A sense of Place.

After wandering through the library our first week here, I decided I needed to dedicate my reading for a little while, if not most of our stay Up Here, to US history. I may have grown up in Iowa (which is an Anglicized Native American name) but when you learn about the history of Iowa it doesn't include native populations, it's all pioneers and homesteaders with wagons and families, not the way you hear about them and see them out here. Plus this town's got a bit of the country's recent Lewis and Clark fever (as they passed though this area) and it's all been making me think about Place. And how Americans think about place, and movement and "Home".

Anyway - I did a quick review,

25 state names are derived from Native American names (more often than not, one tribe's name for another tribe or location, not the local tribe's name for itself or it's home)

5 are Spanish

4 are French

4 are "other" - either totally made up (Idaho), unknown, or Dutch :)

and 12 are of some English derivative (like Georgia after King George or Virginia after Elizabeth I, etc)

It's particularly interesting to me, the little bit I've been out east, as everything is either straight Native language names, or right out of British tradition with North Something, East Something, Something Harbor, etc with 4-5 towns all sharing the same name just with modifiers, which is something that isn't really done out West.

Anyway. Names.


Anybody have any good suggestions on histories of New England and East Coast Native American / colonist relations???