(no audio) -[Announcer] Funding for this program was provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, (no audio) The Ocone Family through the Marigold Fund and Humanities Nebraska.

(no audio) -[Narrator] This program contains some depictions of violence that may be distressing to viewers.

(no audio) (indigenous music) -[Narrator] Across America, people are wrestling with the generations-old question.

(indigenous music) One that makes up the very foundation of our nation.

(indigenous music) Land and who owns it.

(indigenous music) At its heart, the story of America is the story of the dispossession of the Indigenous people of this land.

(indigenous music) But many people are finding a way to reunite land with its original inhabitants.

(indigenous music) In rural Nebraska, the Pawnees long efforts to regain their ancestral remains led to one celebrated writer's decision to give his land back.

(indigenous music) - The best thing I've ever done in my life, and I've come to the point where I really believe that's why I'm on this earth.

- Roger despite that great lengths that the country went to to get our land by hook or crook, by force of arms, he undercut all of that by simply returning it back to the Pawnee people.

-[Narrator] In Northern California, after a decades long struggle, the Wiyot tribe has gotten back an island from the city of Eureka that was taken from it after a massacre more than 150 years ago.

(indigenous music) - When we got it back, the 1.5 acres, it was a mess.

It was an environmental mess, and so much so that we (indigenous music) we qualified for Superfund money.

- Sometimes we have to do something that may not be comfortable to get there, but when we do that, great things can happen.

And that is what's happening here.

(indigenous music) -[Narrator] In Boulder, Colorado.

Community activists and Indigenous leaders work to bring home tribes forced out by a gold rush and an infamous massacre.

-[Rick] And I think that's critical for restoration of Indian people's souls and spirits to be here, to be part of this.

Because without it, we've been lost and we've been we don't have a good vision of of what our future needs to be.

- These are our homelands.

And one day that's gonna that's gonna come.

(indigenous music) You know, it's just a matter of time and how they go forward with everything.

It'll happen one day.

(indigenous music) -[Narrator] Three stories born of tragedy that reflect a growing movement to return this nation's first peoples to the lands of their ancestors and heal the wounds of history.

(indigenous music) -[Narrator] Between 1776 and 1887, the United States seized over 1.5 billion acres of native land by treaty, executive order and genocidal violence.

(indigenous music) - Every, every means known to man was used to acquire Indian property during the growth of our nation.

(indigenous music) -[Narrator] 150 years later, tribes control a fraction of their traditional homelands.

For generations, Native people have been disconnected from the places where their ancestors hunted, grew food, prayed, raised their families, and were buried.

(indigenous music) Many want to come home.

(indigenous music) Now, Native people are calling for Americans to remember the first peoples of this nation and to acknowledge how their lands were taken from them in order to build an American dream.

(indigenous music) - We're prepared to stay here.

(wind rustling) There's people who made vows and commitments to follow this through.

You know who you are.

(indistinct chatter) We take that seriously.

It's our way of life.

(speaking Lakota) -[Narrator] They are fighting for Land Back.

(indigenous music) Land Back.

(indigenous music) For thousands of modern-day warriors.

It's a battle for the return of their ancestral homelands.

- We're fighting for survival.

We're fighting through addiction, through suicide, through poverty, through broken treaties, and through an ignorance by an American public that believes that this country was just discovered accidentally.

Land Back for other Americans.

It's a divisive hashtag and a threatening new proposition.

-[Rob] We're giving it away to the natives.

We already gave them one thing.

Now we're giving them another.

(silence) -[Narrator] But for some communities across America, Land Back is a different story.

(indigenous music) All across the nation, a growing number of non-natives are listening and working with tribes to return land to its original owners.

For them, Land Back is a unifying, not a divisive movement.

(indigenous music) (indigenous music) The Pawnees had once occupied millions of acres in the state of Nebraska.

(indigenous music) -[Walter] Along all of the major rivers in Nebraska.

Our village had permanent Earth Lodge villages (indigenous music) where we grew mother corn, uh and followed the herd three months in the summer and then a winter hunt, three months in the winter time.

And then in between, we would, uh, grow and grow our corn and hold our ceremonies there.

(indigenous music) And, uh, that's the way it was when the world was young.

-[Narrator] The Pawnees homeland included sites of great spiritual significance, including their ancestral burial grounds.

