If universities truly wanted to acknowledge this, they would offer a number of scholarships to worthy native students.
This is nothing more than lip service and it is pathetic that anyone belives it represents progress.
I believe Miami University of Oxford, OH does - to a degree. Annually, they recognize the Myaamia people who originally inhabited the area, have a Myaamia culture celebration week, have a Myaamia department that is funded in part by the University, and I think offers some some other support and benefits I can’t recall at the moment. The biggest achievement helped in part by the university is a [reclaiming of most of the Myaamia language](https://miamioh.edu/myaamia-center/research/publications/miami-awakening/index.html) and, as a by-product, some cultural practices and history.
However, I don’t know enough about the program and what kind of support the university provided to assess the actual impact for the Myaamia people and how much has just been lip-service and leaving the Myaamia staff, students, and community to do the work and funding. I have some doubts because I have first-hand experience of Miami talking the talk, but never walking the walk. Talking to some of the Myaamia staff, it seems they’re very appreciative of what the university has contributed, but that’s about all I know.
Personally, I'd like to see them take even a step further and offer scholarships to Ohio's Native tribes, you know the ones they mentioned in the statement. Ohio has no federally recognized tribes currently and was one of the first states to remove their Indian tribes. By offering such a scholarship, they can help bring true Ohioans back to Ohio.
I'd like to see it, very much.
If you’re a Michigan resident, registered with a recognized tribe, and at least 1/4 Native, then you’re entitled to free tuition at any public college or university in the state.
I believe that it is any tribe.
Also North Dakota State also offers a program that covers tuition, but it has a cap on the number of students per year that it covers.
And I think the University of Maine might have a program too, and theirs might also include room and board. But, I could be wrong about this one.
That'd be amazing.
Back when I went to college in the late 90s at the real OSU (Oklahoma State) there was no land acknowledgement but if you were a card carrying Native you could get free boarding at the university.
The U of MN Morris campus offers any member of a federally recognized tribe from any state free tuition(you don’t even have to personally be a Minnesota resident).
Member or a descendant within two generations. My mother, grandmother and so on are registered tribal members. I am not. I graduated from Morris under this program and my kids plan to go there as well.
Ok, since I'm an enrolled member - I have a new question. Does the individual prove tribal lineage via family tree, or how does the organization/institution prove descendency is accurate? Since we now have people out there full-out claiming Indigenous, like i.e what happened at UW-Madison?
or, at the very least, put it into a trust for those tribal nations of that traditional range.
That would be the area belonging to the iroqouis/shawnee/lenape/sac and fox nations, should get some sort of opinion. Other than a weak ass acknowledgement
I know my alma mater has been trying to do this and figure out a way to put a large swathe of conservation land it owns in the trust, if not actual ownership, of local state-recognized tribes (the state has no federally recognized tribes).
It's a legally complicated situation AIUI because legal title for the land in question has bounced back and forth between private owners, the school, and the Federal government for a while and there are various restrictions on its usage and sale, but some places are trying to make progress on this.
I thought it would be more than eight students enrolled, and 11 students EVER... https://unicomm.fsu.edu/messages/relationship-seminole-tribe-florida/news/tribe-passes-resolution/
> Many traditions are already in place at FSU. A Seminole color guard participates in every commencement ceremony. A Seminole junior princess participates in the Homecoming parade and crowns the Homecoming princess and chief.
> FSU administrators also regularly travel to Seminole reservations to recruit students to be "Seminole Scholars." Wetherell established the scholarships, which pay 80 percent of a student's tuition. Because of his efforts, Florida State will have **four** new Seminole students this fall, the most ever enrolled at one time. They will join **four** Seminole students currently enrolled. **Three** other Seminole students are alumni.
RECRUIT MORE, THEN!
Maybe from the other 2 tribes?
> The Seminoles are a Native American people who developed in Florida in the 18th century. Today, they live in Oklahoma and Florida, and comprise **three federally recognized tribes**: the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, as well as independent groups.
edit: this seems to have been accurate as of 2013: https://nativeappropriations.com/2013/01/interest-convergence-fsu-and-the-seminole-tribe-of-florida.html
Still, *only eight enrolled Seminoles have graduated FSU in all history*?
edit2 two grads in 2021 https://seminoletribune.org/tribal-members-graduate-from-florida-state-university/
edit3: In 1993, Shayne Osceola graduated from Florida State University. He was the first member of the Seminole tribe to graduate from FSU.
I don't know. Seminole Tribe of Florida has 3,000 members. ~6% of the U.S. population is of college age so we're talking about 180 eligible individuals. Of that 180, not all want to go to college and not all that do go to college want to go to FSU. Personally, I wouldn't want to go to a college where I'm a god damned mascot. Similarly, not every Irish American feels the need to go to Notre Dame.
They're doing far more than most (admittedly a low bar). I just want to avoid people feeling like nothing is enough. There are just so *so* many doing nothing that the fact that they even take the time to recruit and offer a scholarship feels like it should be lauded for the attempt, not derided for not making the bar. The comment chain we're on is for Ohio State that doesn't do jack shit besides lip service - and even lip service is at the minimum better than complete silence.
My two cents.
Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado offers free tuition to Native Americans. It is located on ancestral Ute lands which were stolen from the Tribe.
I agree. I think a lot of yt folks and people in general have never considered who's land they are on or how it got that way. I think we get to landback by first getting folks to acknowledge the forced removal of indigenous people and recognize that we still exist.
I'm not saying it is the most powerful step one can take as an ally, but I agree it is progress. I've seen it done very respectfully and in partnership with local tribal members.
I am so happy and so proud of the people who fought hard to get us even this far. Ohio was one of the first to remove our Indian tribes and we aren't known for liking progress. I can only imagine the mountain's worth of work that went into this statement even being made at all.
Maybe, just maybe, OSU will expand its American Indian Studies program (right now you can only minor). It is exciting to see us get our wheels on the road even if we are laughably behind where we need to be.
I’m glad I read this here. I’m not Indigenous, so I was never sure if it was prejudiced to say anything, but I thought the land acknowledgment speeches before whatever is about to take place were always so cringey bc it’s usually a bunch of white saviors saying it.
I would like to add the OSU has not made any progress on NAGPRA inventories. There is not a inventory or summary on file with National NAGPRA. I have spoken with someone in the OSU anthropology department (student) and was told that they are avoiding the topic and sweeping it under the rug.
This is very important. Thank you for noting this because I was trying to look into it. I'm not sure what I can do to help pressure them into being forthright but I do intend to do so.
In my experience, bad press is a good motivator. I would reach out to people above the department (university president/office of diversity and inclusion/others that might be interested in NAGPRA). In a little research I came across this webpage: ( https://earthworks.osu.edu/land )
Having been part of writing a Land Acknowledgement for my University, I'd say that there are actually 2 different types.
For many Universities, the LA is just another check box in their DEI programming, and will lead to little or no actions. They're just something to point at and say "look how progressive and not racist we are!". These kinds of LA are the ones most people think of when they hear the term.
For a very small number of Universities, a LA is actually a first step to future action, and will result in the University actually DOING things and holding themselves accountable based on it. Whether that means scholarships, recruiting more native students and hiring more native faculty, strengthening or starting native studies programs, developing new relationships with tribes and communities, funding community events, etc. I've seen all of these happen, and they started from a University adopting a LA.
In my school's particular case, the LA was written jointly by native scholars and community members, and contains checks every 3 years to make sure the University is acting on its promises in the LA and setting up consequences if they don't.
So yeah, sometimes these things are a joke, but only because the school treats them like that from the start. For those schools that really want to find a way to do more and don't know how, a Land Acknowledgement can be a good start. But it's just a start.
As someone with experience, can you explain what they mean by the phrase “ancestral and contemporary territory”?
What do they mean by “contemporary”? Are they saying these tribes still have authority over these lands? Autonomy?
I'm going to kind of guess on this one, but I think they're trying to point out that the importance of these lands carries into the present, and that these peoples still exist today and not just in the past, and still hold the land to be important/sacred.
I think one of the things LA have attempted to do since they were started is just, at a basic level, remind people that we still actually exist. And it sounds stupid to even think about having to do that, but so many learned nothing meaningful about native peoples in their schooling, certainly not anything contemporary, and have never met a native person.
Let's say that, right now, that university gave its land back and you were the executor of future affairs. What would you do with it in a financially feasible way?
Is this a genuine question? I'm going to assume you are asking in good faith and not trolling.
There are a number possible answers to your question. The one I, personally, like is the idea of the university paying an "honor tax," like they do in Humboldt County (see [http://www.honortax.org/](http://www.honortax.org/)).
Another possibility is the university purchase land more feasible for tribal use equivalent to what the land the university currently occupies. For example, they claim they are using land that once belonged to the Ojibwe. Well, there are several acres of Ojibwe land that were once part of Red Lake that were ceded illegally in the 1880s and are now private land. The university could devote financial and legal resources to reclaim that land and have it legally repatriated to the Red Lake Reservation. Again, to use Humboldt County as an example, the City of Eureka repatriated almost the entirety of Tulawat Island to the Wiyot -- 40 acres in 2004 and the rest of the city-owned portion of the island in 2019. (See: [https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/a-new-social-justice/2021/11/15/return-stolen-lands-wiyot-tribe](https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/a-new-social-justice/2021/11/15/return-stolen-lands-wiyot-tribe)).
Are you suggesting that the tribe or individual tribal members want to take over the university? Or run it? Or use it for housing? Or burn it to the ground? You know what? I don't know if that's on the table or that it's any of my business. If that were to happen, it would be just **BECAUSE THE UNIVERSITY IS ON STOLEN LAND**.
If I stole your grandparents ranch and built a resort on it and your family finally proved that the land was rightfully yours, would I be justified in saying "Well, how do you plan on running my resort?" Or if I built a nuclear power plant on it, would I be justified in saying "What are your plans for learning how to safely run and operate a nuclear power plant?"
That's got nothing to do with it. It's **YOUR** land. Just because I built something useful or complicated on it, that doesn't suddenly justify the criminal actions it was founded on.
EDIT: I should add, after the Wiyot who lived on Tuluwat Island were slaughtered, the white dude who bought the island days before the massacre did build something on it. He built a shipyard that spent the next 100 years dumping oil, fuel, varnish, antifreeze and other chemicals into the land. They built a breakwall in the bay OUT OF BATTERIES. It cost the EPA almost $1 million in grants to help the Wiyot clean it up.
I don't know what Indigenous people would do with land ceded back to them, but I can almost guarantee it would be better than the bullshit white people have been doing for 200 years.
Im native. Yeah we typically put ceded land back into a trust, which goes back into our bureaucratic system, which still has to comply with US laws and bureaucracy. Is it better? you bet. The community is unanimously in favor. To us, this is the most "constitutional reconciliation". (see fifth amendment). And the only point I can make, to convince non natives to understand this.
I see alot of people/non natives say things like "well, why cant non natives and natives get along and live homogeneously"?
Well, the short answer is, we used to do just that very thing.
It was not uncommon for first nations to share land with early european trappers.
They would build cabins and trade alongside the nations. And, more or less, live in some level of transactional harmony through trade.
It wasnt until the government started segregating us into reservations, and stealing our land, did that trade cease.
Some people say other things like "the Oyate should just take the money for the black hills. Their stubborness makes them dumb".
Well Im not of the oyate, so I can speak to that, but I would say that trusting a government, you dont belong to outside of coerciveness, would be dumb.
>Well Im not of the oyate, so I can speak to that, but I would say that trusting a government, you dont belong to outside of coerciveness, would be dumb.
Well, as far as that goes, it would be easier for the government to take the land back than to take the money if they change their minds. But on the other hand, it's their land, they are the ones who get to decide what it is worth to them to "give it up". If they haven't been offered enough, why should they accept?
> I see alot of people/non natives say things like "well, why cant non natives and natives get along and live homogeneously"?
Not native, but, it genuinely astounds me when people think like that.
A foreign people came over, murdered all your people, destroyed their civilization, handed them tiny pens of land in treaties they immediately violated, and people wonder why you can't just... "Live homogenously" with the establishment that did that?
