HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021 Native American Land AcknowledgmentCOLUMBIA HEIGHTS
NATIYE AMERICAN LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We collectively acknowledge that we are holding this meeting on the ancestral and
contemporary lands of the Dakota, Anishinaabe, and Ho-Chunk peoples. When settlers
arrived here to expand the territory of the American colonial project, these indigenous
nations were the rightful inhabitants and stewards of the land, and they remain so to this day.
The main treaty between the US and the Dakota people, the Treaty of the Traverse Des
Sioux, was signed in t85t. More than forty treaties were signed with the Anishinaabe,
culminating with the Mille Lacs Treaty of 1865. While our indigenous neighbors have
recognized and respected these treaties as binding international law for over l5o years, most
of these treaties were not honored by the United States government or the State of
Minnesota. lnstead, the land we now occupy was taken from these sovereign nations through
Federal and State policies and forced removal.
As citizens and residents of this land, we affirm the responsibility of the United States and
the State of Minnesota to respect and uphold the rights of the Dakota, Anishinaabe, and Flo-
Chunk nations. This sovereignty includes the right to protect Native water and land
resources from the encroachment of mining, dumping, and pipelines, which all pose a threat
to the health and integrity of native land and peoples, and by extension, to all of us who live
in this land.
By offering this land acknowledgment, we honor the legacy and the future of indigenous
peoples in this place.
Amd a Mdrquez Simula, Mayor
May lO, 2021
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