(indigenous music) - According to our oral history, we were put down in Nebraska by the creator.

That's where we come from, period.

We've got thousands of years of history involved with that place.

And so literally, if you think about everyone that's ever been Pawnee from any of our bands that's passed on and they're buried there, they have become that dirt.

(indigenous music) -[Narrator] Like hundreds of other Indigenous nations, the Pawnee sacred lands were taken by a young nation on the move.

(indigenous music) They signed two treaties in the 1800s that forced them to cede most of their land and confined them to a tiny reservation in Nebraska.

Still, a never-ending wave of settlers wanted more and finally forced them to move south to Indian Territory.

Now Oklahoma.

(indigenous music) The Pawnees bid farewell to the Loup River, their cornfields and hunting grounds, and the earth (thunder and lightning) that held their ancestors on the long march south.

(wind blowing) They carried what they could, personal effects, sacred objects, and at least eight known strains of Pawnee corn.

(wind blowing) - When the time came that they moved down here, a lot of people didn't want to leave.

- My great-great grandparents, um, walked down from Nebraska and and that was Lottus, um, Walking Bear Fancy Eagle.

(no audio) She was forced to leave her father to die on the trail.

And so she never, um, had any love for Americans.

So she never learned English.

- A lot of the seeds, the agricultural stuff that we grew up in Nebraska.

Some of it wouldn't wouldn't grow here in Oklahoma because of the soil.

- When we came to Nebraska, it was a real, real, real time of depression.

Real time of depression for our folks here.

(sharp in inhale) And so we had we lost a lot of our ceremonies, a lot of our old folks.

-[Narrator] The settlers did not just take over the Pawnees' land.

They also disturbed the graves of their ancestors.

- We had no sooner left than people started digging up our our cemeteries up there and carting the remains off to federal and state universities and museums.

- You know, their spirits can't rest and, uh, (sharp inhale) there was consequences and we felt like it was real imperative to get our ancestors back.

So that they can, uh, go to the dust.

-[Narrator] In 1988, the Pawnees wrote to the Nebraska State Historical Society seeking the return of their ancestors' remains that would eventually lead to land return for the Pawnees.

(indigenous music) - Uh, I was one of the attorneys that were involved in negotiating with the Nebraska State Historical Society and to get our remains, and it was unheard of back then, you know, to make a request of that from a museum.

They couldn't believe it.

They said it was our, um, this is our property and you can't have it.

- It was on the board, the highest thing I'd ever aspired to.

And the Pawnee, Winnebago and Omaha came asking for their remains off the shelves.

(indigenous music) -[Narrator] The late Roger Welsch, a Nebraska folklorist and humorist, practically defined Nebraska for the nation.

(indigenous music) He presented more than 200 postcards from Nebraska as a correspondent for Charles Kuralt's CBS Sunday Morning in the 1980s and 1990s.

(indigenous music) Welsch resigned his position on the board when the Historical Society refused to return the Pawnees' remains (indigenous music) - Almost lost my job.

The governor attacked me.

The State Historical Society attacked me.

The legislature attacked me, but I knew it was on the right side.

- Yeah, he was an enemy at first, but what really shined was when he resigned off that board.

- Everybody on the face of this earth is allowed to be concerned about what happens to the remains of their ancestors, (rustling) can be allowed to regard those remains with respect, veneration, or whatever it is they feel to put together appropriate ceremonies (papers rustling) except (papers rustling) the Indigenous population of this country and the purpose of this bill is to correct that.

-[Narrator] Finally, after a bitter fight in 1989, the Nebraska State Legislature became the first legislative body in America to pass a law to protect Native American graves and return remains to tribes.

- As a result of the agreement, the State Historical Society will return 500 human remains and more than 1000 artifacts to the Pawnees.

-[Narrator] Eventually, the Pawnees were able to regain thousands of their relatives from the storage vaults of the Nebraska State Historical Society.

But then they faced a new issue.

Since the Pawnee no longer had any land in Nebraska.

Where would they bury their ancestors?

(indigenous music) While the Pawnee looked for a piece of land to put their relatives to rest, the Wiyot, a small tribe in Northern California, fought to regain their sacred island in Humboldt Bay.

The Wiyot harvested the bounty of the sea and held their most sacred rite, the ancient World Renewal Ceremony on Tuluwat Island each year.