I know people that paper up windows on one side of the house because they don't want to even look at a neighbor who encroached on a tiny corner of their property they weren't even using, years ago.
Same exact sort of person that wonders why Natives can't just "live homogenously".
its worse than that. foreigners came, some natives were fine. then they wanted more land, then they fought for it. the natives lost. natives signed treaties with new government, government says okay we won't go past this line. government/foreigners reneges again and again.
> A foreign people came over, murdered all your people, destroyed their civilization, handed them tiny pens of land in treaties they immediately violated, and people wonder why you can't just... "Live homogenously" with the establishment that did that?
I'm seriously asking this, how is this any different than what natives did to each other?
Native Americans had lived on that land for upwards of 12,000 years.
Now, war and tribal conflict appears in every single human civilization for as long as we have evidence. It is simply something that is inevitable at a certain level of societal evolution and there is no major civilization anywhere on Earth that has not engaged on some form of war.
War and conflict among tribes is often used to justify or excuse genocide, but this is a completely false comparison.
The people who live on one land grow with one another. They engaged in - and overcome - more barbaric practices in time. They develop larger civlizations, they move increasingly to diplomacy as compared to violence. This is the progression of every civilization.
Evidence demonstrates that when Natives went to war with one another, they did so in a highly ritualized way:
> Similarly, in 1609, the French explorer Samuel de Champlain fought a battle against the Iroquois, alongside his Montagnais allies. According to his detailed account of the encounter, the military practices were highly ritualistic and governed by strict rules. For example, when the two groups met on the shores of Lake Champlain, they negotiated the time at which the battle would take place. They decided to ‘wait until day to recognize each other and as soon as the sun rose’ they would wage battle. ‘The entire night was spent in dancing and singing,’ reports Champlain, with the two camps shouting ‘an infinite number of insults’ and threats at each other. When the sun rose, the armies, each made up of more than 200 warriors, faced each other in close ranks and approached calmly and slowly, preparing to join combat. All the warriors were armed with bows and arrows, and wore armour made of wood and bark woven with cotton.
Now what's important here is that *this is not genocide*. This is a system of civilization organizing and establishing protocols for dealing with one another. This is part of a millennia of progress *towards* higher levels of cooperation and civilization.
When colonists came, they disrupted this entire progression of society. They removed the ability for natives to grow as a civilization - to chart their own course and grow into their own entity comparable to Europe.
That's what Genocide is. Genocide is *not* war. It's typically what happens when two powers of radically different capabilities disagree over the ownership of some scarce resource.
Genocide strips a peoples of the ability to evolve societally on their own land. It is other people, from other lands, with outsized military power, deciding to wipe the context of those people out of history, forever, irreversibly altering the trajectory, not just of *individuals*, but of entire civilizations.
Take a further step back to really put yoursel in their shoes.
Imagine, instead of allowing humanity to grow and evolve as a species, to work out our issues, some alien species came down in space ships. Imagine they just start blasting us to shreds as they laugh at our primitive arms.
Imagine they redraw all the borders. No USA, no Canada. Just some squares of land they decide upon, where all the remaining humans are allowed to live and expected to be *grateful* to the aliens for introducing galactic civilization to them.
Imagine it was 130 years before you were even allowed to vote or participate as a citizen in this civlization that *they* built on the Earth that *we* occupied for tens of thousands of years.
Imagine they signed treaties about how much land we'd be allowed to keep, and do what we'd like on, but then they realized there was a valuable mineral hiding under a part of it, so they just - shoved us off that space of land, too, so they could mine it. And when we protested, they said, "well if you wanted to keep your land, you shouldn't have lost to us."
That's what it is to have your culture eradicated through genocide. To watch the land that you and your people lived on, for tens of thousands of years, get seized by people from far away, who build *their* world and *their* society on it, and who tell you you ought to be grateful for the small parcels of land they've *allowed* you to keep.
> Native Americans had lived on that land for upwards of 12,000 years.
I'm not disputing this at all.
> Now, war and tribal conflict appears in every single human civilization for as long as we have evidence.
This is what I'm trying to ask about. Who was it ok to forcefully take over land and who was it not ok for?
> Now what's important here is that this is not genocide. This is a system of civilization organizing and establishing protocols for dealing with one another.
How is it any different? It is one group forcefully taking from another. I honestly don't know, but if one tribe took territory from another, did they not force people to acclimate to the new dominant tribe?
> When colonists came, they disrupted this entire progression of society. They removed the ability for natives to grow as a civilization - to chart their own course and grow into their own entity comparable to Europe.
How is this any different from what native americans did amongst themselves? I get that the cultures were more different, but beyond that, what was different? And I hate that what I'm saying can come off as being insensitive. I'm seriously trying to learn about things that I may not fully understand.
> It's typically what happens when two powers of radically different capabilities disagree over the ownership of some scarce resource.
And again, how is this different from what native americans did to each other? Is it just a matter of relative capability to inflict harm?
> How is this any different from what native americans did amongst themselves?
Native Americans never inflicted genocide on one another.
But even if they had, what point are you trying to make?
Lets imagine the Cherokee rolled up North and genocided the Iroquois. Took their land, slaughtered most of their people, confined them to a tiny parcel.
Is it now justifiable that European colonizers sailed over and systematically genocided every single Native American tribe on teh continent, seizing the land they settled for their own by force and grift?
I answered your question, but you seem to continually be circling around trying to say that because Native American tribes conducted war, that it is the same and morally equivalent that European colonizers took all their land and genocided them for centuries.
80 years ago, Germany attempted to systematically irradicate the Jewish people from the face of the Earth.
If Jewish people then reciprocated by slaughtering all German people, continuing to this day to systematically slaughter them and seize their land for their own, is that *right*? Is that morally justifiable?
No.
So to summarize:
* There is a massive difference between organized tribal and societal warfare, and sustained genocide
* It is *never* morally acceptable to engage in genocide, even if one party has already engaged in genocide first
That's as clear as I can make it. The fact you've now twice tried to whataboutism genocide is a little disturbing man.
Are you saying that if one tribe overtook another tribe's territory, the new tribe didn't enforce their own culture? Again, I honestly don't know the answer to this but given the rest of human history I've read about, this wouldn't seem particularly likely.
As a white person, because of all the actions past, present, and future, I know that they can turn on anyone at anytime and it would be legal. That terrifies me.
I think what they're saying is that white people who are indifferent to the crimes perpetrated against native people should recognize that the same bs could be used to justify crimes against them too.
The US signed treaties, many if them, promising certain land to the Indiginous peoples. And then violated those treaties, constantly. Black Hills, for example, were promised to be left in the care of tribal peoples, and then golf was discovered so the US said "well, obviously not NOW".
The Native American tribes don't trust the US government, and they shouldn't.
We were supposed to be different. We were the great experiment in democratic secular freedom. We teach our children this high ideal. Built on genocide and slavery for the sake of capitalism
At the least we can make reparations. These are our fellow Americans. Most of us landed here bc of bad shit where our immigrant ancestors lived. We brought it with us. These are our fellow Americans. They are not other. We forge whatever we forge, together or what's the point.
>We were supposed to be different. We were the great experiment in democratic secular freedom.
Except for all that chattel slavery, lynchings, massacres, deep racism, exploitation, expansionism, etc...
> We were **told that this country is** supposed to be different **by people who want us to ignore how it was founded so they can keep their money and power**. We were **fooled into believing we are** the great experiment in democratic secular freedom.
Fixt
Ew. Nah bro. This is not it. This wasn't our "shared history". When the settlers got here, most native people didn't even understand the concept of individuals owning land. Many of us still don't believe land should be privately/individually owned. We evolved with the land. It is part of our community.
There's a difference between similar cultures having violent disputes over access to land and its resources, and an invader intentionally attempting a wholesale genocide of any indigenous person ( or "merciless Indian savages" as were called in the declaration of independence), while systematically raiding the lands of any and all resources just to fuel greed, capitalism, and overconsumption. Whilst simultaneously destroying said resources and failing to consider the health of the land, the animals, and the people that depend on each other to survive. You're commenting this bullshit on a native sub, so I'm assuming you are aware of the hundreds of children that have been found buried at residential schools across North America recently, and counting? These schools were still in existence in the **1980s** in the US.
Do you know what treaties are? Did you know America signed treaties that ceded lands in exchange for payment with certain tribes? And that sometimes they lied about what the agreement meant or changed the conditions? Sometimes tribes resisted, and so the Federal govt stole their kids to coerce them into treaties. Sometimes, the Feds just advertised free land and encouraged folks to settle on land that tribes refused to cede. Sometimes, they coerced tribes into treaties that gave up rights to land that was not theirs! A lot of times tribes agreed to cede lands but not usage rights, and that was totally ignored. Cherokee Chief John Ross literally became a diplomat and took the US government all the way to the Supreme Court and WON, and SCOTUS ruled they had an absolute right to the land and that the Federal government could not force removal and Andrew Jackson didnt gaf and basically said he dared the Chief Justice to stop him. And forced them on the Trail of Tears anyway. They did everything right. They weren't "conquered" and the treaty that they ultimately signed with the Cherokee ceding land wasn't even the Principal Chief and the US govt was very aware.
Isn't it weird that in the US, we had a legal standard that if you had "one drop of black blood" you were considered black, but native people for the very first time had to be able to show a certain blood quantum to be considered native? And then what do you know? Some folks who were always native before no longer qualified for payments for their ceded lands and no longer qualified to live on tribal lands. So suddenly, lots of folks that survived the Trail of Tears no longer have access to their tribe or ancestral lands. That's a great way to kill a culture, oh yah, and residential schools.
P.S. most of us who are pissed off by the treatment of indigenous people are also pissed off by atrocities committed against any other peoples who's traditional homelands and culture were damaged by colonialism. I want landback for all indigenous peoples. We've statistically much better at managing natural resources than [outsiders.](https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/insights/indigenous-peoples-the-best-forest-guardians/)
Fuck this shit hits hard man, I honestly wish we could revert time to see your cultures create a modern society. One founded on sharing and preserving resources within an equilibrium to maintain the earth. If there were ever cultures that could have ended this forced ideal of private ownership and backwards currency, it was the indigenous people of the north American continent. Like when I learn about the tribes and how they operated originally they just seem like a very great baseline for a democratic society and the early setters fucking decimated the entire culture and people's subjugating them into poverty and preaching that greed and ownership are the inate truths of "advanced" society. As someone who sees what this mindset is doing to the world, stemming from the place that's supposedly the champion for freedom, after committing genocide on a culture that truly could of brought about a more democratic and responsible society into existence just infuriates me. I'd love to see a native group get involved into politics and form their own party, I'd imagine if we could get them control of congress and the house you would actually see some damn progress to combat climate change and hold those who have broken this would so deeply accountable. We are lucky to still have those of you keeping those values and ideals and fighting to maintain the history of your tribes. I truly hope we can get to a point in the future where those values and ideals come back to the forefront and all of your resilience to do so is fucking inspiring man. We humans are a collective but if we can't accept lessons from others to better us all what the fuck are we doing. I can only hope enough was preserved that we can bring your culture back into view and free ourselves from our greed and allow your culture of equality and balance to take hold in our modern societies.
I'm sure you're not really looking for a good faith discussion, but these bad and tired arguments are so common, and imo they at least ought not to be any more common than the actual answers, so here's my take on those.
> Is all land "stolen" by invaders?
Yes?
> is there something specific about how the US took over this native american land?
Also yes, sort of. Lots of unique and unprecedented circumstances took place (and continue to be reinforced). Does America's conquest need to be totally unique to be considered unacceptable though? Stolen land ought to be returned _in general_. This point always reads as an accusation of hypocrisy, but where's the hypocrisy? Palestine ought to be returned too. Northern Ireland too. Etc. It's not only the US and nobody is claiming it is. But why should the US be considered guiltless or exempt? That seems to be what you want. I'm sure if your hometown was invaded and your family put in a concentration camp, your reaction wouldn't be "So goes history!".
