Safety, Housing, Education & Homelessness Committee - Regular Meeting

The safety, housing, education, and homelessness committee begins now. Alright. I think we're getting a little bit of feedback. Cool. Thank you. Alright. Good morning, everyone. My name is Serena Gonzales Gutierrez. I am one of your council members at large and honored to chair our safety, housing, education, and homelessness committee. Today is Wednesday, and I always tend to forget the date, June 25.

And so we're here in our committee. We're gonna have council members do some introductions that are joining us this morning. We might have some folks join us online. And so we'll go ahead and start over here on my right with council member introductions.

Thank you, Good

morning, everyone. Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver's district two.

Good morning. Stacy Gilmore, district eleven. Jimmy Torres, West Denver District three. Chris Hines, Denver's Perfect ten.

All right. Well, thank you. We have a special guest here today. We're going to have a briefing from the people of the sacred land on the truth education and restoration commission reports. We also do have some items on consent that we'll get to at the end of our committee. But with that said, I would love for our guests to introduce themselves, And it looks like councilman Gilmore is gonna be helping with the present slide deck there. So she'll be your tech support over here. But if you can introduce yourself and then go ahead with your presentation.

Rick Williams. Greetings, friends and relatives. My Lakota name is TallBull. Tall literally, it's translated as a long legged bull buffalo. It's my Lakota enrolled as an as a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, but I'm part Cheyenne.

And I just greeted you great made I had a greeting for you. Today, I'm gonna tell you some stories. And I think that what I say is very important to me. It's critical to me because unlike history with most people, it's not personal. In this particular case, the work that I've done and the work that we've been working on is personal.

And it's personal because they were my my it involved my relatives. My great great great grandfather on the Cheyenne side was a leader of the dog soldier society. He was also a member of the council of forty four. He used to have a winter camp right here on Cherry Creek, for years and years and years, before, people came here. We and then on the Oglala side, Old Smoke would camp camp camp on Cherry Creek also.

So before contact with Europeans, before this this was our homeland and and which it it it's become a place that's kinda special for Indian people and especially some places like The Confluence. Mhmm. We've been using people native people have been using The Confluence for at least eleven thousand years. And you'll see an exchange that went on all the way from the Northwest Coast. Last week, I was talking to some people from Central America, and I told them a story about how, at one time, somebody from the South had brought monkeys up, and they traded monkeys, to to to within the tribe, and they didn't survive.

And they didn't survive because of the winter. But, the only way we know this story is because my relatives had gone with Buffalo Bill Cody in the Wild West show when they went to New York City. And while they were in New York City, he took them to Barnum and Bailey Circus. And he took took him in there, and he said, I'm gonna show you, a different different kind of human being. And he took him in there and, you know, and, you know, they they see these monkeys.

And he said, well, aren't you, you know, aren't you excited about it? And he said, no. We used to have monkeys. So, you know, these stories these stories that go on through time that that are all connected with with what I'm gonna say. We'll start with so this is one of those pieces that you don't learn in history.

In 1834, Congress passed what was called the Indian Trade and Intercourse Act. And what it was was it was an act that and I think it was prompted primarily because of the forcible removal of the tribes in the East, and I think there was some some people started to develop a conscience about that. And so they said, well, we're gonna take all of this land West Of The Mississippi, and we're gonna designate all of this land as Indian country. Now that's important because this was all we would have been considered titled. Now people say, well, Indian people didn't own that.

Homeland. Well, we did, but the concept that we use was significantly different. Our concept of ownership was occupancy for use, sustainable use, cultural practices, religious practices. That's how we asserted ownership over an area. And so, you know, when you get European title, the first thing they they use is aboriginal title.

I don't like to use that term because it's not necessarily fully accurate. So but we have we have we would have had our own title, aboriginal title, and congressional title to all of this land. And I think that's important because when we start looking about how how the land has let's go two slides ahead. Right here. So it said it says, all of the land that hasn't been extinguished for the purposes act be taken and be deemed Indian country.

So congress asserts that that whole area is now Indian country. And so going forward, the let's go back one slide. Okay. So going forward, it says be be if that if any person shall make any settlement of any lands belonging secured or granted by treaty with The United States to any Indian tribe shall survey or shall attempt to survey lands, designate boundaries, marking trees. Such offenders will forfeit and pay a sum of a thousand dollars and shall moreover be lawful to to The United States.

Take measures. Remove them by military force. So now now think about that. That whole area of of red in there, there wasn't supposed to be anybody in there except traders with licenses. The military could go in there.

People could cross the land, but nobody could stay. So if they put up any kind of permit and that's what was that's what the law was. That was the the basis of of of the law going forward. And that's where we really start with this this whole thing about you can go to the the one the okay. So so when when you're in this area and you were here if you were here before the treaty of 1851 and you asked you wanted to bring these people together and talk to them about their land, you know, whose land was where, This is the kind of configuration you would see.

You would see that the Lakota people own land all the way from the the Missouri River by Omaha, all the way out to the Continental Divide, all the way back up North of the Black Hills, here into Colorado, along the North Platte that, they exercised, all the way down into, Colorado. Now it does this doesn't show up, but what happens is, okay. What about the Cheyennes who live in the same area? What about the Kiowas who live in this Comanches? What about them?

How does this so, you you have a tremendous amount of confusion if you try to determine whose boundaries are where. And so in '51, they really try to do that. They they bring everybody together at a at a treaty meeting in Fort Laramie. They leave some tribes out like the Kiowas. The Kiowas had a presence here that was incredible, but they get left off.

The Comanches, though, didn't didn't come to the meeting. The colonies were on their way to meeting, but they got into a conflict with the Lakotas, and they turned around and went back. So there were tribes who should have been part of these negotiations with the 51 treaty, but they weren't. The 51 treaty is one of those pieces of of of historical document that was corrupted. And it was corrupted for a lot of reasons, and mostly because when they agreed to that treaty, when the tribes agreed to that treaty that was going to be they would determine boundaries.

Now it would they didn't give up any land in it. There's nothing that really relinquishing any land. And so article seven said that this was gonna be a treaty for fifty years. When it got to the senate, the senate changed it to ten years with an option for five more. And they sent it to the president.

And the president said, did any did you go back to the tribes and get signatures from the tribes to approve this amendment? The answer was no. We didn't. Well, you're gonna have to do that or we're I'm not gonna sign it. So they tried on a number of occasions to try to get those signatures, and they never could. They they some people say that that, you know, that it was it was satisfactory that they did get part of them, but they never got all

of them.