- The island is important to us because it's the center of our world.

It's our creation place.

When you know who you are and where you come from, you have a stronger identity with who you are and who your people are.

- This ceremony is held during the daytime, and we have our young men, dancers and our young women dancers and have their baskets that they make, which they are able to send our prayers up to creator for balance.

(water gentle slapping shore) -[Narrator] On February 26th, 1860, (indigenous music) in the early morning hours, a group of mercenaries called the Humboldt Volunteers quietly rode out to Tuluwat Island, where the Wiyot were camped for their week long World Renewal Ceremony.

(indigenous music) The Wiyot men were away hunting while their families slept, (indigenous music) - And that was the day that the.

Some.

A few were put that way, citizens of Humboldt County and Eureka came across in boats.

No guns, just axes, hatchets, and clubs, and try to kill everybody.

(indigenous music) -[Narrator] The Humboldt Volunteers beat to death 80 Wiyot people that night, most of them women and children.

They plundered the Wiyot camp, taking beads, baskets, fur, hide, bows and arrows.

(indigenous music) They set fire to the rest of the Wiyot's possessions.

Over the next three days, the death squads continued their rampage.

They attacked eight villages, murdering another 200 plus Wiyot people in the area.

(indigenous music) - It was so horrific, you know.

That's when the story that you hear the day the bay ran red.

And it's because all the blood that was in the bay.

(indigenous music) - This massacre was reported and got worldwide attention (indigenous music) because there happened to be a reporter from San Francisco named Bret Harte, who was staying in Eureka at the time, and he reported on it and it made worldwide headlines.

- You know, some had swam across the bay with their children, women with their children, with stab wounds on their sides.

And, you know, some people even hid themselves under under the bodies.

And when the Eureka settlers had seen this, they came across and they found one young baby stuck to his mother's breast still.

And he was still alive.

That's who we called captain Jerry James.

(indigenous music) -[Cheryl] My great grandfather.

(indigenous music) My mother's grandfather was the baby that was found on Indian Island (indigenous music) and (indigenous music) his father was gone.

His father was one of those who had gone off to, you know, bring supplies back.

(indigenous music) -[Narrator] After the massacre, the Wiyot survivors were forced to move to nearby reservations.

(indigenous music) - Where they took us to Hoopa, Smith River and Round Valley, and we kept coming home.

They couldn't take us away from our land, so we were like salmon.

We kept coming home.

(indigenous music) -[Narrator] In the early 1900s, the Wiyot tribe regained just 20 acres in their homeland on Humboldt Bay, south of Eureka.

(indigenous music) A dairy farmer now owned their sacred island.

A shipyard repair facility operated on the island for more than a century.

(indigenous music) In 1970, Albert James, a descendant of the infant survivor Jerry James, asked the city to return Tuluwat Island to the Wiyots.

(indigenous music) -[Narrator] It was the first, but not the last time the tribe would ask for the land to be returned.

(breathing) The city council refused and the island remained off limits to the Wiyot.

(silence) Two decades later, the women of the tribe decided to take action.

- Something needed to change in Eureka.

-[Narrator] In 1996, (indigenous music) the tribal chair Cheryl Seidner, made getting Tuluwat back a top priority.

She organized an annual candlelight vigil on the anniversary of the massacre to focus attention on the issue.

- I'm going to celebrate our people who died in 1860, who were killed, who were murdered.

(silence) Not just adults, but children and babies.

And so that we gave our first vigil and we kept it up for about 22 years.

(silence) - Those vigils helped create a climate of healing in the community.

As both Indian and non-Indian community members.

(silence) We came together on those cold and foggy nights and rainy nights.

I remember those nights.

They were cold because Cheryl made me do the fire.

(breathing) (soft wind blowing) -[Narrator] In 1999, part of the island came up for sale.

(soft wind blowing) It was only one and a half acres out of 250.

- Within one year's time, we were able to come up with the funds to purchase that 1.5 acres.

(indigenous music) -[Narrator] The tribe completed the purchase in 2000.

It was not a gift, but it was a start.

- When we got it back, the 1.5 acres, it was a mess.

It was an environmental mess, and so much so that we, um.

We qualified for Superfund money.

-[Narrator] Years of abuse and industrial pollution on the island had turned it into an environmental disaster.

