Land Acknowledgement Statement

The Statement

Land Acknowledgment Statement and Actions

A Land Acknowledgment statement is meaningful when it is accompanied by concrete actions, which commit to addressing ongoing inequities towards Indigenous communities. At Gettysburg College the process of what this means takes many forms and involves an on-going dialogue. It involves bringing Indigenous issues to the forefront of the community’s attention through curriculum and co-curriculum development. It involves reaching out to local Native community partners to build relationships and extend support, whether this is monetary, service, or time. It also involves working to establish ways in which the college can welcome and support Indigenous students on campus, for example, through a dedicated scholarship fund, and through an official Indigenous mentor support program. To learn more about some of the initiatives so far, visit the Timeline of LAC activities and events, and keep an eye on this page for continued actions.

Timeline of LAC activities and events

View the land acknowledgement interactive timeline

Explanation of Key Terms and Ideas of the Statement

Settler Colonialism

When European colonists settled in North America, they brought with them Eurowestern understandings of economic, legal, political, and sociocultural structures that framed the founding of the United States and established land claims as owned property. Such Eurowestern structures form the basis of current U.S. legal, political, educational, and other social systems. Settler colonialism, thus, must be understood as an ongoing process. While historical events such as the removal of Native peoples onto reservation lands and the forced cohesion of Indigenous families to send their children to mission and boarding schools continue to have lasting legacies on Native peoples, so do many other current state-sanctioned practices that routinely disregard Native peoples’ material and cultural well-being.

Indigenous Pasts and Presents

Adams County, Pennsylvania has been a home for Indigenous peoples over the course of at least several millennia. The forests and creeks of these lands have provided abundant sources of food for Native Americans. The Conewago Creek, flowing into the Susquehanna, and Rock and Marsh Creeks, both of which are tributaries of the Potomac Watershed, would all have provided important means of transportation for groups coming from the south and east. Important rock quarries of metarhyolite are found in western Adams County, which were first used by Native American groups in the Archaic Period. More importantly, many aspects of the landscape were likely sacred to Native peoples, and probably played an important role in the historical memories and knowledge passed down through oral histories. The Native Americans who lived in Adams County most likely viewed this land in a very different way from European settlers, treating it not as a non-living commodity that could be bought and sold, but rather as a sentient being with whom humans were in a deeply personal and symbiotic relationship.

According to a Western reckoning of time, Native Americans have been present in the county since as early as the Archaic Period (ca. 8,000–2,500 BCE). There is, in particular, abundant archaeological evidence in the form of stone projectile points dating to the period of time spanning from the Late Archaic through the Middle Woodland Period (ca. 4,000 BCE–1,000 CE). Based upon archaeological and historical documents, it is difficult to link these early Native Americans with any known Native American peoples living in south central Pennsylvania during the Contact Period, which begins with European arrival along the eastern seaboard in the 1500s.

During the Late Woodland Period (after ca. 900 CE), Native American peoples began to live in more permanent settlements along or near the banks of the Susquehanna River, about 45 miles to the east of Adams County. Archaeologists refer to these groups of people living in the Lower Susquehanna Valley in the 1400s and early 1500s CE as the Shenks Ferry Culture, named after an archaeological site in Lancaster County. In the late 1500s, Iroquoian-speaking peoples from northern Pennsylvania who were culturally and linguistically related to the Haudenosaunee peoples of New York state came down and settled in the Lower Susquehanna Valley. A number of important settlements occupied by them have been excavated by archaeologists in Lancaster, York, and Cumberland counties. When English colonists arrived in the lower Chesapeake Bay in the early 1600s, they referred to these inhabitants of south central Pennsylvania as “Susquehannock”, using the English transliteration of an Algonquian term. Unfortunately, we do not know what ethnonym these communities would have used for themselves, although some scholars believe that the term “Conestoga” may be the closest English transliteration we have. Some of the last members of the “Susquehannock” people were murdered by the Paxton Rangers, an unofficial Pennsylvania militia, in two massacres, the first on December 14, 1763, in Conestoga Town, and the second on December 27, 1763, in Lancaster.

Farther abroad, at the time of European colonization, the Lenape lived in a region encompassing eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and southern New York. To the north, the Haudenosaunee peoples were united in a Five-Nation confederacy (later six) centered on upstate New York. In the 1700s, the Haudenosaunee confederacy exercised considerable diplomatic influence in Pennsylvania, negotiating land rights use with the Penn government. Farther to the south in Maryland, the Piscataway lived in the Potomac River basin. During the 1700s, groups of Shawnee also passed through central Pennsylvania, with some of them settling along the Susquehanna River.

However, none of the peoples mentioned above can be said to have either originated in Adams County or to have claimed this area as a specific homeland. Since no living group today of Native Americans can be directly tied to Adams County specifically, the Land Acknowledgement Working Group has elected to not name any specific Native American group, instead highlighting the deep connection that many different indigenous groups have had, and continue to have, with the lands of Adams County.

