On March 2, I attended a presentation at Fort Snelling State Park by historian Bruce White about his new book "We Are at Home: Pictures of the Ojibwe People," published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press.
This is the audio of the first 11 minutes of Bruce’s presentation in which he discusses the importance of the Coldwater Spring area near Fort Snelling to both the Dakota and Ojibewe.
Below is the press release on Bruce’s book.
Bruce White, author of "We Are at Home: Pictures of the Ojibwe People," published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press, will be at Fort Snelling State Park on March 2 at 1 p.m., to speak about his book and about the frequent visits by Ojibwe people to the area of Fort Snelling in the 19th century. Copies of "We Are at Home: Pictures of the Ojibwe People" will be available for sale at the program, and Mr. White will autograph copies for those who have them.
Beginning in the 1850s Ojibwe people in Minnesota were photographed by many different kinds of photographers who were interested in recording them, mostly for an audience of non-Indians. These photographs emphasized the exotic, stereotypical look of the Ojibwe, their chiefs, their birch-bark houses and canoes, sometimes recorded with the idea that the Ojibwe were disappearing from the landscape. As time went on, however, Ojibwe people began to obtain photos for their own purposes, recording communities, family members, and relationships.
In the process they created a much richer record of people who have not disappeared but who survived and who thrive today. The audio-visual presentation will be based on the book, "We Are at Home: Pictures of the Ojibwe people," a book published in 2007 by the Minnesota Historical Society Press, which took the author over twenty years to research and write. The author will also discuss the many delegations Ojibwe people in the 19th century to the Fort Snelling area, where they traded with the local Dakota, shared ceremonies, and took part in U.S.-government sponsored diplomacy at the fort and at Coldwater Spring.