Native American Minnesota

Yesterday after I visited the MNHS roadside historical marker on the Sandy Lake Tragedy (blogged here), I drove about a mile north on Hwy 65 to the town of Libby, MN and the entrance to the Sandy Lake Recreation Area. Near the dam is the Mikwendaagoziwag Memorial, constructed by Ojibwe Tribes in 2001, commemorating the Sandy Lake Tragedy (’Wisconsin Death March”).

The sign below the memorial (right photo) reads:

The Memorial on this glacial mound remembers about 400 Ojibwe Indians who died and thousands of others who suffered during what is known as the Sandy Lake Tragedy. Constructed by Ojibwe Tribes from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, the Memorial was completed in 2001. It is a sacred remembrance of the many sufferings endured to preserve the Ojibwe’s homelands and way of life.

Mikwendaagoziwag means “we remember them” in the Ojibwe language. At least 400 grandfather stones are embedded in the Memorial to represent those who died.

The tragedy unfolded when U.S. government officials attempted to illegally relocate a number of Ojibwe Bands from their homes in Wisconsin and Upper Michigan to northern Minnesota. In late autumn of 1850, thousands of Ojibwes had assembled at Sandy Lake for their annual treaty annuity payments. As the Ojibwe waited nearly six weeks for the payments, they suffered from illness, hunger and exposure. Many died from dysentery and measles. The promised annuities were never fully paid and, after the last of the meager provisions were distributed on December 2, the Ojibwes began an arduous journey home. Harsh winter conditions had already set in, and many more died along the way.

The outer circle of plaques on the Memorial commemorates the 19 Ojibwe Bands whose treaty annuities were to be paid at Sandy Lake in 1850. Today, these 19 Bands are succeeded by the 12 federally-recognized Ojibwe Tribes who built this Memorial and are commemorated by the inner circle of plaques.

Back in early July, I blogged about the Sandy Lake tragedy, the death of approximately 400 Ojibwe in 1850 resulting from the federal government’s attempt to remove them from northern Wisconsin and upper Michigan to Minnesota.

I paid a visit to the site yesterday, first stopping at a roadside rest with two Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) road markers.

The roadside rest is on Hwy 65, about 15 miles north of McGregor, a mile south of Libby (image on the right is a screenshot with an arrow pointing to the approximate location. See the live Google map here.)

The left and center photos are two sides of the same marker sign. Together, it reads:

“Tell him I blame him for the children we have lost” - Aish-ke-bo-go-ko-zhe (Flat Mouth), December 3, 1850

In late 1850, some 400 Ojibwe Indians perished because of the government’s attempt to relocate them from their homes in Wisconsin and Upper Michigan to Minnesota west of the Mississippi River. The tragedy unfolded at Sandy Lake where thousands of Ojibwes suffered from illness, hunger and exposure. It continued as the Lake Superior Ojibwe made a difficult journey home.

In the 1840’s, Minnesota politicians began pressuring the U.S. government to remove Ojibwe people from lands the government claimed they had ceded, or given up, in 1837 and 1842 treaties. Territorial governor Alexander Ramsey and others claimed they were acting to “ensure the security and tranquility of white settlements.” But their true motivation was economic. If Indians were moved from Wisconsin and Upper Michigan onto unceded lands in Minnesota, local traders could supply the annuity goods the Government had promised to provide to the Ojibwe under the treaties, and they could trade with the Ojibwe themselves. Minnesotans could also build Indian agencies and schools in return for government funding and jobs.

From the outset, the Lake Superior Ojibwe vigorously opposed removal. They pointed to the promises made at the treaty negotiations that they could remain on ceded lands. Knowing that the Ojibwe would not consent to removal, government officials devised a plan to entice the Ojibwe to Sandy Lake, hoping that they would simply remain here and abandon their homelands in Wisconsin and Michigan.

In 1850, the Ojibwe were told to arrive at Sandy Lake no later than October 25th where their treaty annuities-cash, food and other goods promised in exchange for the land cessions-would be waiting for them. In prior years, these annuities for the Lake Superior Ojibwe had been distributed at La Pointe on Madeline Island in Lake Suprior, a traditional hub of Ojibwe culture and a more accessible location.

By November 10th, some 4,000 Ojibwe had arrived. They were ill prepared for what they faced at Sandy Lake. The promised annuities were not waiting for them, and the last of the limited provisions that were available were not distributed until December 2nd after harsh winter conditions had set in. While they waited the nearly six weeks, they lacked adequate food and shelter. Over 150 died from dysentery caused by spoiled government provisions and from measles. Demonstrating their steadfast desire to remain in their homelands, the Ojibwe began an arduous winter’s journey home on December 3rd. As many as 250 others died along the way. On the same day, Aish-ke-bo-go-ko-zhe, the Ojibwe leader also known as Flat Mouth, sent word to Ramsey that he held him personally at fault for the broken promises that resulted in suffering and death.

