Native American Minnesota

Yesterday I stopped by the Thompson Hill Travel Information Center/rest stop that overlooks Duluth and noticed this ‘Welcome to Minnesota’ marker erected by the Minnesota Historical Society in 1987. (This sign is replicated at state borders in several places around the state.) It reads:

Known to her citizens as the North Star State or the Gopher State, Minnesota has never claimed to be the Land of giants.  But two famous American giants do hail from Minnesota.  The giant lumberjack Paul Bunyan cut the pine forest to the north that helped build America’s towns and cities, and the Jolly Green Giant towers over the south’s lush corn, vegetable, and soybean fields, part of the midwest’s fertile farm belt.

Like its neighbors, the thirty-second state grew as a collection of small farm communities, many settled by immigrants from Scandinavia and Germany.  Two of the nation’s favorite fictional small towns — Sinclair Lewis’s Gopher Prairie and Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon — reflect that heritage.  But the vast forests, the huge open pit iron ore mines, and the busy shipping lanes of Lake Superior attracted different settlers with different skills and made Minnesota a state of surprising diversity.

Best known for its 15,000 lakes.  Minnesota has some 65 towns with the word “lake” in their names, not counting those whose names mean “lake” or “water” in the Chippewa or Dakota Indian languages.  There are also 13 “falls,” 10 “rivers,” 5 “rapids,” and a smattering of “isles,” “bays,” and “beaches.”  Even the state name itself means “sky colored water” in Dakota.  The mighty Mississippi River starts as a small stream flowing out of Minnesota’s Lake Itasca, and a Minneapolis waterfall called Minnehaha inspired “the song of Hiawatha,” even though Longfellow never actually visited the falls his poem made known to every schoolchild.

Minnesotans are proud of their state’s natural beauty and are leaders in resource conservation and concern for the quality of life.

It’s too bad that our state’s Native American history is mentioned only in the context of water-related names. It would seem that instead of using the fictional goofballs Paul Bunyan and Jolly Green Giant to let people know about our forested north and farm-belt south, the sign could have informed people about the Ojibwe and Dakota who initially thrived in those regions… and then a bit about the sad legacy of what happened to them as immigrants arrived.

I know these signs serve a ‘rah rah/we’re a great state’ purpose but there’s plenty of that already by the Minnesota Office of Tourism. The Minnesota Historical Society should model our strength of character by doing a little more truth-telling on these historical markers.

While doing a little research about Biauswah, the Ojibewe chief who had the Hwy 23 bridge named after him last week, I notice that the Wikipedia entry said he was "… the principal Chief of the Sandy Lake Ojibwa, whose village was located at either terminous of the Savanna Portage (Sandy Lake & opposite the mouth of the East Savanna River) in Minnesota."

I followed the Sandy Lake of Mississippi Chippewa link and noticed another Wikipedia  link to the Sandy Lake Tragedy.

To force the Ojibwe west of the Mississippi, the BIA made a last-minute change to move the annual annuity payments from a central region around La Pointe, Wisconsin, the economic and spiritual center of the nation, to not-so-central, but well known trade-hub location of Sandy Lake, Minnesota. The BIA hoped to strategically trap the Ojibwe in Minnesota, forcing them to spend their annuity payments in Minnesota rather than Wisconsin, which was both economically and politically beneficial to the BIA.

The Ojibwe were concerned about the issues this move presented, and many bands of Ojibwe gathered together to deliberate their options. Unfortunately, the discussions consumed such a lengthy span of time that the Ojibwe were left with sparse time to plant their spring crops. As a result, they were forced to relocate to Sandy Lake if they wished to survive.

So, in the fall of 1850, representatives from 19 Ojibwe bands packed up and started an arduous journey to the shores of Sandy Lake, where they had been told to gather in late October for their annual annuity payments and supplies. They waited there for several weeks before a government agent arrived and informed them that Congress had been unable to send the appropriate money & supplies.

A small portion of the payment finally arrived in early December, consisting of spoiled food and a small percentage of the promised payment. By this time, around 150 Ojibwe had died of dysentery, measles, starvation, or freezing. The return journey was equally perilous: aside from being weak from sickness and hunger, the Ojibwe were also unprepared for a winter journey. As a result, 200-230 more Ojibwe died on the return journey.

I then discovered the web site of the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC), "an inter-tribal, co-management agency committed to the implementation of off-reservation treaty rights on behalf of its eleven Ojibwe member tribes."

Left: They have a detailed, 2-page PDF on the Sandy Lake Tragedy and Memorial
Right: The Army Corps of Engineers has a photo of the Mikwendaagoziwag Memorial on this web page.

I plan to visit the site in late August when I have to be in Duluth.  But it’s a shocking discovery for me. And another chapter in our state’s sad legacy that needs to be told more widely if the wounds and pain, referenced here on the MN Sesquicentennial Commission web site are to heal:

“Yet we remain either unaware of or unable to look at our own history and acknowledge the painful wounds of ethnocide and genocide right here in Minnesota. We have a very hard time acknowledging that the pain remains and that it has affected much of our history thru to the present day.”

