Creekside Land Acknowledgement

This Creekside Land Acknowledgement was crafted by the Land Acknowledgement Team following a year of study, discussion, prayer, listening to Indigenous voices and neighbors, and conversation with the Creekside community.

The Land Acknowledgement will eventually be accompanied by a series of congregational commitments to advance healing for the land, water, and human and non-human life of Minnesota, which together with this Acknowledgement will constitute Creekside’s Land Covenant.

The Land Acknowledgement Team comprises the following: Kate Andrews van Horne, John Fredell, Tom Griffin, Thom Haines, Susie Hayward, Cathy Mahal, Linda Nelson, Maggie O’Connor, Patricia Olson, Lyn Pegg, and Penny Tower.

Short Version

Note: This short version is read the first Sunday of every month and may be included in our bulletin each week.

We gather on the sacred ancestral homeland of the Dakota people. We acknowledge and honor the Dakota, Ojibwe, and Ho-Chunk peoples who still live here and those who were violently removed from land they’d loved for generations. We seek healing for the land, its waters, its people, and all life from the violence of colonialism. And so, we commit to transforming Christian ideas and practices that have fueled harm, learning from Indigenous wisdom, and pursuing justice in kinship with our Indigenous members and neighbors.

This Dakota land map was created by local artist Marlena Miles (Dakota/Mohegan/Muscogee). Read more here.

Long Version

“Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” —Exodus 3:5

“We are all kin living in a closed system of mutual dependence.” – Sarah Augustine (1)

Creekside UCC is located on the ancestral homeland of the Dakota people from which they were forcibly removed. The Dakota lived on and cared for the land and waters of Mni Sota Makoce (Minnesota) for thousands of years before European settlers arrived. Their creation story tells of their peoples’ origins at Bdote, where the Wakpa Tanka (Mississippi River) and Mni Sota Wakpa (Minnesota River) converge. Other Indigenous nations, including the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) and Ho-Chunk, have also lived on and cared for the land and water of Mni Sota Makoce across generations.

We acknowledge the church acquired the land on which our building sits as the result of settler colonialism, genocide, and the duplicitous Treaty of Traverse des Sioux, undergirded by the Christian Doctrine of Discovery and Manifest Destiny. The church also owns land in Wisconsin that is used by Scout Troop 187. The US Government acquired this land through similar processes, including in an 1837 treaty with the Ojibwe, before the church came to own it.

Colonial ventures of European powers in the so-called “new world” (Turtle Island) were driven by the pursuit of resources such as gold, spice, and furs to enrich their monarchs. European Christian authorities sought to expand their reach through the crowns’ colonial ventures. The Doctrine of Discovery, a series of papal bulls in the 15th century, offered a theological and legal basis of European colonialism. These documents proclaimed that lands “discovered” by European Christians and inhabited by non-Christians (pagans) were terra nullius (nobody’s lands) and could be claimed and exploited by the European powers, Catholic and Protestant. The Doctrine of Discovery continues to provide a legal basis for the U.S. Government’s claim to land, defended by the Supreme Court as recently as 2005. Manifest Destiny, first coined in 1845, was the name given to the ideology driving European settlement of lands westward across North America. This migration extended the theological impulse of the Pilgrims and Puritans to the new land to establish a “city on the hill,” a better way of life, as they fled persecution and poverty in their own homelands. Manifest Destiny was rooted in ideas of American exceptionalism, moral superiority, and Christian mission that saw European Christian expansion westward as God’s will. This movement westward by European settlers was encouraged by the U. S. Government, which provided cheap land to incentivize European settlement, including in Minnesota.

Both the Doctrine of Discovery and Manifest Destiny provided the theo-political and legal bases to justify the genocide of Indigenous people, culture, and lands of North America by the U.S. Government. We acknowledge that many of our Congregational forebears were complicit in driving these theologies and practices, often under the banner of Christian charity, progress, and mission that assumed the moral superiority of Christianity and European culture. These principles led to the forced assimilation of Native children at Christian boarding schools, supported by federal and church funds. Historical evidence shows atrocious patterns of violence associated with Native boarding schools. These practices resulted in cultural loss and generational trauma to Creekside’s Indigenous members and neighbors, and perpetuated structural injustices rooted in white supremacy in our state and country. The same can be said about the government’s policies of mass extermination, forced relocation, criminalization of Native religious and cultural practices, and economic, agricultural, and development practices on stolen Native land. These policies harmed these ecosystems, in some cases irreparably. We also recognize that some European-descended Christians resisted these violent policies and theologies in their time and acted in solidarity with Indigenous and enslaved people for the well-being of land and all life, pursuing justice. We honor these spiritual ancestors whose embodied faith reflects the way of Jesus.