The bottom line is that so the treat think of the treaty as a contract. So you have a contract who one group has signed, the other one hasn't hasn't approved the amendment. So time passes. People kind of forget about it. 1920, United States government says, oh, wait a minute. This treaty doesn't have a presidential signature on it. We gotta go back and fix this. So they go back to the the Department of Interior and Indian Affairs, and they try to get it fixed. And the state department said, you're of luck. We don't do treaties anymore.

You can't there's no way you can get a presidential signature on something. So, however, it's interesting. The Indian claims courts and several other people just assumed that it was valid and moved forward like it was valid. And only in contemporary times has people have people discovered that you know, the argument is you can't have a valid treaty without two signatures. You mean you can't it's just not.

So today, you'll see the National Park Service and other people likely saying this treaty is not valid. I'm gonna go to the next. So this is the land that would have been in the 1851 and the 1861 treaty. So the larger area, this is with the Cheyenne and Arapaho, and that's primarily what we're talking about Eastern Plains. I don't say a lot about the youths on the Western Side because I didn't I don't know them that well.

I didn't study their history in the detail. So in '51, this would have been the area of land that was was created. And but if you juxtapose that against the red piece, you're gonna see that there was land outside of the red piece that was still Indian land, but was never taken legally by treaty. So that that raises a question about you know? And and the fact that this wasn't supposed to be a transfer.

It was boundaries, not legal boundaries, just boundaries of these places where people would go. The tribes who participated in this, interestingly enough, reserved the right to come back to Colorado to hunt and fish and for occupancy at any time they wanted to. And unless a later treaty abrogated that right, they still have that. So we have tribes who are sitting on the sidelines in Colorado that, have treaty rights here to hunt and fish and occupy the area, and they've never exercised them, mostly because they didn't know about them. Let's go to the next slide.

This slide is is if you were this is what I would consider the legal boundaries today of what would have happened back through time. If you see the orange line going down the center, that's virtually the continental divide. Everything on this side in orange up there was Cheyenne and Arapaho land. When they reduced it in '61, it becomes a little yellow area. The area down in the pink area down in the corner, that was Kiowa Comanche and Kiowa Apache land, and that's where that that was a treaty.

And then all of the rest of this area except for up in the Northwest corner, the Shoshone's. That was a Shoshone land by treaty. The rest of it is Ute land. So the Utes had a pretty big empire. So these were these are all today, if we're looking at something from a legal standpoint, this is what would would would should be used because this is what the treaties, the contracts agreed to.

Now we have some some difficulty with this because there's some pieces that happened that let's go to the next slide. So we have the horse keep it's you know, it was never ratified. The only time you ever see this is that and and it was you what's interesting, it was used as the stipulated source for land in the Indian Claims Commission. The Indian Claims Commission happened in the 1960s and was supposed to go back and settle all of Indian claims going forward. Go to the next slide.

So about this time, we have beginning in '18 well, first, have a lot of people coming through because of gold in California. 1849, gold in California. And and so that was part of why they had the 51 treaty. Well, now it's interesting that this is this is the story. There was if you think about the Cherokees being removed from Georgia, and there was gold in Georgia.

So they get them they move them to Indian territory in Oklahoma, and they hear you know, some of them hear rumors of being gold out in California. Well, then they went out there, and they didn't have any luck. On their way back, they stopped here, and they found gold. And so they were the first ones to find gold in Colorado, and it was right here on Cherry Creek. Believe it or not, Cherry Creek was the one of the primary called placer gold.

It was mean it was real easy to to get to. So gold is discovered about 1858. All of a sudden, in the next three years, you have, they report a 100,000 people coming into the area. This as an incredible amount of of people. Even even after the rush, there were still about 45. Okay. So this is where we're we have a problem, folks. You have a 100,000 people coming into this area. Remember if we go back to that law, 1834? Not supposed to be anybody out here.

Every one of those people were here illegally, and the administration knew about it. There's congressional testimony of a senator in 1860 that says, there was something going on in Colorado that that ended up in the the the the senate. And the senator gets up and says, if you guys don't figure this out, we're gonna come out there and we're gonna arrest every one of you, and we're gonna jail you for six months and fine you a thousand dollars because you're trespassing. You're not supposed to be out there. That's kind of a that's that's pretty pretty hard to believe.

So you have you have an illegal occupation into somebody's homeland, and they're not supposed to be there. And the entity that's responsible for all this is not doing anything to to take care of it. And so long you know, Colorado's got to do something about this. And so and and then other things. So they do what's called the enabling act.

Enabling act was how the state of Colorado became a territory. Before, this was Nebraska territory. Kansas and Nebraska Act of 1854, this was Kansas and Nebraska territory. So you'll see things crazy like in Boulder County, for example, a group of people in Sydney, Nebraska organized and went to Boulder and and cut up the land and and and made issued title to to land in Boulder in 1858. They didn't own that land.

There's no way there's no way that that that they own that land, and I'll get to that. So you have and and and it says, I think this is the one that's really shall remain unextinguished by treaty between and such Indians or to in include the territory by treaty with Indian tribe is not without the consent of said tribe to be included within the territorial limits or jurisdiction of any state or territory. So any Indian land in Colorado was not supposed to be part of the territory. Well, nobody nobody told anybody that back then, I guess. I don't know.

So so, again, you have an enabling act that allows people to come in, and that land is supposed to be protected. Next slide, please. So you have all these people out here. You gotta do something about this. Right? So let's get a treaty in 1861. We're gonna have a treaty with the Cheyennes and Arapahos of the Upper Arkansas. Parties to this agreement. So they try to get all of the Cheyennes and Arapahos, but they can't get them. They made a mistake.

They went and told them ahead of time what they were gonna try to do. Said we want you to come in to Fort Wise, and when you come in, we're gonna sign agreement. You're gonna give up your land, and we're gonna put you on you know, we're gonna create a reservation for you. Well, the southerners were kinda okay with that because they were you know, it was kinda in their territory. But the northerners said no. The council we we had a very sophisticated form of governance called the council of forty four. It has you you you had to have permission from the council of forty four, and then it would go down to the societies, and there were seven societies that, you know, made decisions. All of this stuff was going on. And they said, no. We're not gonna participate in this.

We are not going to sign this treaty, and none of them did. They they said no. But in order to try to they and the the the commissioner of Indian Affairs knew this, so he's gonna he's trying to get them to come in within a year. Say, oh, come on in. Just come on in. It'll be okay. And nobody comes in. One they get one person to sign, and he was drunk. So they, you know, they just basically say, well, so much for that. They don't even put the land.

