land acknowledgement

I acknowledge that today I live, work and breathe on on the traditional territory of the Anishnawbe, Haudenosaunee and Neutral / Attawandaron peoples.

Kitchener-Waterloo is located on the Haldimand Tract, which, on October 25, 1784, after the American Revolutionary War of Independence, was given to the Six Nations of the Grand River and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation by the British as compensation for their role in the war and for the loss of their traditional lands in Upstate New York.

Of the 950,000 acres given to the Haudenosaunee (six miles on either side of the Grand River, all the way along its length), only 46,000 acres (less than 5 per cent) remain Six Nations land, and 6,100 acres remain Mississaugas of the Credit land.

As a first generation Canadian here on Turtle Island, I acknowledge that I live within the identity of being both a settler on this land, and the child of migrants from Guyana and England - with an ancestral lineage that encompasses both the joys of intercultural and multi-ethnic love, and also a history of indentured work and cultural violence.

I am committed to learning about the Haldimand Tract and to dedicating my voice and my resources to amplifying the work of Indigenous peoples who were the first inhabitants of this land. Financial