Weekends on cspan2 are an intellectual feast. Every saturday, american histo tv documents america story and on sunday, book tv brings you the latest nonfiction books and authors. Funding for cspan2 comes from these Television Companies and more including charter communications. Proud to be recognized as one of the best internet providers. We are just Getting Started building 100,000 mil of new infrastructure to reach those who need it most. Charter communications along with these Television Companies of sport support cspan2 is a public service. Hello everyone and welcome to tonights program. Thank you so much for being here i come to you from the center of brooklyn history out Brooklyn Public Library which is the librarys arts and culture arm that brings you so many programs and conversations like tonight as well as musical performances, family and children events, literary and t philosophical discussions and so much more. Tonights program, the history is one part of a much larger and far ranging initiative honored to be presenting partnership with the leadership of the center appeared this Initiative Includes the of the cultural art which is now on view at the library and environmentalpr Education Center appeared many future programs and topics like the purchase of manhattan seeing the meaning in an upcoming history. I am humbled to represent my colleagues who have led the ambitious effort. It is truly my honor to introduce tonights discussionn on their behalf. In a few moments, you will hear three perspectives on a history that has too long been overlooked, misrepresented and lied about. For 10,000 years lived in an area that includes stool the base of pennsylvania, connecticut, new york and delaware. Ways are often brutal forced migration forced removal this first nation to its first locations oklahoma to wisconsin departing further north and west before i introduce tonight speakers, i have two quick notes for you. Hope my computer you have the option to use closed captioning tonight. That button isnt at the bottom f your screen. Second, i want to invite you to share your questions tonight. Use the q a box which is also at the bottom of your screen. Now, it is my honor to introduce our speakers and turn it over to them. Curtis is a member of the delaware tribe of indians and cofinder and codirector of the center based in new york city which promotes the history and culture of the people through the arts, social identity and environmental activism. This multimedia experience includes writing, producing, directing, acting, narrating efforts. Joe baker is an artist educator, curator and activist who has worked for the native arts for the past 30 years. He is an enrolled member of the delaware cried in oklahoma and cofounder and executive director of the center appeared he is also a professor at Columbia University school of social work and was recently visiting professor at Colorado College and joke curated the exhibition i mentioned earlier. A citizen of wisconsin and first line descendent. In addition to her many speaking engagements, she has become the accidental activists speaking to different groups about racism and trauma and helping to build awareness of our environment, cyber clean water and others in the community. She isw a former director of Cultural Affairs and now at the director of education for the project. Our moderator tonight has been the executive director of the osco its Institute Since 2006. Born and raised in romania, previously working as an associateel researcher at the parliament. You take position on the un special advisor on the prevention of genocide. Welcome. Welcome to you all. I will now turn this over to curtis for word. Welcome on behalf. [speaking in native tongue] good evening, everyone. Welcome to this amazing webinar. I am a codirector of the lineup a center appeared stool the arts and cultural organization, manhattanbased in the beginning , but now we cover the integrity. Extending into the foothills of the cap hills mountains. Including eastern pennsylvania and new jersey and entering into the delaware bay. It is amazing that we are part of the webinar this evening and on behalf of the lynn abe center and speaking as a lineup a man i welcome you to this place and we are very glad that you are here with us this evening from wherever you are joining us. Thank you. Thank you appeared i would like to welcome everyone. Recognizing that i am talking to you today from the land of the original people. I would like to start by recognizing that the organization with joyce to lead the institute is in the land and i would also like to recognize the deep connection to the homeland. An organization dedicated to intervention. The institute believes in the importance of the colonial genocide. The community and the resilience still today continuing to resist inviting all of us to listen to this very important discussion. To open our hearts to learning about the history of our land and the history of the people of our land. I wouldu like to invite curtis o start us off in this discussion. Thank you. All right. I was asked to write an essay aboutt what was called the migration of the lynn abe and i ended up writing a lengthy essay but myy approach was to get away from the term of my egret migration. The more i reviewed and i remembered our story forced to relocation. Heand writing about our people e are the ones that encountered the europeans. Originally it began with the italian explorer settling for the front one pair he was sailing for the India Company trying to explore road routes for the for trade. Countering the lynn abe people. There are numerous stories and accounts written by explorers, military leaders, missionaries and other colonial settlers that talked about the lynn abe people as a strong and ancient people. With a culture and a belief system that in some ways actually were much akin to some of the british above all we have and still have a deep and spiritual relationship with the land. When we talk about being removed from the homeland, the homeland of the original people, to me and by extension to so many of our people it is like being an orphan. Someone who has been taken away from