Chemicals and pollutants needed to be cleaned up before the land was safe to walk upon.

(silence) - When the tribe first got that piece of property, you couldn't walk across it.

It was dangerous.

- The complication is that the land returned is worthless land.

Has been worthless land to the city for years.

(silence) -[Narrator] The tribe did not have the funds necessary for the cleanup.

It took the community over a year to raise $4 million through a combination of private donations, state dollars, and federal funds.

Although they now had the money, there were still over a decade of difficult work ahead.

- I was annoyed, but why be angry?

You were wasting your spinning your wheels about something that you cannot prevent.

It's already happened.

It's already done.

So what do you do now?

You fix it.

You clean it up.

We just knew that what we were doing was a good thing.

We were cleaning up a sacred place.

- Literally we had people out in hazmat suits sifting through the soil and removing just the contaminated parts.

And then that was sealed.

A new layer of soil was put on top of it, and we waited, did all the testing for a number of years.

Because of, of the work.

Um, we really improved the quality of water in all of Humboldt Bay.

-[Narrator] For the Wiyot tribe.

The work itself became a ceremony.

In 2014, their one and a half acres was deemed safe.

And the Wiyots could practice their World Renewal Ceremony on the island again.

- In 2014, We finished the dance that was interrupted (indigenous music) because of the massacre, coming back together and healing (indigenous music) the descendants of those ancestors that did survive um is a significant occurrence and not something that we get to see every day.

And I think (rustling) stepping on the island for all of us was another way to start to fill, to fill up again.

(indigenous music) -[Narrator] It was healing for the Wiyots to regain and restore 1.5 acres of their island.

But they still wanted the rest of it back, and this time they didn't want to have to buy it.

(indigenous music) (waves crashing) In Boulder, Rick Williams is determined to uncover the truth of how the Cheyenne people lost their land in Colorado, and to get land back in one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the country.

- It would be absolutely wonderful if somehow, (indigenous music) some way, the state of Colorado could find a way to say, hey, we recognize this as a sacred place for you.

(indigenous music) We want you to come back here and take care of it for us and keep it sacred for us, because we know you know what to do, and we don't.

(indigenous music) -[Narrator] Cheyenne and Arapaho activists like Fred Mosqueda would like to return to the Rocky Mountain Front Range in Colorado, where they once lived, freely moving seasonally between the plains and the mountains.

(indigenous music) - It was a perfect spot to live.

It took care of you in the mountains.

In certain areas of the mountains, there was actually herds that would winter here, and that was a food source.

All winter long.

-[Narrator] After gold was discovered in 1859, settlers invaded Cheyenne and Arapaho lands.

- But when gold was found here in the Pikes Peak area, that's when they began to build settlements.

And, you know, the story goes that Left Hand told him, you know, you can stay until spring and then then you must leave.

(indigenous music) Well, by that time, you know, the gold was found and they never left.

-[Rick] They say within a very short period of time, 110,000 people came here and they were here all illegally.

They weren't supposed to be here.

This was forcing the tribe's resources, the game, the animals, buffalo, deer, elk out of their traditional areas.

And it was forcing Indian people to move away from their sacred places where they would spend the winter or spend a winter camp.

So our people were out of food.

They were hungry, they were starving.

They were looking for every opportunity.

They tried to find resources to be able to continue in their homeland.

And at every turn, they were being repelled and sent away.

On one side, it was people defending their land.

On the other side.

It was an invasion orchestrated from the military.

And the military is what really drove the impact of what would happen in places like this.

(indigenous music) -[Narrator] In 1864, after months of conflict, the War Department authorized Colorado's territorial governor, John Evans, to create a volunteer regiment under the command of Colonel John Chivington.

(indigenous music) The regiment's charge was to pursue, kill and destroy all hostile Indians that infest the plains.

Indigenous music) On a frigid morning in late November, (indigenous music) Chivington's regiment attacked Cheyenne and Arapaho people who had been given refuge at Sand Creek, a remote site on the southeastern plains of Colorado.

(battle yell) His men committed one of the most horrific massacres in U.S.

history, killing at least 230 people in the camps, most of them women, children and elders.

(indigenous music) - Why are there no Indian reservations in the Front Range of Colorado or on the Eastern Plains of Colorado?

(sharp breath) And what it comes down to is one word genocide.

