Strafford News

On Monday, Nov. 28, the City of Dover unveiled a replica of a bronze plaque bearing a land acknowledgment to the area's indigenous peoples. The ceremony, held at the Dover Public Library, was attended by city officials, members of the indigenous community, and members of the Racial Equity and Inclusion Committee.

The bronze plaques are made possible thanks to a generous grant by the New Hampshire Humanities Council. They will be installed at city facilities.

The unveiling was followed by a special presentation on indigenous land stewardship, with guest speakers Paul and Denise Pouliot, the Sag8mo and Sag8moskwa (Male and Female Head Speakers) of the Cowasuck Band of the Pennacook Abenaki People; and Kathleen Blake, affiliate faculty of the University of New Hampshire Native American and Indigenous Studies Minor. The presentation can be viewed here: https://dovernh.viebit.com/player.php? hash=MsYAc1myDkHp.

The New Hampshire Humanities Council grant, which was approved by the City Council earlier this year, helped create Indigenous Dover, an initiative to help better understand and appreciate the history of the indigenous peoples who were here in what is now called Dover, thousands of years before the first European settlers.

The City Council adopted a land acknowledgment last year, which had been proposed by the Council’s ad-hoc Committee on Racial Equity and Inclusion (CREI). Dover's land acknowledgment at city facilities will state: “This facility is located at Cochecho (CO-chi-co) within N’dakinna (n-DA-ki-na), now called Dover, New Hampshire, which is the unceded traditional ancestral homeland of the Abenaki (a-BEN-a-ki), Pennacook and Wabanaki Peoples, past and present. We acknowledge and honor with gratitude the land, waterways, living beings, and the Aln8bak (Al-nuh-bak), the people who have stewarded N’dakinna (n-DA-ki-na) for many millennia.”

Visit bit.ly/nativedover for more information about the Indigenous Dover project.

Original source can be found here.