Turtle Island was the name of America before Colonization…, for over 10000 years!
Author Anita Wills took the oral history passed down from her mother about their Native Ancestors and made it a written History.
— Sun Bear, Chippewa
SAN LEANDRO, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES, January 8, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ — Author Anita Wills announces the release of her 7th Book. Ms. Wills is afro/indigenous and has written extensively on American History as it relates to her afro/indigenous ancestors who resided throughout the Eastern Woodlands. Minqua Unami Okehocking & The Down River Nations is a historical accounting of Ms. Wills Native Ancestors and their encounters with European Settlers. The work is a culmination of over 50 years of piecing together a history that was torn apart. The journey began with a oral history passed down from mother to daughter. Ms. Wills Mother, whom everyone called Vi, told her their family history from the time she was a child. As her oldest daughter she was in her mother’s kitchen learning cooking sewing and crafts from a young age. That is the way her mother learned and her grandmother and her grandmother. She also learned about her African and European ancestors some of whom were Mulatto Servants to President George Washington’s Family. One of her ancestors Mary Bowden was the niece of President James Monroe through his Uncle William Monroe.
Her ancestors faced expulsion by Settlers coming in whose laws and rules were foreign to them and who spoke a foreign language. They did not have Land ownership they had villages not one but many. Each tribe had territory they hunted and lived on which was respected by other tribes. That changed once the Europeans started to aggressively remove them from their lands. They came with weapons and no law that prevented them from killing native men women children and the elderly. They killed game for sport and removed Natives from the Rivers and streams they depended on. The last acts were to pass laws and have a count or census which were used to identify reclassify and/or by any means necessary remove Natives. One of the final solutions was to racially redesignates Natives to Mulatto Colored Negro and in some instances black.
In 1692 the land that is down river from the Susquehanna in what is now Maryland was occupied by the Manokin Indians. They were given the surname of Davis and their village sat in what is now Somerset County Maryland. By 1704 they had been run into the Ohio Valley and were led back by Queen Aliquippa who was the head of the Iroquois Federation. She negotiated for 10000 acres in what is now Lancaster County which was the Conestoga Manor Tract. In Chester County 500 acres was set aside by William Penn and was known as the Okehocking Tract. This land was for Natives and their descendants but when Penn returned to England the Settlers began a systematic massacre of the Indians. Much of the Conestoga Village in Lancaster County sits under the Susquehanna River. The land in Chester County was divided up and parceled out to Quakers and once Delaware County was formed some of the land was sold and the other is under State Control.
This is the history that is not be told in school and is the history of the Author and her maternal lines who were blocked from living on their ancestral homeland. The land seizure occurred before their were States and was overseen by the Colonial Government and sealed by the States set up after the Revolutionary War. This is what happened and the effect on generations of Native People. The Manokin who were pushed inland by Settlers were Ms. Wills ancestors who were racially redesignated Mulatto.
In 2018 Ms. Wills tribe The Monacan Indian Nation received Federal Recognition. The tribal village is in Amherst County Virginia and the tribe is Siouan and are mixtures of Saponi and Tutelo. They are the Down River Nation while the Minqua Unami and Okehocking are the Up River Nations. The River is the Susquehanna and it was a highway for Native People for Thousands of years before the Colonizers arrived. In Virginia the down Rivers are the James and Rapphannock Rivers. All of the Nanzattico Indian Adults were sent as slaves to Antigua and their children Indentured to Plantations for 25 years. This is a must read for those not afraid of how America was formed and at whose expense.
https://www.amazon.com/MINQUA-UNAMI-OKEHOCKING-RIVER-NATIONS/dp/B0BKHW4B7J/ref=kwrp_li_std_nodl
Anita L. Wills
ALW Publishing LLC
anitawills@alwpub.com
Visit us on social media:
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Instagram
YouTube
Nanzattico Indians Sold into Slavery
