Young Bear
Ray Young Bear (born 1950 in Marshalltown, Iowa) is a Meskwaki poet and novelist. He was raised on the Meskwaki Tribal Settlement in Tama County, Iowa. He writes about contemporary Native Americans in English and in Meskwaki. The theme of his poems and other works are Native Americans' search for identity. His poems express the painful awareness of identity loss.
Young Bear's great-great grandfather, Maminwanike, purchased the land that the Meskwaki Settlement was built on. The settlement is located along the Iowa River. Young Bear's great-great grandfather was only a boy when he made the decision to move the tribe from Kansas back to Iowa where the tribe is originally from. After his great-great grandfather's decision, Meskwaki people were sent in 1857 to negotiate the purchase of land that eventually became the Meskwaki Settlement. It is in this way that the Meskwaki Tribe that Young Bear is a part of is unique. The Meskwaki Tribe is one of very few tribes that bought their land instead of having their land allotted to them by the government.
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- 2019-11-12T00:00:00.000000Z
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