanksgiving Address, a Haudenosaunee tradition of expressing gratitude for the natural world and everything that makes life possible. Water, plants, animals, the earth, the sun, and the people around us are all recognized and thanked.

What I found especially meaningful is that this isn’t something reserved for a particular holiday. Gratitude is part of everyday life and community gatherings. It’s a way of recognizing what we have, what sustains us, and our responsibility to care for it.

I love that idea. Especially as we approach a holiday built around giving thanks, it’s worth remembering that Indigenous peoples have practiced rich traditions of gratitude for generations, traditions that go well beyond the familiar Thanksgiving story many of us learned in school.

Third, I’m struck by how much Indigenous knowledge we’ve overlooked.

The book describes oral traditions that have carried history, laws, values, and cultural knowledge across generations. These weren’t simply stories passed along for entertainment. They were sophisticated ways of preserving and sharing knowledge, including the principles that guided entire nations.

There’s a passage in the book comparing what poetry and telescopes can tell us about our relationship with the universe. I found that particularly compelling. Science helps us understand how the world works, while poetry and storytelling can help us understand our place within it. Both have something important to offer.

And it brings me back to that realization about the places I’ve lived and explored. Here in the Northeast, Native American history is all around us, yet the people, their ideas, and their contributions are often barely visible in how we tell the region’s story. These aren’t just histories of people who once lived here. Indigenous nations and communities are still here, maintaining their cultures, traditions, and identities.

The next time you come across the name of a town, village, river, mountain, or trail, take a moment to wonder where that name came from and whose story it tells. Long before Europeans arrived, Indigenous peoples had names for these places. Some were replaced, while others have survived and are still used today, often without much thought about their origins. At a time when places like the Gulf of Mexico are being renamed for political reasons, I’m far more interested in the names that have endured for centuries. How many of these names come from Indigenous peoples, what do they mean, and how much of their history is still hiding in plain sight?

I’m glad this book discussion prompted me to read the book.