Two KU professors have teamed up to create an interactive online storymap that documents instances when stolen land has been returned to Indigenous people, and a collection of “#landback” resources.
Sarah Deer, university distinguished professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Indigenous Studies and by courtesy law at KU, has long had an interest in land returned to original Indigenous owners, according to a KU news release.
Deer, a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma, approached Ward Lyles, associate professor of public affairs and administration at KU, who researches land use, planning and related topics, according to the release.
“We decided to launch the project as a way to give credence to #landback, not just as a metaphor, but to also inspire landowners who came into stolen lands generations ago,” Deer said in the release. “We wanted to help show this is grassroots, on-the-ground framework.”
Deer has written amicus briefs for the U.S. Supreme Court in cases involving Indigenous land rights, and she hopes to help anyone interested in land return, according to the release. The website includes links to resources on how to legally return land.
“I want to make sure people know this is not something you can just do. You have to be intentional about it, to figure out the taxation issues, surveying and many other aspects of land transfer,” Deer said in the release. “We want to inspire potential returns and provide education about roadblocks to return. Scholars, activists and anyone interested in this topic is welcome to use it.”
Lyles, whom Deer called “a true ally,” is interested in land and natural preservation, and is an owner of land that was likely once Indigenous territory, according to the release.
He said in the release that like most Americans, he’s a settler-colonist who doesn’t have deep ancestral ties to this land, even as someone who can trace his lineage in North America to before the Revolutionary War.
“Nowhere in my family’s memorabilia is there an invitation from any Indigenous peoples saying, ‘Please come take our land,’” Lyles said in the release. “Given the well documented history of land theft — whether through violence, deception and swindling, legal manipulation, economic bullying or other means — we need to face the reality that most property ‘owners’ in the U.S. have control of property with an undeniably tainted title. One beauty of this project is that each of the individual stories of land return offers a message of hope and healing, in spite of the work of land return being contentious and complex.”
The researchers have identified more than 90 instances of #landback in more than 30 U.S. states and Canadian provinces, according to the website.
“Over the last five years, instances have increased dramatically in number and distribution,” the website states. “We try to keep the website updated at least weekly as new instances come to our attention.”
The site documents three land returns in Kansas: to the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation in 1972; to the Iowa Tribe of Nebraska and Kansas in 2021; and to the Kaw Nation in 2023.
“Map locations are approximate out of respect for Indigenous sovereignty. Instances of #landback are sourced only from public news reports to avoid identifying land transfers about which the participants wish to maintain privacy,” the website states.
Find the #Landback North America project online at arcg.is/1aLrqL. Resources are located below the story map on the same webpage.
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