As members of the Washtenaw Community College community, we humbly acknowledge that the campus occupies the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary lands of diverse native peoples. The taking of this land was formalized, in a process alien to native cultures, by the Treaty of Detroit in 1807, with the Anishinaabe (ä-ni-shi-ˈnȯ-bā), including the Odawa, Ojibwe (ō-ˈjib- wā) and Potawatomi (pätəˈwätəmē) (also spelled Pottawatomi and Pottawatomie), and with the Wyandot (wī-ən-ˌdät). Many other native peoples lived on this land at different times including the Fox, Sauk ( ˈsȯk ), Shawnee ( shȯ-ˈnē ), Kickapoo ( ˈkikəˌpü ), Miami (mē-ä-mē), Musketoon ( ˌməskəˈtün ), and Cherokee ( ˈcher-ə- ˌkē ).
Since the origin of the college in 1965, we have benefited from the use of this land where we work and study, and from its life, beauty, and spirit. We recognize our responsibility to understand and care for this land, and we honor, with our deepest gratitude, the native people who have stewarded it for generations.
Acknowledgment by itself is a small gesture. But let this step be an opening to greater public consciousness of Native history, sovereignty and cultural rights, and a step toward equitable relationship and reconciliation.
By The Sustainability Literacy Task Force (2021)