Celebrate Native American Heritage Month

November is Native American Heritage Month. Read our Land Acknowledgment and learn from some of these books and resources.

In honor of Native American Heritage Month, we acknowledge that the Palatine area was originally inhabited by the Algonquian people including the Myaamia (Miami) and Bodewadmi (Potawatomi). Native groups including Hoocak (Winnebago/Ho'Chunk) and the Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo) also have ancestral ties to the area. The Bodewadmi had the most extensive presence in the Palatine area and there are reports of interactions between them and European settlers in the 19th century. These native groups were stewards of the land until their removal from the area under the terms of the Treaty of Chicago in 1833. White settlers occupied their native lands in the Palatine area beginning in the 1830s and native people were gradually erased. 

We recognize past harms done to the Indigenous people of Palatine and celebrate the accomplishments of Indigenous nations through the library's role as a space for connection and exchange of ideas. 

We ask that you reflect on the injustices done to Native nations both in the past and in the present. 

Information on the Citizen Potawatomi Nation can be found here.