This is where it gets really they don't put the land. You go to the Platte River. You go West of the Platte River, you follow the Platte River all the way down south and where it goes up to the Continental Divide, all the way up the Continental Divide to Casper, Wyoming, back down on the North Platte to where the South Platte comes in, all of that land belongs to the northern people, the northern Cheyennes and the northern Arapahoes. They don't participate in this treaty. Their land is not in this treaty.

They're from the the Platt agency. These guys are from the Upper Arkansas agency. And so there's no way that any of that land on that side of the river was given up. So go ahead and go to the next slide. This this treaty was one of those ones that just just I labeled it the iniquitous treaty of Mhmm.

If you could imagine that you have you have the Cheyenne and Arapaho in this treaty, the Arapaho interpreter can't speak the language. He admits it in a congression in a commission meeting two years later that he didn't he couldn't speak the language. So how could you possibly have any kind of reason? And this treaty was probably one of the most erudite treaties I've ever read. I mean, it's pretty sophisticated.

There was no signature guard regarding the ceding of land north of the South Platte, 23,000,000 acre. So this is where the other half of Denver comes in. So in article 11 of this Fort Wise treaty, they say, oh my goodness. All of this land some of you got the the material before. It said, all of this land on this side of the river, this side of the plot, look.

There's there's townships. There's all this land's been titled. What are we gonna do about that? So somebody puts an article in there. Article 11 says, I think I've got it up next.

So that then you can see the little reservation that they went to. Oh, we're gonna jump back a little bit. So they knew they did not have the northern people signing this. The commissioner of Indian affairs, the Colorado superintendencies, two it says two of the bands were not represented at the making of its recent treaty, the Shambhuta Shainan, who consequently still claimed the right to roam the land and territory once claimed by the nation. Although a provision was made for them to come in, they didn't do it.

So, again, they knew. Everybody knew this. Evans knew it. Commissioner of Indian Affairs knew it. Let's go to the next one. They're talking about it. This is this is a a letter from Dole, the commissioner of Indian Affairs. He's telling them he says, you know, you gotta come in and get these Arapahos and Cheyenne together and get them to sign a treaty because we don't own that land on that side of the plat. What what happened was what what sparked all of this was there was this guy with a conscience, and he was working for The US Attorney's Office. He was a district the US district attorney.

He was out here in Colorado. He was managing the surveying of the land. Comes in, surveys the land. He gets to the Platte River, and he says, I can't survey the other side of the river. People say, why why not? Well, we don't have title there. That land's never been ceded. You don't have any doc and you don't have any legal right to go. That's Indian land. And he puts this in the Rocky Mountain News, and he almost gets killed because of you know, it's such an alarming kind of thing to have, you know, this this this you you don't own this land.

You don't own any of that land on that side, and you still don't because it's never been settled. So, you know, that's the kinds of stuff that one of the things to put this kind of in context, if you look at it over a period of time, particularly beginning in about late eighteen fifties up to 1870, that was the greatest amount of the time when it was the greatest amount of fraud in the Indian department in The United States. You see all kinds of things like this happening that, you know, that that they just wash their hands off. You know? And so, you know, they they know they know that they gotta do something.

Next slide. In here, it says I think this is the one up. It says he talks about the the the survey, and this this one's kinda hard to read. The official the official opinion that I gave about the survey was not expected to interfere with the department nor impose any barrier in in the way of the plans and operations. So this was John Evans.

Governor John Evans is the governor now. And he's saying, you know, he recognizes that, you know, that the land's not surveyed, and he he doesn't have any you know, he doesn't want to So it's cause it's causing a a tremendous amount of problems because people knew that there was something going on. Let's go to the next one. And they knew Denver was a problem because, you you know, I I I later on in the things but I I gave you copies of the plots of land that were already assigned and and, you know, title had been issued. It wasn't they weren't legal.

So this they're gonna fix this. Right? So they say, in consideration of the kind treatment of the Arapaho and Cheyenne by the citizens of the Denver City and adjacent towns be permitted by the United States government to enter into sufficient quantity of land to include city and towns at a minimum price of $1.25 an acre. Okay. So 1861, you have 66 towns that have been potted and titled, none of them legal.

And so they're trying to they're trying to fix it with this amendment. This article so this gets to the senate. The senate sees this, and and they go into executive session, and they take this article out. Now there's no provision for for the payment to the Indians. And I I suspect there's a couple of things that may have happened.

Now it could have been that somebody would have realized that the city of Denver and surroundings had no authority to buy land directly from Indians. Only the federal government can handle transactions between many Indian nations and and the only people, and it has to have a congressional act and requires a presidential signature for any transactions of lands. So they take it out. And somebody from the state department next I think next slide. Oh, yeah.

So shortly after they do this, all they did this on August 6. So 08/12/1861, the state department says, woah. Wait a minute. Did you get Indians to approve this amendment? And they well, no. Well, this treaty, you can't this treaty is not going forward until you get that. So, again, they go back out. Next slide. And this is where it gets really, really it's it's unbelievable. So the Indian Affairs Department knows they have to get these signatures.

So they send out the message again. They send runners out all over for all the people to come in to to to amend this treaty. And they they're supposed to arrive in the September. Well, the Rocky Mountain News articles say that they showed up there. I thought it was a thousand Arapahos there, and United States government never showed up. These people are don't don't have a lot to eat. Their annuities are supposed to be coming in. The annuities don't show up. People down there are thinking that Indians are gonna go on a rampage reported in the Rocky Mountain News. So all this stuff is going on.

I would imagine that again, I have to contextualize this because I don't know I can't I don't I can't know what exactly those that what was happening in those camps. But one of the things that we would know by custom, that would be the time of year that they needed to be out hunting buffalo. They couldn't stay there very long without going out and putting up the provisions to hunt buffalo. So I suspect that probably anybody that would have had the authority to sign would have been under serious pressure. Like, sometimes, like, you know, people put pressure on you guys to do stuff in a hurry and you don't have really time to think about it.

You know, you got other things you gotta do. Never never happened. So I would imagine that the people the the the leadership said, you know, hey. We can't stay around here. We gotta get go get out of here.

And so they they so so if you look at the date now on the originals that we have, it says October 1861. You could see on the original where that was erased, and this was put in there. So they if they were there early September, the October, these people would never have still been there. Well, the other thing is this. All of the names are in the exact same order as the original treaty.

The likelihood of bringing all those people back and getting them to sit down in the exact same order is absolutely impossible in that day and age. And in the meantime, they've the some of the leadership would it began catching catching it from other people saying, you know, why'd you sign why'd you give up on our man? And so there were people who were publicly saying, I'm not we're not gonna sign again. So let's go to the next slide that you you'll see Let's go back one. I I wanna go back one too.

