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Lycoming College Land Acknowledgement Statement
Lycoming College, situated on 42 acres along the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, occupies the traditional lands of Indigenous peoples and nations who were forcibly removed through settler colonialism. Indigenous peoples have called this area home for at least 13,000 years, with various groups migrating to the region over the centuries. By the ninth century, communities of Clemson Island, Shenks Ferry, and Owasco peoples had established vibrant societies sustained by extensive fruit and vegetable fields and enriched by diverse, interconnected arts and cultures. For example, Clemson Island and Owasco pottery, adorned with intricate geometric patterns, became widespread across the West Branch and much of the Northern Susquehanna River Valley. Experts note that the blending of pottery designs reflects not only the cultural differences among the diverse peoples living along the West Branch but also their shared spaces and mutual influence.
Such a dynamic social landscape characterizes the Indigenous history of the West Branch. After a series of migrations in the fourteenth century when many of the Owasco peoples headed further north, other Indigenous groups such as the Iroquoian speaking Susquehannock made much of the Susquehanna River Valley their home. The Five Nations, otherwise known as the Haudenosaunee, also began to migrate to the valley. After what is commonly called the Beaver Wars of the seventeenth century, the Haudenosaunee asserted their claim to the Northern Susquehanna River Valley by right of conquest over the Susquehannock. By the mid-eighteenth century, the Haudenosaunee were a dominant presence in the region, residing in diverse multicultural towns across the fertile valleys, densely covered mountains, rolling hills, and navigable creeks that made the Northern Susquehanna River Valley desirable for farming, hunting, and fishing.
Throughout the eighteenth century, the Northern Susquehanna River Valley continued to be one of the most diverse spaces in North America. Indigenous refugees, displaced by Euromericans from their ancestral homes to the east, north, and south, found a home in this valley, particularly after the disastrous "Walking Purchase" of 1737. The Lenape or Delaware—encompassing the Unalachtigo, Unami, and, sometimes, the Munsee—displaced from their lands east and west of the Delaware River, established roots in the Northern Susquehanna River Valley. Seeking refuge from racial violence, multiethnic Indigenous Christians also sought solace in the valley after fleeing Moravian missions in the Lehigh Valley. Additionally, the Northern Susquehanna River Valley became a haven for other refugee peoples, including Algonquian-speaking Nanticoke and Conoy from present-day Maryland, Shawnee from the south and west, and Mohican from the northeast. Siouan-speaking Saponi and Tutelo from the Piedmont, along with a small group of Muskogean- speaking peoples from further south, also called the Northern Susquehanna River Valley home during the eighteenth century. This confluence of diverse nations and cultures in the Northern Susquehanna River Valley was a testament to Indigenous resilience, but it also reflected the profound and relentless upheaval caused by settler colonialism, which uprooted entire communities and reshaped the region into a crossroads of displacement and survival.
These diverse groups either coexisted in multicultural towns or lived as close but separate neighbors. Towns like Ostonwackin, Wenschpochkechung (now the site of Lycoming College), Great Island, and Bald Eagle, among others, flourished along the tributary creeks of the West Branch. In the 1750s, faced with the relentless encroachment of Euromerican settlers on their lands, several of these multiethnic communities in the valley formed a confederation. They established councils with diplomats, speakers, and interpreters, asserting their claim over much of the Northern Susquehanna River Valley.
That was a needed response because, by the mid-eighteenth century, the Northern Susquehanna River Valley had attracted the attention of peoples residing in various colonies, empires, and nations. Euromericans especially coveted the river valley, which, since at least 1749, had become central to their dreams of economic independence and future riches. As it turned out, they were willing to fight each other—and the Native peoples who lived there—to achieve their goals.
The tumultuous journey of these diverse communities and Euromerican settlers as they pursued their dreams in the Northern Susquehanna River Valley laid the groundwork for the American Revolution and the founding of the United States. That founding, though, ultimately resulted in the dispossession and diaspora of the Indigenous peoples who had called this land home for centuries. Throughout the Revolutionary War, settlers and Native peoples fought over the land along the West Branch. It was a brutal struggle, “covering,” the Chief Justice of Pennsylvania noted, “this country in blood.” As a result of that conflict, the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, backed by Congress, asserted its modern jurisdiction as a right of conquest—a prize of the American Revolution. This assertion enabled the commonwealth to recognize squatter rights to Indigenous lands along the West Branch, framing it as compensation for the squatters’ “sacrifice and suffering during the war.”
Many of the diverse Indigenous communities living along the West Branch left or were forced to leave their land in dismay, finding new homes further west and north. Some ended up in present day Indiana, others, such as the Montour family, whose name became the basis for towns, schools, and businesses along the West Branch and throughout Upstate New York, fled to Canada. Lycoming College now occupies a small but significant part of the land that those diverse Indigenous communities were dispossessed from and that American settlers claimed and the commonwealth recognized as the spoils of victory from a revolutionary war that, as a Seneca leader saw it, was fought to “possess our Lands.” He and his people, after all, also fought to maintain their "liberty." As an educational institution, Lycoming College embraces our responsibility to generate honest accounts of this past and to create a culture of respect for these nations and all other Indigenous nations, in both their past and present forms.
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