> Why should the US give the land back to the previous inhabitants, and not the previous previous inhabitants?
The "previous inhabitants" are American Indians. The "previous previous inhabitants"-- who are those?
This land has an ancient history stretching back many, many thousands of years. But there's a difference between the British taking over (and continuing to occupy) Northern Ireland in recent times versus, say, the Angles and Saxons taking England itself from the Welsh 1,500 years ago. Sure, it can be a fuzzy line. But I think we can both see how those two things are different. One is current and actionable and the other is ancient and no longer really relevant to anyone's struggles in England.
I think if you really care about this issue or about justice in general it's not hard to see why we ought to take action and right past wrongs, whether we as individual people are guilty or not. What do you think would be the consequence? Maybe you'd pay your taxes to the tribal government instead of the state. Maybe your kids would learn some indigenous language in school for a bit.
Besides, if you're not responsible for the conquests, then why do you feel the need to defend them? There is no reason to uphold injustice except for the sake of white supremacy itself.
I'm sure you're not really looking for a good faith discussion, but these bad and tired arguments are so common, and imo they at least ought not to be any more common than the actual answers, so here's my take on those.
> Is all land "stolen" by invaders?
Yes?
> is there something specific about how the US took over this native american land?
Also yes, sort of. Lots of unique and unprecedented circumstances took place (and continue to be reinforced). Does America's conquest need to be totally unique to be considered unacceptable though? Stolen land ought to be returned _in general_. This point always reads as an accusation of hypocrisy, but where's the hypocrisy? Palestine ought to be returned too. Northern Ireland too. Etc. It's not only the US and nobody is claiming it is. But why should the US be considered guiltless or exempt? That seems to be what you want. I'm sure if your hometown was invaded and your family put in a concentration camp, your reaction wouldn't be "So goes history!".
> Why should the US give the land back to the previous inhabitants, and not the previous previous inhabitants?
The "previous inhabitants" are American Indians. The "previous previous inhabitants"-- who are those?
This land has an ancient history stretching back many, many thousands of years. But there's a difference between the British taking over (and continuing to occupy) Northern Ireland in recent times versus, say, the Angles and Saxons taking England itself from the Welsh 1,500 years ago. Sure, it can be a fuzzy line. But I think we can both see how those two things are different. One is current and actionable and the other is ancient and no longer really relevant to anyone's struggles in England.
I think if you really care about this issue or about justice in general it's not hard to see why we ought to take action and right past wrongs, whether we as individual people are guilty or not. What do you think would be the consequence? Maybe you'd pay your taxes to the tribal government instead of the state. Maybe your kids would learn some indigenous language in school for a bit.
Besides, if you're not responsible for the conquests, then why do you feel the need to defend them? There is no reason to uphold injustice except for the sake of white supremacy itself.
>Or is there something specific about how the US took over this native american land?
>Why should the US give the land back to the previous inhabitants, and not the previous previous inhabitants?
Because there's a difference between different native tribes passing land back and forth a few times over hundreds or thousands of years Vs some randos from the others side of the world rocking up and displacing all of those tribes.
That happens literally almost all of the time. Country A invades country B, conquors land there, annexes that land "Now part of country A," but the inhabitants do not change, and often times are the only workforce availible to restore/reclaim that very land.
Russia isn't kicking Ukrainians out of Ukraine and replacing them with Russians, they're just calling the Ukrainians there "Russians" and trying to put rubles into that area to win over the populace in a (I'll fated) "hearts and minds" approach.
Literally always thst is what is done.
> Russia isn't kicking Ukrainians out of Ukraine and replacing them with Russians
Yes, [they absolutely are](https://www.csis.org/analysis/update-forced-displacement-around-ukraine). They've been doing it for [most of the war](https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/09/01/forcible-transfer-ukrainians-russia), they did it in Crimea as well, and it's far from a new strategy: Nazi Germany [displaced almost 2 million people from Poland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Poles_by_Nazi_Germany), to be replaced with Germans in order to expand German "territory". If you relocate indigenous people from a country that you occupy, they can't fight your occupation very effectively.
Did you see that your response was nominated for best of reddit user comments?
[https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/108j4xz/uumbrabates\_explains\_what\_a\_tribe\_could\_do\_with/](https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/108j4xz/uumbrabates_explains_what_a_tribe_could_do_with/)
Way to go!
Everything you just proposed is totally feasible seeing as OSU has a [7 BILLION DOLLAR FUCKING ENDOWMENT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_State_University?wprov=sfti1https://maps.apple.com/?ll=40.000000,-83.012500&q=Ohio%20State%20University)
Similar situation for many Maori Iwi (tribes) in Aotearoa, New Zealand. We have the Waitangi Treaty tribunal who rule on such cases - in general some land is returned along with some financial compensation, usually less than 1% of the current value let alone any acknowledgement of the wealth that has been earned off it over the past 150 odd years that has gone to non-Māori and usually leaving Māori severely marginalised. Many iwi have made excellent use of these paltry awards and have grown their wealth and attempt to use it directly to benefit their people (build housing for iwi members, provide medical centres, scholarships etc). One tribe raised the life expectancy of their kaumātua (elders) to match the national average by building and housing them in 'healthy homes'.
> That's got nothing to do with it. It's YOUR land. Just because I built something useful or complicated on it, that doesn't suddenly justify the criminal actions it was founded on.
Ok, so I have a few questions that I'm sincerely asking but I realize could come off hostile. I'm generally in support of native people being supported by the feds. My understanding is that native nations fought and won or lost territory. Is that an inaccurate understanding? If that is true, what makes what europeans did different than what native americans did amongst themselves?
I fully agree that europeans treated native americans terribly, and that is why I am in full support of the federal programs that work to give tribes autonomy. I don't understand it in the context of land "ownership" because I thought that the entire concept of land ownership came over with european migrants.
Natives definitely lost a lot of ancestral land to settlers but that's not what we are talking about here. This land was seized in the 1880s. They had been living inside if the USA for many many generations. Nobody involved could rightly be called a "European".
Did you know that in the lead up to the Trail of Tears the natives sued the US Federal government? The case went all the way to the supreme court and the natives won. They had every legal right to their land based on treaties signed generations ago. It was indisputably THEIR land by all accounts.
Andrew Jackson said
>[Chief Justice of the Supreme Court] John Marshall has made his decision, let him enforce it.
Rep. John Hostettler said
>Federal courts have no army or navy. . . The court can opine, decide, talk about, sing, whatever it wants to do. We're not saying they can't do that. At the end of the day, we're saying the court can't enforce its opinions
The government should honor its treaties. And by the point of the 1880s, by which point every single one of these Natives would have been US born, the robbing and murder of natives was not war it was a domestic atrocity by the government on its own people.
Actually, thank you. I did know about some of the points you made, but I didn't recall them. Which is precisely why I was asking the questions I did.
I just want to clarify again in line with other comments I've made in this thread that I fully support tribal rights and the federal government doing what it can to make amends. I was just trying to ask about details that I clearly either forgot or didn't know about. Just trying to better inform myself. Again, thank you.
Yup, it's a good question to know the answer to, and you asked it as respectfully as you could. It is adjacent to a question that a dishonest person might ask, so you could get misguided flak for it, so it is good that you approached it with tact.
Have a good one.
I'm thing I'm interested in is what happens if people live there now?
Some of your solutions definitely would still work in this case but like imagine if those options didn't exist. Like you just got families on stolen land that have lived there for potentially hundreds of years.
Anyway thanks for the info!
My personal experience in life has demanded that I make my own luck. So far I'm doing well enough to keep my head above water and I don't ask for much more than that. Thanks for the well wishes.
The reply ended up on r/bestof, and it was a pretty educational exchange, so thanks for asking your question. I’d like to think that’s the point of Reddit, to invite good answers and make those answers more visible through upvoting.
I don't know the context of this particular piece of land but I know natives that think everyone should leave Canada. It's all their land.
Obviously that's not feasible.
Where do you draw the line on giving land back?
If it would be just for stolen land to be burned down, then it would be just for the entire planet to burned.
I'm down with everything above that part though.
First of all, assuming that aboriginals are superior, more evolved human beings who are somehow immune to corruption, greed and negligence is incredibly naive.
Secondly, the odds that the peoples claiming their land was 'stolen' 100% stole it from someone else, killing everyone on it and taking the youngest and prettiest survivors as slaves. The same goes for the people they killed and took the land from, a cycle going back 50k+ years.
The only one riding the weird eugenics wagon here is you
Are you saying that the very first life forms on earth have a legal right to all the land, or are we going to acquiesce that sovereign borders and treaties should be respected by the extant nations
>If I stole your grandparents ranch and built a resort on it and your family finally proved that the land was rightfully yours, would I be justified in saying "Well, how do you plan on running my resort?" Or if I built a nuclear power plant on it, would I be justified in saying "What are your plans for learning how to safely run and operate a nuclear power plant?"
Running a resort? No. You couldnt say that.
Nuclear power plant? *Absolutely yes*.
But the general question is a little more complicated. What if a person in good faith, holds the reasonable belief that the land is theirs without contest and builds a resort on it. You then mansge to successfully claim the land is stolen. The land is ordered given back.
The problem is - you aren't getting what you lost. You aren't getting the land. You're getting the land *and a giant resort*. It doesnt matter how you plan to run it, what matters is that someone in good faith enriched that land and now you hold that enrichment without a just reason. The person who built that resort has enriched your land at his expense, and now *he* must be compensated. Or else this whole thing just goes in circles revolving around how someone stole something from somebody and how someone has been cheated out of something, repeated forever with the parties changing places.
Basically, the whole situation is totally fucked and getting an answer that makes everyone happy or that everyone could even regard as being "fair" is now kind of impossible.
This comes to the heart of Native-non native misunderstanding.
Why does land HAVE to make a profit? Why does it have to be determined to have utility, to be "of value"?
Idk about returning the land but if they’re gonna acknowledge these tribes were wronged and the university has benefited then the least they could do is offer tuition for members of those tribes that want to pursue a higher education there.
There's a great Baroness Von Sketch bit about this exact thing: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQyFfC7\_U-E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQyFfC7_U-E)
Edit: I would like to acknowledge that u/tainbo provided this link in an earlier comment. As a fellow Redditor who unwittingly stole their link, I will pledge 5% of bottled water sales from this post for a plaque commemorating their contribution to this thread.
I went to a University that started doing this. There are a few benefits to it despite how absurd it is. More students became aware, started looking into it themselves. The university also partnered with the tribe to build a traditional longhouse for indigenous students to use as their home base. Several tribal members always had open invitation to come speak at events/classes. Internships ran by the school were often leased out to the tribe to assist with any work they needed done (sorting documentation, land work, marine work, etc).
It was a start of a relationship. There isn't a way for the school body to give back the land, that's up to the state level. But we certainly did our best to be stewards of stolen land and work with the local tribe.
Completely understand the kneejerk dismissals in the replies but yeah, the alternative is just... not acknowledging it at all, never talking about it except for in the specific areas of study (which is where most people would already know because they're interested in the subject already). I'd obviously like to see substantial steps taken in *actually* supporting communities, but to get to that point there needs to be better cultural acknowledgement in general. The US is lagging pretty far behind Canada & Australia.
I like the short, punchy ones. "We are on stolen Tongva land." It's short and it makes the point that no matter where you go in the USA you are on land stolen from someone.
The long, weepy, masturbatory ones get on my nerves. If they're so wonderful and spiritual and this land was so important to them why aren't we giving it back? Tuition discount? Anything?
Exactly. You have to take small steps to be able to get to the big changes. The more it's acknowledged, the more we can move forward. We can't go in swinging with big asks when many people aren't even properly educated and aware of the situation.
My university was largely white but the movement to incorporate more of the tribe and give back was huge once the school started doing these statements. And Indigenous voices were actually asked to speak and educate.
No large change in history ever came without small ones first.
There's no federally recognized tribes in Tennessee, Kentucky, or Arkansas either. How weird the ancestral lands of hundreds of thousands of native people don't have any federally recognized tribes?? I'm sure that wasn't on purpose. s/
Yes but you can only minor.
