Native American Minnesota

Minnesota-based author/historian John ‘Jack’ Koblas gave a slide presentation at the Northfield Historical Society last night on Let them Eat Grass, his three-volume history of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862.

As I blogged in mid-July, the City of Minneapolis is celebrating its sesquicentennial with a Celebrating our Minneapolis History program series at the Minneapolis Central Library featuring local historians, authors and educators.

The first in the series was last Wednesday evening, and it had a Native American focus. Librarian JoEllen Haugo (center photo, click to enlarge) was the event organizer. I had a modest table (right photo) among a dozen or so others where I met with interested people before the presentations and at break time.

The first session: Before Minneapolis: the land, native people.

Click play to listen to the first session (6-7 PM) or download the MP3. 1 hour 15 minutes.

Left: Moderator Amy Ollendorf, President, ALO Environmental Associates
Left center: Scott Anfinson, Minnesota State Archaeologist 
Right center: Arlo Omaha, Native American linguist
Right: Brenda Child, Associate Professor, American Indian Studies, U of MN

The second session: American Indians 20th Century Relocating to Minnesota Cities.

Click play to listen to the second session (7:30-8:30 pm) or download the MP3. 1 hour 12 minutes.

Left: Moderator Laura Waterman Wittstock, CEO, Wittstock and Associates
Center: Roger Buffalohead, former faculty member, American Indian Studies, U of MN
Right: Clyde Bellecourt, founder, American Indian Movement

The City of Minneapolis is celebrating its sesquicentennial with a Celebrating our Minneapolis History program series at the Minneapolis Central Library featuring local historians, authors and educators.

Next Wed, July 22, the series has a Native American focus (see the PDF flyer):

Before Minneapolis: the land, native people

Learn about the pre-Minneapolis landscape and lives of the native people, three contrasting views of archaeology and Dakota and Ojibwe oral histories, perspectives on inter-tribal conflicts and native-anglo conflicts, and the evolving lifestyles and relocations of indigenous Minnesotans during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Presenters: Scott Anfinson, Joe Bendickson, Brenda Child. Moderator: Amy Ollendorf.

American Indians 20th Century Relocating to Minnesota Cities

Discussion will include Native American urbanization of the last 50 years, resettlement programs, formation of the indian community in Minneapolis, assimilation, political movements and more.

Presenters: Roger Buffalohead, Clyde Bellecourt, Laura Waterman Wittstock.

I plan to attend and will ’staff’ a table/booth there to let people know about this Native American Minnesota blog and related efforts.

The Duluth News Tribune ran an article on Sunday titled, Highway 23 bridge at St. Louis River renamed to honor American Indian veterans. (The full-text is no longer available on their site but there is a Google cached version here. Thumbail photo above links to a page of photos of the Fond du Lac Bridge, its previous name. See this Google Map for location details.)

American Indians who have served in every American war received overdue recognition Saturday from the city of Duluth and the state of Minnesota.

A dedication ceremony took place Saturday morning on Biauswah Bridge, which spans the St. Louis River on Minnesota Highway 23. The bridge was named for an Ojibwe chief this spring, and two small signs now stand at the ends of the bridge to let motorists know they are traveling over a bridge dedicated to the memory of American Indian war veterans.

“It took a long time to get to this point where we can say this bridge is in memory of all Native American veterans, past, present and future,” said Rick Defoe, a member of the Fond du Lac band who helps preserve the tribe’s cultural practices. “This is a historic time, and I am honored to be here at this intertribal ceremony.”

See the Wikipedia entry on Chief Biauswah for more.

Audrey Thayer, coordinator of the Greater Minnesota Racial Justice Project of the American Civil Liberties Union-Minnesota, has a commentary in the Bemidji Pioneer this week titled Sesquicentennial missed reconciliation (excerpt only; full-text currently posted to the Mendota Mdewakanton blog here).

… the 150 years Sesquicentennial for me was a strong reminder of the history of destruction and stealing of land from the original people who lived in this state.

I am glad I supported the events that tried to grasp the concepts of the past 150 years but I fear people missed an opportunity for reconciliation with native people and the word exclusion comes to my mind.

MPR’s Tom Robertson did a story about Audrey Thayer back in 2004 when she was hired by the ACLU for the position in Bemidi.