As word of the Sandy Lake disaster spread, so did opposition to the government’s removal policy. Non-Indian settlers-including missionaries, newspaper editors, legislators, and local citizens-voiced their support for the Ojibwe. Ojibwe leaders traveled to Washington to secure guarantees that annuities would be distributed at La Pointe and that the Ojibwe could remain in their homelands. In 1852, the U.S. government abandoned its efforts to remove the Ojibwe. And in 1854, Congress passed a law authorizing that future Ojibwe treaties would instead provide for permanent reservations in areas the Ojibwe traditionally occupied.

Erected by the Minnesota Historical Society 2001

From my other readings, this seems to be a fair summary of what happened. But the second sign detailing the miles traveled by the various bands is titled “The Ojibwe’s Sandy Lake Journey.”  That seems to be a watered-down title, especially when the other name for the tragedy is the ‘Wisconsin Death March.’ I learned about that name by doing a Google search of the MNHS web site. The only reference I could find on their site was a 2006 prize-winning paper:

This year’s theme was “Triumph and Tragedy,” and the winner is Jacob Nelson, an eleventh grader who wrote his paper for a post-secondary enrollment options class in Minnesota history at Saint Paul College.  His essay, “Stained by the Blood of Our Children: The Ojibwa’s Triumph over Bureaucracy following the Sandy Lake Tragedy,” investigates the events and aftermath of what came to be known as the Wisconsin Death March.

A Google search on the phrase “Wisconsin Death March” brings up this 1987 paper titled,  Wisconsin Death March: Explaining The Extremes in Old Northwest Indian Removal by James A. Clifton, then a Professor of Anthropology and History at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. (There are 12 web pages there.)

Also, in the book Chippewa Treaty Rights by Ronald N. Satz, see Chapter 4, titled The removal order and the Wisconsin death march (PDF), pp. 51-59.

Like the phrases ‘concentration camp’ and ‘ethnic cleansing,’  the phrase ‘death march’ has such an associated horror with it that, as Americans — as Minnesotans — we can’t imagine that our government would have ever perpetuated it on a group of people. But all three have happened in Minnesota. And the more that state leaders and organizations like the MNHS help citizens to learn the truth, the more likely the healing will occur.

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.

In today’s Strib, Nick Coleman has a column titled: Nothingburger celebration will go down easy with State Fair spice.

It’s all about Warren Nelson, artistic director of the Big Top Chautauqua, and how his musical theater production of ‘Old Minnesota: Song of the North Star’ includes our sad legacy of treatment of Native American Minnesotans. The musical will be performed thrice daily at the MN State Fair this year.

Called “Old Minnesota: Song of the North Star,” Nelson’s show offers a rich selection of Minnesota stories, from the beginnings of the state through the world wars up to modern times, with an orchestra, stunning audiovisuals and attention paid to the history of the fair, too. Mostly rollicking, the show also deals frankly with painful episodes in state history, including the wresting of the land from Native Americans and the war of 1862 that ended with the banishment of the Dakota Sioux and 38 hangings at Mankato on the Minnesota River.

Since 1986, Nelson has been the artistic director of the Big Top Chautauqua near Bayfield, Wis. In “Old Minnesota,” he explores the Indian tragedy with a poignant song called “Little Crow’s Flute” that reflects on the state seal — which was reversed to show an Indian riding into the sunset, rather than the dawn, as was originally intended:

“Statehood will soon seal their fate,” the son g goes: “Beside the home river, they hung 38.”

Nelson decided to confront that legacy of loss when he watched an Indian ceremony marking the anniversary of the forced removal of the Dakota from their homeland. In just a few minutes in a State Fair musical, Nelson might make Minnesotans give more thought to the Indian story of the state than we usually get in a year, even during a sesqui-whatever.

Today is the 146th anniversary of the start of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862.

In the fall of 2002, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) (with financial support from the Blandin Foundation) did a six part series on the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 titled, Minnesota’s Uncivil War. The content is still available, including some audio:

Part 1: The remnants of war
Part 2: “Let them eat grass”
Part 3: Broken promises lead to war
Part 4: Hundreds of settlers die in attacks
Part 5: Execution and expulsion
Part 6: The Dakota - still a divided people

See the photo gallery and three supplemental stories:

• Exiled at Crow Creek
• A woman of contradiction 
• What should we call it?

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.