Indigenous People’s Day: Whose Land Do We Occupy?

Written by Sam Turgeon

In honor of this year’s Indigenous People’s Day, I’d like to do a land acknowledgment recognizing the Tunxis, Poquonook, Wangunk, and Sicaog tribes. These tribes all inhabited the area surrounding the Connecticut River Valley and the land that USJ is located on. If you would like to research the Indigenous inhabitants of the land that you live on, there is a spectacular website called Native Land Digital, which allows users to input a zip code or address and receive results about the tribes who once lived in that area.

Land acknowledgments are a way to honor these groups. A land acknowledgment can take place at the beginning of any event or presentation and includes a spoken recognition of the Native American tribes that occupied the land that the event is taking place on. If you find yourself with a microphone or speaking to a crowd in the future, don’t forget to pay tribute to the Tunxis, Poquonook, Wangunks, and Sicaog. The Native Governance center has a valuable guide to land acknowledgments, which can ensure that your land acknowledgment accomplishes its correct purpose: raising awareness and action about the struggles that Indigenous communities still face today.

It is difficult to find information about many of these tribes, but valuable tidbits can be found through careful research. Many of these groups and tribes have been brushed aside by history, and America has only recently begun to pay more respect to its Indigenous people. The retitling of Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day is a step in the right direction, but there is still more work to be done. The lack of easily accessible information about Indigenous languages and cultures is a testament to the disrespect that they have received on the behalf of the American government. We all should work to learn more about the original inhabitants of this land, and to honor those who have been forcefully displaced. A good starting place for this research may be the aforementioned Native Governance Center whose website explains the importance of “strengthening [native] governance systems, and capacity to exercise sovereignty.” Another potential starting place is the Native American Rights Fund, or NARF, an organization that works to hold governments accountable for crimes against native people.

I hope that this article inspires you to pay more attention to the struggles that indigenous people have faced, both in the past and in modern times. We all owe a great deal of respect to Indigenous groups and should work with them to ensure that their cultures are remembered and celebrated today.