Living Land Acknowledgement

Brooklyn Botanic Garden occupies part of the unceded homeland of the Lenape people. Colonial settlers and federal policies perpetrated generations of genocide, forced migration, and systemic, violent oppression that pushed the Lenape west and north to rebuild their nations in the areas now known as Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Ontario. We acknowledge today’s Lenape communities, including Lenape people who belong to the Delaware Nation and Delaware Tribe of Indians in Oklahoma; the Stockbridge-Munsee Community in Wisconsin; and the Munsee-Delaware Nation, Moravian of the Thames First Nation, and Delaware of Six Nations in Ontario. Brooklyn Botanic Garden supports their movements to reestablish their visible presence here, in their ancestral lands.

The Lenape people have intimate knowledge of the organisms and systems that make up this land and understand its deep significance that goes beyond any individual or entity. Partnering with the Lenape Center, Brooklyn Botanic Garden is committed to developing this living land acknowledgement and to continue working with them and other regional tribal leaders.

Informed by their knowledge, Brooklyn Botanic Garden aims to expand our understanding and educate ourselves and the public in a way that challenges the dominant colonial worldview of science, botany, and horticulture.