(no audio) When it happened in a very short period of time.

(no audio) -[Narrator] Colorado's settlers forced the Cheyenne and Arapaho to leave Colorado after Sand Creek.

(soft wind blowing) It would be 150 years until they were welcomed back.

(soft wind blowing) In 2016.

(indigenous music) Native and non-Native activists in Boulder got their City Council to acknowledge this history and establish Indigenous Peoples Day.

(indigenous music) They soon formed Right Relationship Boulder to explore how their community could strengthen ties to Indigenous people.

(indigenous music) - We are Indigenous and non-Native people working with individuals, local organizations and governments to support Indigenous peoples connection to land, raise Indigenous voices and practice right relationship with the native peoples who live in Boulder Valley, who lived here historically, and those who live here today.

We knew the Indigenous Peoples Day resolution was not going to implement itself.

We wanted to be sure those were more than words on a high sounding document.

So that's how we got our start.

And the people of Boulder Valley Native and non-Native are once again saying, welcome to your ancestral homelands.

-[Narrator] Right Relationship Boulder has influenced the city to more fully engage with the Cheyenne, Arapaho and other tribes that once lived on the Front Range.

- This isn't just about a once a year, you know, making a gesture.

It's about events and memorials and celebrations that happen on a regular basis.

- And we're using it right now to develop a land acknowledgment in consultation with tribal nations and building off that great work.

Right.

And more than anything is, it did set the context and that push for tribal consultation.

-[Narrator] Eventually, activists believed that Boulder needed to do more than issue a land acknowledgment.

- Land acknowledgments are were great when they were invented, but acknowledging the land is not enough.

Uh, we have to think about how are we going to to restore Indian populations?

How are we going to, to bring the people back?

-[Narrator] Right Relationship Boulder pushed the city to identify some of the 46,000 acres it owns that could be returned to the region's original inhabitants.

But some raised concerns.

(soft wind blowing) - I think one of the issues is who do you donate it to?

Colorado was once occupied by over 48 different tribes.

There are differences of opinions in the tribes themselves with the land.

Is there going to be a position for somebody from their tribe to care for the land, to manage the land, to do that kind of thing, because they don't physically live here anymore.

-[Narrator] Many Indigenous activists are frustrated with these concerns.

- You know, we're not incapable of of managing our own destiny.

We don't need people saying, well, they can't manage the 113 acres.

So we'll just keep it and we'll do something good for them.

We don't need we don't need people making decisions for us anymore.

-[Narrator] Right Relationship Boulder encouraged the city to return the site of Fort Chambers to the Cheyenne and Arapaho people.

But there was a problem.

(indigenous music) The land had been the training ground for the troops that Colonel Chivington led to Sand Creek.

(indigenous music) Did tribes want this land back?

(indigenous music) - This place today is, um, a place where we have very difficult feelings about, because we know (cars swooshing) that it was a beginning of the end for our people in Colorado, with these military people training at places like this and attacking our people at Sand Creek.

(cars swooshing) It gives you a kind of a pause to think about, you know, is this the exact kind of place that we should be coming back to?

(indigenous music) -[Narrator] Some ask if tribes don't want the Fort Chambers site back, what land do they want returned?

(indigenous music) - What's the ideal location or characteristics of the land that you'd like to have?

(rustling) - Me personally, I want 20,000 acres of land with the river running through it.

Natural grasslands, um, with a thousand head of buffalo on it.

(crowd chatting) (clapping) -[Narrator] To make this happen, Many Indigenous leaders have called for returning some of the vast public lands that the United States usurped from tribal nations.

A common misunderstanding is that Land Back proponents seek to confiscate privately owned lands.

(indigenous music) - Land Back.

Land Back makes people nervous.

(indigenous music) Land Back for some people um, they feel threatened by it.

They, they think that Indian people are going to come and want to take their homes and displace them.

And that's not what Land Back is about.

Land back is about protecting their private rights.

We know what it was like to have our homeland taken from us.

And we understand that.

We don't want that to happen to anybody.

(soft wind blowing) (indigenous music) -[Narrator] But some private landowners are ready to share the land.

Roger Welsch and his wife, Linda, invited the Pawnees to use their land to bury the ancestors they had so recently recovered from the state of Nebraska.