George Goggleye Jr., Tribal Chair of the Leech Lake Band Of Ojibwe, spoke briefly Sunday night on the steps of the State Capitol. He then introduced Leech Lake Nation, a drumming and singing group who performed ‘Honor Song.’

Click play to listen. 5 minutes. The music begins at the one-minute mark.

Or alternately, download the MP3.

 
Here’s the audio of Kevin Leecy’s Sesquicentennial speech Sunday night on the steps of the State Capitol. Kevin is Tribal Chair of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa and Chair of the Board of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council (MIAC).

Click play to listen. 4 minutes, 26 seconds.

Or alternately, download the MP3.

The group of Dakota people who marched and protested last weekend (see my blog post/photos) also staged a protest on Sunday evening during the Sesqui ceremonies.

Media coverage:

• Pioneer Press: Protest briefly disrupts sesquicentennial event; 3 Indian activists taken into custody
• WCCO-TV: Why Some Native Americans Are Upset With Minnesota

I got this email today from Waziyatawin Angela Wilson, pictured above on the right:

Hi Griff. If you are going to do this work for the Sesquicentennial so that they can say they are addressing Dakota or "Native American" issues, I hope you will include more critical voices.  Right now it seems as if the commission (through your work) is trying to appropriate our voices and to ameliorate the effects of our protest.

This statement from my father, Chris Mato Nunpa, in response to Jane Leonard’s speech on Sunday, must also be included in your blogsite.  He is absolutely right on and effectively addresses why Jane’s speech was so offensive to those Dakota people in attendance.  I am pasting it below.  Please post it.

Thank you.

Waziyatawin

I wrote her back and said I’d be happy to blog Chris’ critique here. I’ve included a photo of him that I took last week at Mounds Park.

Jane, I just heard a brief excerpt of a speech you gave at the State Capitol.  Again, you talk a good game.  You have fine rhetoric.    As long as you don’t talk about massive land theft, 24 million acres alone in the 1851 treaties signed at Traverse des Sioux and at Mendota,  as long as you don’t talk about the broken treaties with the Dakota, which were violated by the U.S. government and its U.S. Euro-Minnesotan citizenry;  and as long as you don’t talk about the genocide of the Dakota People of Minnesota, you are still presenting, literally, a white-washed history.

You are like the other colonizers/white supremacists (not meant to be mean-spirited but to convey a reality) who suppress the TRUTH and substitute myth for reality.  The wagon train at Ft. Snelling is an excellent example of replacing the TRUTH with myth.  The invaders/settlers came up the river by boat to steal land in Minnesota.    You, the Sesquicentennial Commision, the Minnesota Historical Society, etc. would rather create lies (the wagon train) and suppress the TRUTH (bounties, concentration camps,  mass executions, etc.) about what really happened in this state, especially in the past 150 years.

I did notict that you said "internment camp" instead of calling it what it really is - a CONCENTRATION CAMP.  This is the social practice of herding innocent civilians, non-combatants in one concentrated place, holding them there for protracted periods of time without charging them with any crime.  This is a Concentration Camp.   As Jack Weatherford writes in his book NATIVE ROOTS, as he studies a photograph of the concentration camp consisting of tipis, he said he was watching "the birth of an institution which was to haunt the 20th century."

You talk about "mistreatment" - how about "GENOCIDE"      Bounties, Concentration Camps, forced marches, forced removals/ethnic cleansing,  warfare,  all related to various criteria of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention such as:  #1  killing members of the group (viz., Dakota People).  Bounties, Warfare, would fit this;   #3  deliberately inflicting conditions upon a group calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the group in whole or in part.  concentration camps,  forced marches,  forced removals/Ethnic Cleansing fulfill this criterion.   If you think you’re telling the TRUTH, then you need to begin using these terms.

Also, you talk about "Reconciliation," which, in my opinion, is a totally inappropriate term.  This implies that that once Dakota People and the wasicu were once one entity.  They were NOT!   The Wasicu (white man) always wanted land, he had no land.  The Dakota People had land.  Then, the White man stole the land, and now, the Dakota People are living in a state of oppression and exploitation in their own land.  What is more appropriate (than reconciliation) are terms such as TRUTH,  JUSTICE,  and  MUTUAL RESPECT.

TRUTH   acknowledging the bounties,   concentration camps, the stolen lands   the lands which have not been paid for    broken treaties     GENOCIDE    etc.  and then teaching this true history in the public schools and in the colleges and universities.

