Bergan said she thought the description of land as “stolen” from Native Americans was divisive, though the word “stolen” did not appear in the final text of the acknowledgment. But on Monday, a majority of council members said they opposed the item moving out of study session, meaning it will not be brought to a regular meeting for a vote automatically and is likely to fail if a council member pushes for a vote regardless.Ĭouncilmembers Francoise Bergan and Angela Lawson both expressed discomfort with the language of the acknowledgment. The statement would be read at the start of select council meetings and at major city events. Indigenous people have remained committed to the stewardship of this land over many centuries.Īs these words of acknowledgment are spoken and heard, the ties that these nations have to their traditional homelands and to their vital place in the ecosystem are renewed and reaffirmed, and we are called to be better stewards of the land we inhabit as we continue to work to meet the needs of our entire community. We also recognize the 48 contemporary tribal nations that are historically tied to the lands that make up the State of Colorado. The City of Aurora acknowledges that we gather on the territories and ancestral homelands of the Cheyenne, Ute, Arapaho and Lakota peoples, past and present.
McKinley-Paige said at the time that the statement was drafted by her office, the Library and Cultural Services Department, Aurora History Museum and indigenous groups as “a really great way to ensure equity:” Others, including some Aurora council members, have described the statements as potentially inflammatory.Īngel McKinley-Paige - manager of Aurora’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion - brought Aurora’s proposed land acknowledgment to a council policy committee in June, where Juan Marcano and Ruben Medina voiced their support. “I truly believe that more education and awareness of how we lived in those homelands helps everyone understand how far we’ve come in America’s history.”īut land acknowledgments have also been criticized as performative, doing little on their own to right the wrongs done to native communities. The land of Colorado - all of the way from Lamar, to Denver, to Estes Park and Fort Collins - that’s our ancestral homeland,” Spoonhunter told The Sentinel on Monday. as a way of recognizing the unique relationship between indigenous Americans and the lands they inhabited before the arrival of European settlers.Īcknowledging the historical relationship between tribes such as the Arapaho and the lands they once controlled may encourage members of the public to research Colorado’s colonial past, said Lee Spoonhunter, a member and former chairman of the Northern Arapaho Business Council. Land acknowledgments have been adopted by cities across Colorado and the U.S. “I am adamantly against this, and if we have an entire department working on things like this, like I said, unless we’re going to acknowledge that this is God’s country, I can’t even believe this is coming to City Council tonight,” she said. She also questioned staffers about the size of the city’s three-person Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. “That’s the only way I’m going to in any way, shape or form be for this,” Jurinsky said. While Councilmember Crystal Murillo said the statement would “show a sign of respect to our indigenous community,” Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky said she wouldn’t support a land acknowledgment unless the group would “also acknowledge that this is actually God’s country.” (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)ĪURORA | Conservative lawmakers on Monday rejected the idea of introducing city events with an acknowledgment that Aurora was established on former Native American lands, invoking God and gripes with the language of the statement. Army officers who refused to fire on the Native American families killed at the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864. Silas Soule, a hero to many Native Americans, who was one of two U.S.
Denver’s oldest cemetery is the resting place for U.S. Sand Creek Run participant Joseph Alberts, left, gets blessed by Crawford White Sr., an Arapahoe Tribe elder, during a sunrise gathering marking the 150th year since the Sand Creek Massacre, at Riverside Cemetery, in Denver, Wednesday Dec.
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