So okay. So if you look in here, in the original treaty, this exact same order, they all had x's. And so they forgot to when they transposed these from that treaty into this treaty, they forgot to put the x's in there. So they come along and they put, pluses in there. Somebody just came along and just put pluses all the way down.

And we had a a cartographer look at that, and they said whoever did the first couple of them did the same same person did all of this. So you see you see the manipulation that went on to get the signatures, without a doubt, is is some pretty serious fraud. So next slide. It goes to Washington DC. The president asked, did you get the signatures?

They say, yes. We did. And they so they move forward with this, amendment. This is where it says about a messenger arrived just from Fort Wise with a report that several thousand Indians collected around the post becoming clamorous and, for their annuities. Many of them suffering hunger, and the commanding officer had already distributed some provisions to them.

Some were threatening the fort, which is a feeble garrison, reinforcement. And then at the bottom, it says, they reported the attack was unfounded. You know? So they they they didn't really happen. This this, I think, this this all of the circumstances collectively would would provide pretty concrete evidence that this document was fraudulently altered.

And,

you know, just just by the facts. Let's go to the next slide. Here's here's here's the original treaty where you have the x's. And next slide. This is where you see them putting the pluses in.

Pretty pretty suspicious. Next slide. Let's see. What I think this slide is out of place. This is this is what they'd said before to try to bring them in.

Oh, I I know what this is. So after that surveyor announces that, you know, this this land is so they keep trying to bring them in, bring them back in. So by '63, they're trying to bring people back in, and, you know, it it's they're they're they can't get them in. They can't get them to sign, and this is very frustrating for for the government. So they don't know what to do. There's you know, these people aren't gonna come in. They've already made up their mind. It's not you know? But they tried. Next slide.

But they do know that Denver was illegally occupied, but they they do make notes of this that that there was a problem. And so one of the problems was the solution was to do the congressional grant of 1864, which conveyed the land to Denver and those acquired lots the clear title of land within the 960 acre, one mile by one point, rectangular land encompassing the original. So that's what the original plots look like is that that that that was the exact land. The this act remember they were supposed to pay a dollar and a quarter an acre for for the land? I cannot find any appropriations from federal government to pay for that land.

None. You know, there should there's there were treaty appropriations, but there were nothing specifically about the land being paid for in those 66 towns in Denver. Next slide.

Real quick, I'm gonna just do a quick time check and make sure that you know, I I think some members might have questions at some point, but I also wanted to make sure I welcomed council president Sandoval who's joined us as well. But, yeah, go ahead and continue. Think this is now we're we're getting to all the Denver specific stuff, so this is great.

So you you see the boundaries, and that was that was in this it was just too hard to get this stuff on go go ahead and go back one. You again, you can see the congressional the all of this stuff is settled, it and was never legally settled. Let's go let's go up to the next one after this. And this is what they said. It is to be remembered while considering the affairs of these town companies that none of them had valid title to the soil on which their operations were carried forward.

All of them were merely squatters on the land to which the Indians had first claimed under the conditions then existing, later in giving lots to all who would build on them, donating lots to the firstborn children or to any especially worthy citizen, and keeping a little liberal share for themselves. That's the the town companies. So they knew they they all they they knew all this stuff was going on, and it wasn't legal. Next slide. So what do you do?

You got you got some problems going on here. And you got you still got Indians hanging around. Right? So, Evans says, we've had enough of this. Dole of Indian commissioner says, hey. You know, you gotta do something about this because those people are there illegally. You know, you gotta resolve this problem. And and Evans was also the superintendent of of, the territorial region, the superintendent of Indian affairs for the the region. So it becomes incumbent upon him, and he basically says, okay. All you Indians, you go down to Fort Wise, and you go back you go to that reservation right now.

And if you don't, we're declaring war on you. Now remember when we looked at that map, what was he talking to the Cheyenne and Arapaho? Was he talking to the Kiowa? Were you talking to all these tribes are occupying this area, so it's really hard to even say, you know, who this was meant for. You know, it could have been just the Cheyenne Arapaho, but then the Kiowas, the Lakota, all the other ones weren't bound by it.

You wouldn't you wouldn't think, but it didn't work. He couldn't get them down there. So we go to article, the next one, proclamation number two. So governors he authorizes by citizens of Colorado to either individually or in such parties as they may organize to go in pursuit of hostile Indians on the plain scrupulously avoiding those who responded to my call, meaning the ones who went to the reservation at the points indicated, and to kill and destroy as enemies of the country wherever they may be found all such Indians. And further, as, the only reward I'm authorized to offer for citizens, I hereby empower such citizens or parties to take captive or hold any private for private use, and benefit all property of the Indians.

Can you believe that something like that would have been issued? There's he has no authority to do he has no authority to do this. As as a territorial representative, nothing. There's nothing legal about this at all, but just the consequences that you can imagine by doing this. Well so he basically starts a war.

You know, people are killing killing Indians, and and this it's it's it's it's brutal. Go to next slide. All those people go down to Sand Creek. They go down there, and they you end up with the Sand Creek massacre. After the Sand Creek massacre, Indians on the Eastern Plains are gone.

The ones who were in in the area North of the Platen headed north, the ones in went south ended up in Oklahoma. And, you know, so you have a a real void a void in in occupancy. You know, that's one of the questions one of the real interesting questions that 99.9% of people in Colorado can't answer. Why are there no Indian reservations on the Front Range of Eastern Colorado? Beautiful homeland.

Beautiful spaces. Why are there no reservations? It's probably until I learned this, I always thought California was the worst one. I thought California was the worst state. After I learned what I learned about Colorado. Colorado's right up there at the top. It's the worst case of genocide against Indians that I've ever seen in any of the the stuff that I've I've looked at. And, you know, you just you you you look at this and and then to make matters worse is that cover. There was a cover up from 1864 on. All the the earliest messages was it wasn't a massacre at Sand Creek.

Authors were writing about the battle of Sand Creek and how how the settlers were being victimized by Indians and that, you know, that that the Indians had it coming. They deserved to be be killed there because of so this is where you have you you put it all on the line and you say, okay. Let's do an analysis of everyone who was killed. Okay? So we did an analysis of every person that was killed from 1848 to 1878.

During that period of time, there were 200 white people killed. During that same period of time, there were 700 Indian people killed. Completely turns the story on his head. Completely turns the story I mean, it it it changes the way we see history in Colorado. And it's partly because of this the great mystery.

The story never gets told. Nobody told nobody knew the story about any of this stuff. I mean, Sand Creek was barely mentioned, and and early on, it was mentioned only as a battle. And so I think, you know, when we see that kind of stuff, if you wanna read a a really good in 1964, there were 11 articles appeared in Colorado history magazine. Prelude to war basically tells the story about the land and the whole all of the stuff about how the land was taken.

