In 2023, Oakland University in Michigan reportedly became the first university on U.S. soil to return land to Native Americans.
“There’s a long history of settlers in this country deciding what’s good for Native people and forcing that upon them,” OU Assistant Professor of English Megan Peiser told Click on Detroit at the time. “That’s not sovereignty. That’s not equal rights. So, listening to Indigenous folks [is important], and what Indigenous folks want is land back.”
Predictably, Oakland University inspired other universities to follow suit. This includes an Ivy League university.
This week, reports broke that Brown University transferred ownership of a portion of its land in Bristol, Rhode Island to a preservation trust created by the Pokanoket Indian Tribe.
According to a press release from the university, the property is the ancestral home of Metacom, known also as King Philip, who was the leader of the Pokanoket people. The land is also the site of his 1676 death during King Philip’s War (via Brown.edu):
The transfer, which was finalized on Friday, Nov. 15, fulfills in part a pledge made in a 2017 agreement between the University and the Pokanoket tribe. Brown committed then to the orderly transfer of a to-be-determined amount of land into a preservation trust to ensure appropriate stewardship of the unique historical, sacred and natural resource for generations to come.
“The 1955 letter from the Haffenreffer Family upon the donation of the Mount Hope property to the University noted that the family felt ‘sure that the Trustees of an institution like Brown will not be unmindful of the property’s great natural beauty, its historical background or the best interests of the Bristol community,'” Russell Carey, executive vice president for planning and policy at Brown, said in the announcement.
“Those words remain as true and relevant today as when they were written nearly 70 years ago, and the steps we are taking to preserve the land in perpetuity are, we believe, fully consistent with that vision,” Carey added.
According to the Associated Press, in 2017, members of the tribe and their advocates set up an encampment at the university, pointing out that the land was stolen from them centuries ago. A month later, the school reached an agreement acknowledging that the land belonged to the Pokanoket.
