A Documentary Chronicle

Footprints
of an Empire

"Land of the Indians"

by Hashem Star

Unlock the Record Enter the Story
Discover
About the Book

The Untold Story of Erasure & Reclamation

Footprints of an Empire is a sweeping documentary narrative that traces the systematic erasure of Indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands — not only through physical displacement, but through the deliberate reclassification of identity itself.

Hashem Star examines how misnomers like "Black" were applied to peoples who had long inhabited this land, fundamentally distorting their legal standing, cultural sovereignty, and historical recognition — with direct consequences still felt today in places like Indiana, rooted in the very name "Land of the Indians."

From the Delaware Moors to the Lenape, this book is a reckoning — a reclaiming of footprints long buried beneath empire.

Footprints of an Empire book cover by Hashem Star
"

To erase a people's name is to erase their claim to the land. But the footprints remain — written into the earth itself.

— Hashem Star, Footprints of an Empire

Video Teaser

Watch the Story Unfold

A brief glimpse into the world of Footprints of an Empire — the hidden histories, silenced nations, and the land that remembers.

Official book teaser — press play to enter the story.

Core Themes

What This Book Uncovers

I
Identity Erasure

How colonial powers weaponized racial classification to strip Indigenous peoples of their legal and cultural identity.

II
Land & Sovereignty

The direct connection between naming, classification, and the theft of ancestral territories across what is now the American Midwest.

III
The Misnomer Effect

How the label "Black" was applied to peoples like the Delaware Moors and Lenape — erasing their Indigenous status and rights.

IV
Indiana's Hidden Name

Tracing the etymology of Indiana — "Land of the Indians" — and what that name conceals about who lived there and what was taken.

V
Living Descendants

The communities today that carry these histories — fighting for recognition while the empire's footprints are slowly uncovered.

VI
Reclamation

A call to restore historical truth — and with it, the sovereign identity of peoples whose presence predates the empire that tried to erase them.

H
The Author

Hashem Star

Hashem Star is a researcher, writer, and advocate dedicated to uncovering suppressed histories of Indigenous peoples in North America. His work sits at the intersection of documentary history, cultural anthropology, and identity politics — exploring how empire operates not only through conquest, but through the manipulation of names, records, and racial categories.


Footprints of an Empire is the culmination of years of archival research, community engagement, and a personal commitment to historical truth.

Unlock the Record

Available now — in print and digital editions.

Unlock the Record Get Your Copy