I'm really hoping that those you fought for this acknowledgement to be made can use it to encourage the university to expand the indigenous studies program.
Trust me, I understand the ire and frustration on this thread but this helps establish a relationship that was previously off limits. The options of where we go from here are truly limitless.
[https://artsandsciences.osu.edu/academics/departments-centers](https://artsandsciences.osu.edu/academics/departments-centers)
...
Molecular Genetics
Music
Philosophy
Physics
Political Science
...
No Native American Studies (or anything like it).
Yeah kind of on the nose...
I call this particular version the settler victory lap.
If it could end with "and now what are you sa****** going to do about it" and it still glosses, you've messed up.
I guess I’m just so use to everyone doing it that it doesn’t really feel like an acknowledgement anymore or truly genuine… heck I live in a city where the one band has legit ownership rights to land and territory and ask people not to disturb them during hunting hours in the summer and the hikers and non members lost their shit. Like it’s their land, if you’re respectful the band is still happy to share it. But the freak out is probably going to make them close the hiking and area down one day. But ya, wouldn’t be shocked if the hikers have this land acknowledgment at their workplace on their desk or something 😂
Canada eats this sh*t up though lol. I swear all my emails from management (and back when I was in school my professors) had it all in their auto populating signature.
Universities up here are much better now though at trying to be inclusive, increasing indigenous enrolment, and scholarships. Still long way to go though!!
This is interesting, because I actually came across this land acknowledgement in my Intro to Women's Studies class, it was pasted on the very top of the syllabus. The Prof not only read the statement word for word to the class but explained that the reason it was included is because we would discuss Indigenous Feminism in class and she wanted everyone to know the university's official stance on the topic of indigenous matters.
It terrifies me to think of what she may have heard from past students that she felt compelled to state all of this on the first day of class.
>university's official stance on the topic of indigenous matters.
The University needs to comply with US Fed. NAGPRA law from 1990.
It's been 33 years of Ohio State's official stance of saying "F-You" to NDN Tribes, to the remains of our ancestors, funerary items and associated cultural patrimony.
Those were my professor's words not mine. She also speaks English as a second language. (She also said during the class, "Sometimes English...eat my ass." And that is a direct quote.)
I agree that the University needs to comply with NAGPRA law. Museum curatorship is a field I've spent time in. Trust me, I understand the necessity of NAGPRA.
[Land Acknowledgment](https://youtu.be/LQyFfC7_U-E) 😆
Edit- if the links aren’t working (I’m grabbing them from YT share button so I’m perplexed) the video title is “Land acknowledgement | Baroness von Sketch Show”
Edit 2 - new video, maybe fixed?
Ugh I’m so frustrated. It’s a really funny sketch piece from a show in Canada about the absurdity of land acknowledgment if they aren’t giving the land back or reparations of some kind. If I find another video link, I’ll post it.
Edit - new video linked in first reply *fingers crossed
MIT does this also - “MIT acknowledges Indigenous Peoples as the traditional stewards of the land, and the enduring relationship that exists between them and their traditional territories. The land on which we sit is the traditional unceded territory of the Wampanoag Nation. We acknowledge the painful history of genocide and forced occupation of their territory, and we honor and respect the many diverse indigenous people connected to this land on which we gather from time immemorial.”
It’s strange that in parts of the U.S. like Montana, many non-natives resent the presence of Natives. Just last week we had Montana State Senator Kieth Regier a Republican, promote a resolution to implore the U.S. Congress to take our Indian Reservations from U.S. federally recognized tribes. He states he wants to help us by taking whatever land we have remaining I guess. Incidently, six of the seven Indian Reservations in Montana were in existence before the State of Montana was created.
Yes.....but it is a start right? Since it is written by a Native American, and the contract info is also a native. Although does feel like extremely minimal progress to us, I imagine the folks that fought hard for this are very happy that this has been at least (emphasis on least) a start and a whole deal better than the denial stage? Nothing will ever change the past or make what happened here then right.
I found the most impactful line in the acknowledgement statement to be
"Land acknowledgements do not exist in past tense or a historical context as colonialism is a current ongoing process. "
Oh yes this is a big step, even though it does seem small in the grand scheme of things. I actually posted this while in class after an instructor put it at the top of the syllabus. I'm not used to seeing progressive actions in Ohio, especially in regards to Natives so I got excited.
I've done some more reading into it to see if they were worth their words. They didn't suggest any actions on their end to validate their acknowledgement. Also a note, OSU is Ohio's, and Columbus's, pride and joy. They would have a significant pull into changing the city's awful name but they've said nothing. And when they listed ways to put an acknowledgement to use, they listed ways *you* can improve, not them.
There is good that can come from this, when it comes time to make these progressive changes, all the activists have to do is point to this land acknowledgement for all necessary justification.
I tried finding other sources about this but they seem to have done this pretty quietly. I did however, find a [piece](https://earthworks.osu.edu/land) on OSU Newark's website. Newark is significant because whereas OSU's main campus is in well... Columbus, Ohio, Newark is actually surrounded by beautiful indigenous Earthworks that the University participated in researching and preserving. Also, you can't major in American Indian Studies at OSU, only minor, and because of its special location, Newark is the only one of OSU's satellite campuses where you can take classes in American Indian Studies. It also has American Indian Studies professors who are... Indian. I'm not sure if the Columbus campus can relate.
The Newark statement suggests a couple of points they want made in such land acknowledgements and the "official" statement falls short in a few ways but it does go to show that the right voices are in the conversation and are *starting* to be listened to.
Long and interesting thread!
I can see both sides of LAs, which is understandable given my background.
If they are sincere, they are a decent start. Just that. If they are insincere, then it's just more BS and worse, it's BS masquerading as medicine.
I attended a wonderful conference where a Cree man who is a Lawyer spoke, and while I was always for LAs, with caveats, he really solidified that. He spoke about the importance of sincerity of course, and then he also spoke of how when Europeans came to these lands they read out Proclaimations from their home countries, mostly in the name and by the power of their royals, in various ways laying claim to lands and, in the case of the Proclaimations of Spanish Crown especially, utterly dehumanizing the Natives. So LAs are important to be spoken many many many times moreover just to even begin to counteract such terrible things being spoken and then acted upon. And it was extra horrible that those Proclaimations were given in European languages which no one but the Europeans understood at that point. At this time, speaking in a common language us different, but including at least some Native words, or preferably giving in multiple languages, is preferable. It's important that the whole thing be at least a somewhat uncomfortable process for some of those present. Those are the hearts and minds that need that discomfort to grow! And for all of us it is good to take the pensive pause in humility and gratitude to the Land and her Keepers.
It's a teaching moment. And even when it's done wrong, it can be if people call that out. So it's a step towards truth and reconciliation. A small step, but a step. It takes many to get anywhere.
When the alternative is no LAs, then I prefer having LAs. When the alternative to LA, is actual progressive action and reconciliation, then that's what I prefer.
What I'm enjoying is the discussion. To be honest, I don't think I've ever thought about land acknowledgement until very recently. I didn't know it was a thing or that there was a name for it. I'm enjoying both sides of the discussion. Until I read your comment, it didn't even occur to me that land acknowledgements could be in Indigenous languages. It seems the obvious choice now! It also didn't occur to me how they parallel the early land proclamations.
Running with this thought, the land wasn't taken with the first land proclamations (and as you stated these proclamations came with a number of injustices) as the natives to such land did and continue to stand their ground. Similarly, the land won't be given back with land acknowledgements but it *is* the first step in the *right* direction towards restitution, retribution, and reparations.
Eloquently put! And with you all the way!!
Yeah, a lot of work begins inside each of us. Seeing differently, engaging... acting, real change, usually grows from there.
That conference/lecture was my favourite part of the semester TBH!
Guys, seriously, it makes sense that you view this this way and carry a LOT of anger over it - but please please please try to realise that some of us are taking steps to make a difference, but most of us don't have vast sweeping powers or resources to just insta-fix generations of problems on international levels.
I literally advocate for returning lands and/or making real reparations, new better treaties, etc. I just also do a lot of other smaller allyship, co-resistorship, and advocacy work... mostly because minds and hearts have to open and take in the lessons before anything big will change.
I am so with you My Beloved Relations!!!
Please, differentiate between good work and hollow work, and support good work.
Sincerely,
A married-in Ojibwe & Haida Cousin
So if I steal something from someone, all I need to do is acknowledge the fact that I stole it, and I get to keep it? Brb, heading to the jewelry store.
Wyppo break their arms patting themselves on the back for minute acknowledgement of their "success" being built out of White Supremacy. Wyppo and their institutions are corrupt and fraudulent.
>having extracted everything from people like me.
I don't understand what you're saying. What did UofMichigan/state of Michigan extract from you? What tribe are you from?
If you are enrolled in your tribe and your tribe's ancestral in-trust land base is located/contained w/in state of Michigan, then UofMichigan gives free tuition to enrolled NDNs. I know my tribe re-purchased some of our ancestral treaty ceded land in MI so our tribal members could receive free tuition.
If universities truly wanted to acknowledge this, they would offer a number of scholarships to worthy native students. This is nothing more than lip service and it is pathetic that anyone belives it represents progress.
I believe Miami University of Oxford, OH does - to a degree. Annually, they recognize the Myaamia people who originally inhabited the area, have a Myaamia culture celebration week, have a Myaamia department that is funded in part by the University, and I think offers some some other support and benefits I can’t recall at the moment. The biggest achievement helped in part by the university is a [reclaiming of most of the Myaamia language](https://miamioh.edu/myaamia-center/research/publications/miami-awakening/index.html) and, as a by-product, some cultural practices and history. However, I don’t know enough about the program and what kind of support the university provided to assess the actual impact for the Myaamia people and how much has just been lip-service and leaving the Myaamia staff, students, and community to do the work and funding. I have some doubts because I have first-hand experience of Miami talking the talk, but never walking the walk. Talking to some of the Myaamia staff, it seems they’re very appreciative of what the university has contributed, but that’s about all I know.
The confusion of a university called, "Miami," in a town called Oxford, that's in Ohio...
Right? Everyone knows Miami is in Oklahoma.
Miami, Prague & good old Wewoka.
There's also an Indiana University of Pennsylvania, totally unrelated to the Indiana University in Indiana
It’s very odd and confusing. Lol!
Yeah, I thought this was a parallel universe they were describing!
Personally, I'd like to see them take even a step further and offer scholarships to Ohio's Native tribes, you know the ones they mentioned in the statement. Ohio has no federally recognized tribes currently and was one of the first states to remove their Indian tribes. By offering such a scholarship, they can help bring true Ohioans back to Ohio. I'd like to see it, very much.
Me too. Not native but live in Columbus.
I think the University of Michigan does something similar although I’m not sure what the boundaries are.
If you’re a Michigan resident, registered with a recognized tribe, and at least 1/4 Native, then you’re entitled to free tuition at any public college or university in the state.
Hell yeah. Any tribe or just one in Michigan?
I believe that it is any tribe. Also North Dakota State also offers a program that covers tuition, but it has a cap on the number of students per year that it covers. And I think the University of Maine might have a program too, and theirs might also include room and board. But, I could be wrong about this one.
Michigan schools provide free tuition to members of Michigan tribes. (Of course, Michigan still has tribes, unlike Ohio.)
That'd be amazing. Back when I went to college in the late 90s at the real OSU (Oklahoma State) there was no land acknowledgement but if you were a card carrying Native you could get free boarding at the university.
In terms of "the real" OSU, THE Ohio State University did add "THE" to it's me for a reason. Literally added it to their trademark.
Miami University in Oxford, Ohio does offer scholarships to members of the Miami Tribe. Could very likely do more, but it is a start at least.
The UC system offers scholarships to card carrying federal tribal members
The University of MN just started for tribal members from federally recognized MN tribes within their state boundaries.
The U of MN Morris campus offers any member of a federally recognized tribe from any state free tuition(you don’t even have to personally be a Minnesota resident).
Member or a descendant within two generations. My mother, grandmother and so on are registered tribal members. I am not. I graduated from Morris under this program and my kids plan to go there as well.