JUSTICE   land restitution, i.e., the return of state and federal lands, e.g. within the Treaty of 1805, the 155,000+ acres upon which the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis set;     land reparations - payment for the lands.  For example, the lands upon which St. Paul and Minneapolis set have not been paid for (the Treaty of 1805).   The 24 million acres involved in the Treaties of 1851 were grossly under-paid for.    and, finally,  reparations for GENOCIDE which the U.S. government, the State of Minnesota, and its Euro-Minnesotan citizenry perpetrated upon the Dakota People!

MUTUAL RESPECT     The white man, including the Euro-Minnesotans of yesterday and of today, have generally NOT respected for the past 500 years the languages, religions,  the world-views,  the perspectives,  the values,  the customs and traditions,  the cultures,  etc. of the Indigenous Peoples of the U.S., and of the Dakota People of Minnesota.  They have NOT respected the Indigenous Peoples as human beings, as PEOPLE.   Instead, the Euro-Minnesotan and the U.S. Euro-American have viewed the Indigenous Peoples and the Dakota People as sub-human,  as animals, wild animals, therefore, it’s OK to put bounties on them, and as uncivilized and SAVAGE!

These things the Euro-Minnesotan, the Sesquicentennial Commission, the Minnesota Historical Society, and the other colonial institutions of the U.S. and of Minnesota need to acknowledge and then to teach in the texts and schools and in the colleges and universities.

I have some time now - I am now retired.   I may have to attend some of the sessions where you, and representatives of the MHS, and of other racist, colonial institutions are talking and then add my two cents to the discussion.  You need to invite people like me,  Dr. Chris Mato Nunpa;   Waziyata Win (Dr. Angela Cavender Wilson);   Jim Anderson of the Mendota Dakota Community;   Ms. Gaby Tateyuskanskan of the Sisseton Wahpeton Reservation.  If you can’t tell the TRUTH, we can!!!!

Chris Mato Nunpa, Ph.D., Formerly Associate Professor of Indigenous Nations & Dakota Studies (INDS) at Southwest Minnesota State University, Marshall, Minnesota

5690 250th Ave.
Granite Falls, Minnesota 56241

Here’s the audio of Governor Tim Pawlenty’s Sesquicentennial speech last night on the steps of the State Capitol.

Click play to listen. 7 minutes.

Or alternately, download the MP3.

I took photos of some of yesterday’s Sesqui activities at the State Capitol.  I’ll blog those soon.

I also recorded the audio of portions of the speeches that were given from the platform.

Here’s an excerpt of Sesqui Executive Director Jane Leonard’s speech, where she addresses the dark side of Minnesota’s Statehood: the sad and painful legacy of the state’s treatment of its indigenous peoples.

Click play to listen. 4 minutes.

A ‘truth and reconciliation talk circle’ was held at the Jaycees Pavilion in Lake Park in Winona yesterday, part of the Sesqui Capitol for a Day activities.

It was organized by the Winona-Dakota Unity Alliance, the City of Winona, and the Diversity Foundation, the same partnership that puts on the Great Dakota Gathering and Homecoming every year in Winona.

Participants shared personal pain and anger, told family stories (sad and funny), chronicled their path to greater understanding, gave mini-lectures to educate the audience, expressed appreciation for progress, and raised issues that still need addressing.

See the album of 23 photos or this slideshow:

After the sunrise ceremony, I went to Winona City Hall for the Sesqui Capital for a Day ceremonies, including a speech by Governor Tim Pawlenty. In his remarks, Pawlenty acknowledged that Native Americans paid a steep and painful price for Minnesota’s statehood. (I didn’t record his speech and I don’t remember the exact wording but I’ll see if I can get the text of his remarks from the Sesqui office.)

After his speech, Pawlenty shook hands with each member of the various veterans groups that were flanking the podium, including members of the Andrew Blackhawk American Legion Post from Black River Falls, Wisconsin.

A group of about 50 local citizens and Sesqui visitors gathered at the Jaycees Pavilion in Lake Park in Winona early this morning for a Native American sunrise ceremony.

As we gathered in a large circle, one elder sang a song and then another, holding a plate of burning tobacco called a smudge pot, went from person to person so that we could each use our hands to prayerfully ‘bathe’ our hearts and heads in tobacco smoke. A third elder stood in the center of the circle and said prayers to the four directions (north, east, west and south). See this page for more on the practice of ceremonial smudging.

