Land Acknowledgements

"Turtle Island" Lenape creation story

Once upon a time, there was no earth, only a vast realm of water below and sky above. The first people lived above the sky, for they could not live on water. One day, the sky opened up and through the hole fell a beautiful young woman and a tree. Two swans swam over to her, gently lifted her onto their backs, and took her to the Great Turtle. Turtle called all animals to a council, and when they gathered in a circle, he told them of the Woman Fallen from the Sky, and the tree with earth on its roots. He commanded them to bring up the tree from the water, and plant it on his great back, so that the woman could live there. After two unsuccessful attempts by Otter and Beaver to retrieve the tree, Muskrat dove down and stayed down for a very long time. When he surfaced, he came up with the tree and a mouthful of earth, which he spit out onto Turtle’s back. There the tree grew, bending down one of its branches to root in the earth, and from this branch sprang the first man who together with the woman would bring forth future generations of people on Turtle Island.

The First "Thanksgiving" of the colony of the Dutch West India Company

If possible, play the first 3 minutes of this talk, an excellent presentation from Lenape Center, featuring the history of "Thanksgiving" and colonization and erasure by Hadrien Coumans and Curtis Zunigha of Lenape Center: https://youtu.be/RdU9ufqncm0?t=37

If not possible to share the video, please share the following words from Hadrien Coumans, who exhorts us to do while we are in Lenapehoking:

"Live well while you are here. In live well, think of live in balance, live in harmony, live in a good way."

Very brief history of the first mention of "Thanksgiving" in the colony of the Dutch West India Company:

"The first mention of 'Thanksgiving' that had been recorded from the colony of the Dutch West India Company was in 1644, the day after the massacre known as the Pound Ridge Massacre where 700 Lenape were murdered in present day Westchester, New York. The following day, the mercenaries and soldiers of the Dutch West India Company were welcomed to the fort with a Thanksgiving meal."

Land acknowledgment from January 2021 General Assembly:

The Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council is organized in Lenapehoking, home territory of the Lenni Lenape, on the continent of Turtle Island. Today, in acknowledgement of our intention to unsettle the colonial order of New York City in the United States of America and to cultivate relationships with Indigenous people and the land, we read an excerpt from the article "Gasoline on the Fire: The Strategic Opportunity of Settler on Settler Violence" published by IndigenousAction.org :

We reject any overtures to heal this colonial order, we seek its total abolition.

January 6th laid bare the vulnerability and fear of an empire consuming itself.

We see this current volatility, this demise, no matter how momentary, as an offering of possibility, or the strategic opportunity of settler on settler violence.

By the end of the so-called “Indian Wars” the U.S. had perfected its strategy of conquer and divide using both overt and covert “scorched earth” tactics to perpetuate genocide and mass scale land theft.

As unwilling students of this legacy of brutality, we see the same possibility of division and destabilization: seizing all opportunities to propagandize

division utilizing whatever corrosive devices, whether narrative or practical, to creatively employ

and

destabilization of critical infrastructure through asymmetric above and below ground direct actions.

This economic and political system has been scorched by this pandemic. The heat is rising with the industrially induced warming of earth.

In this way, perhaps this compounding of crises can be an anti-colonial tactical opportunity to precipitate instability while simultaneously building, stabilizing, and proliferating scaled collective efforts towards healthy and just communities.

We anticipate the authoritarian response to the actions on January 6th to hit across the political spectrum. We have no illusions that the business of vilifying those organized against fascism and racism will cease.

And so we must continue to brace ourselves and by increasing and adapting security culture practices and support for those targeted by the state in this escalating political environment. 

Even though the state is seeking to prosecute those who stormed the Capitol, we also anticipate that those fascists will become emboldened in their direct strikes against those most vulnerable in our communities.

We are more concerned about organizing collective defense and building out our own capabilities and infrastructure for conflict. 

This is a proposition of survival, liberation, and renewal so long as it is grounded in actions that restore Indigenous autonomy, Black reparations and centers queer, trans and two-spirit BIPOC forces. So long as it is decentralized, anti-authoritarian, and fiercely intersectional.

This is a strategy of ruins, which is the natural trajectory of empires. 

There is a tendency towards ash for those who play with fire and although the flames engulfing this empire were not set by our hands, we’ll be pouring more gasoline and fanning these flames.

https://www.indigenousaction.org/gasoline-on-the-fire-the-strategic-opportunity-of-settler-on-settler-violence/

Basic:

The Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council is organized in Lenapehoking, home territory of the Lenni Lenape, on the continent of Turtle Island. We acknowledge our intention to unsettle the violent, settler-colonial order of New York City and the United States of America and to cultivate caring relationships with all beings and the land we live on.