We are at the confluence where the Allegheny and Monongahela form the Ohio River. Here, the Council of the Three Rivers American Indian Center (COTRAIC) currently supports the Native American community in the Greater Pittsburgh area with the preservation of culture and values, and with accessing resources. This ancestral land of the Seneca, Adena culture, Hopewell culture, and Monongahela peoples later became home to refugees of other tribes (including the Delaware, Shawnee, Mingo, and Haudenosaunee), who were all forced off their homelands and displaced by European colonists.
More than a brief mention of the horrors of the past, the land acknowledgement is a call to engage with the genocide of indigenous peoples as it occurred and as it is happening presently. We gather on this land as MATC scholars and artists to further the art and scholarship of theatre and performance, and so our work should also encourage study, participation, and activism that deepens awareness of and respect for the history of indigenous people in and beyond the U.S.
As we help each other to thrive in our institutions and foster discussion about the state of the field, we should move the field toward improving our collective future, in which we respect, revere, and live in harmony with the people who were here first.
Prepared by David A. Melendez and Emily Goodell of the IDEALS Committee