The StarTribune’s Nick Coleman has a column in today’s paper titled, First Americans should finally get apology long owed to them.
The late Gov. Rudy Perpich proclaimed a Year of Reconciliation in 1987 in the hope that the 125th anniversary of the 1862 Dakota War would be a fitting time to talk honestly about the causes of the war and its legacy — decades of oppression, racism and government neglect that followed. Not much reconciling occurred. And not much will be said about it during statehood week, May 11-18, when Minnesota celebrates its sesquicentennial during American Indian Month.
“A lot of Indians don’t see the sesquicentennial as something to celebrate,” says Leonard Wabasha, a Dakota whose parents, Ernest and Vernell, were sent to Indian boarding schools as children. “It’s just another year and an anniversary that reminds us of what was taken away, and what we lost.”
“A celebration makes it too painful to discuss some things,” agrees Jane Leonard, executive director of the Minnesota Sesquicentennial. But she says the 1862 Dakota War and its aftermath will be on the agenda May 16, when Winona becomes Capital For A Day.
Here are some snips of other opinion pieces that have appeared in the Strib since last fall:
On Feb. 17th, the Strib opinion page staff published two articles on the history of Fort Snelling in light of this year’s Minnesota Sesquicentennial.
The headline: Fort Snelling: How should its history be told?
- Painful, even shameful, stories that reflect the broad scope of the fort’s past should not be erased, but learned from by Nina Archabal, a officer on the board of the Minnesota Historical Society.
- Rather than perpetrate injustice, the fort should be moved and the sacred site turned into a park by Jeffrey Kolnick, Associate Professor of History at Southwest Minnesota State University.
StarTribune’s Nick Coleman had a column on Dec. 22, 2007 titled As Minnesota turns 150, how will it face up to its original sin?
It was a deep one.
On Dec. 3, 2007 Strib, Waziyatawin Angela Wilson had a guest commentary on the front of the Opinion page titled Time to level: Minnesotans must acknowledge, at long last, the dark side of their state’s history.
Once Gov. Alexander Ramsey made his infamous declaration on Sept. 9, 1862, that “the Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state,” his genocidal agenda was widely and wildly supported by white Minnesotans. His call was very clearly a demand for what we would today identify as ethnic cleansing. Everything that followed fit into this larger agenda, an extraordinarily successful genocidal effort from which Dakota people have never recovered.
…
Once this history of genocide is acknowledged, Minnesotans will have to ask themselves, “What does recognition of genocide demand?” Certainly, a celebration of what was gained as a consequence of genocide would be unthinkable. If those who are aware of the genocide continue to celebrate, they will only add to the lengthy list of wrongs already done to Dakota people. When Minnesotans celebrate statehood, we hear that genocide is acceptable as long as white people benefit from it. This is a message we have heard our entire lives. Not one generation of Minnesotans has attempted to send a different message. What will this generation decide to do?
I believe the recognition of genocide requires a period of mourning. It requires contrition. And it requires reparative justice. As long as Dakota people live and breathe, we will struggle for the recognition of our humanity and for justice in our Minisota homeland.
Waziyatawin Angela Wilson, author/editor of In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors, The Dakota Commemorative Marches of the 21st Century, has a new book coming out titled: What Does Justice Look Like? A Look to the Future after 150 Years of Minnesota Statehood. The description:
What does it mean when a state was built for white Minnesotans at the expense of Indigenous Peoples? What does it mean when genocidal policies were advocated, supported, and carried out by Minnesota citizens so they could obtain Dakota homeland? This book will examine these questions and more in a contemporary context to address how Minnesotans today might more appropriately think about the historical legacy created by the establishment of the state. It will also address how the perpetrators of genocide might begin to undo the damaging legacy of these actions and restore a measure of justice.
On December 29, 2007, Louis Stanley Schoen, a consultant and trainer on racial justice in the Episcopal Church, authored a commentary in the Star Tribune titled We must talk about race, despite the difficult emotions it stirs.
How might serious, healing racial dialogue occur? A series of thoughtful, sensitive commentary in news media might be a starter. Sermons and study groups on race in churches would help, as would discussions in all kinds of community groups. Official public bodies must get engaged. What if a public commission were to begin to examine the American (and European) history of white supremacy — and, here, how that doctrine shaped the formation of Minnesota and its public and private institutions? What if such a commission learned how to offer leadership and resources to dismantle this evil doctrine? The results could be transforming for us and for all the world. What a magnificent legacy this might be to our celebration of Minnesota’s sesquicentennial.
Back on October 28, StarTribune editorialist Lori Sturdevant authored a column titled A time when cultures met — and clashed: At age 150, is Minnesota ready to own up to the truth about the 1862 Dakota War?
As Minnesotans blow out the candles next year on 150 years of statehood, they’ll do well to acknowledge that there were people living on this land long centuries before 1858. And that for those original people — and their descendants, still very much here — statehood wasn’t the beginning of something grand, but the ending.