Land Acknowledgement

The Baltimore Writing Center Project acknowledges Indigenous peoples past, present, and future as the rightful and traditional protectors and caretakers of their native lands in what is known today as the United States. We recognize that as institutional parts of our Baltimore area universities digital and nondigital spaces we participate in the historical, ongoing, and violent legacy of land theft initiated by white, colonialist settlers who first invaded the Chesapeake region in the 17th century. Specifically, our writing centers operate on the ancestral lands of Iroquoian-speaking Susquehannock peoples and Algonquian-speaking peoples of the Cedarville Band of the Piscataway Conoy, the Piscataway Indian Nation, and the Piscataway Conoy Tribe, all of whom shared this area through their relations and whose descendants are thriving and resisting settler occupation.

We also acknowledge our complicity in the historical, deliberate, and ongoing attempts by setters and their systems of oppression to appropriate Indigenous cultures, ignore or break treaties with sovereign Native Nations, and perpetrate and obfuscate racist and violent acts of political, social, economic, and ecological white supremacy. We further acknowledge the fundamental role that these colonialist acts have and continue to play in the historical and contemporary disenfranchisement, surveillance, and harm of Black Americans.

Recognizing these intertwining injustices, this land acknowledgement serves as an opening to contemplate the continuing resistance to colonial indoctrination through various Indigenous and Black movements for identity, freedom, and self-determination. We commit our sites of learning to ending anti-Black racism, modern colonialism, and white supremacy and to creating equitable relations that honor and heal communities and the land. We further advocate for ecological, relational, social, and political restoration and healing through the return of Native and Indigenous lands to their sovereign, rightful stewards.

We ask that readers of this acknowledgement join us in supporting the following local organizations and projects:

To learn more about local Indigenous history and contemporary affairs, including those of Lumbee and Cherokee communities, consider these resources:

To engage with national Indigenous issues and organizations, see these resources:

For guidance for creating a land acknowledgment, view these resources: