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Bush Hill Beauty By Douglas Sciorra

A Golden Girl – Changing History

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“Now the President is changing the name from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America”

A COLUMN By Kathryn Ross

I’m vice president of the Thelma Rogers Genealogical and Historical Society which runs the Nathaniel Dike Museum, so you can surmise that I am interested in history. I have been interested in history ever since I saw Davy Crockett defend the Alamo, and ever since Miss Geffers taught us about this area’s indigenous people with a totem pole in her third-grade classroom. My interest in history lasted through Mrs. Farnsworth’s lessons about the state, this area and was honed after reading “A River Ramble” in seventh grade.

I wrote my first story for her history class. Totally politically incorrect by today’s standards, it was entitled “Why Indians are Red?” I concluded they’d gotten into a raspberry patch.

My guidance counselor noted my interest in history and decided I might make a good history teacher. That didn’t happen because of my senior year history teacher, Mr. Smith, the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. It wasn’t that Mr. Smith soured me on history. Not at all. He opened my eyes.

History is still one of my favorite subjects. So why am I going on about history, because I believe that you don’t go around changing history unless there is a good reason, like for example new information coming to light, or new discoveries made that alter the perception of the past. You don’t change history on a whim.

A lot of that has been going on these last few weeks, stemming from the guy sitting in the Oval Office.

First, I believe that it is an insult not only to the Indigenous people, but to everyone who values history and tradition to change the name of Denali back to Mount McKinley. Denali has some importance in the world. With an elevation of 20,310 feet above sea level it is the third highest mountain in the world and the highest peak in the United States.

The Koyukon people who inhabit the area around the mountain have referred to the peak as “Denali” for centuries. It wasn’t changed until some gold prospector, who supported the presidential candidacy of William McKinley in 1896, decided it was his right to rename it. McKinley wasn’t even president at the time. Who gave this gold digger the authority to change the name of the mountain from the traditional Indian name? I’m sure the Indigenous Alaskans didn’t, but then that’s par for the course, isn’t it? Just another example of the poor way indigenous people have been treated since Columbus sailed the ocean blue and the pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock.

President Obama restored the original name in 2015, after decades of the Alaskan people asking for the change.

On January 20, 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring the Secretary of the Interior to revert the name change within 30 days.

I’ll never forget seeing the calm, beautiful seascape of the Gulf of Mexico from the shore of Biloxi, Mississippi. I was there with a crew of students from Alfred State College who traveled there to help clean up, rebuild and aid the people devastated by Hurricane Katrina. I took a brief detour to go to the ocean. After seeing street after street of destroyed homes I came across a wonderful stone house that was located directly on the beach. No cottage, this house was three stories and permanent. The only damage it had sustained was a few dislodged slate roof tiles and tree limbs and branches scattered around the sandy yard. The Gulf was tranquil and breathtaking on that Thanksgiving Day in 2005. The house was a testament to the builders of the past, to history.

Now the President is changing the name from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. I want to know where he gets the authority? Unlike Alaska, the United States does not own the Gulf.

The original name Gulf of Mexico is derived from the ancient city of Mexica, not the country of Mexico. French Jesuits called it Golphe du Mexique as early as 1672.

Granted, the Gulf is mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the Northeast, North and Northwest by Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. But on the south side it is bordered by the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Tabasco. Campeche, Yucatan and Quintano Roo. On the southeast it is bordered by Cuba.

From a historical perspective The Gulf of Mexico should not be renamed on the whim of one man.

Kathryn Ross is a Wellsville NY based writer, columnist, and community activist. She can be contacted anytime kathr_2002@yahoo.com

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