- The first time the contingent came out here to survey a place for the Reburials, and I showed them all kinds of places down here and it was easier then.

Right now, it's not easy to get to the river on this side, but we went down to the river and here were distinguished celebrities, um, uh, leading men in the tribe in suits, good clothes.

(indigenous music) And I had to stand there and watch them wade into the river, crying and pulling the water over their hair, drinking the water because it was their river.

It's the Loup River.

The Loup Pawnee River.

It's Plenty Potatoes River.

(indigenous music) - That was like a (indigenous music) a healing type deal because of that river, the Loup River, that's where, you know, our ancestors lived all up and down that river.

- I got home that night, and Linda and I looked at each other and said, you know, they're not visiting us on our place.

We're visiting them on their place.

And that sealed it.

So we were going to leave it to them in our will.

And it was Linda's idea.

She said, why don't we give it to them now.

And that way, instead of missing all the fun because we're dead, we can be here and celebrate with them, all of these things.

And boy, it's been that way.

- We have made him an honorary member of the Pawnee, you know, and, you know, gave him a Pawnee name, you know, Pawnee Taaka, means white Pawnee, you know and he And, you know, he likes that name.

- They retained a life estate there, I think, you know, and, um.

And but the Pawnee Nation owns the property now, and that sort of led to, um, a land return movement.

(indigenous music) Roger, despite that great lengths that the country went to, to get our land by hook or crook, by force of arms, he undercut all of that by simply returning it back to the Pawnee people.

(indigenous music) - The land there at, uh, at Dannebrog, you know, we've used it for our repatriation and reburials of our ancestors that were sitting in museums for decades.

It means a lot knowing that (indigenous music) these women and children and men and old folks that have been, you know, treated as artifacts, that they're reburied back where they're supposed to be in the area that they're, that they knew that they're supposed to be in.

Uh, just put them to rest.

(indigenous music) - It's something about Nebraska.

It's an amazing place and it's very spiritual.

You just feel that connection.

And, and so many people who, who have, you know, been raised here or, or raised, you know, somewhere else.

And they go to Nebraska and they're Pawnee.

They feel that connection, that very, very strong connection to the land and to the water.

(nature sounds) -[Roger] The Pawnee flag flies on Main Street.

There's a new mural over here on the American Legion building.

And while there is a picture of the Danes coming to America, there's also a picture of the Pawnee who were here before.

And more and more, the Pawnee have become an integral part of this community, which means that the community has accepted them.

(indigenous music) But I think equally important is that the Pawnee have accepted this town.

- It's not just the land that's, you know, that we received, you know, back.

And it's the relationships, you know, that we've developed in doing that with Roger.

(indigenous music) -[Narrator] Roger wasn't alone in his efforts to welcome the Pawnee home.

(tranquil music) Nearly a dozen farmers in Nebraska are growing the Pawnee sacred corn as part of the Pawnee Seed Preservation Project.

- We're going to be celebrating our 20th year real soon.

And um, um, 20 is a good number.

We have 20 gardens in Nebraska, 20 gardens in Oklahoma.

You know, we're, we're growing and getting a lot of people involved, which is wonderful.

That's part of the thinking in our, our movement is, is for all tribes to get back to their traditional harvesting, gathering and growing.

(indigenous music) Um, so the diets can go back to what they're used to.

We just know that we suffer tremendously, um, all kinds of health issues, especially with diabetes and (indigenous music) our corn is so healthy.

(indigenous music) Uh, lots of prayers (indigenous music) have gone into this corn in all phases of production.

And so yeah, I think we're up to 19 varieties of corn now.

(indigenous music) I mean, what an adventure it has been, you know, to even have our own corn.

You know, we were on the brink of losing it all.

And then it's surrounded by beautiful soil, you know, that has little roots in it and everything.

You could tell that soil was so alive.

And, um, and that's, that's our seeds.

You know, we feel like they have a seed memory, you know, that they just flourished so well here in the homeland here in Nebraska.

- We're smiling more than we have in a long time.

Right now there's a lot of grief every day we're losing people.

Something as hard is happening every day, but this feels like a normal.

This feels like it should be, you know, and it's a sense of peace right now.

So we've been working towards this moment for a long time to be able to serve Eagle corn to the people at our dances, at our spring ceremonies where everybody could try it, everybody could know what it tastes like.

