Although I’ve been a dorm student for almost three years at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, it wasn’t until the Student Council President—Theatre Arts senior Aubrey Segars—mentioned the term “land acknowledgement” that I ever thought about the ground on which I currently stood and the history that accompanied it.
The award-winning actress and impassioned school leader explained to me that, when she received a college acceptance letter from the University of Minnesota in the mail, the first piece of paper included in her package was a statement from the university recognizing that the land their institution was founded on originally belonged to indigenous people forcibly removed from the area.
Segars was immediately intrigued by this statement because it was her first introduction to this type of acknowledgement. She decided to explore the idea in the monthly initiatives ASFA’s Student Council had started throughout the school year, specifically for November of last year, to coincide with National Native American Heritage Month. Partnering with Samantha Simmons, the chair of the English department at ASFA, Segars drafted a land acknowledgement for the school, an adapted version of which is now posted on the homepage of this site as follows:
The Star is a student-run media platform affiliated with the Alabama School of Fine Arts, which is located on the traditional ancestral land of the Muscogee Creek and the Shawnee People. As artists and scholars, we commit ourselves to honoring the land itself and the people who have cared for it. We will serve as stewards of this land and preserve its history for future generations.
But after speaking with Segars and with ASFA visiting artist Eric Hernandez—a Native hoop dancer, storyteller, and filmmaker who spent a week in residence with the ASFA Dance department earlier this semester—it is evident that this is only the first step in a process of making the land acknowledgment what Segars described as a “living, breathing document that we all contribute to.” A permanent reminder of this history is Segars’s goal, whether that be signified through a mural, sculpture, plaque or yearly FOCUS schedule dedicated to the topic. But, more than anything, continuing education and sharing the stories of those who came before is the highest priority.
To this end, as part of a community of artists and intellectual explorers, we at The Star will continue to educate ourselves on the history and present-day lives of the people who cared for this land and those who continue to do so today by remembering the words of Eric Hernandez, who emphasized throughout his visit that although Native American history is extremely important, we as a society tend to think of it only in the past tense. But those people are still here today and we should learn their history as well as form a present connection with the tribes that are currently in our communities and share their stories in every way that we can.
It makes sense to start by looking into the history of indigenous people in Alabama.
Similar to most states in this country, Alabama has a dark history with indigenous peoples due to the federally sanctioned forced removal and murder of Native Americans on this land. When President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and granted land in the west as compensation for stolen native land in the east, Alabama was an important factor in this plan due to the abundance of fertile soil that was then cultivated to grow crops such as cotton that brought in revenue for both the white settlers and the government as well as increased the slave trade and its profit which made those who “claimed” indigenous land as their own extremely wealthy. This led to a horrible cycle of seizing land through any means necessary for the increase of individual greed. Numerous wars were fought between European settlers and the Creek Nations, many tribes were attacked and ambushed unprovoked, constant bloody battles between both groups were waged, the massacre of hundreds of indigenous men, women and children was carried out, the death march of the Trail of Tears and the slow erasure and forgotten memories of the peoples that survived and the cultures, traditions and languages that were lost. Even to this day, the Poarch Creek Indians located in Escambia County, are the only federally recognized Native American tribe in Alabama and only nine of dozens are recognized by the state despite Alabama’s rich history of a varied indigenous presence which include the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Cherokee, Shawnee and smaller communities such as the Yuchis.
Many of the original members of these tribes were displaced to western states and territories, but there continues to be a presence of their people with the remaining individuals who live throughout the state. They continue to survive and thrive today, holding traditional festivals, events, pow wows, markets and educational opportunities for others to learn about their rich history. Specific to our location at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, the Piqua Shawnee people once laid claim to this land and were located in villages surrounding towns such as Talladega and Sylacauga. There are seasonal tribal gatherings each year for the Piqua people to commemorate their cultural heritage and memory of their ancestors as well as the preservation of their traditions and livelihoods. The Muscogee Creek people, another tribe who called Alabama and our region home, have descended from the early native people of the Mississippian Period where they created “talwas” or towns that were the centers of daily Creek life. Although once aiding and trading with European colonists and settlers, the Creek people were eventually attacked, ambushed, involved in war with European powers, killed or removed from their land. The descendants of those who survived and continued to live in Alabama now make up the Poarch Band of Creek Indians in Atmore.
For further exploration:
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