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RECONOCIENDO LA TIERRA QUE HABITAMOS

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Toronto is home to a large Indigenous population including residential school survivors and intergenerational family members who have been impacted by the history and legacy of the residential school system.

 

The sacred land on which we stand has been a site of human activity for 15,000 years. This land is the territory of the Huron-Wendat and Petun First Nations, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit River. The territory was the subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy and the Ojibwe and allied nations to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes.

 

Today, the meeting place of Toronto is still the home to many indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work in the community, on this territory.

"The land was stolen from Indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans were brought en masse to build these cities. This is occupied Indigenous territories of many nations and these cities are built with stolen African labour and resources. One cannot be remembered without the other. We invite you into a tradition with us of acknowledging and remembering whose territory you are on wherever you are in the Americas (from the North to the Caribbean and to the South) and also remembering and acknowledging that it was built with stolen African & Black labour and resources as well."

Blackness Between Us Collective – Bishara & Ashai

PODER is honoured to cultivate these spaces in the meeting place of Toronto (from the Mohawk word “Tkaronto,” meaning “the place in the water where the trees are standing”). It is the traditional territory of many First Peoples, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples.

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The territory is subject to the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy and the Ojibwe and allied nations to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes. Today, Tkaronto is still the home to many Indigenous people across Turtle Island. We are grateful to have the opportunity to build community in solidarity with Indigenous nations on this territory.

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We remember those who came here involuntarily, particularly those brought to these lands due to the trans-Atlantic slave trade and slavery. This city was built on stolen land and stolen labour of Black, Indigenous, and racialized people.

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