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About > Land Acknowledgment

Land Acknowledgment

Glossary:

Colonist: A member of a government-backed group that settles in a new country or region. The land that’s claimed by a colonist is usually already occupied by another group of people. Those people are often dispossessed, relocated against their will, or killed by colonizing forces.

DEIA – Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility. A set of practices that aim to ensure that people from a variety of backgrounds are represented, welcome, engaged, included, and safe. 

Dispossession – The action of depriving someone of land, property, or other possessions.

Frontier – The extreme limit of settled land beyond which lies wilderness, especially referring to the western US before Pacific settlement. This term has been retired from use at Four Mile Historic Park because it implies that there were not people actively living on and stewarding this land, which we know to be untrue since Indigenous populations have been here for tens of thousands of years. 

Indigenous – (of people) inhabiting or existing in a land from the earliest times or from before the arrival of colonists.

Hinono’ei (or Arapaho) – One of many tribal nations indigenous to the Denver-metro area and beyond. These lands are unceded. 

Non-indigenous – People who are not native to a given region.

Nuche (or Ute) – One of many tribal nations indigenous to the Denver-metro area and beyond. These lands are unceded. 

Pioneer – A person who is among the first to explore or settle a new country or area. Four Mile Historic Park has retired the use of this term since the white colonizers historically referred to as “pioneers” were certainly not the first people to explore, steward, inhabit, or settle North America. 

Steward –  Someone who cares for and protects the land, external to the concept of ownership.

Tsistsistas (or Cheyenne) – One of many tribal nations indigenous to the Denver-metro area and beyond. These lands are unceded. 

Treaty – A binding formal agreement, contract, or other written instrument that establishes obligations between two or more subjects of international law.

Unceded – Land that was never signed away by the Indigenous people who lived there before Euro-American colonizers settled.

North America has been home to Indigenous peoples since time immemorial. At least 48 tribal nations have lived in the Denver area, and the Hinono’ei (or Arapaho), Tsistsistas (or Cheyenne), and Nuche (or Ute) peoples are some of the most recent traditional residents of the unceded land now called Denver, Colorado. Four Mile Historic Park (4MHP) honors the Indigenous peoples and Latino/Chicano/Hispanic peoples who have stewarded this land and recognizes their ongoing contributions and presence in this community. Acknowledging these truths is only one step of many that 4MHP is taking to honor and uplift enduring Indigenous populations while acknowledging the privilege it is to operate here today. This living document serves not just as recognition, but as a guiding document for decision-making, communication, and education moving forward.  Euro-Americans settled this land in direct violation of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 (Horse Creek Treaty), which allowed non-Indigenous peoples to pass through but not settle the land now known as Colorado. The Pike’s Peak Gold Rush attracted tens of thousands of non-Indigenous settlers to the area, interrupting Indigenous lifeways and forcing people off of the land they had been stewarding for generations. Once the presence of gold in the Rocky Mountains was widely known, the 1861 Treaty of Fort Wise “legalized” non-Indigenous settlement so that settlers could profit from the extraction of the region’s resources, and forcibly relocated the Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples to land in eastern Colorado that was perceived by colonizing forces to be less valuable. Three years later, the territorial governor of Colorado, John Evans, perpetrated the Sand Creek Massacre against those forcibly displaced people. Meanwhile, self-described “settlers” continued to flock to this area, and still do to this day.  Since their arrival, the white settlers of this area have been at odds with the presence and practices of Indigenous peoples. The Brantner Brothers who built the historic Four Mile House in 1859, and Mary Cawker who took over the house in 1860 and ran it as a stagecoach stop, did so in violation of treaties between Indigenous nations and the United States government.  Four Mile Historic Park, Inc. was established in 1977 in order to steward public access to the historic house and surrounding 12 acres. From its origin, it has portrayed the history of a narrow group of Coloradans, from the perspective of white Americans. 4MHP has focused on and glorified the pioneer figure, falling in line with many other museums which represent the colonization of the country inside and outside of museums with images of “intrepid white men who bravely conquered the Wild West.” This perspective validated the ongoing nature of settler colonialism and Indigenous genocide and portrays almost exclusively a view of history that has been at odds with the presence, history, and experiences of Indigenous peoples.  To begin efforts toward remedying these practices, 4MHP retired the use of the terms “pioneer” and “frontier” in 2021 due to their racial connotations. 4MHP continues auditing educational, programming, and event materials to share a more intellectually honest interpretation of the history of the Four Mile House. While we will continue to talk about the three families who historically owned what is now the oldest standing house in Denver, we are also eagerly expanding our scope to host and amplify the stories of the many diverse figures who have lived in this region and support Indigenous sovereignty, community events, and economic development initiatives through both internal programs and partnerships with Indigenous organizations. As a part of the DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility) statement adopted in the Spring of 2024, 4MHP named some of its priorities as preserving and uplifting Indigenous history, expanding history and storytelling, expanding our land acknowledgment, and holding ourselves accountable to setting and achieving ambitious DEIA goals that span the entire organization. To be clear, the past isn’t changing; the breadth of history and interpretation of events that 4MHP presents to the public is changing. As Four Mile Historic Park works toward widening the scope of the stories we tell, we want to make it clear that we are on unceded Indigenous land; that we are and have been complicit in glorifying dispossession of Indigenous land, erasing thousands of years of Indigenous presence and hundreds of years of genocide; and that we are in the process of changing. Because museums are considered widely to be among the most trusted institutions in society, we must acknowledge that our staff are not the arbiters of all truth and eagerly welcome other community members and organizations who are authorities on their own history to consider the Park a host site for the telling of their stories and the creation of new history today.