This section was authored by Dr. Benjamin Luley in the Anthropology department.

Why acknowledge land and other relatives?

Indigenous leaders practiced oral land acknowledgments long before written statements were included on public venues at institutions of higher education. For many Indigenous cultures, land is recognized as a place with which peoples are in relationship. Living or visiting a place involves acknowledging that there are others in that space, be they humans, animals, plants, water, or the land itself. Land acknowledgments affirm protocols of mutual respect, responsibility and reciprocity, that in turn, are intended to forward socially and ecologically sustainable relationships with a place. As Indigenous studies scholars’ Theresa Stewart-Ambo (Luiseño/Tongva) and Wayne K. Yang write, “To be a good guest is to be in good relation to the land — to learn from and to be accountable to the land.”

For institutions such as Gettysburg College, acknowledging land and other relatives serves to de-center settler colonialism’s understanding of land as property and shines a light on accountability to Indigenous peoples’ and their ways of knowing and inhabiting place. Gettysburg College is located in a storied place; a site of historical trauma and building of national identity with deep ties to racial justice and injustice. Yet, a major aspect of our story has been absented: that of Indigenous presence. Acknowledging land is an important first step in addressing the erasure of Indigenous presence and building relationships with the land and Indigenous communities of this land.

History and Evolution of the Statement

The Gettysburg College land acknowledgment statement was created jointly by a large group of interested people from across the campus, including Indigenous students, staff, faculty, and alumni. The statement is meant to respectfully acknowledge Indigenous peoples, and to contribute to the anti-racist educational goals of Gettysburg College through meaningful action. The statement was created through a process of critical discussion and reflection and is intended to inspire others to reflect, create, and act. From the beginning, we have considered this process to be evolutionary and recognize that our statement might change as we gain more knowledge through building relationships with local Indigenous communities and peoples.

Origins (2016-2020)

The process of creating an official land acknowledgement statement began in 2016 with the Students for Indigenous Awareness club, then under the leadership of students Samantha Trueman, ’17; Kristy Garcia, ’17; and Mary Margaret Blum, ’18, with Professor Stephanie Sellers as faculty advisor.

In 2018, Professor Sellers asked Professor David Walsh to take over as Faculty Advisor, and students Keira Koch, ’19 and Colleen Kazokas, ’19 then took up the endeavor of garnering support for a College land acknowledgement statement. Keira Koch wrote the SIA club’s first land acknowledgement statement which informed the College’s first official version. Also in 2018, Chaplain Kristin Largen began incorporating a land acknowledgment statement into her Baccalaureate prayer and was aided in writing her statement by the SIA club and its faculty advisors.

Original Statement (2020-2021)

In October 2020, Chaplain Kristin Largen invited Professor David Walsh to speak with the Interfaith Leadership Fellows—a group of Gettysburg College students including some of the SIA students—resulting in a renewed effort to create an official College statement. With the aid of faculty advisor Prof. David Walsh, the statement was drafted over the 2020-2021 winter break by members of the Students for Indigenous Awareness Club: Sydney Dranow ’21, SIA President; Mary Kate Danberg ’21, SIA Vice President; Daniel Jones ’22, Student Senate Diversity and Inclusion Officer; Samantha Karns ’23 [Tuscarora]; James Lamb ’21; Kylie Mandeville ’21; Katherine Mangione ’22; Samuel Ventimiglia ’22; Drew Warren ’21.

Activating the Statement (2021-2023)

The College officially adopted the statement in February 2021. The Land Acknowledgement Committee focused its energy on collaborating with local Native partners to host a Land Acknowledgement Dedication Ceremony. Held in October 2022, the day included a listening session for college administrators, a public event hosted on the college's Old Quad involving the planting of the Haudenosaunee tree of peace (white pine) and announcement of a plaque on campus to recognize the past, present, and future of Indigenous relations to land, along with a celebratory feast. Following our partners’ pleas to back words with action, we committed to organizing educational opportunities each semester. To learn more about these, please see our Land Acknowledgement Digital Timeline.

Revision of the Statement (2023-2024)

During the 2023-2024 academic year, the Land Acknowledgement Committee revisited the original statement. Since its creation in 2020-2021, ongoing conversations with our Indigenous partners suggested that we could improve the original statement. We spent the 2023-2024 year deliberately engaging in conversations within the campus committee (which includes many faculty with Indigenous studies expertise), with current staff, and with students (some of whom identify as Indigenous). We consulted with recent alumni who contributed to the original statement and other alumni who expressed interest after 2021. We also discussed our research and thinking with President Iuliano; the statement was then approved by the President’s Council.