He doesn't talk about the stuff on the the southern side. So we're gonna move through time, and I'm gonna wrap it up for and be ready for question. Nineteen fifties policy in The United States against Indians was termination. They were terminating reservations, and if a reservation was was doing well financially, the United States government terminated. Yet reservations like Menominee nations terminated.

Throughout the country, though, most almost all the California nations were terminated. So you don't have this you don't they don't they're they're trying to to get rid of them. Forced assimilation becomes more active. You know you know something has become successful when the people themselves turn inward against themselves. When I was growing up in this environment, there were lots of Indian people who would deny that they were American Indians, and they denied it because of the prejudice.

Did they die it because of all the hostility? The town little town I grew up in, if you were Indian, you couldn't get a job. Nobody would hire you. You know, you couldn't work. It's just that's just the way it was. That's the hostility that was going on. And in order to to survive, people would claim that they were French. They were would claim that they were anything, but you couldn't be Indian because there was so much animosity towards Indian people growing up. And during that period of time, you begin to see, the the forced assimilation taking place. It they're gonna do away with these guys.

So the best thing we do is let's move them to the city. So and we we have a relocation program beginning in the sixties. That's where most of the Indian people came to Denver. Huge families and and from from South Dakota, from Montana, from Wyoming, from the Navajos, you saw a large concentration of people coming in. And relocation look.

You thought it was gonna work, but they Indian people did something that they never expected them to do. They all came together and they gathered and they created like an Indian they created an Indian center, a place for them to gather and a place for them to continue to hold on just what little they had left. They they hung on to it, and and, you know, they would see each other, and, you know, they would know they, you know, they you know, it it was really interesting to see those early years of how they came together to survive and exchange things. The the sad part about it is is that the the the city also provided an opportunity for alcoholism. And the major one of the major gathering points is just down was just down the street here called Arty's, and it was on, I think, 11th And Broadway.

And it was that was the Indian bar. On any weekend, you'd go there, and then you'd see two or 300 Indians in there. So but that's how we that's how we maintained our our our our existence and our interactions. Next slide. All of a sudden in 1970, Denver becomes a place to relocate. The Native American rights movement moves to Boulder. The National Congress of American Indians has an office here. The American Indian Higher Education Consortium has its headquarters here. Later, it moves to Washington DC. The coalition of Indian controlled school boards was here.

The March powwow starts in the eighties, and that's the thing that I think you know, remember I said that the people used to come here and gather in every summer? Well, I think you see that same thing happening with March powwow. We'll get thousands of Indians people coming back to this area to that powwow. That's kind of an interesting kind of scenario. Next one.

We're growing from a few thousand in the nineteen fifties, over 200,000 who now occupy the Front Range. Where or why there are no Indian reservations on the front. There was actually a removal program by that that caused the the the final removal of everybody so that you didn't have. And the question one of the questions that you know? Okay.

So I came here and went to school, kindergarten here, Would come and work as a migrant worker at Fort Loch Lupton with my grandmother and my great grandmother picking potatoes. When my grandmother died, I moved here in 1969. First up, there was one always that that that country hit who came to the city, did, you know, didn't know, you know, didn't know anything, but I survived. And, you know, maintain we maintained the, so now we you know, from that, we have generations and about the fifth generation of people now who are occupying Denver and everything. But you have to ask that question.

You know, during this whole period of time, what has Denver done to the for the first people of Colorado? I mean, we got streets named after us, but we didn't have a say so in that and their misspellings. And they're not even you know, Champa is really Champa, meaning cherry, chokecherry. You know? So you see, do you see things but, you know, is there is there a museum of the American Indian?

Is there a real cultural center for American Indians? What about those tribes who were alienated? How do they come back to how do they deal with being absent from their homeland? This is the only case I've ever been able to see where people who were removed from their homeland have not even been considered about coming back and being part of their homeland. Every other every else place in the world, people who have homeland, they try to get back to their homelands, and that hasn't happened here. It's it's it's a tough place. People come and go. People come here, and they can't make it. And then they have to go back home, and then other people will replace them. It's it's we were we're a real transitional community.

But and when you have a transitional community, you don't have sustainable programmatic leadership programs. So we have nobody who speaks for us. We don't have anybody in the state legislature. We don't have anybody that I know of in any of any government governance. We're just a people people here without a place in our homeland, and that's the kind of thing that I think I learned doing all this research. I think we're ready for question. Next. Yeah. We're ready for questions.

Alright. Thank you so much. Thank you for the for all of this, like, huge history lesson and and showing us, like, we have now, like, all the access to this information, and, you put it in a nice, like, presentation. So thank you for doing that. I'm gonna pass it over to we have councilman Flynn and then councilwoman Torres in the in the queue here. So and gotcha.

Thank you, madam chair. And Rick, can I call you your name at the bottom is Rick, not Richard? I'll call you Rick. Thank you for the brief discussion we had before the meeting as well. I am a map geek, and I'm struck by the maps on slides five, six, and seven, and how they gradually change from Fort Laramie to the Royce map from a map that follows natural boundaries.

You have the Missouri, you have the North Platte, and then you have the Arkansas River as boundaries in the Continental Divide and a few other rivers on the West Side of the divide or up in Wyoming. And then as we get down to the treaty land from '51 and '61, I see some more unnatural lines being drawn. And then finally, the Royce map, Councilman, if you could go to the next slide. I'm filled with the juxtaposition of the naturalness of some of these boundaries that are natural boundaries and the arbitrariness of how we came in and drew section lines and baseline road and everything else. How did that all come to be?

Can you talk a little bit about, especially on the West Slope there, the yellow one and then that little square down in Silverton, how did they all come

to be? Different treaties. So every one of these is a different piece. If you look real closely, you can see the numbers.

Reg I guess,

I think we have to have you

sitting at the table.

Unfortunately, then we can't catch you

on the

mic for anybody that's listening.

These were boundaries that remember we go back to when they all got together in '51? There was a priest that came in. They brought this priest that came in. His name was the Smith, and he's the one that said he's the one that divided all this land up this way because he thought he knew the tribes. And the one before where it was all the whole they were everybody was fighting. Well, that's my land. I'm not giving that land up. And but so he's the one that drew drew those maps. And, generally, they they use the watersheds as boundaries. Right.

So that was that's typical. What's missing in this one here is if you look how the South Platte comes down, they don't distinguish between that as being a separate piece, and that's the piece that's that was never ceded. It says it says it was ceded. I didn't tell the rest of that story.

