Of course. We can’t recognize accomplishments by evil white men.
The College Fix reports:
Drexel exhibit downplays Lewis and Clark discoveries in favor of ‘Tribal Knowledge’Drexel University recently opened an exhibit in connection with the 250th anniversary of the United States that showcases plants from Lewis and Clark’s collection from the perspective of Native American “Tribal Knowledge.”The “Botany of Nations” exhibit at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University opened March 28. It displays artifacts and plant specimens from Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s early 19th century Corps of Discovery expedition.According to the academy website, the exhibit “presents plants as portals to Indigenous storytelling and knowledge,” and “Center[s] the voices of Native Nations who have protected and cared for the lands for thousands of years.”“Learn how the Native Nations Meriwether Lewis met on the trail shaped America’s plant knowledge long before Western scientists claimed these ‘discoveries,’” the website says.When The College Fix visited, a land acknowledgement sign just outside the exhibit discussed the Native Americans who lived in Pennsylvania before settlers arrived.“The land upon which the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University stands today is part of Lenapehoking, the ancestral homeland of the Lenape … whose enduring relationship to the places that we know today as Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and southern New York spans thousands of years,” the sign states.It continues, “The Academy of Natural Sciences honors the Lenape people and all affiliated tribes as the Indigenous stewards of their homelands, as well as the spiritual keepers of the Lenape Sipu, or Delaware River.”The sign concludes with, “It is vitally important that we not only understand and honor the history of this land many of us today call home, but also commit to amplifying and strengthening Indigenous knowledge, voices, stories, perspectives and narratives.”One wall of the exhibit de-emphasizes Lewis and Clark’s natural science discoveries by placing the word in quotation marks.“While the plants ‘discovered’ were considered firsts for Western science, they were intimately known for millennia by the Indigenous communities who shared their cultural insights with the explorers as they traversed 49 sovereign nations over the course of their expedition,” it states.
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