the arms of our mother and taken away far away to where we cannot see our mother anymore. There is a long history that goes all the way from original contact in the early 16th century to the late 19th century and today the lynn abe people are broken up into various groups and to date there are names that include the name delaware. D again, i am a member of the delaware tribe. That is our colonial name. Actually came from a British Columbia sir tom thomas west. A lot of people became known as the delaware throughout this historic period of time. As we encountered more and more of the europeans the dutch followed by the british and then ultimately the americans, as the hunger for more land and opportunity to have a free and independent land to live on, they displace the original people that were already free and independent People Living on that land. Our stories and much of what you will see in this exhibit will tell our story of how we were forced out of our land and an environment through war after a whilee we became war refugees. If you listen to the news or watch the news and you see about other countries and people in their own country in the theater of war, that is what they do lynn abe went through. Just exhibit will not only tell that story and there is my essay that i wrote through that trail forced removal where today the lynn not pay, todays modern descendents known as the delaware and i am an enrolled member of the delaware tribe northeastern oklahoma and we have been here since 1867. There are also other communities while they are in oklahoma, to southern ontario and one in wisconsin t. We are the descendents of the original lynn abe. We are like different branches from the same tree trunk. But that is rooted early in the home life. I have been over 10 years now. I feel like that orphan child who has come back, back to new york, back to connect with my mother. The motherland. The homeland. The original land. It is that deep Spiritual Connection with the land, the waters, the ancestors. It has never gone away. Thanks to the center for friendships and partnerships that we have made with such institutions as the Brooklyn Library and the center for brooklyn history. People are making a way for them to return to our homeland. In doing so and by telling this story, people learn that we still exist. There was so much eraser of our history and culture and language at least you are done by centuries of people who took over the land. Most often by force. Basically, out of the history. But the center and i were friends with the Brooklyn Library, we are here to tell you that we never died out. We are still here and we are grateful that we can come back to the homeland now and connect with the spirit of our homeland. In doing so, we continue the generational connection after all of these centuries back with the homeland. And that is extremely gratifying it exists more in our culture and language and we paid honor to the sacrifices of our ancestors. And the gift of the creator which we still have and that is passed down to us and we will continue in the cert and assert a claim to our homeland that we never willingly gave up. I hope you will learn about the center. We do have a website and you will find a lot of incredible information about the growth and development of our organization. All of the work that we have done. We are in arts and culture organization. We are very much engaged in environmental protection. Again, that land has the spirits i share with you this sense of the lynn not pay people are no longer. We have returned to our mother. And welcoming us back. We also are working with various organizations. We are taking our place back at the table of valor and we bring traditional knowledge and an incredible culture and language that only and richins the entire fabric of that. Which as you know works new york city. In all of the wonderful people that were have gathered together withth. With that, there are some other folks here representing. I want to share this time with them to provide additional perspectives. I encourage you to look throughout all of the activities that is going on here with the Greenpoint Library of brooklyn. The center for brooklyn history and you will only see much more bigger and better of the center in the years to come. So, with that, i say. [speaking in native tongue] thank you. Now we will turn to heather and joe and after that, we will open the discussion based on the questions that you are sending as we are starting the conversation. Now, i would like to invite heather to join the discussion. Hi. Thank you so much. My name is sunflower. I had my naming ceremony in september of 2020. I am honored to be part of this panel this evening. Thank you for the continued learning. I am honored to be here. In this community making sure the government lies in wisconsin i am very honored to be here from the homeland. I moved here in october of last year from wisconsin. In the council in southeastern michigan. I worked for a a number of years and now i am here and upstate new york. Technically i guess i am in the middle. I was wrong the whole time, but thatsl. Okay. I was just in the homelands here and im so honored to be part of this panel. I want to start with this. This is one of my favorites. It was from one of the activists we are not indians and we are not native americans. We are the people. We arel the human beings. You have to be really powerful to stop and think about that. We are that human beings. When i hear that i think about how we are the original. Weea are the ogs. Hiwe are the people here from te beginning. The beautiful turtle island. We were here first. This is our homeland. Through forced removal time andt time again. We were forced into different areas. I am a personal located in the land that was seated from the nation. Other nations gave up pieces of their home so that my ancestors, including this as well but other nations gave up their homeland. So that we could have a place to call home. The reason we needed that place to call home we were forced out from the start. The nation first encountered in 1609. Henry hudson as was mentioned earlier. From that moment on, from the