So let

me tell the that land was not in the '61 treaty. It wasn't defined in the '61 treaty. They said they had to get another treaty. They with the northerns and Northern Cheyenne and northern. They never did.

But what they did was after Sand Creek, they brought the survivors of Sand Creek and the remnants of the sank of of of the Southern Cheyennes and Southern Arapahoes who had the original treaty, and they put the boundaries of the northern piece into it, and they have them sign it. Mhmm. So that was their way of getting that land transferred, but it it wasn't legally didn't legally belong to the Southern Cheyenne and Southern Arapahos.

Rick, I know when I I know when I cross the Arkansas River. Yeah. I can see the river. Yeah. I know when I cross the North Platte and Missouri River, and I think I know when I cross the Continental Divide, although right now I rely on the highway markers to tell me that. But how would one know when they cross, for instance, in the on this on the eastern side, the little the green well, that's Fort Wise. Mhmm. How would I know when I would be crossing the western boundary or the southern boundary? It's not a natural feature. How could they be marked? Were they ever marked at all? No. And especially on the West Slope with that large north that long north South line, how would one know, especially with the topography there when I crossed?

I I think, you know, again, those were those were all constructed without I I I don't think any of people really knew about Uh-huh. Those kinds of constructed lines like that. Yeah. They would be comfortable with the the the river bound. Right.

Now Thank you for using the word constructed too because it's a construct. Yeah. It's an artificial barrier or line or border.

So the only one that I know personally know was when I was a young man, there was a guy here lived here. His name was Bill Richard Talbold. He's got relatives still here. He was an old older guy who worked out at the arsenal. Very, very, very knowledgeable, extremely knowledgeable.

And he used to invite with me to go taking places and drive. So we would drive to places. And one time we were driving in the South, headed headed down, and you see the very, very tip of that there that's Forno Creek. And when you're going down when you're going down on the highway, there's, like, a black object that comes out of the ground, and it's pretty goes two or 300 feet on on the east side of the highway. Mhmm. He said he said, Rick, that's our southern boundary. So, you know, that that was the marker of the southern boundary. Always thought that was pretty interesting. Mhmm. So they they knew.

That that that's the other thing is they they had this good sense about about who who they were. Thank you.

Thank you, madam chair.

Great. Thank you. Councilwoman Torres followed by council president Sandoval.

Thank you, madam chair. Thank you so much, Rick. Always good to see you. One of the things that I just don't feel like I'm certainly not surprised at the history that you're telling us, at the amount of corruption, of evil motivation, of self serving cherry picking of policy that took place throughout not just Colorado, but the whole US territory as it was expanding. And it's certainly the history I've come to know in adulthood, through institutional education at all, and a lot of it due to your expertise and influence.

And so I thank you for that. Not surprised at all, right? So wondering also what then like what become additional alternatives either for like you're asking Denver to do or the state to do? Because I think the state plays a role in a lot of this. I mean, my council district includes where Camp Weld was at, which was where the US government and army personnel lied to the Cheyenne and Arapaho chiefs and said, here are peace terms, right?

And then two months later violated them with the Sand Creek massacre. Like, that's history that I know that we own in Denver as well. And to that end, I've asked Dawn DePrince as she's updating state historic markers to change the one that identifies Camp Weld because it's got some really awful language on the plaque, and it is not accurate in terms of what we know took place. So I think that I'm looking for tangibles because I think in Denver, particularly as we've gotten more city representatives into spaces where we can influence, whether it's policy or programs, to be more responsive as a result of those of us here at this table. Donation program has changed.

Indigenous Peoples' Day went from a holiday to a city closed holiday. There's a lot of emphasis on what the American Indian Commission is asking from the city in terms of so Council President Sandoval and I went to Vancouver together a while ago. And some of that influenced us creating the South Platte River Committee and focusing on our river Corridor and thinking about, is there like a land use tool that we apply to this to start to require things of development along that corridor to be influenced and nodded toward indigenous tribes that was their original territory? How do we start to embed these things in the things that we do as a city? So just kind of wondering the tangible things that you're asking about.

You mentioned cultural center, a historic center. Why wouldn't the Denver Indian Center be a part of that vision? Because that's who I think of in my district as where indigenous people, natives already know that they can go here for connection, resource, referral.

So if you think about a cultural center as as being someplace that you might have so this is this is the one what I envision the cultural center and the embassy becoming. And, you know, we we do have a potential moving forward with the bond to do something like this. What I would envision the Indian Center takes care of the day to day needs of food and and and shelter and those kinds of things. They don't even have a basketball program anymore. They used to have a big basketball program there.

But what about what about the other aspects of our lives, culture? So what I would envision is a a a circular type of building where it would be divided into four four areas on it like a medicine wheel. In one one area, you would have activities that are specific to the urban populations, Meaning, we want our children to learn their language. We want our children to have storytelling. We want our children to have their culture representative represented.

But we would also want to be educating other people about those kinds of things. So we would have a real true cultural center. It may be that part of the property, there will be individuals who want to use it for religious purposes, like sweat lodges and those kinds of things. We would encourage that. Did you know that there's not a single treaty where they address freedom of religion for Indians?

But they did it with all the other countries. They don't they didn't I mean, it was it was because they didn't want us to have our religion. So so one wing for them. Another wing for we have this real interesting issue in Colorado. It's probably all over.

But because of because of the things that happened, you have populations of people who are Hispanic and Indian, large populations that part of part of the reason that that happened that I know of, for example, is when you get South of Pueblo, every one of those watersheds woulda had a separate band of Apaches and all the way into the San Luis Valley. That was all Apache land. When they passed that proclamation in 1864 allowing people to kill Indians, the Mexican populations in those areas absorbed those Indians, hit them, hit them, kept them from being killed. And so today, we have a huge population of of people in the in the valley and and up up up to Pueblo that are that are so we wanna have a wing for indigenous people. Maybe you can't prove that you're a member of a federally recognized tribe, but, you know, you know who you you know, I know so many people that, you know, that know they are, and they can't get enrolled.

So Agreed.

Yeah. Okay. I get it. Yeah.

And then we'd have one for the embassy tribes. All those tribes that you see in that map that were alienated should have a chance to have a voice in what's happening in their in Colorado because this is their homeland.

Well, and to that point, where is the governor on supporting this? Because, you know, we're all I hear about is his interest in a ridiculous bridge from the Capitol Steps to Lincoln Park for $20,000,000 that could and should go toward what is, I think, a warranted state reparation to something like this, especially as we plan to celebrate I'm not going to say that word because I'll get it wrong but the one hundred and fiftieth and two hundred and fiftieth anniversaries.

Don't Right? Get me started.

