The more I learn about the history of Minnesota’s indigenous people, the more I start to see examples of things that still exist today that, deliberately or not, misrepresent that history. And among Native Americans, these things can easily be seen as a continuation of the denial or lack of truth-telling about their painful history with whites that’s occurred for decades.
On the bluffs above Winona is a panoramic lookout called Garvin Heights Park. I paid a visit on Thursday evening and took these photos of the educational markers and displays there.
Center: The text on the plaque about Garvin Heights begins:
The city 575 feet below this bluff was founded in 1851 by Captain Orrin Smith on the site of ‘KEOXAH’ the village of Sioux Indian Chief WAPASHA and his band. First called Wabasha’s Prairie, it was later named Winona - - from the Sioux word ‘Wenohan,’ meaning first-born daughter.
Right: The history panel on the three-sided display about the site begins with this text:
Winona has been home to many peoples ever since the the first Native American hunted mammoths and mastodons 12,000 years ago. The Dakota and Ho-Chunk lived here until the 1850s. The Dakota called it "Keoxa," or homeland. Their word "wenonah" means "first-born daughter."
Both texts then continue with economic and cultural narrative about the early Euro-American settlers in the area. There’s no mention of what happened to the Dakota people. One is left with the notion that they somehow became ‘extinct,’ rather than telling the truth of their forced removal to the Lower Sioux Agency in southwestern Minnesota after the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux and the Treaty of Mendota.