The Stockbridge-Munsee Community has closed on the purchase of 372 acres of undeveloped land on Monument Mountain in Massachusetts.
The purchase is the culmination of about two years of effort to regain the land important in the tribe’s history and culture to protect it for future generations.
“It represents a Land Back movement to reclaim land in a way that differs from the western colonial way of thinking about it,” Stockbridge-Munsee President Shannon Holsey said. “We are trying to reclaim our way of being, which was never based on money. It’s the reclamation of our kinship systems, our governance systems, our ceremony and spirituality, our language, our culture, our food and our medicinal systems. Those are all based on our relationship to the land.”
The tribe has long historic ties in this area of what is now Massachusetts. Monument Mountain itself has been considered sacred and ceremonial land with springs and offering sites. Despite the tribe’s removal from the area, Monument Mountain has continued to be a place of pilgrimage for tribal members.
The tribe obtained a Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Grant from Massachusetts to assist with the purchase and the goals of habitat preservation and climate resilience.
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