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave a speech to Parliament earlier this week in which he formally apologized for the Canadian government’s native residential school program (see excerpts and videos on the Open Anthropology blog; and see the blogosphere reaction to the speech summarized here by the CBC news).

The apology begins a 5-year process led by a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (more at CBC background website) supported with a $60 million budget.

The Canadian government formed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement to understand how people were affected by the residential school experience. The commission will allow those who experienced harm at residential schools to share their stories within a safe and culturally appropriate environment.

The purpose of the commission is not to determine guilt or innocence, but to create a historical account of the residential schools, help people to heal, and encourage reconciliation between aboriginals and non-aboriginal Canadians. The commission will also host events across the country to raise awareness about the residential school system and its impact.

…

The truth and reconciliation approach is a form of restorative justice, which differs from the customary adversarial or retributive justice. Retributive justice aims to find fault and punish the guilty. On the other hand, restorative justice aims to heal relationships between offenders, victims, and the community in which an offence takes place.

Those involved in truth and reconciliation commissions seek to uncover facts and distinguish truth from lies. The process allows for acknowledgement, appropriate public mourning, forgiveness and healing.

U.S. Senator Sam Brownback was interviewed by NPR’s Melissa Block on Friday, Apology to American Indians Moves Forward, about the “… resolution making its way through Congress [that] offers an apology to all Native peoples on behalf of the United States.” See Brownback’s Apology Resolution page for more.

Assuming that the US House of Representatives passes their version of Brownback’s apology bill and President Bush signs it, what then? Should Congress then be pressed to launch a national Truth and Reconciliation Commission? No matter who gets elected president this fall, I expect leadership on native issues from both Barack Obama (more) and John McCain (more).

At the state level:

• In April, the Colorado Legislature passed a resolution “… comparing the deaths of millions of American Indians to the Holocaust and other acts of genocide around the world.”
• In May, the MN Sesquicentennial Commission posted a statement on its web site that included this: “Yet we remain either unaware of or unable to look at our own history and acknowledge the painful wounds of ethnocide and genocide right here in Minnesota. We have a very hard time acknowledging that the pain remains and that it has affected much of our history thru to the present day.”
• Last week, Thomas Dahlheimer (Rum River Name Change Movement) had a guest column in the Winona Daily News titled State looks to settle up with the past
• A 2002 study by Sheryl Dowlin and Bruce Dowlin titled Healing History’s Wounds: Reconciliation Communication Efforts to Build Community Between Minnesota Dakota (Sioux) and Non-Dakota Peoples. (See their 2000 paper titled The Dakota Conflict Remembered; Paper prepared for the 35th Annual Northern Great Plains History Conference which includes reconciliation information.)

And last December, 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. (Thanks to Thomas Dahlheimer for alerting me to it.) In it, Schoen suggests the formation of a Commission (links are mine):

The premise of original sin inherently stirs guilt and, sometimes, anger. Nick Coleman’s Dec. 23 reflection on the Dakota wars as Minnesota’s original sin probably stirred such feelings. They also appeared in responses to Waziyatawin Angela Wilson’s “Time to Level” (Dec. 2). Awakening to our own or our ancestors’ sins is painful. Religious teachings suggest a treatment: Repentance and restorative-justice efforts can evoke forgiveness and provide hope for reconciliation. Prayers help most of us, but the process can work for atheists, too, if done sincerely.

…

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.

It seems to me that it would be most meaningful for each state to debate the need for its own Truth and Reconciliation Commission and then to fund it. In Minnesota, we’re now less than four years away from the Sesquicentennial of the 1862 U.S.-Dakota War. If Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission can get their work done in 5 years, surely Minnesota could do something similar in 4 years.

A couple of weeks ago, my sister and I visited the MN150 exhibit at the Minnesota Historical Society.

The exhibit and book, Minnesota 150: The People, Places, and Things that Shape Our State by Kate Roberts, displays and documents "… responses to the following question: What person, place, thing, or event originating in Minnesota do you think has transformed our state, our country, or the world?"  (See the MN150 wiki for nominated answers.)

I took photos of all the exhibit displays that have some relevance to this blogsite and project, i.e., Native American Minnesota.

But rather than writing about my reaction to/detailed opinion of the exhibit all at once here in a blog post, I’d rather do it a little bit at a time in the comment thread attached to this post. And I’d like to invite visitors to this blog to comment here as well.

I’ve created a Native American Minnesota in the MN150 exhibit photo album, and I’ve uploaded the photos so that most are 1600 pixels wide which allows you to use the Picasaweb ‘zoom’ tool to read the text.  (Click the screenshot image on the right to see the red arrow pointing to the zoom icon.)

So when you’re viewing a photo in the album (this one, for example), click the zoom icon to display the larger photo, click and hold your cursor on the enlarged photo, and then drag the image left/right/up/down as desired.