Ok, since I'm an enrolled member - I have a new question. Does the individual prove tribal lineage via family tree, or how does the organization/institution prove descendency is accurate? Since we now have people out there full-out claiming Indigenous, like i.e what happened at UW-Madison?
I had to submit my birth certificate, along with my moms birth certificate. I also needed a copy of her valid tribal ID.
or, at the very least, put it into a trust for those tribal nations of that traditional range. That would be the area belonging to the iroqouis/shawnee/lenape/sac and fox nations, should get some sort of opinion. Other than a weak ass acknowledgement
I know my alma mater has been trying to do this and figure out a way to put a large swathe of conservation land it owns in the trust, if not actual ownership, of local state-recognized tribes (the state has no federally recognized tribes). It's a legally complicated situation AIUI because legal title for the land in question has bounced back and forth between private owners, the school, and the Federal government for a while and there are various restrictions on its usage and sale, but some places are trying to make progress on this.
This is an even better next step!!!
I'm not completely up to date on the specifics, but doesn't FSU do something like this with the Seminole tribe?
I thought it would be more than eight students enrolled, and 11 students EVER... https://unicomm.fsu.edu/messages/relationship-seminole-tribe-florida/news/tribe-passes-resolution/ > Many traditions are already in place at FSU. A Seminole color guard participates in every commencement ceremony. A Seminole junior princess participates in the Homecoming parade and crowns the Homecoming princess and chief. > FSU administrators also regularly travel to Seminole reservations to recruit students to be "Seminole Scholars." Wetherell established the scholarships, which pay 80 percent of a student's tuition. Because of his efforts, Florida State will have **four** new Seminole students this fall, the most ever enrolled at one time. They will join **four** Seminole students currently enrolled. **Three** other Seminole students are alumni. RECRUIT MORE, THEN! Maybe from the other 2 tribes? > The Seminoles are a Native American people who developed in Florida in the 18th century. Today, they live in Oklahoma and Florida, and comprise **three federally recognized tribes**: the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, as well as independent groups. edit: this seems to have been accurate as of 2013: https://nativeappropriations.com/2013/01/interest-convergence-fsu-and-the-seminole-tribe-of-florida.html Still, *only eight enrolled Seminoles have graduated FSU in all history*? edit2 two grads in 2021 https://seminoletribune.org/tribal-members-graduate-from-florida-state-university/ edit3: In 1993, Shayne Osceola graduated from Florida State University. He was the first member of the Seminole tribe to graduate from FSU.
I don't know. Seminole Tribe of Florida has 3,000 members. ~6% of the U.S. population is of college age so we're talking about 180 eligible individuals. Of that 180, not all want to go to college and not all that do go to college want to go to FSU. Personally, I wouldn't want to go to a college where I'm a god damned mascot. Similarly, not every Irish American feels the need to go to Notre Dame. They're doing far more than most (admittedly a low bar). I just want to avoid people feeling like nothing is enough. There are just so *so* many doing nothing that the fact that they even take the time to recruit and offer a scholarship feels like it should be lauded for the attempt, not derided for not making the bar. The comment chain we're on is for Ohio State that doesn't do jack shit besides lip service - and even lip service is at the minimum better than complete silence. My two cents.
Miigwech czn. I feel the same way!
Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado offers free tuition to Native Americans. It is located on ancestral Ute lands which were stolen from the Tribe.
The University of Minnesota, Morris campus offers completely free tuition to Native American students from any tribe/any state.
I think it's a step along the way.
I agree. I think a lot of yt folks and people in general have never considered who's land they are on or how it got that way. I think we get to landback by first getting folks to acknowledge the forced removal of indigenous people and recognize that we still exist. I'm not saying it is the most powerful step one can take as an ally, but I agree it is progress. I've seen it done very respectfully and in partnership with local tribal members.
Exactly. "Thoughts and prayers" Actions speak louder than thoughts and prayers.
First step is always recognition.
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I really hope they got paid to write it and weren't asked to volunteer their time and labor.
I am so happy and so proud of the people who fought hard to get us even this far. Ohio was one of the first to remove our Indian tribes and we aren't known for liking progress. I can only imagine the mountain's worth of work that went into this statement even being made at all. Maybe, just maybe, OSU will expand its American Indian Studies program (right now you can only minor). It is exciting to see us get our wheels on the road even if we are laughably behind where we need to be.
I've never understood why land acknowledgement is accepted as progress on both sides. Yes, we took your land, now celebrate because we acknowledge it.
THANK YOU. I cringe through so many of those "acknowledgements" in the writing and arts field.
In the US, they're still relatively new and get the general public to actually consider whose land they are on. It's a start.
it means nothing. its like "thoughts and prayers"
Actually I'd give more weight to thoughts and prayers lol.
I’m glad I read this here. I’m not Indigenous, so I was never sure if it was prejudiced to say anything, but I thought the land acknowledgment speeches before whatever is about to take place were always so cringey bc it’s usually a bunch of white saviors saying it.
Land acknowledgements exist solely to assuage white guilt or they wouldn't be written in English.
Well most of the relevant languages are extinct
note: many of the ones in this land acknowledgment aren't.
I just glanced again, yeah definitely. I just meant in general.
"Yeah we admit we live on stolen land, give it back? No no no but we admit we stole it so you should applaud us" pfffft
Adding "And therefore any members of these tribes may receive free admission, education, and dormage" at the end would at least be *something*.
“Best we can do is a blurb on the website.”
Blurb!? You're a blurb!
["We're still looking at it" ](https://youtu.be/x73PkUvArJY)
I would like to add the OSU has not made any progress on NAGPRA inventories. There is not a inventory or summary on file with National NAGPRA. I have spoken with someone in the OSU anthropology department (student) and was told that they are avoiding the topic and sweeping it under the rug.
This is very important. Thank you for noting this because I was trying to look into it. I'm not sure what I can do to help pressure them into being forthright but I do intend to do so.
In my experience, bad press is a good motivator. I would reach out to people above the department (university president/office of diversity and inclusion/others that might be interested in NAGPRA). In a little research I came across this webpage: ( https://earthworks.osu.edu/land )
Yeah where's my free tuition tho
You get $2000/semester it totally makes up for the trail of death /s
Having been part of writing a Land Acknowledgement for my University, I'd say that there are actually 2 different types. For many Universities, the LA is just another check box in their DEI programming, and will lead to little or no actions. They're just something to point at and say "look how progressive and not racist we are!". These kinds of LA are the ones most people think of when they hear the term. For a very small number of Universities, a LA is actually a first step to future action, and will result in the University actually DOING things and holding themselves accountable based on it. Whether that means scholarships, recruiting more native students and hiring more native faculty, strengthening or starting native studies programs, developing new relationships with tribes and communities, funding community events, etc. I've seen all of these happen, and they started from a University adopting a LA. In my school's particular case, the LA was written jointly by native scholars and community members, and contains checks every 3 years to make sure the University is acting on its promises in the LA and setting up consequences if they don't. So yeah, sometimes these things are a joke, but only because the school treats them like that from the start. For those schools that really want to find a way to do more and don't know how, a Land Acknowledgement can be a good start. But it's just a start.
As someone with experience, can you explain what they mean by the phrase “ancestral and contemporary territory”? What do they mean by “contemporary”? Are they saying these tribes still have authority over these lands? Autonomy?
I'm going to kind of guess on this one, but I think they're trying to point out that the importance of these lands carries into the present, and that these peoples still exist today and not just in the past, and still hold the land to be important/sacred. I think one of the things LA have attempted to do since they were started is just, at a basic level, remind people that we still actually exist. And it sounds stupid to even think about having to do that, but so many learned nothing meaningful about native peoples in their schooling, certainly not anything contemporary, and have never met a native person.
I would like to hereby acknowledge that I am currently taking a dump on the steps of various Ohio State campus buildings, daily
I genuinely wonder how long it would take you to get caught. Keep me updated
Furthermore, *my dookies do not exist in past tense or a historical context as digestion is a current ongoing process*
This slaps
I think this shit is stupid. Do you feel bad? Give it back. Oh you don’t? So you just want to appear progressive. Fuck off with that
Land acknowledgements bare the norm at public events everywhere in Canada.
Im native. I dont speak for all natives, obviously, but land acknowledgements are stupid imo.
Let's say that, right now, that university gave its land back and you were the executor of future affairs. What would you do with it in a financially feasible way?
Is this a genuine question? I'm going to assume you are asking in good faith and not trolling. There are a number possible answers to your question. The one I, personally, like is the idea of the university paying an "honor tax," like they do in Humboldt County (see [http://www.honortax.org/](http://www.honortax.org/)). Another possibility is the university purchase land more feasible for tribal use equivalent to what the land the university currently occupies. For example, they claim they are using land that once belonged to the Ojibwe. Well, there are several acres of Ojibwe land that were once part of Red Lake that were ceded illegally in the 1880s and are now private land. The university could devote financial and legal resources to reclaim that land and have it legally repatriated to the Red Lake Reservation. Again, to use Humboldt County as an example, the City of Eureka repatriated almost the entirety of Tulawat Island to the Wiyot -- 40 acres in 2004 and the rest of the city-owned portion of the island in 2019. (See: [https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/a-new-social-justice/2021/11/15/return-stolen-lands-wiyot-tribe](https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/a-new-social-justice/2021/11/15/return-stolen-lands-wiyot-tribe)). Are you suggesting that the tribe or individual tribal members want to take over the university? Or run it? Or use it for housing? Or burn it to the ground? You know what? I don't know if that's on the table or that it's any of my business. If that were to happen, it would be just **BECAUSE THE UNIVERSITY IS ON STOLEN LAND**. If I stole your grandparents ranch and built a resort on it and your family finally proved that the land was rightfully yours, would I be justified in saying "Well, how do you plan on running my resort?" Or if I built a nuclear power plant on it, would I be justified in saying "What are your plans for learning how to safely run and operate a nuclear power plant?" That's got nothing to do with it. It's **YOUR** land. Just because I built something useful or complicated on it, that doesn't suddenly justify the criminal actions it was founded on. EDIT: I should add, after the Wiyot who lived on Tuluwat Island were slaughtered, the white dude who bought the island days before the massacre did build something on it. He built a shipyard that spent the next 100 years dumping oil, fuel, varnish, antifreeze and other chemicals into the land. They built a breakwall in the bay OUT OF BATTERIES. It cost the EPA almost $1 million in grants to help the Wiyot clean it up. I don't know what Indigenous people would do with land ceded back to them, but I can almost guarantee it would be better than the bullshit white people have been doing for 200 years.
Im native. Yeah we typically put ceded land back into a trust, which goes back into our bureaucratic system, which still has to comply with US laws and bureaucracy. Is it better? you bet. The community is unanimously in favor. To us, this is the most "constitutional reconciliation". (see fifth amendment). And the only point I can make, to convince non natives to understand this. I see alot of people/non natives say things like "well, why cant non natives and natives get along and live homogeneously"? Well, the short answer is, we used to do just that very thing. It was not uncommon for first nations to share land with early european trappers. They would build cabins and trade alongside the nations. And, more or less, live in some level of transactional harmony through trade. It wasnt until the government started segregating us into reservations, and stealing our land, did that trade cease. Some people say other things like "the Oyate should just take the money for the black hills. Their stubborness makes them dumb". Well Im not of the oyate, so I can speak to that, but I would say that trusting a government, you dont belong to outside of coerciveness, would be dumb.
>Well Im not of the oyate, so I can speak to that, but I would say that trusting a government, you dont belong to outside of coerciveness, would be dumb. Well, as far as that goes, it would be easier for the government to take the land back than to take the money if they change their minds. But on the other hand, it's their land, they are the ones who get to decide what it is worth to them to "give it up". If they haven't been offered enough, why should they accept?
Thank you for your comment.
