What if, when settlers arrived on Turtle Island, they learned from Indigenous peoples, joining their communities with humility and contributing new ideas, rather than arriving with a culture of exploitation and white supremacy? 

That is the vision of a decolonial, Indigenous future that many of us are working towards; a world in which Indigenous people are the guiding force behind all land governance decisions, based on knowledge our people have maintained in spite of attempted erasure, derived from hundreds if not thousands of years of intimate reciprocal relationship with our living homelands.  A future in which diaspora peoples of all ethnicities have a welcomed place and home on these lands, with responsibilty, community permanence and reciprocity that brings them into Indigenous relationality.  

This may be a long way off, but many, many of us are working with love, determination, and ferocity towards this future. In my work as an interethnic person, raised to be ‘for’ my Indigenous community, and committed to serving the strengthening of our Nations, when I talk about Land Back, this is the end goal I envision.  Land Back requires four transformative efforts; Education, Relationship Building, Supporting Indigenous Autonomy, and supporting Land Back efforts directly.

01. Education: Understanding History 

Most non-Indigenous people know close to nothing about Indigenous culture, history, or contemporary realities.  Often, if the average colonial citizen learns about us, it is either through a primitivized,  romanticized, or a savage lens.  All of these perceptions are damaging to hold, and prevent building power together.  First of all, we encourage settler-descendents to explore the colonial indoctrination they have received to identify where they may hold these beliefs in unconscious but impactful ways.  Ultimately, this involves tending to and healing ancestral wounds.  The tactics of colonialism involve disconnecting people from their land, communities, families, and cosmologies in order to extend power and control. Most of our European ancestors experienced this violently enforced disconnection generations before it was perpetrated on Turtle Island.  And, many of our European ancestors went on to perpetrate that abuse on others.  Acknowledging that we are all descendents of landed cultures with Indigenous teachings, but that some of us have lost these teachings either recently or far back in time, can be a powerful awareness to build as we learn to build balanced relationships with one another. It is equally important to acknowledge the violence that our ancestors may have enacted, and be able to stand in that deep truth.  None of us are responsible for the actions of our ancestors, but we are responsible for what we do to heal the harms caused, healing our lineages as well.  

Then, learn about Indigenous political history!  When folks understand the history of colonialism, forced economic dependency, boarding schools, land theft and lies; the history of water and environmental contamination, of economic manipulation and the lack of options for financial sustainability of our Nations due to this history, then it is possible to see our communities clearly for the incredible beauty we retain, while navigating the struggles that are a result of these histories. Learning Indigenous anticolonial histories of resistance and continuance is also a powerful strategic practice to inform intercultural resistance to the colonial culture and extractive capitalism and the collective future building efforts that many of us are committed to.   Our communities are complex, but not broken.  Our cultures and teachings are impacted, but, miraculously, they remain.

02. Build your Relationships

Say hello to your place!  Where do you live now? Whose traditional homeland is it? Where were/are the trails?  What are the traditional foods and medicines of the people? Which place names and words are Indigenous words?  What are those people up to now?  Do they have any calls out to the broader community to support any efforts?  

Introduce yourself to the land. ‘Land’ includes the Earth, animals, plants, elements, sky, and ancestral spirits present.  If your cosmology doesn’t include ancestral spirits, you can just introduce yourself to the ecology.  You can speak out loud or internally.  Let the place know who you are, and what your intentions are.  You may be surprised at the changes that can occur after you introduce yourself.  If this feels too foreign, there are a couple of practices you can do to ‘arrive.’  

One practice is deep observation over time.   

Find a natural place you appreciate, that is easy to make it to.  It does not have to be a ‘wild’ place, just a natural place.  It can even be one tree.  Every day for a month (or as much as possible), go visit, and sit with a journal at your place.   What do you see?  What do you hear?  What do you feel?  What do you taste? What do you smell?  What does your spirit sense?  This practice can bring you into alignment with the land.  

Another practice is astronomical alignment.  

If you are a morning person, choose sunrise, if you are an evening person, choose sunset.  Sketch out the horizon. Mark the location of the sunrise or sunset every day for a month (or as many days as possible). This will bring you a sense of how the Earth moves in relation to the Sun, and how the Earth’s landscape interacts through time, aligning you with the land.

03. Support Indigenous Autonomous Governance

When Indigenous people are seeking support for Land Back, advocating for land return, restoration, and extension of their governance and care to traditional territories, support them unequivocally.  Consider what land your family has access to.  What land might be more than is needed for your family’s future?  Reach out to Indigenous land trust organizations for advice on land return.  Note that sometimes, it is more beneficial to return land to an Indigenous organization or land trust than to the federally recognized Tribe, for various reasons.  There is no one size fits all solution. 

There can be no healing without justice.  Land Back for Indigenous peoples, along with reparations for Black folks, are both critical and powerful actions to heal the impacts of colonial violence, paving the way for collective intercultural future building.

Resources

Deconstructing Whiteness

Berry, Wendell.  The Hidden Wound. 1971

A remarkably wise settler self-dialogue, coming into truth and peace with historical traumas.  

Indigenous History and Contemporary Realities

Jaimes, Annette.  State of Native America  1999

Older, but incredible piece detailing the realities, struggles, and successes of Indigenous people in the colonial US.   

Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne.  Indigenous History of the United States.  2015

Newer exploration of historical and contemporary experience.   

NDN Collective   https://ndncollective.org/stories/

Indigenous Environmental Network.  www.ienearth.org

Indigenous Climate Action   www.indigenousclimateaction.com

Land Back

NDN Collective.  Land Back; A Toolkit for Restoring our Relations  2024