We are invited and challenged to learn more about the lands we inhabit, the history of "our" lands, and how to co-create a better future going forward together.
Our house is built on land that was once inhabited by the Pocumtuc people, part of the Mohican tribe. "They were decimated by warfare with the powerful Mohawks, from what is now New York State, by small pox epidemics after European contact, and also from warfare with the European settlers and their allies." The European settlers, in turn, were justified to take the land as their own by the Doctrine of Discovery, the first international law, one that granted the rights to land not occupied by white people to the white "discoverer". Click it, it explains so much. The Pocumtuc's central gathering place was where the Deerfield River meets the Connecticut River, a place just a few miles from "our" yard.
This screen grab shows where the the Deerfield River meets the Connecticut. This was a primary village place for the Pocumtuc people. As I write this, Debbie is swimming, as she does every day she can, in the south-dipping elbow of the Deerfield that you can see on the map just a mile east of the Connecticut.
I learned that the Pocumtuc lived so close to where we live by Googleing it. But this ambitious website project lets me see where hundreds of native tribes called home before colonists claimed their land as their own.
"The mission of Native Land is simple: Native Land Digital strives to create and foster conversations about the history of colonialism, Indigenous ways of knowing, and settler-Indigenous relations, through educational resources such as our map and Territory Acknowledgement Guide. We strive to go beyond old ways of talking about Indigenous people and to develop a platform where Indigenous communities can represent themselves and their histories on their own terms. In doing so, Native Land Digital creates spaces where non-Indigenous people can be invited and challenged to learn more about the lands they inhabit, the history of those lands, and how to actively be part of a better future going forward together."
Let's get started. Indigenous lives matter. A lot.
Website: Native Land