We are founded on stolen land and Indigenous people are still here.
If you have access to land and wealth, consider your place in the lineage of this theft and how you might contribute to its healing, how you might reimagine your relationship to the land you are on.
From creating a cultural easement for gathering rights, offering access to a space or writing us into your will or nonprofits dissolution documents, we are dreaming with our supporters to build many paths of radical reciprocity that are a part of rematriation and land return.
“As long time racial justice activists, we are choosing not to perpetuate the unearned privilege of passing on our home within our White families…”
From a letter about rematriating a home to Sogorea Te’ Land Trust
Read the full letter here.
Creative collaborations with our allies have opened up gardens to grow our food in, neighborhood projects have cultivated plants for us to make medicine with, and allies have opened their access to privatized land allowing us to create Lisjan and build ceremonial spaces including the first Ohlone arbor in territory for more than 200 years.
If you have more than you need, consider rematriating.
“The only compensation for land is land.”
Winona LaDuke
Rematriation Resources
Recommended Readings
Check out our in progress Recommended Reading List.
Read one of these pieces and talk to someone about it!
Start a study group with your family, friends, collective, business, coop, nonprofit. Go on walk and talks with your neighbors, organize your community, penpal with your grandma. Talk about the land you are on and how you got here. How has your family benefitted or been impacted by legacies of colonization? What does it mean to you to be on stolen land? What does it mean to recognize this history? How can allies we go beyond acknowledgement? How can we rematriate? Learn about how other communities are healing the history of the land our relationships to it.
Questions About Home for Reflection
These are Questions About Home is an for exercise is for non-native people to learn and reflect on the history and current struggles of Indigenous people, and to begin thinking about our role in colonization and decolonization. By Qwul’sih’yah’maht, Robina Thomas (Lyackson of the Coast Salish Nation) with input from our founders Corrina Gould (Chochenyo and Johnella LaRose (Shoshone-Bannock), Nick Tilsen (Oglala-Lakota), Annie Morgan Banks and Chanelle Gallant.
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Tips for Difficult Conversations
Check out these tips for talking about Settle Colonialism and other difficult conversations from Showing Up for Racial Justice Albuquerque.
Resource Guide for Indigenous Solidarity Funding Projects
This is a Resource Guide for Indigenous Solidarity Funding Projects compiled by the Indigenous Solidarity Network and representatives from Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, Real Rent Duwamish, and the Manna-hatta Fund.
Reparations Map for Black and Indigenous farmers and land projects from SoulFire Farm.
Land Returns and Rematriation Examples
Churches Return Land to Indigenous Groups (2020)
Churches Return Land to Indigenous Groups
Religious News Wire, December 2020
Yale Union Art Center in Portland, OR (2020)
Penobscot Nation, Maine (2020)
More than 700 Acres of Ancestral Land Returned to Penobscot Nation
Press Herald, October 2020
Esselen Tribe Land Return, Big Sur CA (2020)
Northern California Esselen tribe regains ancestral land after 250 years
The Guardian, July 2020
Alma de Mujer outside Austin, TX (2019)
Alma de Mujer Center for Social Change
Woman gives money from farm land sale back to tribe who once hunted there (2019, Kansas)
The Wichitah Eagle, February 2019
Ponca Land Return (2018)
In Historic First, Nebraska Farmer Returns Land to Ponca Tribe Along “Trail of Tears
Bold Nebraska, June 2018
Sierra stewards listen to the trees, and a California tribe regains an ancestral land
The Sacramento Bee, June 2018
Tuluwat (portion of) returned to Wiyot Tribe in Eureka, CA (2018)
Tuluwat Project
Wiyot.Us
The Coming Home Song: Wiyot People Joyous as Eureka City Council Takes Another Step Towards Returning Indian Island
Redheaded Blackbelt, December 2018
The Wiyot Tribe’s Long Path to Renewing Indian Island
KHSU Diverse Public Radio, August 2018
Richardson Ranch in Sonoma, CA (2017)
How This Tribe Got Their Coastal California Lands Returned
Yes Magazine, April 2018
Sonoma Coast’s Stewarts Point becomes part of historic agreement for coastal ranch
The Press Democrat, February 2017
Professor gives $250K to Ute Indian Tribe to compensate for great-grandparents profiting off tribal land sales
The Salt Lake Tribune, September 2017
Return of the Sinkyone- Land & People
Return of the Sinkyone—Land&People
The Trust for Public Land, 1998
International
South Africa Confronts a Legacy of Apartheid
The Atlantic, May 2019
New Zealand to pay colonial compensation
Al Jazeera, May 2013
Australia Aboriginals win right to sue for colonial land loss
Al Jazeera, March 2014