Yale School of Architecture Tribal Land Acknowledgement


Tribal Land Acknowledgement

The Yale School of Architecture sits on traditional Indigenous territories. This includes lands of the Mohegan, Mohican, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Niantic, Quinnipiac, and other Algonquian speaking peoples. We pay respect to their peoples of past and present.

Yale University and Yale School of Architecture have benefitted from lands gained through fulfilled and unfulfilled articles of agreement with Indigenous nations and from land cession of Indigenous territories.

The Indigenous peoples who have stewarded these lands for time immemorial remain impacted by discussions of space and place. Yale School of Architecture will continue to work, advance, and teach these histories in architectural education and the profession.

As mediators, we will learn from the generations before us to instill cognizant ways of being in spatial environments with shared histories. As architectural professionals, we will imagine endless possibilities for architectures of reconciliation, reciprocity and transformation; an architecture for those yet to be born, an architecture of the spirit.

Drawing Intention

This interpretive map presents interconnected boundaries of tribal land over time and their relationship to the New Haven area. Animate and inanimate entities are woven throughout the landscape as a cohesive system.

The orthogonal lines coming from the west, north and east, connect to the center of New Haven’s nine square grid, and indicate the historical Quinnipiac travel routes that linked the Quinnipiac with the Paugussetts, Wangunk and Mattabesett, Hammonasset and Niantic peoples.

The topography lines above the nine square grid, represent Hobbomock mountain, now known as Sleeping Giant. Hobbomock mountain is a landmark and significant place within Quinnipiac origin stories and connected with surrounding New Haven topography history.

Project Origins

This project was initiated as a collaborative effort between Indigenous Scholars of Architecture, Planning and Design co-founders Anjelica S. Gallegos (MArch I ’21) with Summer Sutton (Architecture PhD ’22), and Dean Deborah Berke, and Yale School of Architecture leadership. The project was accomplished with the support of the Yale Native American Cultural Center and Yale student members from classes 2019 to 2024.

Yale School of Architecture and Articles of Agreement

Articles of Agreement between Theophilus Eaton, John Davenport, and Others and Momaugin, Sugcogsin, Quesaquauch, Caroughood, and Wesaucucke

Source:
https://www.nativenortheastportal.com/digital-heritage/articles-agreement-between-theophilus-eaton-john-davenport-and-others-and-momaugin

Yale University and the Morrill Act

Source:
https://www.hcn.org/issues/52.4/indigenous-affairs-education-land-grab-universities
https://today.uconn.edu/2012/09/land-grant-status-acquired-after-yale-storrs-controversy/

Yale School of Architecture Jim Vlock Building Project

The Yale School of Architecture class of 2021 is the inaugural class to adopt a tribal land acknowledgement for the Jim Vlock Building Project. Read more about the Jim Vlock Building Project of 2019.

Yale Native American Community

Indigenous Scholars of Architecture, Planning and Design

Native American Cultural Center