News

On May 12, over 100 People gathered to plant the Puhwem Corn that Rob Flory of Howell Living History Farm donated to the Turtle Clan. For the first time in many years, Puhwen corn returned to North Jersey.

NJEA Virtual Session for Educators: On the afternoon of Tuesday, February 27th, 2024, Chief Mann, Mikie, Prof. Jack Tchen, Kerry Hardy and Karelle Hall presented education materials to a group of more than 50 NJEA Teachers during a two-hour statewide, virtual meeting regarding our region’s history, the Nanticoke Lenape Language and Indigenous Healing Gardens. We were delighted with the engagement of the participants and excited to know that much of the information will support the development of future curriculum. The video is available with this link. The Presentations are also available with these links: 1) History, 2) Language , 3) Healing Garden and Three Sisters Garden Directions. For those wanting to contact us to receive seeds and more support, please reach us through the contact us on the website.

On February 28, 2024, Chief Mann and Nagisa Manabe, RCLF’s Director of Development joined a gathering of Newark and National thought leaders for a symposium to strengthen our narrative on reparations. Artist Garrison Hayes encouraged us to speak of the unbroken chain of oppression, and Dr. Marcus Hunter shared his thoughts about the permanence of racism and encouraged us to think boldly about the future saying “If we imagine it, we can manifest it.” We are grateful to the Dodge Foundation for including us in this event which was hosted by Liberation Ventures, the International Center for Transitional Justice, and the NJ Institute for Social Justice. The Ramapough Culture and Land Foundation looks forward to partnering with this auspicious group of attendees to work with NJ Reparations for Black and Indigenous people in our state.

History is told by the victor. This includes the history of the Native Peoples of the United States, their interactions with European colonizers, and the repercussions that continue in contemporary society. Through partnership and various initiatives the New Jersey Highlands Coalition (NJHC) is working to uplift the voices of the Ramapough Lunaape, the original protectors of this beautiful land we call the Highlands.

It goes almost without saying – but I’ll say it anyway – that all the land in New Jersey once belonged to the Indigenous people who lived here for millennia before European colonization. After 400 years of wars, treaties, forced removals and migrations, and unfair government policies, little land in this state remains under Native American control.
That’s why a Sept. 15 “rematriation” ceremony in Quinton Township, Salem County, was such an extraordinary and happy event. The ancient Cohanzick people, part of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Nation, were reunited with a piece of Mother Earth where their ancestors once lived.

You may also find Chief Vincent Mann, Turtle Clan Chief of the Ramapough Luunape Nation along the banks of the river. Mann is at the forefront of New Jersey’s environmental justice movement and operates a nonprofit farm used for both sustenance and to recover the Ramapough Luunape’s cultural farming practices. Seemingly with more than 24 hours in a day, Mann has also been instrumental in restoring and preserving the Musconetcong Wild and Scenic River and his tribe’s ancestral land surrounding the river.

The New Jersey Council for the Humanities (NJCH) has announced the recipient of the inaugural Stanley N. Katz Prize for Excellence in Public Humanities, as well as two honorable mentions.

“The Ramapough and the Ringwood Mines Superfund Site – History, Culture, Education, and Environmental Justice,” was awarded the top prize at NJCH’s 50th Anniversary Gala on September 29. The multimedia project, headed by Anita Bakshi of the Rutgers University Department of Landscape Architecture, promotes environmental justice advocacy and curriculum development on Native American history and contemporary Indigenous land relations and was co-created with the Ramapough Lunaape Nation Turtle Clan.