See the album of 42 photos or this slideshow:

On my way down to Winona last week for the Sesqui Capitol for a Day, I stopped by a roadside rest on Hwy 61 between Lake City and Wabasha to read the Minnesota Historical Society marker, erected in 1985, about Lake Pepin.

Nothing struck me at the time about the wording of the marker.  But on Friday during the truth and reconciliation talk circle, I heard a couple of stories of how Indian burial grounds, including the park land where the circle was taking place, were destroyed and/or raided by the settlers… and how to this day, people are still looting burial grounds and selling the items on eBay. (See this 2006 Arizona Republic article, Stolen artifacts shatter ancient culture.)

One of the handouts at the Great Dakota Gathering and Homecoming table was a photocopy titled “Skulls of Chief Wabasha’s Children” and its text contains “Leaf No. 49 of Rev. Edward Ely’s Journal 1852-1853 — Extract from Winona Daily Republican June 29, 1867.”

It tells the story of how an “English gentleman and his wife… secured three genuine Indian skulls that belonged to the royal line of sovereigns that had governed this prairie for ages.”

When I got home, I re-read the text of the Lake Pepin historical marker (right photo above). It includes this:

Long before the European explorer Father Louis Hennepin “discovered” what he called the “Lake of Tears” in 1680, it served as a highway for Indian people of many cultures. Their burial mounds and earthworks can still be found along its shores.

That second sentence could easily be interpreted to mean that people today are still hunting for this stuff and finding it, as if that’s a fun hobby one should consider.  That’s surely not the intent of the marker but a follow-up sentence that said something to the effect that “these are sacred sites, no different than the cemeteries where your relatives are buried, and should not be disturbed” would be a way to educate the public about the issue. Again, it’s a missed opportunity. Changing or replacing that marker might be prohibitively expensive but adding a new one that’s dedicated to educating the public about Indian burial sites would seem doable.

 
At the Sesqui celebration at the Capitol last weekend, there were several tents for a variety of exhibitor displays. Among them was the Archives and Special Collections department of the University of Minnesota Libraries, displaying their Becoming Minnesota: A Sequicentennial Sampler exhibit.

 
One of table displays was called ‘Where We Began’ and it conveyed a very narrow and 100% positive version of the early history of the state. Click the photos to enlarge and you’ll see. Even more telling: The web page for the "Where We Began" portion of the exhibit contains the following narrative. (It uses scrolling Flash text but I’ve manually transcribed it.)

Encounter between the native peoples of this region and Europeans is where the story of our statehood begins. The European perspective on the nature of these encounters — captured in accounts written by Jesuit missionaries, explorers like Father Louis Hennepin, early settlers like Jonathan Carver, and illustrated in early printed maps — is what remains for us today of this early time, enriched by the memories and life experiences, captured nearly a century later, of such men as Chatonwahtooamany, chief of the kapoja band of Mdewakanton Sioux.

By the 19th century, encounter gave way to widespread settlement and industrialization. Cities like Duluth attracted businesses and immigrants; the expanding milling industry brought additional prosperity, so much so that Minneapolis could undertake such projects as the dredging of Lake of the Isles to expand its parkway system. Immigrants from Sweden and elsewhere throughout Europe, including the Isle of Man, flocked to Minnesota, changing the nature of our history of encounter. We acknowledge this rich heritage today in the names of our lakes and rivers, our counties, cities, and streets, our institutions, and our celebrations.

The text completely avoids any mention of horrible realities of Euro-American treatment of our state’s indigenous people. It uses phrases like "By the 19th century, encounter gave way to widespread settlement" when it should use phrases like "By the end of the 19th century, decades of broken treaties and policies of ethnic cleansing allowed for widespread settlement…"

I think that it’s seemingly innocuous exhibits like this that, when they’re part of a pattern, continue to contaminate the state’s relationship with its Native people.

It’s too late to do anything about this particular exhibit, as it ended in late March. But maybe something can be changed with the web version. And maybe the U of M Libraries would consider creating another exhibit, similar to the terrific one that the DNR has done at Fort Snelling State Park about the 1862-63 Dakota Concentration Camp that I blogged about a few weeks ago.

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.

The traveling Sesquicentennial banner made its way my home town of Northfield yesterday, hosted by our local public libray. (I blogged the event with 18 photos on a community site. Here are 5 of them. Click to enlarge.)

The most interesting part for me was the the leather-bound journal accompanying the banner in which visitors are invited to write their thoughts about Minnesota and the Sesquicentennial. Here’s what I wrote (right photo) with minor edits:

I grew up near Mendota but have lived here in Northfield since 1974. I love this town and this state! However, I would like the state legislature and the governor to make a formal apology to Minnesota Indian tribes for the ethnic cleansing and other crimes that were committed before and after statehood. The apology would go a long way to helping the wounds heal. - Griff Wigley

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.