Then an elder went around the circle for each of us to briefly smoke a peace pipe. (Background on that practice here.)

At the end, everyone went around the circle in a line to greet and shake the hands of everyone else in the circle.

We were asked to not take video or photos till the handshaking at the end.

I drove down to Winona this afternoon. Tomorrow, the city is the 5th and final Capitol for a Day city and there’s a Native American sunrise ceremony at Lake Park that I want to attend, followed by a Truth and Reconciliation Circle.

I was forwarded an email to the Sesquicentennial people by book author Marybeth Lorbiecki about the Dakota communities who were exiled from the state after the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. She wrote:

I would like to suggest that it would be an important part of the history, healing, and celebration of the state to invite the exiled communities home and to create a map of the exiled Minnesotan Dakota communities for exhibit and distribution– and set up a kind of virtual community base of email and web site connections for these exiled people to connect, communicate, and be brought back into the circle of our community.

I wrote a biography (as yet unpublished) on one of our incredible Minnesotans — Ohiyesa: Dr. Charles Alexander Eastman — and as part of the project, I tried to track down the exiled communities (or as many as I could), and I wrote a sidebar on them. (I apologize if I have missed some communities). Perhaps it could serve as the basis for a map and contacting the communities — there could be an intriguing book in this as well for a Dakota scholar!! Where Are They Now?

So I offer this research to you as a springboard for bringing these people home — for  apologies, reconciliation, reconnection, and honoring, as we remember, consider, regret, and celebrate various aspects our state’s complex and often painful history and legacy.

I like the idea. I’ll be in Winona this Friday, May 16, for the Sesquicentennial’s Capitals for a Day program . According to Exec Director Jane Leonard, the City of Winona and the Winona Dakota Unity Alliance (the organization that hosts the annual Great Dakota Gathering and Homecoming every June) will be hosting a healing and reconciliation circle and inviting back exiled Dakota tribes, as well as Ojibwe and Ho-Chunk.

Here’s the text of Marybeth Lorbiecki’s sidebar from her forthcoming book on Ohiyesa. (In the meantime, see the Wikipedia entry on Ohiyesa/Charles Eastman.)

The Dakota Diaspora

In 1863, Congress passed the Act of Forfeiture, revoking all treaties with the Dakota, including their reservation lands and payment rights. The state confiscated all their lands and exiled them permanently, leaving only a small group of "friendlies" living on Sibley’s land in Mendota.

By 1893, Congress recognized that the earlier act of forfeiture did not fully address the complexities of the conflict, that there had been many who had not engaged in an act of war against the state and national government. Public pressure arose from Indian rights associations that it was not legal or ethical to simply nullify treaties, since the causes of the conflict had been the Congress’s lack of fulfilling the treaty stipulations in the first place.

In keeping with the Dawes Act, loyal Dakota were given 80 acres each in three areas in the state: Prairie Island, Shakopee/Prior Lake, and around Morton, where Eastman had been born on the former Lower Sioux Reservation. Many Isanti (Santee Sioux) Dakota also settled around Granite Falls on the former Upper Sioux Reservation or around Lake Tewaukon /near Sisseton and Lake Traverse in South Dakota.

Eventually each of these coalesced into recognized tribal communities. But numerous Dakota never made it back to their homelands. Many remained on the Santee Reservation in Niobrara, Nebraska, or in Flandreau, South Dakota. Others were scattered in northern exile, ending up in Fort Totten/Spirit Lake (Devil’s Lake) in North Dakota; at Fort Peck with Assiniboine bands in northeastern Montana, and in Saskatchewan at the Standing Buffalo Reserve near Fort Qu’Appelle; White Cap/Moose Woods Reserve, just south of Saskatoon; Round Plains Wahpeton Reserve near Prince Albert; and in Manitoba at the Sioux Valley Reserve just west of Brandon; the Birdtail Reserve north of Virden; Oak Lake Reserve south of Virden, and the Dakota Plains and Dakota Tipi Reserves near Portage La Prairie.

Many tipospaye and village bands were separated, with links to each other lost in the scattering. Yet, even under the threat of death and imprisonment, many returned to their lands, continued their traditions, spoke in their language, and continued to try to rebuild the sacred hoop of the Dakota and the Oceti Sakowin. These efforts go on today.

I’ve enabled comments on this blog post so that anyone can contribute to the discussion on how to make this happen.