My Country, ‘Tis of Thee, Land of Liberty to be

I recently took a trip to Sarasota, Florida, and while there, I started to think about the name “Sarasota”. This name does not ring “traditional American name” in my mind, just like the names Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, the many bureaus of New York state, so on and so forth. I started to question the ground my feet were hitting as I walked down the streets and became more aware of the historical landmark signs. I honed in on these signs and what they were, and then just so happened to see one titled “The DAR”. It seemed very familiar. The gears in my brain started turning as I stood there, brainstorming on the sidewalk, and suddenly, Rory Gilmore from the American drama series Gilmore Girls popped in my head. I had remembered that Rory’s grandmother, Emily Gilmore, was part of an association called the “DAR”, an acronym for “Daughters of the American Revolution”. This organization was founded in 1890 to allow women to promote their patriotism because the Sons of the American Revolution would not allow women. Similar to SAR, DAR seeks to preserve American history and teach children about said history. To be a member of this society, you have to prove your lineage. Someone down your bloodline has to be a Revolutionary War patriot, so they conduct genealogical searches to find them. This process, as you can assume, is inherently exclusive to minorities when you consider the demographics of the soldiers and officers of the American Revolution.

As I approached the DAR chapter building of Sarasota, I came across another sign on the premises titled “Mary Wyatt Whitaker”. She was the daughter of William Wyatt, a man who helped develop Florida’s first constitution. Further down on the sign it read “Mother of the First White Child Born in What is now Sarasota County April 19, 1852.” I could not believe the level and extent of white supremacy I was laying my eyes on with this sign. They praised the bearer of the first white child born in the county, so this brought me to the question: “Who was here first?”

Many of us know a very broad answer to that question, Native American people, but I wanted to know more than that. The terms ‘Native American’ and ‘Indigenous’ are extremely broad and the people they encompass are of diverse tribes specific to the many regions of North America. I continued to read the sign for further information and read, “Three hundred yards west of this highway stood her [Mary Wyatt Whitaker’s] home which was burned in 1856 by Indians, from whom she fled for safety with the child [the first born white child of Sarasota] to a Palmetto log fort on Manatee River.” The conclusion of the sign read “This marker was erected in 1936 by the Sara de Soto Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution”.

At this point, my blood was boiling, because first off, the term, Indian, is what the tyrant by the name of Christopher Columbus called Indigenous people. The fact that the sign portrayed the native people of the land as terrorists, as if they were not trying to defend their land from foreign colonizers stealing their land, perturbed me. The words on the sign depicted Mary Wyatt Whitaker, the mother of the first white child born in Sarasota, to be the victim and the indigenous population to be the terrorizing savages who burned down her home. Yet, there was no mention of how her ‘home’ was built on their territory, and this is the type of history America wants you to believe.

But I know better than that. I was taught to question whitewashed history and its white lies we are often spoonfed; so I conducted further research on the real history of Sarasota, Florida. First, the prefix “Sara” was very similar to Sara de Soto’s (the lady who the DAR chapter of Sarasota is named after) name. I then learned that the county was originally called Manasota county, courtesy of the Calusa, Tocobaga, and Timucuan people native to the land. It was later changed to “Sarasota” in honor of Sara De Soto, a character from a legend about Hernando De Soto’s daughter and her interactions with a Native American chief by the name of Chichi Okobee. However, this is only a legend, so the credibility is questionable.

Additional reliable research about the name brought me to the conclusion that instead of verily telling the indigenous people the truth, Hernando De Soto and his other Spanish autocrats told the native people that the new name stemmed from the Spanish word “zarazote” meaning “a place of dancing”. After minimal digging, I discovered that this so-called Spanish word does not exist and never has existed! In typical American fashion, it was a boldfaced lie used to manipulate natives and steal their land.

These experiences reminded me that the United States has drastic changes to make with the curriculum that is taught to our young. American history does not mean talking only about the “good” the founding fathers did, the profit they made off of their crops, or how God supposedly commanded European colonizers to move westward. American history has roots far beyond its European colonizers. The Native American tribes were here before anyone else. American history is talking about the terror Indigenous people faced when European colonizers came to steal their land. American history is discussing the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and its effect on the world. American history is discussing the principles on which the United States justice system was founded upon. American history is debunking myths such as the “Model minority myth” along with countless others. American history is studying the ins and outs of the Bill of Rights and its overlooked loopholes. American history is acknowledging that Americans are not just blood of white immigrants. Our history should represent all Americans: Black, African American, Brown, White, Latinx, Arab, Native American, Asian, Multiracial, Pacific islanders, first generation immigrants, multigenerational immigrants, undocumented immigrants, the rich, the middle, the poor, the able-bodied, disabled, English speaking, non-English speaking, Christians, Muslims, Jewish people, Hindu people, Sikh people, Buddhists, Agnostics, Atheists, and etcetera. I demand equal representation across the board for all people. There is no superior ethnicity or race because at the end of the day we are all of the human race. May those who have lost their lives due to racially motivated incidents rest in power and may that power manifest in the nation America is bound to become.