Indigenous People Invented the So-Called 鈥淎merican Dream鈥�
Standing Rock was the indigenous fight against repression and for the American Dream, gone 21st century.
Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post/Getty Images
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When President Barack Obama , the 2012 program that offered undocumented young people brought to the U.S. as children a path into society, for a moment the ideals of the American Dream seemed, at least for this group, real.
We call these kids, many of whom are now adults, 鈥�, because they are chasing the American Dream鈥攁 . Fulfilling your dreams often means following them wherever they may lead鈥攅ven into another country.
The Trump administration鈥檚 decision to 鈥攏ow on hold while it is 鈥攁苍诲 听has endangered those dreams by subjecting 800,000 young people to deportation.
But the 鈥攚hich is that 鈥溾�� immigrants, most of them from Mexico, are 听and hurting society鈥攔eflects a profound misunderstanding of American history.
On , it鈥檚 worth underscoring something that many archaeologists know: Many of the values that inspire the 鈥攍iberty, equality,听and 鈥攄ate back to well 听and before freedom-seeking Pilgrim immigrants arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620.
They originate with native North Americans.
A Native American Dream
The modern rendition of the American Dream can be traced back to 1774, when Virginia鈥檚 governor, , the fourth Earl of Dunmore, wrotethat even if Americans 鈥渁ttained Paradise, they would move on if they heard of a better place farther west.鈥�
The actual term 鈥淎merican Dream鈥� was popularized in 1931 by the businessman and historian For him, its realization depended on not just being able to better oneself but also, through movement and human interaction, seeing your neighbors bettered as well.
The first peoples to come to the Americas also came in search of a better life.
That happened 14,000 years ago in the last Ice Age when , ancestors to modern Native Americans and First Nations, arrived from the Asian continent and roamed freely throughout what now includes Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Chasing , they moved constantly to secure the health of their communities.
A more recent example of the power of migration reappears about 5,000 years ago, when 听spread into the American Southwest and farther north, settling as far up as western North America. With them they brought corn, which now , and a way of speaking that birthed more than 20 of the 169 听still spoken in the United States today.
The Hohokam
This globalist world view was alive and well 700 years ago as well when people from what is now northern Arizona fled a decadeslong drought and rising authoritarianism under religious leaders.
Many migrated hundreds of miles south to southern Arizona, joining the Hohokam鈥斺�攚ho had long thrived in the harsh Sonoran desert by .
When the northern migrants arrived to this hot stretch of land around the then-nonexistent U.S.-Mexico frontier, Hohokam religious and political life was controlled by a handful of elites. Social mechanisms restricting the accumulation of power by individuals had slowly broken down.
For decades after their arrival, migrants and locals interacted. From that exchange, a Hohokam cultural revolution grew. Together, the two communities created a commoners鈥� religious social movement that , which featured a feasting practice that invited all village members to participate.
As ever more communities adopted this , political power鈥攚hich at the time was embedded in religious power鈥攂ecame more equally spread through society.
Elites lost their control and, eventually, abandoned their temples.
America鈥檚 Egalitarian Mound-Builders
The Hohokam tale unearths another vaunted American ideal that originates in indigenous history: equality.
Long before it was codified in the ,听equality was enacted through the building of large .
Massive earthen structures like these are often acts of highly hierarchical societies鈥攖hink of the pyramids of the ancient Egyptians, constructed by as the final resting place of , or those of the 听Aztecs.
But great power isn鈥檛 always top-down. , in the lower Mississippi River Valley of what鈥檚 now Louisiana, is a good example. This massive site, which consists of five mounds, six concentric semielliptical ridges and a central plaza, was built some 4,000 years ago by hunter-fisher-gatherers with little entrenched hierarchy.
Originally, archaeologists 听that such societies without the inequality and authoritarianism that defined the ancient Egyptian, Roman, and Aztec empires could not have constructed something so significant鈥攁苍诲, if so, only over decades or centuries.
But excavations in the last 20 years have revealed that large sections of Poverty Point were . These Native Americans organized in groups to undertake massive projects as a communal cooperative, leaving a legacy built of equality across America鈥檚 landscape.
The Consensus-Building Haudenosaunee
The Haudenosaunee, or , offer a more modern example of such consensus-based decision-making practices.
These peoples鈥攚ho鈥檝e lived on both sides of the St. Lawrence river in modern-day Ontario and the U.S. Great Lakes states for 鈥攂uilt their society on collective labor arrangements.
They ostracized people who exhibited 鈥渟elfish鈥� behavior, and women and men often worked together in . Everyone lived together in communal longhouses. Power was also shifted constantly to prevent hierarchy from forming, and decisions were made by coalitions of kin groups and communities.
Many of these participatory political practices .
Power was shifted constantly to prevent hierarchy from forming, and decisions were made by communities.
The Haudenosaunee sided with the British during the 1776 and were largely driven off their land after the war. Like , the Haudenosaunee Dream turned into a nightmare of invasion, as European migrants pursued their American Dream that excluded others.
Native Americans at Standing Rock
The long indigenous history of rejecting authoritarianism continues, including the 2016 battle for , North Dakota.
There, a resistance movement coalesced around a 听that rejected the planned .
The movement centered on an environmental cause in part because nature is sacred to the Lakota鈥攁苍诲 to 鈥攂ut also because communities of color often .
Standing Rock was the indigenous fight against repression and for the American Dream, gone 21st century.
Redefining the North American dream
Anthropologists and historians haven鈥檛 always recognized the quintessentially Native American ideals present in the American Dream.
In the 19th century, the prominent social philosopher Lewis Henry Morgan .鈥� And for centuries, America鈥檚 native peoples have seen their 鈥攅ven to an invented .
America鈥檚 indigenous past was not romantic. There were petty disputes, 听and slavery, namely 听and .
But the ideals of freedom and equality鈥攁苍诲 the right that Americans can move across this vast continent to seek it out鈥攕urvive through the millennia. Societies based on those values have prospered here.
So the next time a politician invokes American values to 听or , remember who originally espoused the American Dream鈥攁苍诲 first sought to live it, too.
This article was originally published by听. It has been edited for 猫咪社区! Magazine.听
Correction: October 12, 2018.
This version updates the location of the Standing Rock protests as North, not South, Dakota.
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