About the Nation

The true American Indian is not a myth, nor a museum relic. The true American Indian is the original copper-colored inhabitant of the American continent — described in the earliest dictionaries and journals as the native people seen by European explorers. In 1828, Noah Webster recorded in his American Dictionary of the English Language that the word "American" was "originally applied to the aboriginals, or copper-colored races, found here by the Europeans." We are that people. We have always been that people.

Contrary to the confusion imposed by colonial systems, many of today's so-called "African Americans" are in fact descendants of these very Indigenous Nations. Through a series of strategic laws, social reclassifications, and deliberate erasure — our identity was rewritten, our names changed, and our connection to this land intentionally obscured. Yet our language, stories, and sacred connection to this continent endure.

We are the Aniyunwiya. We carry the memory of this continent in our blood, our bones, and our spirit. We were here before the ships. Before the names. Before the reclassification. We are still here.

"Without your own cultural identity, you become anything that they tell you — you are."