Land acknowledgement

FCUCC

April 24, 2022

(Earth Day Sunday)

We acknowledge that the lands and waters of what we now call the Americas, and specifically New Mexico, were first occupied by Indigenous peoples at least 12,000 years ago. 

We acknowledge that the middle Rio Grande Valley was settled by Puebloan people from the Chaco Canyon culture area at least 800 years ago, and that their descendants still reside in pueblo communities, and throughout our state and nation, today.

We acknowledge that Europeans and their descendants took most of the lands and waters of New Mexico and the United States from Indigenous peoples by force or fraud, beginning over 400 years ago. In doing so, they replaced an Indigenous culture of connection and relationship to the land and waters and every living thing, with a European culture of ownership and exploitation. 

We thank the descendants of the original inhabitants of this place for continuing to uphold their culture of relationship and respect for Mother Earth, in the face of centuries of efforts at genocide, assimilation, and exploitation. We strive to listen to and learn from the original peoples, so that Mother Earth can continue to support all our peoples and all other living things, to the seventh generation and beyond.