In the summer of 1970, a group of artists retreated from New York City to Mabou Mines, Nova Scotia in Canada to create their first theater piece, Red Horse Animation. The company took the name “Mabou Mines,” and has since become not only a collective of artists, but of ideas and approaches. Mabou Mines acknowledges and honors the land of our founding and namesake in Nova Scotia and the land the Company has called home in Lower Manahatta since its founding.
We acknowledge that Mabou Mines, on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia is in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People. Mi’kma’ki is covered by “Treaties of Peace and Friendship” which Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik people first signed with the British Crown in 1725. These treaties did not signify the surrender of lands and resources but recognized Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik titles and established the rules for what was to be an ongoing relationship between nations.
– Margaret Poulette, Mi’kmaq People
On behalf of Principal Chief Perry of the Ramapough-Munsee Lenape Nation, I welcome you to the region of Lower Manahatta once occupied and sustained by the Canarsee Lenape whose territory expanded into today’s Brooklyn, and who are documented as the first points of contact with the Dutch. We are the Lenapehoking today, and will be for the remaining days of tomorrows Keepers of the Pass. We acknowledge the unceded territory known today as New York City originates from the indigenous population that inhabited the area of Manahatta and its collective five boroughs. In as much as the Canarsee inhabited this region encompassing Corlears Hook, we are indebted to their courage and sacrifice. We give full recognition to their sacrifice and offer words of honor to their memory. Our pledge in this moment is to shift from unconscious bias to conscious reverence and goodwill. Subsequently, in uniting and extending homage to the tribal peoples who have stayed and endured a quiet Genocide, we are witness to the emergence of a Renaissance of the Lenape people who have remained steadfast to this new light.
– Chief Dwaine Perry, Ramapo Munsee Lenape
– Oleana Whispering Dove, Tsalagi-Algonquian Descendant