Native American Minnesota

I first heard of Mona Smith when I met with Miquel Vargas, Community Outreach Coordinator at the U of MN Dept. of American Indian Studies, and he suggested I contact her about her multimedia work. Then historian Bruce White suggested I contact her, and lastly, U of MN Dakota Language Specialist Neil McKay recommended her to me as well-respected educator who was likely to be interested in discussing my ideas. I briefly met Mona at the Coldwater Spring encampment earlier this month (where I met Neil, too) and we finally arranged to meet for a lengthy chat on Tuesday at Minnehaha Coffee near her home in South Minneapolis.

Mona is a producer/director/media artist/co-founder of Allies: media/art and a member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota Community in South Dakota. (Photo thumbnail is from a 2006 MPR story titled “City Indians” use art to stake their claim.)

She’s been working recently on several media projects (eg, the pilot Bdote Memory Map) with the Minnesota Humanities Center and on a Bdote video podcast for the Telling River Stories program at the University of Minnesota.

Her Bdote video podcast is rather hard to find on that site, and impossible to link to.

So I’ve created this 45 second screencast that shows you how to navigate to it.

I think her ability to work closely with both Native communities and non-Native institutions on many projects is unique and I’m hoping to find a way to collaborate with her.

For more background on Mona, see this page from a 2008 conference at the the U of MN’s Institute for Advanced Study:

Mona Smith, Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota, is a multi-media artist, educator and co-founder of Allies: media/art. A former University-level educator, Smith has produced work broadcast through PBS, and shown at festivals, conferences and museums in Europe and North and South America.

Her work has received awards from Native and Non-Native film and video festivals; her new media work includes art projects for the web, sites for web distribution of Native focused media, and multimedia installation work, most notably, Cloudy Waters; Dakota Reflections on the River (Minnesota History Center, 2004-2005), City Indians (Ancient Traders Art Gallery, Minneapolis, 2006-2007), and the Bdote Memory Map (in partnership with the Minnesota Humanities Center).

Her artistic and educational practice uses image, sound and place to re inhabit the imaginations and the experience of the audience/participant, and to work between, the place of healing, of relationship, of meaning, where spirit and physical, life and death, fear and strength, night and day intersect. Allies: media/art is an award-winning Dakota owned media production company, incorporated in 1996.

On Tuesday morning, I had a meeting at the Ft. Snelling State Park visitors center with Judy Thomson, DNR regional naturalist, and Linda Radimecky, DNR Interpretive Naturalist. Judy was the DNR person on the team of people who helped create the Concentration Camp display at the park, and Linda conducts tours at the park that include the history of the Camp.

I wanted to better understand the background on the display (it was constructed by Split Rock Studios “museum outfitters” in Roseville) and further explore the possibility of creating both a web version and a traveling version of the exhibit.

We discussed whether ‘leveraging’ the exhibit in this way would stimulate interest in more people (including teachers and their students) visiting the park and the exhibit, as there’s nothing quite as powerful as a physically visiting a historical site to generate learning and a lasting impression.

Thomas Dahlheimer spearheads the Rum River Name Change Movement, which seeks to “… change the faulty-translation and profane name of Minnesota’s Rum River back to its sacred Dakota Indian name (Wakan), which translated means (Great) Spirit.”

He has posted comments to this blog and we met face-to-face for the first time recently at the Coldwater Spring encampment press conference.

I just learned that he has an “Open Letter to the Oyate” in the Sept. 17, 2008 edition of the Sota Iyayeyapi, News of the Lake Traverse Reservation, Volume #32 Issue #38. (The letter is also posted to his blog here, with a longer version here.)

In his letter, he states:

Jim Anderson, an organizer of the event, and I met at the gathering and had a good conversation. But unfortunately, during Chris Mato Nunpa’s press conference presentation, Mato Nunpa made a bold faced lie. He said the “Sesquicentennial Commission will not admit genocide.”