moment that we collided with the indigenous lives of this land, we changed forever. We know it was changed forever. Now that i am in the homeland, now that i have the opportunity to come home, i cannot help when i am out in the land to stop and think about what my ancestors went through so that i could sit shere and talk to you about them today. Famine, disease, loss of land, forced removal, wars, gas, christianity, loss of self. Loss of tradition, loss of language. They didw all of that so they n now tell you their story. And contrary to popular belief the nation is older than colonization and we are older than the tales told. He got it very wrong. It is a very beautiful movement. Cinematography is great. It is not accurate. The people that are never still. The river that flows both ways. The hudson river. I dont call it that river. Because that is its name. So remember the homeland from new york to settling in the hearts of massachusetts. Part of our homeland. A great conversion happened there. That felt with christianity. Ind had the opportunity last summer to come to the homelands for the last time and walk the grounds in massachusetts. And think about the history. Everything that happened to them in that place. The Mission House which is located in stockbridge. Knowing what happened there, it was set up so that John Sergeant who was a missionary at the time could help convert people to christianity. You had all of these nations kind of coming together. What happened there is not only is there a loss of that traditional ceremony and religion, but what happens as it slipped away from us. We are no longer any of these things. Because, for some reason, it is too hard to remember all of those names. So they start by taking away their lands. So, from that moment on, you become indian. That kind of stuck with us. We consider ourselves smoky get in. Mohegan nation. Youni know we brought that colun is name with us. And whaten happens next is the american evolution starts. Independence. I will not lie to you. I love early colonial history. I find it very fascinating. What we dont talk about is that the nation and other indigenous nation including those which would have been we fell under George Washingtons banner. We were there. And what happens when we come back for more is when we are forced out of our homeland again when we were all fighting for the freedom for the United States. We were helping everyone. We come back in our land has been taken. This time were here. The land that we were supposed to help settle on for brothers and sisters, they have been forced into selling. We had no place to stay. So this time even further from our homeland. Moving to wisconsin. The southern part of the state where we settled in wisconsin. A place for us to be. Along the river. In that we really hit a major waterway. More transportation moving parks around. And settlement. Athey are coming into this are. We had to move again. And, so it was because of the nation giving up their homeland we finally moved further north and had a place to call home. It was also spread spread and that is where we are making most of this in the community. We embraced both of those. Four example, you know, we learned both languages. You can learn this and you can also learnd months he appeared y name captain in muncie. So, i am in mohican payments peapack here the position where we been getting a lot of land. Where we will be moving the livelihood. The community who fought very hard to stuck to their guns and were able to reclaim some of that during the passage of the indian reorganization act of 1934. The tribal government again. Able to have our leadership. The tradition puncture in recent years language. It is very important. And what we also started doing a started making the trips home. Back to the homeland. Back to the eastern parts of new york. Massachusetts, connecticut, vermont, new jersey, pennsylvania, people started coming home and it is such an amazing feeling when you step on these lands. Imb come again, made my first tp out herei last summer. The one that i hate bridges, i dont like bridges, their too hi, i dont like them, and i never looked down. As we were crossing over for the first time, i looked down. I looked down and i was nervous and i was not scared. I looked down and i saw, i saw my ancestors. I saw the villages and i saw the communityam. There is justice feeling that came over me. It was unbelievably amazing. And the happiness when away and the anger started to set in. The anger of knowing what happened here understanding the history of it from historic first. And i let that anger get a hold of me for a little while. Why . All for this land for progress. And itt is something that we hae to celebrate. We have two understand that. I feel so honored and so excited that thiss exhibit is up because it will be truth. It is spaces where truth was not always in. And that is really important. I feel so lucky that im able to be a part of this and talk about our history. Let me just finish with a quote from one of the greatest diplomat that the nation had. A speech in new york 1954 and the fourth of july. A lot of times to the federal government. What does it mean to an indigenous person. I want to leave you with this. I want you to think on it and meditate on it. The holy book in the bible. An individual offense punished in existence and time shall be no more. They are equally instructive for in this world to each existence of that stuff. These events for a wide purpose. Four myself and for my time i ask for justice. I believe that it will sooner or later occur and it will enable you to die and hope. Thank you very much for including me. I look forward to your questions thank you very much. It is a great pleasure for me to join this conversation this eveningy. I want to express my gratitude to the Public Library. Brooklyns history and the tribal members criticism. You know, my story and my thoughts tonight are really informed by the idea of both past and present and the organization while it has a historical thread and trajectory it is still very much alive and present in todays experience. Asas a tribal elder in the veten , i have made a consci