Mayis, an Indigenous Records Guide
of the Maryland State Archives

The Maryland State Archives facilities are situated on the traditional homelands of the Piscataway and Susquehannock Peoples who hold the land and waterways of the Chesapeake Bay region as sacred. We acknowledge that there is a difficult and traumatic history between peoples who colonized these lands and the Tribal Peoples, including those who remain here, those who were forcibly removed from here, or who have come here from other lands in diaspora. As caretakers of the written documents of the Maryland government, our agency has an obligation to be transparent about our government’s colonialism. We are working to amplify the voices of Indigenous communities in the historic record of this entire region. We actively seek opportunities for dialogue with Indigenous Peoples, to ensure that their voices are heard and that they have access to documents about their histories, and our collective histories. We are supporting the efforts of Indigenous peoples to preserve and document their histories within their own communities. We are educating ourselves about the past to enable a more equitable future.