Presenter tells Denver committee Front Range was Indigenous homeland for millennia; urges cultural center, dedicated funding

Rick Williams (Lakota name Tall Bull), an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, told the Denver City Council Safety, Housing, Education and Homelessness Committee on June 25 that Indigenous people used the South Platte–Cherry Creek confluence for “at least 11,000 years” and that 19th‑century treaties, Congressional actions and illegal settlement removed Indigenous occupancy from the Front Range.

Williams summarized historical treaties and federal actions he said were improperly ratified or altered, described the events that led to the Sand Creek massacre, and urged the city and state to take tangible steps to acknowledge and begin repairing historical harms. He told the committee the historical record shows “fraudulently altered” documents and cited congressional grants and legislative actions in the 1860s as central to how Denver’s land title was cleared.

The briefing’s nut graf: Williams urged that Denver make programmatic and financial commitments now — including a cultural center and an “embassy” for tribes whose ancestral lands include present‑day Colorado — so that the city can offer concrete reparative measures rather than only symbolic recognition.

Williams walked…