Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Thomas Jefferson asked the name of the DC Natives & No one knew

The opening chapter of "Chocolate City (2017)" reviews what happened to the Natives of DC very well! (Although I've heard the Fleete story differently.)
There was no citation on page 15 for this item
Around 1800, Thomas Jefferson asked about "the name of the Native Americans who lived along the Eastern Branch, no one could answer him."

About 100 years later, in 1918, Margaret Brent Downing wrote:
The Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill 
Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C.
Vol. 21 (1918), pp. 1-23 (23 pages) (availble through JSTOR)

She complains on page 3. “Few cities of the larger and more cultured class have displayed a greater indifference towards the original owners of the land on which it has been built than the National Capital.”

Ms Downing was consistent with this complaint and never mentioned the Natives again in her article.


In 2018, you can visit the American Indian Museum and see this tradition upheld.

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