During the gathering, I asked Griff Wigley, Project Leader for the Sesquicentennial Advisory Committee for Native American Partnering, if he heard what Mato Nunpa said about the Sesquicentennial Commission. Wigley said that he did and that it was Mato Nunpa’s “speed” and that it made his presentation “sound good”. I then told Wigley that Mato Nunpa had also been lying to hurt me and my work. A few months ago, the Sesquicentennial Commission admitted that Minnesota committed a genocide against the Dakota people during its early history.

Later in his letter, he writes:

Mato Nunpa’s lies are hindering me from accomplishing the goals that the Great Spirit has given me to accomplish in the Dakota’s sacred Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) ancestral/traditional homeland.

I don’t know enough about Dakota creation stories to weigh in on that debate.  But three things trouble me about Dahlheimer’s  letter:

1. I never commented on Chris’ presentation style to him. I have no idea what he’s referring to.
   
2. Last May, a statement was posted to the MN Sesquicentennial Commission web site (’May is American Indian Month in Minnesota’ page) that reads in part: “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.”

   I’ve highlighted this quote and the entire statement on this blogsite because I think it’s a significant admission. But it doesn’t explicitly say that the State of Minnesota committed the ethnocide and genocide. It could easily be interpreted to mean that the U.S. government committed the ethnocide and genocide, that the wounds were felt here in Minnesota, that we’ve had a hard time acknowledging those wounds.

   Lastly, there was little or no publicity about this statement. No press release was sent out that I know of. No member of the Sesqui Commission was quoted in the media reading or mentioning it. The statement is virtually invisible on the Sesqui website. There are no links to it from the home page, and even back in May when the page was created, the link to the page/page name (’May is American Indian Month’) didn’t convey that there was an important statement there. I can understand why, as this whole issue is still a political hot potato.

   But I also can understand why Mato Nunpa continues to maintain that the Sesqui Commission has not admitted genocide. It makes no sense to me for Dahlheimer to accuse Mato Nunpa of lying about this.  At most, it’s a difference of opinion.
   

3. Lastly, it makes no sense to me for Dahlheimer to maintain that the Great Spirit has given him goals. Many of us might pray to a Higher Power for guidance on setting and achieving our goals but that doesn’t mean whatever we come up with is what our Higher Power intends.

I took photos and captured the audio of speakers at last Friday’s press conference at Coldwater Spring. See these two articles in the Strib for more info:

• Strib, Sept. 5: Occupation of park site expected to end today 
• Strib, Sept. 6: Dakota leave Coldwater Spring site after four days

See the album of 13 photos or this slideshow (audio below):

Listen to the audio of the speeches given:

Click play to listen. 1 hour, 12 minutes.

In today’s Strib: Conflict looms as Indians’ protest permit expires today.

The permit that Dakota Indians protesting in Minneapolis were given — but didn’t ask for — expires this afternoon. The two dozen or so protesters erected two teepees and a couple of modern-day tents Tuesday in a bid to reclaim land for the Dakota. But the showdown on the abandoned federal land near Minnehaha Park was put off when federal officials issued a four-day permit.

Mona Smith has 3 photo albums of the Coldwater occupation posted to her gallery. And on her Allies YouTube page she has two videos of the occupation:

Here’s the press release posted to the MINN-IND email list:

Read the rest of this entry »

Back in April, I blogged about the importance of Coldwater Spring and posted a photo album of the site in winter.

The photo on the left is from when I visited again in June. (Click to enlarge.)

In today’s Strib: Permit delays Dakota fight for Coldwater Spring site.

Organizers said they don’t plan to leave after the permit expires, and that’s when a confrontation could come. They said they will maintain the occupation until Dakota rights to the land are fully restored and the federal government cleans up toxic waste on the 28-acre site.

Here are the press releases that were posted to the MINN-IND email list:

Read the rest of this entry »

My wife Robbie and I spent a couple hours at the end of the day on Sunday at the Minnesota Historical Society’s Lower Sioux Agency historic site:

Established by the U.S. government in 1853 as an administrative center, the Agency became the scene of the first organized attack in the 1862 U.S.-Dakota War.

