Before I went to the Grand Rapids Public Museum I was trying to strategize and think of some great history topics to potentially write about. I was looking up various topics and came across “Native Americans in Grand Rapids.” When I saw the topic, I was caught off guard a bit and to be fully honest was kind of shocked. When I think of Grand Rapids I think of a mostly white population with predominantly a Dutch heritage and cultural background. Based on the people, friends and family that I personally know, I was not thinking there would be that much local history on Native Americans. I was wrong. As it turns out, not only were my preconceptions way off base, the fact of the matter is Native Americans have had a meaningful impact on shaping not only Grand Rapids but America into what it is today.
Before I got to the Grand Rapids Art Museum I did some more in-depth research on Native Americans in Grand Rapids and I found a video about the topic. American’s Great Indian Nations (American’s Great, 2013), was a fabulous informative video about the background of Native Americans in America with some highlights about Native Americans in Grand Rapids as well. The documentary talked about how when Native Americans came to America they had to learn how to adapt and evolve to the surrounding environments around them. I think the most important thing I took from this video was how Native Americans learned to adapt on more than one occasion. Once from the Europeans taking their land and their society that they already formed and established and also when the American’s took their land.
In addition, the video talked about how Native American tribes were not all that different than us and what we are used to. In particular it talked about the Chippewa tribe. The video said that the Chippewa tribe had lots of the same values and beliefs as Europeans and Americans and similarly went to school, and the males of the tribe went to work while the females stayed home cooked a lot of the food and took care of the kids. I learned so much just from a short documentary video and it made me more interested and extremely fascinated for what was to come at the Grand Rapids Public Museum the next day.
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Going to the Grand Rapids Public Museum is always a fun and interesting learning experience. I have been there twice now and both of the times I have felt comfortable and relaxed. The facilities and exhibits have a warm and cozy feel to it. The building is in great condition and is very clean. The people who work there are always so welcoming and friendly. I have always loved history my whole life and have enjoyed and thrived in every history class I have ever been in. As a result, and while some people may find it boring, I tend to actually enjoy learning more about history related topics whenever I get the chance to.
When I walked into the Museum the first thing I did was ask where the Native American exhibit was and had a worker from the Museum take me there. When I got to the exhibit, one of the initial things I noticed was that there were very few people exploring the exhibit. It seemed like there were lots of people in other parts of the Museum just not at the Native American exhibit. The other thing I noticed was that the people that were in the exhibit were mostly adults and very few if any children. In fact, most everyone that was there were grown adults and older than me. I had mixed feelings about this.
On one hand there was a sense of peacefulness and calmness at the exhibit and on the other hand because it was so quiet it felt at times a little uncomfortable. Absolutely no one was talking or making a sound. It was so quiet when I dropped my pencil you could hear it hit the floor and the people around me stopped and looked at me. I think the reasons there was no kids there was because it simply was not an attractive or exciting exhibit for kids. There were no hands-on or interactive activities you could do or play with. There were lots of pictures from history of Native Americans and also there were lots of artifacts and readings. The moment I stepped into the part of the exhibit called “Anishinabek” where most of the artifacts were held I could instantly see the deep history in everything.
All of the artifacts started speaking to me. It was almost as if they started to tell their own individual important story making it clearer to me what they were used for and why they made such a difference in their lives a long time ago. The large glass case of artifacts in the “Anishinabek” had a quote lit up, it was just simply something that you couldn’t ignore or forget, and it was the main focus and was imprinted in my brain. It said something close to this “some people go because of the drum”. It was highlighted in yellow because the story tellers wanted to clearly emphasize how the people of Anishinabek communicated and how they came together as one strong thriving tribe. When I read more about Anishinabek I learned how they frequently listened to music and truly enjoyed playing songs together that brought them together and made them closer and a family. This related to me a ton because music is such a gigantic part of my everyday life and is one of the most important things to me.
