Excerpt from John Page's Page - Turtle Islanders Now Niiji!

The word Niiji has already replaced the term Indian in many cases among Native youth and elders and it could completely replace the term Indian just like the word Eskimo was replaced by name Inuit. 

Every Native nation in Turtle Island [North America] has its distinct language and name. The name Niiji doesn't replace the names of nations; it replaces the wider term Indian that covers all Native nations and at the same time clearly refers to the aboriginal people of Turtle Island and excludes any other aboriginal nation also referred to as Indians. 

In Europe, Asia and Africa there are numerous nations with all of them acknowledging being Europeans, Asians or Africans. Natives in Turtle Island that address themselves as Niiji, call themselves Niijis regardless of the nation they are from, just like Europeans, Asians and Africans call themselves Europeans, Asians and Africans. People often talk about an Indian language and ignore the fact that just like there is no one single language spoken by all Europeans, there is no one single language spoken by all aboriginal people of Turtle Island. The name Niiji makes it clear that there is not one language spoken by aboriginal people of Turtle Island due to the fact that, there is no such thing as a language called Niiji. 

Just like there is not just one language in any of the continents, there is no just one language among the aboriginal people of Turtle Island. The aboriginal people of Turtle Island have chosen to refer to their continent by the original name for it which is Turtle Island. 

They have chosen the flag with the four colors: white, yellow, red and black to be the general flag representing all aboriginal people of Turtle Island and in some cases also the non-aboriginals on Turtle Island. They have chosen a general symbol of the Medicine Wheel with the four colors, as the insignia of Turtle Island. 

The Turtle Island aboriginal people's use of the name Niiji to address themselves is only natural. The first known European settlement in the Americas was by the Norse explorer Leif Ericson. However the colonization never became permanent and was later abandoned. The voyages of Christopher Columbus from 1492 to 1502 resulted in permanent contact with European (and subsequently, other Old World) powers, which led to the Columbian exchange. 

Diseases introduced from Europe and Africa devastated the Indigenous peoples, and the European powers colonised the Americas. 

Mass emigration from Europe, including large numbers of indentured servants, and forced immigration of African slaves largely replaced the Indigenous Peoples. 

Beginning with the American Revolution in 1776 and Haitian Revolution in 1791, the European powers began to decolonise the Americas. 

Currently, almost all of the population of the Americas resides in independent countries; however, the legacy of the colonisation and settlement by Europeans is that the Americas share many common cultural traits, most notably Christianity and the use of Indo-European languages; primarily Spanish, English, and Portuguese. More than 900 million people live in the Americas.

The first inhabitants migrated into the Americas from Asia. Habitation sites are known in Alaska and the Yukon from at least 20,000 years ago, with suggested ages of up to 40,000 years. Beyond that, the specifics of the Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion. 

Widespread habitation of the Americas occurred during the late glacial maximum, from 16,000 to 13,000 years ago. The traditional theory has been that these early migrants moved into the Beringia land bridge between eastern Siberia and present-day Alaska around 40,000–17,000 years ago, when sea levels were significantly lowered due to the Quaternary glaciation. 

These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. Another route proposed is that, either on foot or using primitive boats, they migrated down the Pacific coast to South America. Evidence of the latter would since have been covered by a sea level rise of hundreds of meters following the last ice age. 

Both routes may have been taken, although the genetic evidences suggest a single founding population. The micro-satellite diversity and distributions specific to South American Indigenous people indicates that certain populations have been isolated since the initial colonization of the region. 

Although there had been previous trans-oceanic contact, large-scale European colonization of the Americas began with the first voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492. The first Spanish settlement in the Americas was La Isabela in northern Hispaniola. This town was abandoned shortly after in favor of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, founded in 1496, the oldest American city of European foundation. This was the base from which the Spanish monarchy administered its new colonies and their expansion. 

On the continent, Panama City on the Pacific coast of Central America, founded on August 5, 1519, played an important role, being the base for the Spanish conquest of South America. 

The spread of new diseases brought by Europeans and Africans killed many of the inhabitants of North America and South America, with a general population crash of Native Americans occurring in the mid-16th century; often well ahead of European contact. 

European immigrants were often part of state-sponsored attempts to found colonies in the Americas. Migration continued as people moved to the Americas fleeing religious persecution or seeking economic opportunities. 

Millions of individuals were forcibly transported to the Americas as slaves, prisoners or indentured servants. The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic to European colonization during the Early Modern period. 

The term Pre-Columbian is used especially often in the context of the great indigenous civilizations of the Americas, such as those of Mesoamerica (the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacano, the Zapotec, the Mixtec, the Aztec, and the Maya) and the Andes (Inca, Moche, Muisca, Cañaris). 

Many pre-Columbian civilizations established characteristics and hallmarks which included permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, civic and monumental architecture, and complex societal hierarchies. Some of these civilizations had long faded by the time of the first permanent European arrivals (c. late 15th–early 16th centuries), and are known only through archaeological investigations. 

Others were contemporary with this period, and are also known from historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Maya, had their own written records. However, most Europeans of the time viewed such texts as pagan, and much was destroyed in Christian pyres. Only a few hidden documents remain today, leaving modern historians with glimpses of ancient culture and knowledge. 

Fascinating American history don’t you think?

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