Marymount Land Acknowledgement

MARYMOUNT LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT-IN-PROCESS

Marymount University acknowledges that our campus is located on or near the ancestral homeland and territory of the Piscataway and Nacotchtank (Anacostan) peoples, tribal allies who spoke the Piscataway dialect of Algonquian. In the late 1600s, the Nacotchtank people sought refuge with larger tribes, such as the Piscataway, after colonial settlers forcibly removed them from their homeland in what is now the District of Columbia. Today, most members of the Piscataway tribes live in Southern Maryland.

This land acknowledgment is in process as an important part of the work of Marymount’s Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center and Office of Ministry and Spiritual Life. We seek not only to uncover the histories of the Indigenous peoples who lived on the land where our campus is located but also to take direct action to honor the culture and histories of Indigenous peoples who currently live in the D.C. metropolitan area. We acknowledge that our University’s foundation rests upon land that Indigenous tribes nurtured for centuries, and we extend gratitude and respect to them and to their descendants who continue to lead in the fight to protect our earth and its resources.

As an educational community dedicated to seeking justice through direct, intentional action, we offer this land acknowledgment as a starting place rather than an endpoint, as part of an ongoing process of addressing past racial harms, and we invite you to join us in this essential work.