Music Program Land Acknowledgement Statement

The SMSU Music Program is committed to support and celebrate the immense diversity of backgrounds, ethnicities and cultures, and sexual and gender identities found in Minnesota.  Fundamental to that commitment is the understanding that most of the population that currently reside in Minnesota are immigrants.  We acknowledge that the land on which Southwest Minnesota State University sits are the traditional and ancestral and contemporary lands of the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota people, collectively known as the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Seven Council Fires), who have faithfully stewarded these lands throughout countless generations.  We acknowledge and recognize our sovereign neighbors from the Pezihutazizi Otunwe (Yellow Medicine Village) and Cansayapi Otunwe (Village Where They Mark The Trees Red), and all indigenous people who continue to call this area home. SMSU resides on land ceded by the Dakota Nation to the United States in the disputed 1851 Treaty of Traverse des Sioux.  This land acknowledgement affirms these nations’ sovereignty and history, while seeking to hold SMSU accountable to the needs of American Indian and Indigenous people.  Further, we acknowledge that the contributions of the members of the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, as well as the other first nations that reside in Minnesota, cannot be understated, and we are particularly grateful for their contributions to the art and culture of this state.