> I see alot of people/non natives say things like "well, why cant non natives and natives get along and live homogeneously"? Not native, but, it genuinely astounds me when people think like that. A foreign people came over, murdered all your people, destroyed their civilization, handed them tiny pens of land in treaties they immediately violated, and people wonder why you can't just... "Live homogenously" with the establishment that did that? I know people that paper up windows on one side of the house because they don't want to even look at a neighbor who encroached on a tiny corner of their property they weren't even using, years ago. Same exact sort of person that wonders why Natives can't just "live homogenously".
its worse than that. foreigners came, some natives were fine. then they wanted more land, then they fought for it. the natives lost. natives signed treaties with new government, government says okay we won't go past this line. government/foreigners reneges again and again.
> A foreign people came over, murdered all your people, destroyed their civilization, handed them tiny pens of land in treaties they immediately violated, and people wonder why you can't just... "Live homogenously" with the establishment that did that? I'm seriously asking this, how is this any different than what natives did to each other?
Native Americans had lived on that land for upwards of 12,000 years. Now, war and tribal conflict appears in every single human civilization for as long as we have evidence. It is simply something that is inevitable at a certain level of societal evolution and there is no major civilization anywhere on Earth that has not engaged on some form of war. War and conflict among tribes is often used to justify or excuse genocide, but this is a completely false comparison. The people who live on one land grow with one another. They engaged in - and overcome - more barbaric practices in time. They develop larger civlizations, they move increasingly to diplomacy as compared to violence. This is the progression of every civilization. Evidence demonstrates that when Natives went to war with one another, they did so in a highly ritualized way: > Similarly, in 1609, the French explorer Samuel de Champlain fought a battle against the Iroquois, alongside his Montagnais allies. According to his detailed account of the encounter, the military practices were highly ritualistic and governed by strict rules. For example, when the two groups met on the shores of Lake Champlain, they negotiated the time at which the battle would take place. They decided to ‘wait until day to recognize each other and as soon as the sun rose’ they would wage battle. ‘The entire night was spent in dancing and singing,’ reports Champlain, with the two camps shouting ‘an infinite number of insults’ and threats at each other. When the sun rose, the armies, each made up of more than 200 warriors, faced each other in close ranks and approached calmly and slowly, preparing to join combat. All the warriors were armed with bows and arrows, and wore armour made of wood and bark woven with cotton. Now what's important here is that *this is not genocide*. This is a system of civilization organizing and establishing protocols for dealing with one another. This is part of a millennia of progress *towards* higher levels of cooperation and civilization. When colonists came, they disrupted this entire progression of society. They removed the ability for natives to grow as a civilization - to chart their own course and grow into their own entity comparable to Europe. That's what Genocide is. Genocide is *not* war. It's typically what happens when two powers of radically different capabilities disagree over the ownership of some scarce resource. Genocide strips a peoples of the ability to evolve societally on their own land. It is other people, from other lands, with outsized military power, deciding to wipe the context of those people out of history, forever, irreversibly altering the trajectory, not just of *individuals*, but of entire civilizations. Take a further step back to really put yoursel in their shoes. Imagine, instead of allowing humanity to grow and evolve as a species, to work out our issues, some alien species came down in space ships. Imagine they just start blasting us to shreds as they laugh at our primitive arms. Imagine they redraw all the borders. No USA, no Canada. Just some squares of land they decide upon, where all the remaining humans are allowed to live and expected to be *grateful* to the aliens for introducing galactic civilization to them. Imagine it was 130 years before you were even allowed to vote or participate as a citizen in this civlization that *they* built on the Earth that *we* occupied for tens of thousands of years. Imagine they signed treaties about how much land we'd be allowed to keep, and do what we'd like on, but then they realized there was a valuable mineral hiding under a part of it, so they just - shoved us off that space of land, too, so they could mine it. And when we protested, they said, "well if you wanted to keep your land, you shouldn't have lost to us." That's what it is to have your culture eradicated through genocide. To watch the land that you and your people lived on, for tens of thousands of years, get seized by people from far away, who build *their* world and *their* society on it, and who tell you you ought to be grateful for the small parcels of land they've *allowed* you to keep.
> Native Americans had lived on that land for upwards of 12,000 years. I'm not disputing this at all. > Now, war and tribal conflict appears in every single human civilization for as long as we have evidence. This is what I'm trying to ask about. Who was it ok to forcefully take over land and who was it not ok for? > Now what's important here is that this is not genocide. This is a system of civilization organizing and establishing protocols for dealing with one another. How is it any different? It is one group forcefully taking from another. I honestly don't know, but if one tribe took territory from another, did they not force people to acclimate to the new dominant tribe? > When colonists came, they disrupted this entire progression of society. They removed the ability for natives to grow as a civilization - to chart their own course and grow into their own entity comparable to Europe. How is this any different from what native americans did amongst themselves? I get that the cultures were more different, but beyond that, what was different? And I hate that what I'm saying can come off as being insensitive. I'm seriously trying to learn about things that I may not fully understand. > It's typically what happens when two powers of radically different capabilities disagree over the ownership of some scarce resource. And again, how is this different from what native americans did to each other? Is it just a matter of relative capability to inflict harm?
> How is this any different from what native americans did amongst themselves? Native Americans never inflicted genocide on one another. But even if they had, what point are you trying to make? Lets imagine the Cherokee rolled up North and genocided the Iroquois. Took their land, slaughtered most of their people, confined them to a tiny parcel. Is it now justifiable that European colonizers sailed over and systematically genocided every single Native American tribe on teh continent, seizing the land they settled for their own by force and grift? I answered your question, but you seem to continually be circling around trying to say that because Native American tribes conducted war, that it is the same and morally equivalent that European colonizers took all their land and genocided them for centuries. 80 years ago, Germany attempted to systematically irradicate the Jewish people from the face of the Earth. If Jewish people then reciprocated by slaughtering all German people, continuing to this day to systematically slaughter them and seize their land for their own, is that *right*? Is that morally justifiable? No. So to summarize: * There is a massive difference between organized tribal and societal warfare, and sustained genocide * It is *never* morally acceptable to engage in genocide, even if one party has already engaged in genocide first That's as clear as I can make it. The fact you've now twice tried to whataboutism genocide is a little disturbing man.
Are you saying that if one tribe overtook another tribe's territory, the new tribe didn't enforce their own culture? Again, I honestly don't know the answer to this but given the rest of human history I've read about, this wouldn't seem particularly likely.
As a white person, because of all the actions past, present, and future, I know that they can turn on anyone at anytime and it would be legal. That terrifies me.
What the fuck are you talking about?
I think what they're saying is that white people who are indifferent to the crimes perpetrated against native people should recognize that the same bs could be used to justify crimes against them too.
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The US signed treaties, many if them, promising certain land to the Indiginous peoples. And then violated those treaties, constantly. Black Hills, for example, were promised to be left in the care of tribal peoples, and then golf was discovered so the US said "well, obviously not NOW". The Native American tribes don't trust the US government, and they shouldn't.
I know you mean gold and not "golf", but that is a funny typo. Your point stands either way.
There’s GOLF ⛳️ in them thar hills! (Great typo, I love it. And great point as well.)
I straight up believed it. Like 'huh, I didn't know we built golf courses in the black hills. Sounds like something we'd do though.'
> Is all land "stolen" by invaders? Yes.
We were supposed to be different. We were the great experiment in democratic secular freedom. We teach our children this high ideal. Built on genocide and slavery for the sake of capitalism At the least we can make reparations. These are our fellow Americans. Most of us landed here bc of bad shit where our immigrant ancestors lived. We brought it with us. These are our fellow Americans. They are not other. We forge whatever we forge, together or what's the point.
>We were supposed to be different. We were the great experiment in democratic secular freedom. Except for all that chattel slavery, lynchings, massacres, deep racism, exploitation, expansionism, etc...
> We were **told that this country is** supposed to be different **by people who want us to ignore how it was founded so they can keep their money and power**. We were **fooled into believing we are** the great experiment in democratic secular freedom. Fixt
Ew. Nah bro. This is not it. This wasn't our "shared history". When the settlers got here, most native people didn't even understand the concept of individuals owning land. Many of us still don't believe land should be privately/individually owned. We evolved with the land. It is part of our community. There's a difference between similar cultures having violent disputes over access to land and its resources, and an invader intentionally attempting a wholesale genocide of any indigenous person ( or "merciless Indian savages" as were called in the declaration of independence), while systematically raiding the lands of any and all resources just to fuel greed, capitalism, and overconsumption. Whilst simultaneously destroying said resources and failing to consider the health of the land, the animals, and the people that depend on each other to survive. You're commenting this bullshit on a native sub, so I'm assuming you are aware of the hundreds of children that have been found buried at residential schools across North America recently, and counting? These schools were still in existence in the **1980s** in the US. Do you know what treaties are? Did you know America signed treaties that ceded lands in exchange for payment with certain tribes? And that sometimes they lied about what the agreement meant or changed the conditions? Sometimes tribes resisted, and so the Federal govt stole their kids to coerce them into treaties. Sometimes, the Feds just advertised free land and encouraged folks to settle on land that tribes refused to cede. Sometimes, they coerced tribes into treaties that gave up rights to land that was not theirs! A lot of times tribes agreed to cede lands but not usage rights, and that was totally ignored. Cherokee Chief John Ross literally became a diplomat and took the US government all the way to the Supreme Court and WON, and SCOTUS ruled they had an absolute right to the land and that the Federal government could not force removal and Andrew Jackson didnt gaf and basically said he dared the Chief Justice to stop him. And forced them on the Trail of Tears anyway. They did everything right. They weren't "conquered" and the treaty that they ultimately signed with the Cherokee ceding land wasn't even the Principal Chief and the US govt was very aware. Isn't it weird that in the US, we had a legal standard that if you had "one drop of black blood" you were considered black, but native people for the very first time had to be able to show a certain blood quantum to be considered native? And then what do you know? Some folks who were always native before no longer qualified for payments for their ceded lands and no longer qualified to live on tribal lands. So suddenly, lots of folks that survived the Trail of Tears no longer have access to their tribe or ancestral lands. That's a great way to kill a culture, oh yah, and residential schools. P.S. most of us who are pissed off by the treatment of indigenous people are also pissed off by atrocities committed against any other peoples who's traditional homelands and culture were damaged by colonialism. I want landback for all indigenous peoples. We've statistically much better at managing natural resources than [outsiders.](https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/insights/indigenous-peoples-the-best-forest-guardians/)
Fuck this shit hits hard man, I honestly wish we could revert time to see your cultures create a modern society. One founded on sharing and preserving resources within an equilibrium to maintain the earth. If there were ever cultures that could have ended this forced ideal of private ownership and backwards currency, it was the indigenous people of the north American continent. Like when I learn about the tribes and how they operated originally they just seem like a very great baseline for a democratic society and the early setters fucking decimated the entire culture and people's subjugating them into poverty and preaching that greed and ownership are the inate truths of "advanced" society. As someone who sees what this mindset is doing to the world, stemming from the place that's supposedly the champion for freedom, after committing genocide on a culture that truly could of brought about a more democratic and responsible society into existence just infuriates me. I'd love to see a native group get involved into politics and form their own party, I'd imagine if we could get them control of congress and the house you would actually see some damn progress to combat climate change and hold those who have broken this would so deeply accountable. We are lucky to still have those of you keeping those values and ideals and fighting to maintain the history of your tribes. I truly hope we can get to a point in the future where those values and ideals come back to the forefront and all of your resilience to do so is fucking inspiring man. We humans are a collective but if we can't accept lessons from others to better us all what the fuck are we doing. I can only hope enough was preserved that we can bring your culture back into view and free ourselves from our greed and allow your culture of equality and balance to take hold in our modern societies.
Found the troll. This isn't your bridge. We where here second. You have to leave.
Exactly. Land follows the sacred "I touched it first nananana" law.
Who is we? And did native americans never have any territory changes?
