Was naming states and counties after Native American tribes a slap in the face or a high compliment?

Since the U.S. took so much of the Native American land, I was wondering if they were trying to show the Native Americans a compliment by naming the States and Counties after them?

Was naming states and counties after Native American tribes a slap in the face or a high compliment?
It was a show of good ol American love. Get it while you can.
Reply:It's a slap in the face for two reasons.





1. The Indians weren't just kicked off the land, they were rounded up and beaten, starved, raped, tortured, scalped and executed outright. This massacre lasted much longer than the holocaust and met with much less worldwide outrage.





2. The land was and still is being ruined by industrial destruction of life including (but not limited to) deforestation, desertification, senseless hunting like fur trading and buffalo slaughter, monoculture, strip mining, oil drilling and "development".
Reply:Humans have a habit of naming that which they build, after that which they destroyed to build it.


Look at the names of subdividisions and malls.





If it has the name of White oaks, Pine, Maple, or something else, you can pretty much imagine what was there before it turned into a mass of concrete.





If they named it for what it really was, fewer people would want to see it occur. If you named a subdividions "Rich People Who Hate Each Other Hollow", you probably woud see less of them being built.
Reply:I think it honors the memory.





Take Illinois for instance. Chief Black Hawk and his band of Salk murdered over a million people from the Mound building cultures like the Eastern Shoshone and the Illini. The Illini would be completely forgotten if it wasn't for the State being named after them.





The Alabama is another tribe that was almost forgotten. They only recently got recognized as a tribe, even though the State was named after them.





It is always a good thing to honor the past. Good or bad you can't change what happened but you can learn from it.
Reply:I think we have done to much for them by twisting history and making them look like peace loving people who were abused by the evil white man when in fact they were a savage and backward people


They did not even have the wheel an did a fine job of killing each other long before the ''evil white'' came


You well not find many of these peace loving people in northern Mexico as they were just shoot on sight


Sean I'm sure you have met some blacks who claim that they are part Indian and they might be On the trail of tears there were over 2000 black slaves as the Indians would not do women's work and work the fields Just toke what they wanted If they like your women and they could they just toke her
Reply:It was meant in a complimentary way.





Those who read American history and think the relations between Whites and Native Americans were always bad are misinformed. It was simply a clash of cultures, and the White culture was more technologically advanced, so it won the day.
Reply:No, the terminology for particular swaths of geography and geomorphic features was adopted by the Europeans from the years of traditional usage of those terms.





The same is true for the nomenclature in Mexico, Central America and South America, albeit with some spelling changes...
Reply:It would cost millions to rename everything in Minnesota... Many of the lakes and features in the state are named after the Indian language name for them because thats what the explorers first learned the lake or feature as.
Reply:Both the US took all of Native land by the way for real as the reservation is not treated as an independent nation despite the references in the Constitution making them as such.
Reply:A lot of them were already named before the US took over those territories. I don't think it was the other way around. Mississippi is "great Water" in Native American... I think Iroquios.
Reply:i wouldn't be to worried about some tribes.they are having the last laugh.casinos are popping up everywhere.
Reply:More like doing it to suit themselves. That's like Santa Fe style being considered hip. As long as the tribes keep making big wampum off ignorant palefaces in their casinos, I doubt they care.
Reply:An odd measure of respect after so much disrespect? Wierd, for sure. But at least the names are cool, I grew up near a town called "Piscataway"...
Reply:Hey, maybe they thought it would be a form of consolation after they stole the land from the natives!:)
Reply:i think it was apropriate