The Original Americans

Honoring the Indigenous Roots of a Unified Continent Long Before the Drawing of Modern Borders

Long before cartographers stamped parchment in Europe, long before colonial empires carved up the landscape, and long before the mid-century textbook shifts divided the hemisphere into fragments, a deeply interconnected world already flourished across this landmass.

When the Center for Alliance and Solidarity in America champions the truth that the name "American" belongs to the entire hemisphere, we look to geography and history. But we must also look to the original, pre-immigration inhabitants of this continent—the Indigenous peoples whose deep, spiritual, and physical relationship with the land provides the ultimate foundation for continental unity.

To understand the true identity of America, we must look at the hemisphere through the eyes of those who have nurtured it for millennia.

The Myth of Isolation: A Hemisphere of Interconnection

Modern colonial education often portrays pre-Columbian Indigenous societies as small, isolated tribes scattered across a wilderness, disconnected from one another. This is a profound historical distortion.

Before 1492, the continent of America was a vast network of complex civilizations, trade routes, and shared cultural echoes that defied any notion of a border.

• The Sovereign Networks: Great civilizations like the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) in the northeast, the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, the Maya of Tikal, and the Inca stretching along the Andean spine developed highly sophisticated societies.

• The Continental Highways: Ancient trade networks acted as geographic nervous systems for the continent. Macaw feathers from the Amazon rainforest made their way to the desert pueblos of North America; obsidian from the mountains of Mexico was traded thousands of miles north into the Mississippi River Valley; and agricultural wisdom—particularly the cultivation of maize (corn)—spread dynamically from Mesoamerica to both ends of the landmass.

These original caretakers did not see the Isthmus of Panama as a barrier dividing two different worlds, nor did they view the Rio Grande as a boundary line. To them, the land was a continuous, living cradle.

Abya Yala: The Original Name for a Shared Home

While European explorers eventually named the continent after Amerigo Vespucci, many Indigenous nations already possessed names that reflected the grand, unified scale of the landmass.

Among the most prominent of these names is Abya Yala, a term originating from the Guna (Kuna) people of modern-day Panama and Colombia. In their language, Abya Yala translates beautifully to "land in its full maturity," "land of vital blood," or "noble land that blossoms."

Crucially, the Guna did not use this term to describe just their localized territory. As neighboring Indigenous nations interacted and shared knowledge, Abya Yala became a broader designation used by many across the hemisphere to describe the entire, unbroken continent. Today, Indigenous rights movements from Alaska to Patagonia have reclaimed Abya Yala as a powerful symbol of continental identity, self-determination, and pre-colonial unity.

Reclaiming Identity Beyond Colonial Borders

When European powers colonized the hemisphere, they drew arbitrary lines on maps, dividing families, ecosystems, and nations. Later, the rise of the United States and its dominant foreign policy effectively co-opted the term "American," rendering the Indigenous peoples of Canada, Mexico, Central, and South America culturally invisible in the global English lexicon.

This linguistic hijacking creates a bizarre paradox: a Mayan person in Guatemala or a Quechua person in Peru is often denied the title of "American" in global discourse, despite their ancestors having lived on and shaped American soil for thousands of years before the first European ship ever crossed the Atlantic.

True Identity Reclamation means correcting this injustice. U.S. nationalism and modern political borders do not define who belongs to this continent. The original Americans—the Indigenous peoples of this land—are living proof that our continental identity is rooted in the soil itself, not in the passports issued by modern nation-states.

Grounding Our Mission in Ancient Truths

The Center for Alliance and Solidarity in America stands firmly on the principle that to celebrate America is to celebrate its entirety.

By acknowledging the pre-immigration, Indigenous realities of our landmass, we strip away the artificial divisions imposed upon us by late-stage politics. We remember that we are walking on an ancient, deeply connected continent. To proudly claim America is to honor the deep roots of Abya Yala—a continental home stretching from the arctic tundra to the southern tip of the world, united by history, geography, and a shared ancestral legacy.