Wayne State University rests on Waawiyaataanong, also referred to as Detroit, the ancestral and contemporary homeland of the Three Fires Confederacy, consisting of the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi/Bodéwadmi. By the early 18^th century, the Wendat were in the Detroit area as well. These sovereign lands were ceded by the Ojibwe, Odawa, Bodéwadmi, and Wendat nations, in 1807, through the Treaty of Detroit. In forwarding the name Waawiyaataanong, we recognize this area as a central meeting place for Great Lakes Indigenous peoples, including the Anishinaabe: Odawa, Ojibwe, and Bodéwadmi.

The Wendat called the Detroit area Teuchsa Grondie, or “Land of Many Beavers”—the beavers that built wetlands teaming with life. Yet 85% of North America’s wildlife, once sacred, became a commodity to the French, and eventually, other European settlers. Desire to control the fur trade led to the French settlement of Detroit in 1701, by French colonial governor Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac. Named “de-troit du lac Eric” (or “the strait of Erie”) by the French, the Waawiyaataanong area eventually became a commercial hub and gateway for colonial settlers seeking Michigan’s rich soil and great forests, along with strategic access to the Great Lakes. Eventually, around 90% of the wetlands in coastal Southeast Michigan were drained to make way for lumber processing, industry, and agriculture. From 1820-1920, 97% of Michigan’s old-growth forests were clear-cut. As Antonio Cosme writes, “Michigan’s industrial legacy began on the stumps of Michigan’s great forests.” The federal government created land-grant colleges like Michigan State University to give away the ravaged, clear-cut land, and convert it for farming. The total value of Michigan’s lumber—the “green rush”—was higher than the value of California’s “gold rush.”    

We acknowledge the real ways that the State of Michigan, Wayne State University, Michigan State University, and residents of this Land have benefitted from the forced and systematic removal of Indigenous peoples from Michigan, particularly during the Indian Removal period of the nineteenth century. We affirm and acknowledge the Burt Lake Band, who were literally burned from their houses in 1900. We also acknowledge the Métis community who were forced from their community on Bootaaganini-minis (Drummond Island), when the border was drawn between the US and Canada. Likewise, we recognize that parts of what is now Michigan includes Land within the traditional Homelands of the Miami, Meskwaki, Sauk, Kickapoo, Menominee, and other Indigenous nations.

We collectively understand that offering Land Acknowledgements or Land Recognitions do not absolve settler-colonial privilege or diminish colonial structures of violence at either the individual or institutional level. We recognize that Land Acknowledgements must be preceded and followed with ongoing and unwavering commitments to American Indian and Indigenous communities. We recognize, support, and advocate for the sovereignty of Michigan’s twelve federally recognized Indian nations, for historic Indigenous communities in Michigan, for Indigenous individuals and communities who live here now, and for those who were forcibly removed from their Homelands. We affirm Indigenous sovereignty and hold our Michigan institutions accountable to the needs of American Indian and Indigenous peoples, and to the waterway-enriched lands on which we reside.

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In writing this land acknowledgement, we are much indebted to Dr. Kristin Arola, chair of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program at Michigan State University.  We are also indebted to the land acknowledgements of both Wayne State and MSU, as well as the Waawiyaataanong land acknowledgement shared by Antonio Cosme in his piece / podcast on southeast Michigan tribal history, as printed in  and recorded for Geez Magazine in 2020.