In recent years there have been increasingly louder calls to shift the narrative on the second Monday in October from Columbus to the indigenous groups, whose influence still reverberates across our landscape.
The first people to call the Capital Region home, long before we arrived, were the Mohican and Mohawk tribes. Their size dwindled after European settling, which at first was actually A mutually beneficial relationship with trading and the teachings of survival techniques; however, eventually wars, violent conflict and disease led to the demise of indigenous population. Nonetheless, their footprint is everywhere you look.
For example, one of the Capital Region’s biggest schools, Shenendehowa, is Mohawk for “great plain,” which refers to the flat, fertile land that we now call Clifton Park. The district renamed all of its schools using indigenous words in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
Niskayuna has roots in the Mohawk term for “extensive corn flats, although not many corn flats left here.
Down the road in Schenectady, the city’s name stems from a mohawk expression, meaning “over the pines”.
The name Schoharie” is derived from the native word to-was-scho-hor, meaning “driftwood”, A reference to the large driftwood piles that would accumulate in the Schoharie Creek.
Burnt Hills isn’t an obvious one—but according to the town of Ballston historian, it’s named so because of the native people who would burn the hillsides to encourage new growth that attracted deer for hunting—settlers in Schenectady saw the hills ablaze and named them the Burnt Hills.
Be careful who you say Adirondack around, as it was actually a derogatory term devised by the mohawk, meaning “barkeaters.”
The name Glens Falls has undergone multiple changes, but it stems from the Mohawk term for “hard place to get around, as the area had a waterfall at the time that blocked the Hudson River.”
Saratoga’s name can be traced back to…
Bart “Standing Elk” Cartwright is a member of the Lenape tribe and part of the Turtle Clan signifying the original people of the Philadelphia area. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY) 
Jacob Dolson, who gave…