(soft sighs) - This corn is our life, (indigenous music) you know, and to have these people here (indigenous music) plant these seeds.

Some of these seeds we couldn't grow back in Oklahoma.

And then luckily, you know, they were grown.

They were able to grow here because this is where they came from.

(indigenous music) -[Narrator] Seeing the tall green stalks rise in the summer sun has given the Pawnee hope of a future in the land their ancestors left behind.

(indigenous music) Near Humboldt Bay, the Wiyots continued their efforts to regain the rest of their sacred Tuluwat Island.

(indigenous music) In 2004, they succeeded in getting the city of Eureka to return 40 acres of the island to the tribe.

But the city had conditions.

- They basically wanted an assurance (indigenous music) that we were not going to build a casino (indigenous music) on our island.

(indigenous music) So (indigenous music) I was upset, like I was.

(indigenous music) I mean, how rude.

You know, how presumptuous how and, you know, just all of those things, right?

(sighing) - And I looked at him and I rolled my eyes.

I said, are you really going to tell us to that?

We had to clean up the mess that you guys left.

(silence) This is a sacred site.

This is where our families are buried, (silence) please.

(silence) -[Narrator] Cheryl Seidner went back to the Eureka City Council to ask for the rest of the island back more than 200 acres.

The relationship Cheryl forged with the council over decades laid the foundation for cooperation between the city and the Wiyot.

- And do I have time to sing you a song?

This is coming home.

(silence) We're coming home.

(silence) (deep breaths) (Wiyot singing Coming Home) - Um.

You know, I'm so grateful to Council member Arroyo.

When we both got elected, we both had this kind of serendipitous moment where Natalie had talked to Ted, and I had talked to Cheryl, and we both wanted the same thing.

-[Narrator] One local resident raised opposition to the island's return.

(silence) but Eureka's residents overwhelmingly supported the island's return.

(silence) - Eventually you get the right people in the right place and things can happen.

- I think the really significant piece on that property is that it was returned with no strings attached.

-[Narrator] In 2019, hundreds of Eureka City residents and Wiyot tribal officials celebrated the return of Tuluwat Island.

- Returning Tuluwat land does not erase the pain that your people have suffered.

It is a milestone in a complicated relationship with people who live in this region.

This is simply a moment in time representing a long, long history of your people.

It is a moment that is both solemn as well as celebratory.

We hope this is a moment that moves us into the future, forging strong bonds and building a healthier community for everyone.

(applause) (cheering) - As a former mayor of Eureka and on behalf of the City Council and the people of Eureka, we would like to offer a formal apology to the Wiyot people for the actions of our people in 1860.

(indigenous music) - Today is a day of pride for the city of Eureka.

Today is Tuluwat the return of the Wiyot people.

Today the Wiyot people who have lived in this area since the time immemorial.

(indigenous music) The return to the center of the Wiyot world.

(indigenous music) And we do this together as a people of Eureka.

(applause) (cheering) - I'm going to sing the coming home song.

(Wiyot sing Coming Home) -[Narrator] The Coming Home song echoes the resilience of a people who embrace their history while forging ahead toward a brighter tomorrow.

The island emerges as a healing place, linking two cultures and mending years of division.

- We aren't reliant on others to have access to our spaces, to do those things, to be able to grow food items or weaving materials or, you know, to gather those resources so that we can perpetuate our traditions and lifeways.

- We just have to get past the fear and the, and the, you know, focusing on the past.

Like we can move through it.

And sometimes we have to do something that may not be comfortable to get there.

But when we do that, great things can happen.

And that is what's happening here.

-[Narrator] The Wiyot persisted for generations until they got back their sacred land.

(deep breath in) They learned that land return takes time to build relationships and trust.

It needs champions from outside the tribe, as well.

(indigenous music) The Cheyenne and Arapaho have found champions in Right Relationship Boulder.

- God bless Right Relationship Boulder for what everything they do for us.

You know, they make us feel at home here.

You know, like we always say when we come on this land, when we come here and we walk on here, it's as though we have that feeling of coming home, that sense of belonging, a sense that I don't know, the land can talk to you and tell you that you know this, it, everything is still here.

(indigenous music) - It feels like I'm coming home and I feel welcomed.

I feel embraced in this community.

-[Narrator] But it remains unclear if the Cheyenne and Arapaho will regain some of their sacred land in the Boulder area.