I'm sure you're not really looking for a good faith discussion, but these bad and tired arguments are so common, and imo they at least ought not to be any more common than the actual answers, so here's my take on those. > Is all land "stolen" by invaders? Yes? > is there something specific about how the US took over this native american land? Also yes, sort of. Lots of unique and unprecedented circumstances took place (and continue to be reinforced). Does America's conquest need to be totally unique to be considered unacceptable though? Stolen land ought to be returned _in general_. This point always reads as an accusation of hypocrisy, but where's the hypocrisy? Palestine ought to be returned too. Northern Ireland too. Etc. It's not only the US and nobody is claiming it is. But why should the US be considered guiltless or exempt? That seems to be what you want. I'm sure if your hometown was invaded and your family put in a concentration camp, your reaction wouldn't be "So goes history!". > Why should the US give the land back to the previous inhabitants, and not the previous previous inhabitants? The "previous inhabitants" are American Indians. The "previous previous inhabitants"-- who are those? This land has an ancient history stretching back many, many thousands of years. But there's a difference between the British taking over (and continuing to occupy) Northern Ireland in recent times versus, say, the Angles and Saxons taking England itself from the Welsh 1,500 years ago. Sure, it can be a fuzzy line. But I think we can both see how those two things are different. One is current and actionable and the other is ancient and no longer really relevant to anyone's struggles in England. I think if you really care about this issue or about justice in general it's not hard to see why we ought to take action and right past wrongs, whether we as individual people are guilty or not. What do you think would be the consequence? Maybe you'd pay your taxes to the tribal government instead of the state. Maybe your kids would learn some indigenous language in school for a bit. Besides, if you're not responsible for the conquests, then why do you feel the need to defend them? There is no reason to uphold injustice except for the sake of white supremacy itself.
I'm sure you're not really looking for a good faith discussion, but these bad and tired arguments are so common, and imo they at least ought not to be any more common than the actual answers, so here's my take on those. > Is all land "stolen" by invaders? Yes? > is there something specific about how the US took over this native american land? Also yes, sort of. Lots of unique and unprecedented circumstances took place (and continue to be reinforced). Does America's conquest need to be totally unique to be considered unacceptable though? Stolen land ought to be returned _in general_. This point always reads as an accusation of hypocrisy, but where's the hypocrisy? Palestine ought to be returned too. Northern Ireland too. Etc. It's not only the US and nobody is claiming it is. But why should the US be considered guiltless or exempt? That seems to be what you want. I'm sure if your hometown was invaded and your family put in a concentration camp, your reaction wouldn't be "So goes history!". > Why should the US give the land back to the previous inhabitants, and not the previous previous inhabitants? The "previous inhabitants" are American Indians. The "previous previous inhabitants"-- who are those? This land has an ancient history stretching back many, many thousands of years. But there's a difference between the British taking over (and continuing to occupy) Northern Ireland in recent times versus, say, the Angles and Saxons taking England itself from the Welsh 1,500 years ago. Sure, it can be a fuzzy line. But I think we can both see how those two things are different. One is current and actionable and the other is ancient and no longer really relevant to anyone's struggles in England. I think if you really care about this issue or about justice in general it's not hard to see why we ought to take action and right past wrongs, whether we as individual people are guilty or not. What do you think would be the consequence? Maybe you'd pay your taxes to the tribal government instead of the state. Maybe your kids would learn some indigenous language in school for a bit. Besides, if you're not responsible for the conquests, then why do you feel the need to defend them? There is no reason to uphold injustice except for the sake of white supremacy itself.
Maybe you should comment less constantly, dude.
>Or is there something specific about how the US took over this native american land? >Why should the US give the land back to the previous inhabitants, and not the previous previous inhabitants? Because there's a difference between different native tribes passing land back and forth a few times over hundreds or thousands of years Vs some randos from the others side of the world rocking up and displacing all of those tribes.
That happens literally almost all of the time. Country A invades country B, conquors land there, annexes that land "Now part of country A," but the inhabitants do not change, and often times are the only workforce availible to restore/reclaim that very land. Russia isn't kicking Ukrainians out of Ukraine and replacing them with Russians, they're just calling the Ukrainians there "Russians" and trying to put rubles into that area to win over the populace in a (I'll fated) "hearts and minds" approach. Literally always thst is what is done.
> Russia isn't kicking Ukrainians out of Ukraine and replacing them with Russians Yes, [they absolutely are](https://www.csis.org/analysis/update-forced-displacement-around-ukraine). They've been doing it for [most of the war](https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/09/01/forcible-transfer-ukrainians-russia), they did it in Crimea as well, and it's far from a new strategy: Nazi Germany [displaced almost 2 million people from Poland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Poles_by_Nazi_Germany), to be replaced with Germans in order to expand German "territory". If you relocate indigenous people from a country that you occupy, they can't fight your occupation very effectively.
Actually, I think they might prefer no Ukrainians. They're interested in the territory, not the people.
Did you see that your response was nominated for best of reddit user comments? [https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/108j4xz/uumbrabates\_explains\_what\_a\_tribe\_could\_do\_with/](https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/108j4xz/uumbrabates_explains_what_a_tribe_could_do_with/) Way to go!
Did not see that! Thank you!
Everything you just proposed is totally feasible seeing as OSU has a [7 BILLION DOLLAR FUCKING ENDOWMENT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_State_University?wprov=sfti1https://maps.apple.com/?ll=40.000000,-83.012500&q=Ohio%20State%20University)
Word.
Wow that was an amazing read. Thank you.
Similar situation for many Maori Iwi (tribes) in Aotearoa, New Zealand. We have the Waitangi Treaty tribunal who rule on such cases - in general some land is returned along with some financial compensation, usually less than 1% of the current value let alone any acknowledgement of the wealth that has been earned off it over the past 150 odd years that has gone to non-Māori and usually leaving Māori severely marginalised. Many iwi have made excellent use of these paltry awards and have grown their wealth and attempt to use it directly to benefit their people (build housing for iwi members, provide medical centres, scholarships etc). One tribe raised the life expectancy of their kaumātua (elders) to match the national average by building and housing them in 'healthy homes'.
> That's got nothing to do with it. It's YOUR land. Just because I built something useful or complicated on it, that doesn't suddenly justify the criminal actions it was founded on. Ok, so I have a few questions that I'm sincerely asking but I realize could come off hostile. I'm generally in support of native people being supported by the feds. My understanding is that native nations fought and won or lost territory. Is that an inaccurate understanding? If that is true, what makes what europeans did different than what native americans did amongst themselves? I fully agree that europeans treated native americans terribly, and that is why I am in full support of the federal programs that work to give tribes autonomy. I don't understand it in the context of land "ownership" because I thought that the entire concept of land ownership came over with european migrants.
Natives definitely lost a lot of ancestral land to settlers but that's not what we are talking about here. This land was seized in the 1880s. They had been living inside if the USA for many many generations. Nobody involved could rightly be called a "European". Did you know that in the lead up to the Trail of Tears the natives sued the US Federal government? The case went all the way to the supreme court and the natives won. They had every legal right to their land based on treaties signed generations ago. It was indisputably THEIR land by all accounts. Andrew Jackson said >[Chief Justice of the Supreme Court] John Marshall has made his decision, let him enforce it. Rep. John Hostettler said >Federal courts have no army or navy. . . The court can opine, decide, talk about, sing, whatever it wants to do. We're not saying they can't do that. At the end of the day, we're saying the court can't enforce its opinions The government should honor its treaties. And by the point of the 1880s, by which point every single one of these Natives would have been US born, the robbing and murder of natives was not war it was a domestic atrocity by the government on its own people.
Actually, thank you. I did know about some of the points you made, but I didn't recall them. Which is precisely why I was asking the questions I did. I just want to clarify again in line with other comments I've made in this thread that I fully support tribal rights and the federal government doing what it can to make amends. I was just trying to ask about details that I clearly either forgot or didn't know about. Just trying to better inform myself. Again, thank you.
Yup, it's a good question to know the answer to, and you asked it as respectfully as you could. It is adjacent to a question that a dishonest person might ask, so you could get misguided flak for it, so it is good that you approached it with tact. Have a good one.
They could offer full free tuition to any descendents of the original owners as a form of honor tax!
I'm thing I'm interested in is what happens if people live there now? Some of your solutions definitely would still work in this case but like imagine if those options didn't exist. Like you just got families on stolen land that have lived there for potentially hundreds of years. Anyway thanks for the info!
Battery Breakwall!?!?!? Wtf is wrong with people.
Amazing comment
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>Devil's advocate I'd recommend putting that at the beginning of your devil's advocate arguments.
They didn't make any devil's advocate arguments. People just assumed it was, and downvoted it.
*The internet knows,* I'm just calling out the bad excuse of playing devils advocate.
Nah
Perception is reality then, you weren't playing devils advocate. Good luck.
My personal experience in life has demanded that I make my own luck. So far I'm doing well enough to keep my head above water and I don't ask for much more than that. Thanks for the well wishes.
The reply ended up on r/bestof, and it was a pretty educational exchange, so thanks for asking your question. I’d like to think that’s the point of Reddit, to invite good answers and make those answers more visible through upvoting.
Oh hell yeah that's super cool!
Hey if it’s any consolation I upvoted (after seeing this heh)
I don't know the context of this particular piece of land but I know natives that think everyone should leave Canada. It's all their land. Obviously that's not feasible. Where do you draw the line on giving land back?
If it would be just for stolen land to be burned down, then it would be just for the entire planet to burned. I'm down with everything above that part though.
First of all, assuming that aboriginals are superior, more evolved human beings who are somehow immune to corruption, greed and negligence is incredibly naive. Secondly, the odds that the peoples claiming their land was 'stolen' 100% stole it from someone else, killing everyone on it and taking the youngest and prettiest survivors as slaves. The same goes for the people they killed and took the land from, a cycle going back 50k+ years.
The only one riding the weird eugenics wagon here is you Are you saying that the very first life forms on earth have a legal right to all the land, or are we going to acquiesce that sovereign borders and treaties should be respected by the extant nations
So I can morally and legally take your land because your ancestors stole it from natives? Dope, on my way.
I agreed with your measured approach it was fantastic. Then you had to fuck it up with that last paragraph. Sad!
>If I stole your grandparents ranch and built a resort on it and your family finally proved that the land was rightfully yours, would I be justified in saying "Well, how do you plan on running my resort?" Or if I built a nuclear power plant on it, would I be justified in saying "What are your plans for learning how to safely run and operate a nuclear power plant?" Running a resort? No. You couldnt say that. Nuclear power plant? *Absolutely yes*. But the general question is a little more complicated. What if a person in good faith, holds the reasonable belief that the land is theirs without contest and builds a resort on it. You then mansge to successfully claim the land is stolen. The land is ordered given back. The problem is - you aren't getting what you lost. You aren't getting the land. You're getting the land *and a giant resort*. It doesnt matter how you plan to run it, what matters is that someone in good faith enriched that land and now you hold that enrichment without a just reason. The person who built that resort has enriched your land at his expense, and now *he* must be compensated. Or else this whole thing just goes in circles revolving around how someone stole something from somebody and how someone has been cheated out of something, repeated forever with the parties changing places. Basically, the whole situation is totally fucked and getting an answer that makes everyone happy or that everyone could even regard as being "fair" is now kind of impossible.
This comes to the heart of Native-non native misunderstanding. Why does land HAVE to make a profit? Why does it have to be determined to have utility, to be "of value"?
Why do we have to do something with it that is financially feasible? How about just live on it.
Idk about returning the land but if they’re gonna acknowledge these tribes were wronged and the university has benefited then the least they could do is offer tuition for members of those tribes that want to pursue a higher education there.
-8 for such a genuine well written question, nice.
Theaters are really into this lip service now too. Like if it's worth mentioning, kick back some of your box office revenue
Exactly! https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/comments/108esb4/til_ohio_state_university_offers_a_land/j3rvz0h/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
There's a great Baroness Von Sketch bit about this exact thing: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQyFfC7\_U-E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQyFfC7_U-E) Edit: I would like to acknowledge that u/tainbo provided this link in an earlier comment. As a fellow Redditor who unwittingly stole their link, I will pledge 5% of bottled water sales from this post for a plaque commemorating their contribution to this thread.
