Acknowledgement of Seattle’s First Nations
Green Seattle Partnership Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that the city of Seattle and its greenspaces are on stolen Coast Salish land, specifically the ancestral land of the Duwamish, Suquamish, Stillaguamish, and Muckleshoot People. We recognize the stewardship of Seattle’s greenspaces by the Coast Salish people since time immemorial, the disruption of this work by colonization, and now endeavor to continue this work.
We make this acknowledgment to remind ourselves that, by being here today, we strive to remedy this injustice through our beliefs and actions in helping to steward our green spaces and communities in Seattle.
The Importance of Practicing Land Acknowledgment
We offer land acknowledgement because Native land was taken by force and colonized to form the United States as we know it today. Through this process, which is ongoing through systematic oppression, Native identity, history, and land ownership has been ignored by colonizers and attempted to be erased. Land Acknowledgement is the first step in opposing the systematic oppression and historic erasure of Native people and Native Land ownership. The following resources are provided to support partners new to land acknowledgement, as well as those interested in understanding our collective history as a path to social and environmental justice. We have learned that the act of land acknowledgement is powerful, and requires deeper research, analysis, relationship building, and action to do it with integrity.
GSP hosted a workshop in 2019 at the Duwamish Longhouse to learn both about land acknowledgment as a practice and indigenous stewardship (below left). The US Department of Arts and Culture video (below right) offers additional insight on how to formulate your own land acknowledgement statement.
Additional resources:
- “The Invasion of America: How the United States took over an eight of the world.”
- US Department of Arts and Culture Guide “Honor Native Land: Are You hesitating?”
- Burke Museum Waterlines Project
- Burke Museum Tips for Teaching about Native Peoples
- Treaty of Point Elliot
- How can we offer land acknowledgement with integrity?
Washington’s Tribes
To learn more about the ancestral boundaries of native lands and tribes throughout North America, explore the Native Lands map (right).
In the act of recognizing the ownership of the lands in this state by native people since time immemorial, we encourage you to explore the official websites of Washington’s Tribes listed below to learn more about their culture and identity.