Native American Minnesota

The Bush Foundation in St. Paul has announced its new strategic direction for the next decade. (See the Strib article titled, Bush Foundation changes its focus and the way it will issue grants; the Strib editorial, Bush Foundation makes a smart shift; Pioneer Press article titled, Major state funding group alters grant focus; MPR story titled, Bush Foundation to change course of giving efforts and the companion audio interview with president Peter Hutchinson.)

One of the three new goals is:

Support the Self-Determination of Native Nations. Goal: By 2018, all 23 Native nations in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota are exercising self-determination and actively rebuilding the infrastructure of nationhood.

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

I attended an event at Ft. Snelling State Park on Saturday titled, Bdote - Rivers and People Coming Together. The event calendar said:

The area now known as Fort Snelling State Park has worn many titles in Minnesota history, from Dakota homeland to concentration camp, military post to recreation area. Explore the history of this site and its impact, past and present. Begin at the visitor center.

The DNR’s Linda Radimecky, Interpretive Naturalist at the park, led our small group of nine (5 adults and 4 kids) on a 1-mile walk with a 1-hour talk.

 
"Bdo-te, sacred Homeland of the Joining of Two Rivers" from the display inside the visitors center. Click to enlarge. And see this blog post of my Feb. visit to the park titled Dakota Concentration Camp display at Fort Snelling St. Park for more.

I tried to record as much of Linda’s talk as possible, turning off the recorder during the times when we were just walking. Prepared to hear some jet noise from the nearby airport.

Click play to listen. 1 hour, 14 minutes. Or download the MP3.

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.

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.”