We spent most of our time in the Lower Sioux Agency interpretive center exhibit. A sign inside (above photo) at the entrance reads:

THIS EXHIBIT WAS MADE POSSIBLE THROUGH THE ASSISTANCE OF DAKOTA ADVISORS

Ernest and Vernell Wabasha, Lower Sioux Community
Joe Campbell, Prairie Island Indian Community
Harold St. Clair, Upper Sioux Community
Glynn Crooks, Shakopee Sioux Community

AND THE SUPPORT OF MINNESOTA’S FOUR FEDERALLY RECOGNIZED DAKOTA COMMUNITIES

Lower Sioux Community Tribal Council
Roger Prescott, Chair

Prairie Island Indian Community Tribal Council
Audrey Kohnen, President

Upper Sioux Community Tribal Council
Dallas Ross, Chair

Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community Tribal Council
Stanley Crooks, Chair

Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community Archives Staff
Jim Warren, Archivist

June, 2000

The displays in the Lower Sioux Agency interpretive center exhibit are impressive. My only complaint is that the MNHS web page for the exhibit gives no clue at how impressive it is. People checking it out the web site before deciding to visit could benefit from more visuals.

See the album of 100+ photos or this slideshow:

On Sunday we stopped at the Renville County Historical Museum in Morton, MN and met volunteers Chris Hettig and Steve Hettig (right photo, click to enlarge). They’re standing in front of a display about Joseph Renville, my great, great, great grandfather. Chris showed me a folder of miscellaneous research papers and newspaper clippings about Joseph Renville.

In the museum gift shop, I browsed through their booklet, Historic sites of the Conflict of 1862, described as

… a self guided tour to the historic sites of the 1862 Conflict in the Renville County area.

It includes old and new photos of each site along with directions and the historical significance of the site, the people involved, and personal stories told by survivors.

Page 6 of the booklet (left photo) features the Loyal (Faithful) Indians Monument, and when Chris noticed me reading it, she told me that it was located just up the hill above Morton, along with the Birch Cooley (Coulee) Monument. We drove up Monument Drive to take a look it (center).

The words ‘Patriotism, Courage, Fidelity, and Humanity’ are on the four sides of the monument and on the ‘Humanity’ side, the inscription (right photo) reads:

Erected A. D. 1899 by the Minnesota Valley Historical Society to commemorate the brave, faithful, and humane conduct of the loyal Indians who saved the lives of white people and were true to their obligations throughout the Sioux War in Minnesota of 1862 and especially to honor the services of those here named.

Other Day - Ampatutokicha
Paul - Mahzakutemanne
Lorenzo Lawrence - Towanetaton
Simon - Anahwangmanne
Mary Crooks - Mahkahta Heiya win,
Maggie Brass - Snana win

My wife and I camped at Fort Ridgely State Park last weekend so we could visit the MNHS Fort Ridgely Historic Site within the park, as well as other historic sites in the area.

My initial impression wasn’t good. The MNHS marker for Fort Ridgely (left center photo) at the entrance paints a one-sided view:

When the Sioux Uprising began in 1862, Fort Ridgely assumed great importance as the only military post in the valley and a vital defense point against the Indians.

Likewise, the Fort Ridgely State Monument in the center of the grounds:

… the Sioux indians of the Upper Minnesota river, in violation of their treaties, broke into open rebellion, and within a few days thereafter, massacred about one thousand citizens…

But given that the monument was erected in 1896 and the MNHS marker in 1971, it’s not surprising. 

These two large markers (above) near the flagpole tell a more balanced story of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862.

And once inside the visitor’s center, a much more complete picture of the war emerges.

I thought these war-related storyboards were well done but the story was incomplete… nothing about trials of the captured Indians, the mass execution at Mankato, the forced march of 1800 women and children to the concentration camp at Fort Snelling, nor the ethnic cleansing of the Dakota from the state. However…

this display told the story of how Henry Sibley and others pursued the fleeing Dakota into the western Dakotas and slaughtered them.

The MNHS has a page on its website about Fort Ridgely but there’s very little information there, just three short paragraphs of text. There’s no link but digging deeper into the MNHS website, I found a ‘media room’ set of pages on Fort Ridgely that has more information… but still, nothing close to what’s at the historic site itself.