The Middle CT River Valley (often known as the ‘pioneer valley’) stretches from Northfield, MA to Springfield, MA. The Upper River Valley lies along the border of VT and NH, and the Lower River Valley flows south from Springfield, MA to the Long Island Sound. These boundaries are not simply state lines, but geological changes along the river’s route.

Acknowledgement for the Middle CT River Valley

Sourced from Rhonda Anderson, Margaret M. Bruchac, Laurel Davis-Delano, and Lisa Brooks

We recognize that this land that we are guests on, and this land that we are benefiting from, is territory of the Sokoki Abenaki (part of the Wabanaki Confederacy), the Pocumtuck, the Nonotuck, the Nipmuc, and the Agawam.

Sokoki means “people who go their own way.” Sokoki are still here and are a state-recognized Tribe in southern Vermont, the Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi (St. Francis/Sokoki Band).

Pocumtuck is a Mohican-Pocumtuck word that roughly translates to “People of the Narrow Swift River” or “People of the Swift Clear Stream” meaning the Deerfield River. The Pocumtuck are not gone; they were absorbed into their kin of Mohican, Abenaki, and Nipmuc peoples.

Nipmuc means “People of the Freshwater,” and they are a state-recognized Tribe in Massachusetts. The Nipmuc Nation has a reservation in Central Mass that has never been out of Tribal hands.

Nonotuck means the oxbow part of the CT River, and local kin also absorbed the Nonotuck.

Agawam roughly translates to “Low-lying Lands,” the present-day Springfield area of the CT River Valley.

We are in the watershed of the Kwinitekw River or Connecticut River. Kwinitekw means “Long Tidal River.” It is important to remember that while Indigenous communities have lived, gathered, farmed, hunted, and fished in the area for thousands of years, they are still here.

In addition, we want recognize our many neighbors -

The Nipmuc Nation, Chaubunagungamaug Nipmuck, and Massachusett at Ponkapoag to the East.

The Aquinnah Wampanoag, Chappaquiddick Wampanoag, Herring Pond Wampanoag, Mashpee Wampanoag, Seaconke Wampanoag, and Narragansett to the Southeast.

The Mohegan, Eastern Pequot, and Mashantucket Pequot to the South.

The Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican to the West. Mohican translates to “People of the Waters that Are Never Still,” meaning the Hudson River. War, genocide, dispossession, and colonization pushed the Mohican, Stockbridge, and Munsee Tribes west in the late 1700s through 1800s to Wisconsin, where they have a reservation today in Menominee territory. The Mohican Tribe has an office in Williamstown, NY and land in Troy, NY to maintain their local ties.

The Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi (St. Francis/Sokoki Band) and Nulhegan Abenaki to the North.

We respect the sovereignty of these and hundreds of other Indigenous Nations that survive today, and we pledge to support the rights of these nations and the interests of Indigenous peoples.

_______________

Acknowledgement for the Springfield area

(Springfield Land Acknowledgement / Margaret M. Bruchac / Laurel Davis-Delano)

We acknowledge that here, we stand on Indigenous land, known to the original Native American Indigenous inhabitants as “Agawam.” The Indigenous name for this place is a locative term that roughly translates to “low-lying lands,” describing a large region along both sides of the Connecticut River from present-day Enfield, Connecticut to the Holyoke Range. For at least 10,000 years, since the last era of glaciation, the Agawam people engaged in trade, diplomacy, and kinship with other regional Indigenous people, including with the Nonotuck, Pocumtuck, and Sokoki to the North.

During the 1630s, when Agawam leaders invited English colonial settlers to build a small settlement here, they attempted to preserve, in written deeds, Indigenous cartographies and rights to hunt, fish, plant, and live on tribal lands. When diplomatic relations failed, the Agawam people were decimated and dispersed as a direct result of colonial deceit, disease, and warfare. Although the survivors sought refuge with other Native communities across the northeast, very few direct descendants of the Agawam people live in Springfield today.

We acknowledge, however, that many Indigenous nations, from the territory we now call "southern New England," still survive and still exercise sovereignty. Recognizing that the entirety of the North American continent constitutes territory considered to be original Indigenous homelands, we respect the sovereignty of these and hundreds of other Native American Indigenous nations that survive today and we pledge to support the rights of these nations and the interests of Indigenous peoples.

Maps of Native Land