Page 4 - Brave Bird at Wounded Knee - I Am America

A Note on Names

The people who lived in North America before Europeans
came have been called by many names. These include

Indians, American Indians, Native Americans,

First Americans, Indigenous Peoples, First

Peoples, and First Nations. This book uses the terms

Native, Native American, and Indian, as these terms
were used in 1973 by the people who were part of the

events described in this book. These terms are still used

by many members of Indigenous communities today.
However, some Indigenous people object to the terms

Indian or American Indian. Indian is rooted in a

historical mistake. When Christopher Columbus reached

North America, he thought he had landed in India. And

the term American was coined by European colonizers.
They referred to the continent as America, after the

Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci.

This book also uses the names of some nations, or
tribes. Lakota refers to a nation that lived on the plains in

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