In the 19th century the United States Government imposed on the Dakota people the concept of property ownership. The Treaty of Traverse des Sioux in 1851 resulted in federal capture of the southern part of the state, where Creekside sits. This treaty was signed by only two of the seven tribal bands and the process was marred by deceptive acts that cheated the Dakota of the land’s full worth. Following the signing of the Treaty, a flood of settlers and land speculators moved to Minnesota, encouraged by the government. This migration included Otis Crocker Whitney, who came from Maine and, in 1855, purchased the land on which Creekside UCC now sits from the U.S. Government.

In 1862, tensions erupted into the U.S./Dakota War and the largest mass execution in U.S. history in Mankato, a concentration camp at Bdote (Fort Snelling) where many Dakota women, children, and elders died, followed by forced Dakota exile from Mni Sota Makoce. The promises made by the U.S. Government in the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux, and all other treaties with tribal nations have yet to be fulfilled.

Much healing is needed to repair the harm caused by the historic decimation of Indigenous people, culture, and land. We are called to resist ongoing colonial practices and systems that continue to disproportionately benefit those of us who are white, Christian, and/or have class privilege and inherited wealth. In addition to the Dakota people, the Anishinaabe and Ho-Chunk peoples and land also suffered greatly. In 1850, 84% of the population of Mni Sota Makoce was Indigenous. Today, they comprise 1.4% of the state’s population, and Native-held land is approximately 2% of the state.

Despite the U.S. and Minnesota government’s persistent efforts, Native people and culture remain in Mni Sota Makoce. We acknowledge that the worldviews and cultural practices of Indigenous Minnesotans have inherent beauty and wisdom to offer us about Creator God and about how to live in relationship to the land and water of Mni Sota Makoce. We affirm the inherent dignity of Indigenous people and the eternal sacredness of this land. We note especially the importance of places like Bdote and Pipestone, native grains such as wild rice (manoomin/psin), and waterways such as Minnehaha Creek. We also recognize the ways in which sacred land and water are threatened by extractive industry, agro-chemicals, and global warming. We are grateful for the ways in which Native people in Minnesota are leading efforts to resist ongoing colonial violence and to revitalize Minnesota’s Indigenous languages, cultures, and practices that restore and care for the earth.

Having acknowledged the following, we commit to the following….

These commitments will be completed with congregational input – stay tuned for opportunities in early 2026 to feed into this process.

We encourage you to prepare by considering the ways we are already living into potential commitments: the launch of our reparative justice fund, partnership with the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery and the Minnesota Repair Community in support of Makoce Ikikcupi, participation in the Line 3 protests and other resistance to extractive industries in Minnesota, engagement with the Rise and Repair Coalition to advocate for wild rice protections, building relationships with All Nations Indian Church, converting to green energy systems…

Ready to learn more?

Watch videos from the fall 2025 adult education our:

• A presentation by the Land Acknowledgement Team about the purpose of land acknowledgements and its own process.
• UCC Rev. Dr. Stephanie Perdew (Cherokee) presentation on the UCC and Native history.
• A presentation on the Doctrine of Discovery from Doe Hoyer of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery. WATCH
• A presentation about the work of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition from staff member Fallon Carey (Cherokee). WATCH

We strongly encourage Creekside members to experience and learn about Native culture and histories in the Twin Cities through direct engagement. We are blessed to live in a city with many opportunities to hear from Native authors, attend pow wows, appreciate Native art, visit museums and cultural centers, participate in Indigenous activism, and to enjoy Indigenous food. Check out this list of opportunities. Check out this list of opportunities.

Learn more about the purpose and process of creating land acknowledgements:

• UCC Rev. Stephanie Perdew (Cherokee) in the Christian Century: On Native Land: land acknowledgements can do a lot of good – if they’re rooted in solid process and relationships.
• Native Governance Center’s Indigenous Land Acknowledgement Guide
• Anton Treuer (Ojibwe) video introduction to the history and purpose of land acknowledgements

Vocabulary and Terms

• List of terms created by Jeff Richards and Linda Nelson
• List of terms created by the Damascus Project for its UCC and Native History course

End notes

1. Explore a brief primer on the history of Native communities in Minnesota online here: Native Americans | Minnesota Historical Society. For a more thorough history, you might explore these books: Westerman, Gwen and Bruce White. Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota. Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2012; and: Wingerd, Mary Lethert. North Country: The Making of Minnesota. University of Minnesota Press, 2010.
2. Scout Troop 187 is currently crafting a land acknowledgement for this piece of land and it will be linked to Creekside’s website once completed.
3. The population shift was swift. In 1850, the total population of Minnesota territory was around 37,777 (Native/Indigenous 31,700, white 6077).  After the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux was signed in 1851, a flood of settlers and land speculators moved to Minnesota and European white male immigration was promoted by offering cheap land. By 1860, the total population of the State of Minnesota was around 172,000 (Native/Indigenous dropped to estimated 19,600, white increased to 169,654). See: https://www.mnopedia.org/land-water-and-language-dakota-minnesota-s-first-people; and https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/slam/land-portfolio.html; and Census & Lists – Dakota Family History Research Guide – LibGuides at Minnesota Historical Society Library.