Are you %$^#ing kidding me? - Episode 1

I am often put in situations where I am with friends and my Indian heritage comes up. Most people are generally interested in what that means, but they are often insulting. This rarely bothers me because they perceived insults are almost always an attempt to use humor or just plain ignorant. Sometime the ignorance reaches levels that boggle the mind and a recent episode is the genesis of this multi-episode series.  Welcome to Episode 1.

Over the Memorial Dy weekend, I had the occasion to meet a friend-of-a-friend and I was fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of a very peculiar pearl of wisdom. As described above, my heritage was brought into a conversation and my new acquaintance began talking to me about it. As I recall, his best guess was that I was Chippewa, but I corrected that innocent error. I never found out the reason why he went with this particular choice because of what happened next.

I was describing the physical layout of Robeson County and how the white invaders passed over the area due to its apparent lack of any arable land. I went on to describe the large amount of swampland recovered and made into farmland in the years since. It was at this point in the conversation when the stupid bomb hit.

At this point, my new friend informed me that the Lumbees were lucky because all the East Coast Indian tribes were pushed into the uninhabited west. I verbally poked at this statement to make sure that I had heard him correctly, and yes I had. It was his assertion that in the late 1600's and early 1700's, the western half on North America was entirely devoid of human population.

Are you %$^#ing kidding me?

I was polite, perhaps overly so, and made no comment whatsoever. What could I say? I have no answer for such blissful ignorance. If this was a young man, I could have perhaps excused such idiocy, but he was not. In fact, he was older than me. I had heard that the average American's historical knowledge is frighteningly incomplete, but this is absurd. I am not even sure who or what is to blame for something like this. Yes, I have a special interest in this topic and certainly know more about this than the average bear, but let's face the facts. This is pretty basic information that should have been covered in a 4th or 5th grade history class.