“Unless your ancestors came here in chains, you are here because you have unearned privilege from the history of genocide and land theft perpetuated by generations of aggressive settlement and ongoing systemic, structural genocide.”
- “Land Acknowledgement: You’re on California Indian Land, Now What?”created by the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center at California Statue University in San Marcos
What is Native Land?
The people who lived in a place prior to colonial contact are called indigenous or native.
Before Europeans settled northern Illinois the Council of the Three Fires--comprised of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations--as well as the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac, Fox, Kickapoo, and Illinois Nations lived in the Skokie area.
So What?
War and violence made it possible for non-native people to live on this land.
The War of 1812, the Blackhawk War, the Indian Removal Act, and American Indian boarding schools removed most Indigenous people in northern Illinois from their homes.