Clearly, music and playing music was one of the best forms of love and communication to the Anishinabek. I think that still is relevant today and how music can relate to so many people and can be one of the best forms of communication and bonding. Music can help you when you are sad and get you through hard times like the Native Americans endured thought their journey. Even today music is still an amazing and a very effective way to be able to get a message across, which is exactly what the Anishinabek did. The similarities from the Anishinabek and how we live today was fascinating to me and surprising to be honest. Going to the Grand Rapids Public museum was a great experience and one I will not forget. Performing some initial research and going there with a plan and having an idea of what I wanted to learn more about really helped me focus and be more productive.
One of the most important things that I took away from going to the museum and researching this topic of Native Americans was the notion of immigration and that Native Americans were amongst the first immigrants in North American who came over the land bridge from Asia. Immigration is a topic in the news today and is relevant to the Native Americans as well. The fact is Grand Rapids and the United States as a whole is a melting pot of immigrants who settled here over the years. We were once immigrants too.
Around 1700 AD people of the Three Fires, (Ottawa), (Chippewa) and (Potawatomi Indians), were the very first ones to established villages directly in and around what is now known as Grand Rapids Michigan. The people of Grand Rapids were first started by Native Americans in 1822. The important Treaty of Chicago drastically changed their lives forever and unfortunately for the worst. It gave the United States complete control of the land south of the Grand River. The land was then opened up for settlement and the Native Americans were forced to leave their homes and relocate and find new land and homes to live in.
Some of the most important terms that I learned from Native American history to better understand their circumstances are classism and discrimination. Classism is the prejudice against people belonging to a singular particular social class. One might wonder how the nation’s first immigrants and indigenous population eventually became an inferior culture or class in our society. Classism is a very important back story of Native Americans and key to understanding their heritage and journey when their land was taken away.
Discrimination is the unfair treatment of people based on something that is identifiable unfair through a social characteristic such as race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, or class. Both of these terms are intertwined and relate to each other in so many of ways. They work off each other in and lots of times can mean the same thing. It is vital to understand that Native Americans were the victims of both classism and discrimination on a daily basis by the Americans and by the Europeans. Much of the underpinnings of discrimination and classism they faced in the 1800’s is still relevant today despite being 200 years later. It is shocking but Native Americans and African Americans share allot in common and are still treated poorly and mistreated to this day. This is very sad.
The whole experience of going to the Grand Rapids Public museum and having the privilege of researching and diving more in depth into the topic of Native Americans has made me realize and learn things I did not know before. It gives me a fully new perspective on how blessed I am to never have had to face the discrimination, classism and mistreatment that the Native Americans have had to face their whole lives. If you didn’t know much about Native Americans just like I didn’t before I researched the topic, you now have a better understanding of what they went through and how badly the United States and Europe mistreated them. It makes me sick inside that human beings would take advantage of other human beings like this. It makes me even more sick to my stomach to know how the country I live in would be the main contributors to their pain and suffering.
By fully understanding who lived in your community and hometown first and more about the history and hardship of your community you are able to begin to fully appreciate it. I have begun to understand and be thankful for all of the sacrifices that they had to go through and the mighty uphill challenges they had to face so I did not have to in my own life. Native Americans were amazingly able to establish communities and life all around the United States. Somehow, they thankfully landed here in Grand Rapids and we need to be grateful they have shared all of the wonderful music, art and just way of life that we wouldn’t have ever had without them. Our culture and way of life would clearly be different with ought them.
Going to the Grand Rapids Public museum and having all of the important knowledge that I now know makes me more grateful and thankful that I have experienced this. I am a better man because of it. It has completely opened my eyes to exactly how other people have drastically helped shape the world we live in and how they impacted what we have now. Native Americans have overcome many obstacles and impossible struggles over the years including immigration to a new land, discrimination and classism. Yet despite their challenges were able to overcome their past challenges and playing one of the most meaningful roles in how Grand Rapids and the rest of the United States became what it is today.
