For decades, Indigenous communities in US industrial cities have had to gather at recreation centers and in each other’s homes to celebrate ties to their cultures, says Ty Smith, a member of Oregon’s Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.
But last month, the Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio (NAICCO) that Smith helps run from Columbus, Ohio, reached a goal he never thought possible: raising $250,000 to buy a small piece of rural land meant to foster Native American life and activities.
“Our goal is to create a sense of home, a place to congregate, to interact to practice our ways, to pass the torch and to put new seeds down for the future,” said Smith, who moved to Ohio in 1996.
“Today it’s even more critical because of the modern ways our people are living – technology has consumed not only our youth but even some of our elders. Even just getting outside is unheard of.”
While many Native American tribes and nations in western parts of the US have sovereignty over their own land and territory, some – such as the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa of Minnesota– have also succeeded in securing the return of tens of thousands of acres of land.
However, in the more populous eastern midwest, Indigenous representation is far less vocal. Native Americans make up just 2% of Ohio’s population – about 35,000 people, according to the US Census Bureau. And many live in urban areas such as Cleveland and Columbus, leaving limited opportunities to access the natural world.
But today, Native American land rights are growing in the industrial midwest.
In September, the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, a series of 2,000-year-old ceremonial structures and burial grounds on eight sites around southern and central Ohio, were added to the Unesco World Heritage list of sites of cultural significance. They are one of only 25 such sites in the US on a list that also includes the Great Wall of China and the Pyramids of Giza.
Native American groups hope this will spark a new departure for Native rights that would ultimately result in land being returned to Indigenous communities in a region of the US not traditionally recognized for its strong Native American links.
For centuries, nations and tribes such as the Miami, Shawnee, Delaware and others called the plains, hardwood forests and countless rivers of present-day Ohio their home. Across the Ohio River to the south, what is now Kentucky served as sacred hunting grounds for native communities.
But that changed in the late 1700s.
The Ohio Country was one of the first regions encountered by European settlers pushing west over the Appalachian mountains from cities along the eastern coast. Settlers taking land meant local native communities were forcibly displaced to reservations in Oklahoma and elsewhere during the 1800s, the link to their Native lands lost for generations.
Later, the much-maligned Relocation Act of 1956 sought to encourage Native Americans living on reservations and traditional lands to assimilate into cities at a time when the federal government was slashing funding for tribal authorities. Many migrated to Ohio’s industrial urban areas, where the new environment transformed their lives.
Smith isn’t alone in pushing for Native American land rights in Ohio.
When the National Football League Foundation announced plans to buy and donate an artificial turf field on the site of the first NFL football game, held in 1920 in Dayton, Ohio, Guy Jones – a Hunkpapa Lakota from South Dakota – went digging.
“It’s located right at the confluence of two rivers [so] I had a sense that there might have been something there,” he says.
Jones – who moved to Ohio 40 years ago – asked city authorities to survey the land. Sure enough, they found evidence of ancient artifacts or remains, and it forced the NFL Foundation to abandon its plans.
“The essence of our being is related to the land,” he says. “Even our language is land-based.”
Still, significant challenges remain in the push to place land back in the hands of Native communities. One of the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks sites awarded the Unesco World Heritage designation lies on the grounds of a private golf and country club in Licking county, Ohio.
Last December, a judge ordered the country club to turn over its lease of the land on which the earthworks lie to a history museum. But there are disagreements over the land’s value. A jury trial held to determine its value was scheduled for October, but is stuck in appeal.
In September 2022, the Oglala Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes in South Dakota had to pay $500,000 to secure land around the site of the Battle of Wounded Knee, where more than 200 Native Americans were massacred by the US army in 1890. The family that owned the property sought close to $4m though it had been assessed at just $14,000.
What’s more, securing land for Native American tribes in a way that is legally binding and permanent means jumping through a host of legal hoops often involving federal and state governments, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, federally recognized tribal authorities, land trusts and other stakeholders, Jones said.
For Ty Smith and NAICCO, going down that route is not part of their current plan.
“We are a small group,” he remarked. “Our biggest challenge right now is keeping up with the momentum it’s been gaining in recent months.”
While the exact location and quantity of land has yet to be determined, several organizations have offered help in achieving and potentially expanding NAICCO’s original goal. Smith said a lot of those conversations are just that, “but the opportunity potential is certainly ahead of us. We’ve seen potential partners and supporters reach out.”
As for an ideal location, he is beginning to dream.
“Something that has that natural state in place,” he said. “Somewhere with water would be a plus – if we are intending to be rightful stewards of the land, why not the water, too?”
