Land Acknowledgement

We begin this course with a land acknowledgement, because this course is about environmental stewardship, and the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi people lovingly stewarded the lands that the University of Michigan is on for hundreds of years before colonists arrived. In addition, we hope these words will serve as a reminder of our collective responsibility to right past and ongoing injustices.

The University of Michigan is located on the territory of the Anishinaabe people. The Ann Arbor campus currently resides on land ceded through the Treaty of Detroit in 1807. Additionally, in 1817, the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Bodewadami Nations made the largest single land transfer to the University of Michigan, ceded through the Treaty of Fort Meigs, with the hope that their children could be educated. We acknowledge the sovereignty of tribal lands and the painful history of genocide, forced assimilation, and displacement of Native communities that facilitated the establishment of the University. We affirm contemporary and ancestral Anishinaabek ties to this land, the profound contributions of Native Americans to this institution, and the University’s commitment to educate the children of Native ancestors.