Over the past couple of months, I’ve been reading books about Minnesota’s history with its Indian population around the time of statehood.
I first read a historical novel set during the 1862 U.S.-Dakota War, titled Uprising, by MN State Representative Dean Urdahl. Strib editorial writer Lori Sturdivant had mentioned it in her column last fall.Urdahl’s no James Michener but I found it be an interesting and even-handed treatment of the war and another way to learn about the important characters.
At the visitor center at Fort Snelling State Park, I picked up a book titled The Dakota Indian Internment at Fort Snelling, 1862-1864, by Corinne L. Monjeau-Marz.It’s a massive and helpful collection of maps, photos, and compelling first-hand accounts from both whites and Indians. I found two things troubling about the book, however:
* Page 9 of the Foreward by Alan Woolworth, a former curator for the Minnesota Historical Society, in which he writes that the "… long caravan of peaceful Dakota women, children, and elderly men… went to a camp where they could be fed and protected until they were removed to another reservation far distant from Minnesota." Huh?
* On pages 67-69, the author treats the issue of whether the camp should be referred to as an ‘internment camp’ or ‘concentration camp.’ She ultimately argues for the former because the conditions of the camp and its purpose can not be equated to the Nazi concentration camps. I’d argue that to just call it an ‘internment camp’ arguably puts it in the same category as the Japanese American internment camps after Pearl Harbor where few died.
Dakota Life in the Upper Midwest by Samuel Pond, written in the 1870s. Pond and his brother spent decades learning the Dakota language and observing how they lived. I’ve not read it yet.
Let Them Eat Grass, Volume I: Smoke, by John Koblas. I just got this book from the Northfield Historical Society. It’s the first book of his Let Them Eat Grass trilogy. Volumes 2 and 3 are due out in a month, I’m told.