I won't. I won't. I'll just say maybe that was more of a comment.

You go

back and you look at that bill, the one fifty two fifty bill Yeah. When that was constructed, there was a provision for a professional historian for African Americans, professional historian for Hispanic people, professional historian for Asians, and there was nothing for Indians.

Yeah. That's crazy.

That's crazy. That's the kind of thing that's how we get left out of everything all the time.

Thank you, Rick, for being here.

So let's let's go let's let me tell you something real positive that I think we can do, and and it can happen. We we we all understand the culpability. The state has culpability. The federal government has culpability. Cities and counties where there were things like this have some culpability.

So we we we we we began a path for the next fifty years so that when we celebrate fifty years from now, we have something to show. So we'll have a cultural center. We'll have an embassy. We'll have these kinds of things. But what if in the in the in the city and county of Denver, what if going forward, every time there was a real estate transaction, one and a half percent of that real estate transaction was put into a pool to help rebuild our native communities in the state.

Thank you. That way you don't hurt anybody. You know, you really if if you you know, we don't wanna we don't wanna cause there there's a great chance for litigation. There is a there is a very, very big chance of litigation on this land because it's it's clear. The facts are there. The evidence is there. The tribes are are waiting for the right opportunity. You know? We you know? But it I don't think we have I I wish we we don't I hope we don't have to go that way.

We might have to, though. Nobody does anything without a legal mandate.

Mhmm. Yeah.

So anyway, thank you.

Well, and some of the the organizing, I think, that has been going on, folks have rightly so said, why only one? Why only the American Indian Center? Why can't we have a yes and and have multiple locations in the city because it is their homeland. And and so that really yes and concept. I mean, folks were even looking at Park Hill. Like,

what

about Park Hill? I mean, any place. And so it was really inspiring for folks to start looking broader than just one. Thank you.

Thank you. Council president Sandomol, fellow by councilman Hines. Thank you.

Thank you for being here and the presentation. When I was at Metro, I had a professor, and Zia was her name, and she was I met her and Native American, and she taught a class I was a degree in political science. And in your presentation, it doesn't talk about the Indian schools. And I think that that is something that I did not realize that Colorado had had. And I did not realize that she was a generation and she was probably I think my mom is 82, so she was, I think, my parents' generation, eighty eighty something.

And I did not realize that her parents sent her away. She was from Denver.

Mhmm.

She was born in Denver. And so I was just wondering in your presentation, do you add that? Because I think that there unless you seek the information out, people don't understand that that actually happened. Mhmm. She taught a whole entire semester on it. And so I was getting my my mass my degree in political science and my minor in Chicano studies. And so she taught that. It was a semester on that. And my grandpa was born and raised on the Navajo Nation and but he was an orphan. And so we have no documentation of him.

Zero. Like, there's no birth certificate. We can't find him yet. My grandma, who was born in Rosiada, New Mexico, Catholic, we have her birth certificate. We have her confirmation, so we can trace her lineage. But my grandpa, when he married her, was the first document he had. And so we don't know my store my grandpa's story, Hararimo. We don't know if he if he went to those schools as an orphan, and she said, probably, because that was what happened to orphans, Amanda. And she was like, my parents her parents gave her up. And then she got sent to an Indian.

And I did not even realize until I was in that class getting my degree that that was part of the narrative of people who had lived in Colorado. So just wondering if you mentioned that in your presentation when you're teaching because I think it's so important. I learned it, you know, when I was young. And so I've talked to people about it and talked about the detriment that it did and the assimilation. I've talked about the assimilation my own dad got of speaking Spanish, going to enunciation, having scars on his hands from the ruler.

That's why I don't, as a Latina, speak Spanish because it was the devil's language, and he was taught that it was the devil's language. And there's a whole generation of Latinos and Latinas in Denver whose parents had to follow assimilation. Mhmm. And we lost our our our native language, and I can speak restaurant Spanish because I grew up speaking making tamales at La Casita. But just wondering about the Indian schools and how do you address that in in your teachings.

Well, I I don't. And and the reason that I don't is, you know, I I'm old and I got a bandwidth that I can't I'm trying to stay within the area of expertise. Right now, History Colorado has had a full blown, fully funded program on on the boarding school experience. The work that I'm I'm doing, I I'm a big advocate for education. And within this whole construct of land being taken, there's a whole portion that goes where once Colorado became a state, they got they took 3,800,000 acres of land and created the school fund, which generates a $150,000,000 a year.

Since the very beginning, not a dime has ever gone to Indian education. Our children are are the poorest educated kids in the state, and we haven't done anything with them. And yet the resources that could be coming to them is are are there or should be coming from there. Remember that little segment of land up there that was not ceded? They, you know, they should have never that school fund should have never gotten that land legally.

And why don't they give us the portion of that, the re resources off of that for our education? We're hoping to get something through the state legislature in the next session about having a comprehensive Department of Indian Education in Colorado.

Some of the especially around the residential boarding school conversation, I know that we've talked to some elders that are interested in sharing more and talking about their experience, and so just following their lead on what that looks like, what the space looks like. But you know, I think there's a lot of us. I had three members of my family, two great aunts and a great uncle that were in Blanco, New Mexico, and their dad sent them to Carlisle on the train. They were there from the time they were 13 to 18. And so I think trying to honor folks' experiences and pain and then the next steps.

But that's what we're really folks are ready to talk about how they have worked on healing themselves. And I think that keeping that conversation going forward, because we do have a new pope, we could do a lot if there was acknowledgment by the Catholic church around the significant role, the systematic role that they played in residential boarding schools. And this last legislative session, I really got involved because of my history with the Department of Natural Resources in advocating for free access to state parks for American Indian people because that is their sacred ceremonial land. And so the issue is around education because lawmakers and policymakers are always asking, well, shouldn't we talk to the tribes? Who's the chief that we should talk to?

Well, there isn't always someone to point back to who resides here in Colorado because most likely they're in another state. And recognizing and educating folks around there is 200,000 urban American Indian people, some enrolled, some not enrolled, but it's a huge constituency that we don't usually reach out to and don't have a good way to work with. And so trying to help and support building up that advocacy arm so that they can start to affect change from state policy and then local policy, but it starts with education.

I think we made history today because in the in the over fifty years that I've lived in Denver, I've never heard of an American Indian doing a presentation to the city and county of Denver to talk about, you know, what goes on with our people. I don't think it's ever happened, and that's why we're reaching out. We need your help.

And this doesn't have to be the only time either. And so thank you, councilwoman Gilmore, for for, you know, lifting this up to to come and present. Councilman Hines, you're up next.

