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From books to museums, here’s where you can learn about Native peoples in Wisconsin during Native American Heritage Month

Quoted: What do you know about the Native peoples who have called Wisconsin lands their home for thousands of years?

November is Native American Heritage Month and is a good opportunity to learn about the history, culture and sovereignty of the 11 federally recognized tribes in Wisconsin and the Brothertown Indian Nation, which hopes to regain its federal status.

Most people know little to nothing about Native Americans, said Aaron Bird Bear, director of tribal relations at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Keeping ourselves ignorant about Indigenous nations, about our shared history and our treaty-based relationships with Indigenous nations is a form of collective amnesia,” Bird Bear said.

“One thing we would hope is that people really think deeply during Native American Heritage Month of how they can interrupt or arrest settler colonialism itself, which is a process by which the vast majority of U.S. society knows little to nothing about the people who’ve lived here for 20,000 years and counting.”