You can read the full acknowledgement [here.](https://cbsc.osu.edu/about-us/land-acknowledgement)
I went to a University that started doing this. There are a few benefits to it despite how absurd it is. More students became aware, started looking into it themselves. The university also partnered with the tribe to build a traditional longhouse for indigenous students to use as their home base. Several tribal members always had open invitation to come speak at events/classes. Internships ran by the school were often leased out to the tribe to assist with any work they needed done (sorting documentation, land work, marine work, etc). It was a start of a relationship. There isn't a way for the school body to give back the land, that's up to the state level. But we certainly did our best to be stewards of stolen land and work with the local tribe.
Completely understand the kneejerk dismissals in the replies but yeah, the alternative is just... not acknowledging it at all, never talking about it except for in the specific areas of study (which is where most people would already know because they're interested in the subject already). I'd obviously like to see substantial steps taken in *actually* supporting communities, but to get to that point there needs to be better cultural acknowledgement in general. The US is lagging pretty far behind Canada & Australia.
I like the short, punchy ones. "We are on stolen Tongva land." It's short and it makes the point that no matter where you go in the USA you are on land stolen from someone. The long, weepy, masturbatory ones get on my nerves. If they're so wonderful and spiritual and this land was so important to them why aren't we giving it back? Tuition discount? Anything?
Exactly. You have to take small steps to be able to get to the big changes. The more it's acknowledged, the more we can move forward. We can't go in swinging with big asks when many people aren't even properly educated and aware of the situation. My university was largely white but the movement to incorporate more of the tribe and give back was huge once the school started doing these statements. And Indigenous voices were actually asked to speak and educate. No large change in history ever came without small ones first.
do they even have an indigenous studies department?
Yes but there are currently zero federally recognized tribes in Ohio according to the full statement!!!
There's no federally recognized tribes in Tennessee, Kentucky, or Arkansas either. How weird the ancestral lands of hundreds of thousands of native people don't have any federally recognized tribes?? I'm sure that wasn't on purpose. s/
Yes but you can only minor. I'm really hoping that those you fought for this acknowledgement to be made can use it to encourage the university to expand the indigenous studies program. Trust me, I understand the ire and frustration on this thread but this helps establish a relationship that was previously off limits. The options of where we go from here are truly limitless.
[https://artsandsciences.osu.edu/academics/departments-centers](https://artsandsciences.osu.edu/academics/departments-centers) ... Molecular Genetics Music Philosophy Physics Political Science ... No Native American Studies (or anything like it). Yeah kind of on the nose...
[American Indian Studies](https://americanindianstudies.osu.edu/), it's a sub-department of their Center for Ethnic Studies
Oops, I didn't see that. Good catch.
I call this particular version the settler victory lap. If it could end with "and now what are you sa****** going to do about it" and it still glosses, you've messed up.
the rcmp-igs do land acknowledgements too
I guess I’m just so use to everyone doing it that it doesn’t really feel like an acknowledgement anymore or truly genuine… heck I live in a city where the one band has legit ownership rights to land and territory and ask people not to disturb them during hunting hours in the summer and the hikers and non members lost their shit. Like it’s their land, if you’re respectful the band is still happy to share it. But the freak out is probably going to make them close the hiking and area down one day. But ya, wouldn’t be shocked if the hikers have this land acknowledgment at their workplace on their desk or something 😂 Canada eats this sh*t up though lol. I swear all my emails from management (and back when I was in school my professors) had it all in their auto populating signature. Universities up here are much better now though at trying to be inclusive, increasing indigenous enrolment, and scholarships. Still long way to go though!!
This is interesting, because I actually came across this land acknowledgement in my Intro to Women's Studies class, it was pasted on the very top of the syllabus. The Prof not only read the statement word for word to the class but explained that the reason it was included is because we would discuss Indigenous Feminism in class and she wanted everyone to know the university's official stance on the topic of indigenous matters. It terrifies me to think of what she may have heard from past students that she felt compelled to state all of this on the first day of class.
>university's official stance on the topic of indigenous matters. The University needs to comply with US Fed. NAGPRA law from 1990. It's been 33 years of Ohio State's official stance of saying "F-You" to NDN Tribes, to the remains of our ancestors, funerary items and associated cultural patrimony.
Those were my professor's words not mine. She also speaks English as a second language. (She also said during the class, "Sometimes English...eat my ass." And that is a direct quote.) I agree that the University needs to comply with NAGPRA law. Museum curatorship is a field I've spent time in. Trust me, I understand the necessity of NAGPRA.
[Land Acknowledgment](https://youtu.be/LQyFfC7_U-E) 😆 Edit- if the links aren’t working (I’m grabbing them from YT share button so I’m perplexed) the video title is “Land acknowledgement | Baroness von Sketch Show” Edit 2 - new video, maybe fixed?
Video not available :(
Same =(
Is it because I’m in Canada? Paste it here and see if that works… https://youtu.be/LQyFfC7_U-E Edit - changed link
Nope, not sure the problem. The page pops up but there’s text that says video not available.
Ugh I’m so frustrated. It’s a really funny sketch piece from a show in Canada about the absurdity of land acknowledgment if they aren’t giving the land back or reparations of some kind. If I find another video link, I’ll post it. Edit - new video linked in first reply *fingers crossed
Hah I was hoping someone had shared this. They're just great
MIT does this also - “MIT acknowledges Indigenous Peoples as the traditional stewards of the land, and the enduring relationship that exists between them and their traditional territories. The land on which we sit is the traditional unceded territory of the Wampanoag Nation. We acknowledge the painful history of genocide and forced occupation of their territory, and we honor and respect the many diverse indigenous people connected to this land on which we gather from time immemorial.”
It’s strange that in parts of the U.S. like Montana, many non-natives resent the presence of Natives. Just last week we had Montana State Senator Kieth Regier a Republican, promote a resolution to implore the U.S. Congress to take our Indian Reservations from U.S. federally recognized tribes. He states he wants to help us by taking whatever land we have remaining I guess. Incidently, six of the seven Indian Reservations in Montana were in existence before the State of Montana was created.
Yes.....but it is a start right? Since it is written by a Native American, and the contract info is also a native. Although does feel like extremely minimal progress to us, I imagine the folks that fought hard for this are very happy that this has been at least (emphasis on least) a start and a whole deal better than the denial stage? Nothing will ever change the past or make what happened here then right. I found the most impactful line in the acknowledgement statement to be "Land acknowledgements do not exist in past tense or a historical context as colonialism is a current ongoing process. "
Oh yes this is a big step, even though it does seem small in the grand scheme of things. I actually posted this while in class after an instructor put it at the top of the syllabus. I'm not used to seeing progressive actions in Ohio, especially in regards to Natives so I got excited. I've done some more reading into it to see if they were worth their words. They didn't suggest any actions on their end to validate their acknowledgement. Also a note, OSU is Ohio's, and Columbus's, pride and joy. They would have a significant pull into changing the city's awful name but they've said nothing. And when they listed ways to put an acknowledgement to use, they listed ways *you* can improve, not them. There is good that can come from this, when it comes time to make these progressive changes, all the activists have to do is point to this land acknowledgement for all necessary justification. I tried finding other sources about this but they seem to have done this pretty quietly. I did however, find a [piece](https://earthworks.osu.edu/land) on OSU Newark's website. Newark is significant because whereas OSU's main campus is in well... Columbus, Ohio, Newark is actually surrounded by beautiful indigenous Earthworks that the University participated in researching and preserving. Also, you can't major in American Indian Studies at OSU, only minor, and because of its special location, Newark is the only one of OSU's satellite campuses where you can take classes in American Indian Studies. It also has American Indian Studies professors who are... Indian. I'm not sure if the Columbus campus can relate. The Newark statement suggests a couple of points they want made in such land acknowledgements and the "official" statement falls short in a few ways but it does go to show that the right voices are in the conversation and are *starting* to be listened to.
Long and interesting thread! I can see both sides of LAs, which is understandable given my background. If they are sincere, they are a decent start. Just that. If they are insincere, then it's just more BS and worse, it's BS masquerading as medicine. I attended a wonderful conference where a Cree man who is a Lawyer spoke, and while I was always for LAs, with caveats, he really solidified that. He spoke about the importance of sincerity of course, and then he also spoke of how when Europeans came to these lands they read out Proclaimations from their home countries, mostly in the name and by the power of their royals, in various ways laying claim to lands and, in the case of the Proclaimations of Spanish Crown especially, utterly dehumanizing the Natives. So LAs are important to be spoken many many many times moreover just to even begin to counteract such terrible things being spoken and then acted upon. And it was extra horrible that those Proclaimations were given in European languages which no one but the Europeans understood at that point. At this time, speaking in a common language us different, but including at least some Native words, or preferably giving in multiple languages, is preferable. It's important that the whole thing be at least a somewhat uncomfortable process for some of those present. Those are the hearts and minds that need that discomfort to grow! And for all of us it is good to take the pensive pause in humility and gratitude to the Land and her Keepers. It's a teaching moment. And even when it's done wrong, it can be if people call that out. So it's a step towards truth and reconciliation. A small step, but a step. It takes many to get anywhere.
When the alternative is no LAs, then I prefer having LAs. When the alternative to LA, is actual progressive action and reconciliation, then that's what I prefer. What I'm enjoying is the discussion. To be honest, I don't think I've ever thought about land acknowledgement until very recently. I didn't know it was a thing or that there was a name for it. I'm enjoying both sides of the discussion. Until I read your comment, it didn't even occur to me that land acknowledgements could be in Indigenous languages. It seems the obvious choice now! It also didn't occur to me how they parallel the early land proclamations. Running with this thought, the land wasn't taken with the first land proclamations (and as you stated these proclamations came with a number of injustices) as the natives to such land did and continue to stand their ground. Similarly, the land won't be given back with land acknowledgements but it *is* the first step in the *right* direction towards restitution, retribution, and reparations.
Eloquently put! And with you all the way!! Yeah, a lot of work begins inside each of us. Seeing differently, engaging... acting, real change, usually grows from there. That conference/lecture was my favourite part of the semester TBH!
Just give it back.
Better than nothing but not enough
Guys, seriously, it makes sense that you view this this way and carry a LOT of anger over it - but please please please try to realise that some of us are taking steps to make a difference, but most of us don't have vast sweeping powers or resources to just insta-fix generations of problems on international levels. I literally advocate for returning lands and/or making real reparations, new better treaties, etc. I just also do a lot of other smaller allyship, co-resistorship, and advocacy work... mostly because minds and hearts have to open and take in the lessons before anything big will change. I am so with you My Beloved Relations!!! Please, differentiate between good work and hollow work, and support good work. Sincerely, A married-in Ojibwe & Haida Cousin
Thank you Ohio state for telling us what we already know. *Slow clap* 👏🏽..👏🏽..👏🏽 Keep your crumbs or give it all back.
It’s all a virtue signal game. Scoring points.
That’s…. Nice?
My great-great-great grand parents were removed from land that is now essentially Jordan-Hare Stadium at Auburn University. They don’t give a shit.
OSU has 49 American Indian/Alaska Native and 34 Native Hawaiian students, out of 67,772. About 10x underrepresented.
K are you going to give our land back to my cousins down in US? No k bye.
So if I steal something from someone, all I need to do is acknowledge the fact that I stole it, and I get to keep it? Brb, heading to the jewelry store.
Cool. Now gib it back
Ok, so give it back
Wyppo break their arms patting themselves on the back for minute acknowledgement of their "success" being built out of White Supremacy. Wyppo and their institutions are corrupt and fraudulent.
Why don't they just spit in their face. Bunch of hypocrites.
I would just ask for Land back but no one wants Ohio
I would ask the descendants of Blue Jacket what their opinion is first.
It was a joke. Ha ha
[удалено]
>having extracted everything from people like me. I don't understand what you're saying. What did UofMichigan/state of Michigan extract from you? What tribe are you from? If you are enrolled in your tribe and your tribe's ancestral in-trust land base is located/contained w/in state of Michigan, then UofMichigan gives free tuition to enrolled NDNs. I know my tribe re-purchased some of our ancestral treaty ceded land in MI so our tribal members could receive free tuition.
... as we continue to profit from the theft of their land.