Based on these deliberations, The 2024 version of the statement version of our statement sought to:

• Focus on Gettysburg specifically rather than the larger Pennsylvania area,
• Maintain a call for action from the College community to address historical wrongs and ensure bright futures,
• Include a stronger focus on the land itself in recognition of Indigenous values, and
• Ensure our statement is more easily read aloud.

Educational resources

Our vision has been not only the creation of a land acknowledgement statement but also a rich resource base for learning and action for the College and local community. Thanks to the generous engagement of our local Indigenous community partners, as well as many departments and programs on campus, and alums, we continue to work to express our statement as meaningful action.

On-campus

At Gettysburg College, there are on-going initiatives to uphold our commitments and obligations inscribed in the words of our land acknowledgment statement. If you are interested in getting involved, learning more, and contributing, here are some on-campus resources:

The Land Acknowledgment Committee

The Land Acknowledgment Committee is a voluntary body of faculty, staff and students across campus who help coordinate campus events and activities. Members of our college campus are welcome to join the Land Acknowledgment Committee.

Co-coordinators for 2024-2025:

• Kirby Farah, Anthropology
• Janelle Wertzberger, Assistant Dean and Director of Scholarly Communications
• Jeffrey Rioux, Director of the Center of Public Service.

Active Faculty and Staff Members:

• Eloísa Gordon-Mora, Chief Diversity Officer (2022-Present), and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion
• Diane Brennan [Cherokee descent], Academic Administrative Assistant for Public Policy and the Provost’s Office
• Triada Chavis [Lumbee], Academic Administrative Assistant for Interdisciplinary Studies and International & Global Studies
• Ben Luley, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Classics
• Salma Monani, Professor of Environmental Studies
• Donna Perry, Professor of Anthropology
• David Walsh, Associate Professor of Religious Studies
• Janelle Wertzberger, Assistant Dean and Director of Scholarly Communications, and the Musselman Library Diversity and Inclusion Committee
• Hakim Williams, African Studies and Peace and Justices Studies
• Amanda Whitcomb, Academic Administrative Assistant for Psychology

Additional Contributors:

• Michael Bright, Director of Religious and Spiritual Life and College Chaplain, Religious & Spiritual Life
• Hannah Greenwald, Assistant Professor of History
• Julia Hendon, Associate Provost for Pedagogical Initiatives and Professor of Anthropology (Ret.)
• Samantha Isherwood, Administrative Assistant for College Life
• Aaron Lacayo, Assistant Professor of Spanish
• Kristin Largen, College Chaplain (previous)
• Paul Miller, Director Garthwait Leadership Center, Garthwait Leadership Center
• Monica Ogra, Professor of Environmental Studies

Student Groups

The Students for Indigenous Awareness club is an instrumental space for student advocacy. For students interested in learning more about this on-campus group, reach out to faculty advisor, Prof. David Walsh, Religious Studies.

Peace and Justice Student Council helps organize Peace and Justice Week each spring and has worked actively to highlight Indigenous awareness and decolonial thinking. For students interested in learning more about this on-campus group, reach out to faculty advisor, Prof. Hakim Williams, Peace and Justice Studies and Africana Studies.

Painted Turtle Farm, co-facilitated by students at the Center of Public Service, is a vibrant hub for on-campus Indigenous food justice issues. To become involved, reach out to CPS Director, Jeffrey Rioux.

To see how Gettysburg students have been involved in Indigenous awareness and advocacy, do check out the Timeline of LAC activities and events.

Courses with Indigenous Content

While the college does not have a Native American Studies major or minor, many faculty across campus teach courses with Indigenous content. From Anthropology to Religious Studies, English to Environmental Studies, History to Spanish, students can take classes offered by faculty that expose them to Native Peoples’ voices and issues in North America and globally.

Musselman Library

Gettysburg College’s library contains a treasure trove of Indigenous readings, videos, and other forms of academic engagement. In March 2021, Librarian Beth Carmichael began the compilation “Read and Learn” book list on Indigenous Identity. This list is constantly being updated.

College Calendar

Visit the College Calendar for events tagged “Indigenous Awareness”

Regional resources

Visit “Indigenous Pennsylvania: Past, Present and Future” to learn about Indigenous presence in the vicinity of Gettysburg College. Created by Sarah Gilsoul ’22 as part of her senior honors capstone research project in Environmental Studies, the interactive ArcGIS StoryMap is rich with information on four sites within our region.

The Carlisle Indian Boarding School, located just north of Gettysburg in Carlisle, PA was emblematic in the history of Indigenous erasure. Dickinson College’s Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center and Center for Futures of Native Peoples are invaluable resources. You can also access The Carlisle Indian School Project that chronicles the personal stories of Native peoples with ties to the Carlisle Indian School.

Local non-profits such as Circle Legacy Center based in the Lancaster, PA, are Indigenous led and provide volunteer opportunities as well as program many events that educate about Indigenous pasts, presents and futures.