Feature
Native American Heritage Month
For those of you ( the one of you ?) religiously following The Docket , you will recall that I wrote my article last year on Holiday Traditions . It was apparently so well received that they made it the theme for the November edition this year . As I am told I cannot simply reuse last year ’ s article ( due to that ONE reader ), I decided to go another route and shed some light on Native American Heritage Month .
November is Native American Heritage Month and , if you are like me , you literally just learned that . Which is a shame ; Native American tribes like the Navajo , Apache , Iroquois , Seminole , Cherokee , Chippewa , Choctaw , Lumbee , Pueblo , Sioux , Inupiat , etc . are where America started . Long before Europeans discovered America , the ancient civilizations of Rome , Greece , Egypt , and countless others flourished . However , despite dying out millennia ago , these civilizations continue to be everpresent in Europe and Africa . Take Rome , Italy as an example : when you walk through Rome on your way to work , school , or dinner , it is a little hard to miss the ruins of the Colosseum , now almost 2000 years old and built 1400 years before most of our ancestors arrived on this continent . Visit Athens , Greece and you will see the 2500-year-old Parthenon from any number of apartments or restaurants . Heck , even the Great Pyramids of Giza are next door to a Starbucks . ( That last one is untrue , but you get the idea ). However , if you visit Fort Myers Beach , you would have no idea that the capital of the Calusa Indians civilization was just offshore .
In honor of Native American Heritage Month , perhaps each of us can take some of that same excitement you get when you see the Colosseum , Pyramids , or Parthenon and enjoy some of the Native American sites located in our backyard . Below are a few that can make for a great daytrip and serve as a reminder that this country was built on top of something else . And not even all that long ago .
• Crystal River Archaeological State Park – One of the longest continuously occupied Native American sites in Florida , today you can still see the ruins of burial mounds , temples , and a plaza area where bartering occurred .
• Dade Battlefield Historic Park ( Bushnell ) – The site of an 1835 Seminole Indian battle , it has been preserved to look the way it did during the battle and is a wonderful look at old Florida . Each year in early January , they have a battle reenactment .
• Weedon Island Preserve Cultural and Natural History Center ( St . Petersburg ) – The Center itself was built with help from Native Americans to keep with traditions and styling that would fit in with the land and contains 6,000 square feet of interactive exhibits in addition to the preserve itself . Many portions of the property are on the National Historical Register .
• Portavant Temple Mound at Emerson Point Preserve ( Snead Island , north of Bradenton ) – This preserve plays host to southwest Florida ’ s largest Native American temple mound . It is well-signed and surrounded by a 365-acre park .
• Bishop Museum of Science and Nature ( Bradenton ) – This houses many Native American Artifacts as well as dinosaur exhibits , manatees , and a planetarium .
• Historic Spanish Point ( Osprey ) – The grounds are amazing and curated by the Selby Botanical Gardens and provide a rare opportunity to walk through the middle of a Native American burial mound .
• Randell Research Center ( Bokeelia ) – This is maybe the best kept knowledge of the Calusa Indians in any one place . The Calusa Heritage Trail surrounding the Center is amazingly well marked and signed and teaches the entire known history of the Calusa Indians .
• Mound Key State Archaeological Park ( Fort Myers ) – This was the site of the Calusa Indian Nation ’ s capital . This should be one of the most interesting things on this list , but this island , built out of shell entirely by human hands , has not been given the TLC it deserves . The island itself does not tell its story , so a visit to Mound House in Fort Myers beach before you go might help your understanding .
• The Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum ( Big Cypress reservation in Clewiston ) – Any list of Native American sites in Florida would be incomplete without this museum . Although a little farther out of the way , it is one of the better collections of American Indian artifacts and heritage . It displays the history of the Seminole Indians , while boasting a good museum and a walk through old Florida trails to a village designed to look like a trading outpost from a century ago . You can support the tribe of today by buying arts , crafts , baskets , and weaving .
There are dozens of other smaller sites throughout Florida . Indian Mound Park in Englewood , the Miami Circle Park , and multiple Native American museums could easily have made this list . I have certainly left things out ; for time , word count , or simply because all I am trying to do is get us started .
I have been to Fort Myers Beach , St . Petersburg , Historic Spanish Point , and Bokeelia and had no idea any of these things were there . It is a bit of a shame that we do not advertise , display , and celebrate where this Country came from nearly as well as other places and cultures , but then again , whoever heard of a Native Roman Heritage Month ? Perhaps that means we are getting there . �