(indigenous music) Certainly they want to.

In 2023, Southern Cheyenne and Southern Arapaho leaders passed a resolution in support of returning to the Boulder Valley.

-[Fred] We had our annual Tribal Council meeting in Concho, Oklahoma, where the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Southern Cheyenne, Southern Arapahos they meet and they meet once a year, and they set their budget and they set the resolutions that the Tribal Council has the authority to pass.

and they, of course, it kind of gets exciting sometimes because (indigenous music) we're kind of opinionated, you know.

So but anyway, after we got all that out of the way, one resolution that was passed (indigenous music) was for the Cheyenne Arapaho tribe to start (indigenous music) to come back to Colorado.

(cheering) (Clapping) -[Narrator] The Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes and Right Relationship Boulder are exploring a concept called co-stewardship.

- This land was taken illegally.

So some people think, well, then just give it back to us.

(wind blowing) We began to realize when we talked to people here, that (wind blowing) maybe that's not the option that they're looking at, but what we offered them then was called co-stewardship.

What we said, is that yes, we want to be here, but let's look at how we can do it together.

-[Narrator] Through co-stewardship, the tribes, whether they owned the land or not, would get to help decide how it is managed.

Stephanie and Jason Duffy, two non-native landowners, invited Fred Mosqueda to visit their land, Prairie Orchard Farm, in the scenic Boulder Valley to discuss co-stewardship of the property with the Southern Arapaho people.

- The value that comes from co-stewardship is fully reciprocal.

Everybody benefits and it's a boon for everyone, which is so powerful.

It doesn't have to be just about some kind of.

It's not about charity.

It's about reciprocity.

(indigenous music) -[Narrator] To Cheyenne and Arapaho hoped that some day their people will once again have a place in their old homelands to honor their history and culture, speak their language, harvest their medicines, hunt wild game, and celebrate their survival against all odds.

- The first thing we do is we'd come up here and we'd walk this land and we'd have our elders, our ceremonial men, put a blessing on it.

It'll come here.

And we would sing our songs to the to this land, knowing, telling it we're coming back in the language that it would understand the language of law that was spoken here before we left.

(indigenous music) -[Narrator] Where Land Back has happened, It has helped Indigenous people begin to forgive those who wounded their ancestors, and it has helped some Americans to face painful historical truths and to make amends.

(silence) It is also given Native people the opportunity to heal the land.

(silence) The Wiyots return to Tuluwat Island signals a renewed spiritual connection with the universe.

Their success came through commitment from city leaders and an open dialogue established over decades.

- People around the world were seeing this happen.

People around the world saw that a government, a city agency, gave back the rest of a ceremonial island back to a tribe without a tribe having to pay for was awesome.

-[Narrator] Once near extinction, Pawnee corn is now thriving in fertile Nebraska fields.

It serves as a connection between the ancestral homelands and the heart of a people.

Embedded within its resilience is a solemn promise to preserve the Pawnee way of life despite centuries of adversity.

- It's been the best thing I've ever done in my life, and I've come to the point where I really believe that's why I'm on this earth.

Everything I've done in my life has led up to this, this place and this thing.

Returning the Pawnee Nation to the homeland.

- Returning some of the land, you know, is also, uh, it's kind of a healing for, I think, uh, historical trauma.

-[Narrator] Boulder is a community trying to do the right thing, but it's difficult and slow to work out the details and overcome the challenges.

(indigenous music) Activists are exploring new ideas for land management, but it will take more time to make Land Back a reality.

The Cheyenne and Arapaho aren't giving up.

- These are our homelands, and one day that's going to that's going to come.

You know, it's just a matter of time and how they go forward with everything.

It'll happen one day.

- You know, like I said, we don't want to come in here and just demand stuff.

Let's work together to get this started.

Together we can.

We can make this land take care of us once again.

-[Narrator] For Indigenous peoples, the American dream rang hollow as it was built upon stolen land and genocide.

(indigenous music) Yet today, a new story is unfolding as individuals and communities confront the injustices of history and help tribes reunite with their ancestral homelands.

(indigenous music) The Land Back movement is gaining momentum, sparking vital conversations in communities across the United States.

Land back is no longer a dream.

It's happening now.

(indigenous music) (no audio) (upbeat music)