Thank you, committee chair. Thank you so much for the presentation. I I'm I'm white. I did grow up well, in case it wasn't obvious, some people present as white and identify as another race. But I I grew up in Nagogdoches, a small town in East Texas, a Caddo Indian name.

So the the the Caddo nation strong in the where I grew up, but it was Indian chief named Nagogdoches. That's the oldest town in Texas. There's evidence of human activity, indigenous activity dating back ten thousand years in the small town where I grew up. So it gives me a little bit of a respect for, not understanding, not necessarily, but respect for our indigenous communities. And, and I I wanna thank you for being here.

And if we are making history, I wanna thank you for allowing us to be part of that history. Process and the the city council members were here because that is you you know, we've we've had some very proud moments as a state, state of Colorado, because I was talking about Texas just a moment ago. Proud proud moments as the state of Texas and very unproud moments as well. You know, we had a a clan passed. We've had a hate state, you know, reputation.

We've had, obviously, as you've shared today, a very poor reputation, just to put it very mildly, understanding and relationship with our indigenous tribes and nations. And so thank you for allowing us to be part of that. I I am a commissioner on the two fifty one fifty commission, the sesquicentennial commission. Yeah. Has the sesquicentennial commission.

I was there in Texas when Texas celebrated its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Sesquicentennial. So all I had to do was add Symbicort in

the middle

to but that's 100 two hundred and fiftieth anniversary in the same name. The reason I was appointed to that is because I'm actually representing the disability community. It's not because I'm an elected official. The disability community was also not mentioned in the legislation and in the original commission. So just sharing not that this is great news, but but there there were multiple omissions.

And and as a result, they did grow the number of commissioners, including adding who represents the youth nation. I think specifically the Southern youth Indian tribal council. Mhmm. And then also Grace Thornton, who's the organizer of the Denver March powwow. How effective that is, I guess I'll refrain from comments on its effectiveness or comments on the bridge.

But certainly, want to at least, as a commissioner, just point out that even the commission has had some not great sections. And as that dates back four years. I think the legislation that created the two fifty, one hundred fifty commission was about four years ago. And in an attempt to rectify that for the disability community and for '51 at least '51. And interestingly, state calls it 51.

We, in our land acknowledgment, call it '48. So I'm not sure exactly what the difference is. But if you have history on that, I'd love to. Maybe there were three tribes or nations that were in Colorado that weren't in the Denver area. But I I wanna make sure that we are as accurate and faithful to the history of Colorado, including indigenous communities, as you have shared with us.

And I just want us to be as accurate as we can with our history so that if we can't accurately create a good future if we don't know where we came from and acknowledge the successes and trials that we've had. So thank you for the presentation. I learned a lot today. I'm sure I will continue to learn more. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your

time. Thank you. Councilman Flynn?

Oh, you're

I was gonna let you I would wrap up the committee.

Alright. Thank you. I just wanna acknowledge, Rick, that I also grew up on land that was effectively stolen from the Lunave in Pennsylvania. I live on land in the Lehigh I grew up on land in the Lehigh Valley that was part of the walking purchase. And if you haven't heard of that, that was a treaty that the sons of William Penn, Thomas and John, claimed from the sixteen hundreds.

In 1737, they produced this treaty that said that that the Penn family could purchase from the Lenape as much land as a man could walk in a day and a half from a point on the Delaware River Northwest. So they agreed, and what they did was the Penn family hired tree cutters to go out and clear a trail. And then they hired three runners, and they staged them along the way. And those three men in, like, a relay ran clear up to what's now it was at the time. It's now called Jim Ford.

And then the boundary extended northeast, and it was at a size that's slightly smaller than the state of Rhode Island that was ceded. And the Lenape appealed to the Iroquois to try to intercede, and the Iroquois said, I'm not gonna do that. And so that's how that's the that's where I grew up. So same story, different time, different location.

Thank you. Thank you.

Well, I do wanna thank you again, Rick, and thank you, councilwoman Gilmore. I don't know if there's anything else that you would like to say, but thank you for for coming to this, coming to me with this and asking about this presentation happening. And I don't believe that this should be the last time that we have these conversations. I think about, you know, the work, that council president Sandoval and then our former council president Torres has done in with the Denver in context and and was very grateful to be able to be part of some of that convening and hearing from people who were removed from their homeland, come back. Right?

They had this opportunity, and and they called it a homecoming. And, like, I even just, like I get chills thinking about that fact that that was the first time that they were, like, welcomed back to their home. And and thinking about this idea of an embassy or of a place or places, right, where people who are traveling through our city to powwows, to ceremonies, to different, you know, events across the country, this is a place that they stop and that they need you know, this was something that was brought up in these conversations that I had with some of these leaders, from, you know, First People leaders that were talking about, having a place they can come, that they can gather their medicines, that they can have ceremony, and all of those things. And so for that, you know, that is something that I see also as as a priority, in our community and not just acknowledging, you know, the harm that has been caused. It's it's figuring out how do we go from here and what do we do differently.

I wanna also thank you personally for recognizing and acknowledging what I see as, like, my story, right, as somebody who identify who knows, you know, who I identify as Chicana is because it's honoring both my Mexican roots, my Mexican indigenous roots, and my indigenous roots in this in you know, from this land. And not knowing what those ancestral ties exactly are because it was stolen from us. Right? And and so, you know, I like, council president Sandoval, didn't grow up speaking Spanish, was in tough Spanish because of the harm that was caused to my, you know, direct ancestors, my grandparents, my parents for, you know, speaking that language, but also knowing that that is also a colonizer language. That is also a European language.

And so there's so many mixed things that happen, for those of us who are come from those different mixed backgrounds and and and how we have to resolve that, you know, in our own identities. And so I really thank you for for recognizing that and acknowledging, you know, our our brothers, our sisters, our relatives, because I think a lot of us hold that. And, like, I was never I was never baptized. I wasn't raised Catholic despite people always thinking that. When they see me and and see my name, they think automatically that that's my background.

But I was raised in, recognizing, like, our our indigenous background, our ceremony, and how we what we what we actually practice and how we, you know, walk in this world. So thank you again. This has been, absolutely amazing, and I look forward to us, continuing this conversation. So with that said, colleagues, we have six item. Oh, Rick, go ahead.

I'm gonna ask each of you to read Margaret Cole's chief left hand. I'll expect a book report.

When you come back, we'll all give book reports. But thank

you for inviting me, and thank you for listening. You know, we've got a lot of work to do. It's like, for the first time in my life in Denver, I see a a a place and a purpose where our people are gonna be.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Colleagues, we have six items that are on consent. Those will move forward seeing that nobody has called those off to the full council, and we are adjourned.