I Own This Stolen Land/Photographs

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Stolen

Everything in US history is about the land… who invaded and stole it; how it became a commodity…

Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

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Sacred

Christianity is an ideology of technology because the Christian message is that the indigenous, animistic, so-called pagan gods and spirits of the forests, mountains, streams, and so forth, are false gods and that streams and rivers aren’t really sacred. Christianity paved the way for the philosophy that there is nothing wrong with taking an ax and a plow to the forest and reducing it to so much charcoal and so many acres of cropland.

John Mohawk (Onǫdawáˀga:ˀ - Seneca), Technology as an Enemy, collected in Thinking in Indian.

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Unceded

It has long been recognized that New York State acted contrary to federal law in its 1795 and 1807 treaties acquiring Gayogohó:nǫˀ land. The state violated the Federal Trade and Intercourse Acts, the first of which was passed in 1790 and was later renewed and expanded.

Kurt A. Jordan, The Gayogohó:nǫˀ People in the Cayuga Lake Region: A Brief History

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Invaded

The emerald ash borer (EAB), an invasive wood-boring beetle from Asia, is responsible for the death and decline of tens of millions of ash trees in North America.

Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture

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Marginal

The 1930’s were a time of turmoil and change for many Americans. …. Federal Government programs were developed that affected people even here in Upstate New York. Whole tracts of land, thousands of acres,were deemed marginal or sub-standard for farming. Farms were purchased by the Federal Government at “fair market” value and the owners were forced to move.

Wayne Myers et al., Bald Hill, the Lost Community

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Bereft/Wounded

So this ecosystem that was here, the Gayogo̱hó:nǫˀ people, we were a part of this ecosystem for thousands and thousands of years. What happened was, a piece of this ecosystem was removed, it was taken, we were taken and scattered all over the place. So, as much as that removal has affected the Gayogo̱hó:nǫˀ people, the rest of this ecosystem that's left here, I'm sure that it's affected it as well. Because you can't take a piece of this ecosystem out and expect it to go on...

So looking forward, with optimism, that the Gayogo̱hó:nǫˀ people, by being able to come back here, spend time here, even get glimpses of this place, that can start to heal our people. But in hope that this ecosystem can heal itself as well... But those things need to come together, those things need to come together... We've got 244 years of data that we can look at, and we can see the effects of this removal.

Stephen Henhawk, (Gayoghó:nǫˀ - Cayuga), Lecture, March 2023.

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I Own This Stolen Land (in progress, May 2022)

The wooden letters were removed before mowing for hay, leaving a ghost text.

Peter Moore, 3rd. generation farmer in Danby, NY

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