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Waziyatawin has letter to the editor in today’s Strib. As an indigenous person from occupied territory in Minnesota, Obama fever has eluded me. In fact, I find little in Obama’s rhetoric or proposed policies that indicate his presidency will be substantially different from the long list of white guys who have occupied the office before him. My [...] 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 [...] Back in April, I blogged about the terrific Dakota Concentration Camp display at Fort Snelling St. Park. (The MN Department of Natural Resources (DNR) operates all state parks. They do not operate Historic Fort Snelling, the site of the fort. It’s operated by the MN Historical Society.) This exhibit, according to one of the display [...] 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 [...] 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 [...] 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 [...] 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, [...] 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 I got this email today [...] 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 [...] 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 [...] 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 [...] A replica of an original copy of the Declaration of Independence is on display at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul for the next two weeks. MPR’s Midmorning show today featured two experts talking about "… how understanding of the document evolved over time." I didn’t catch the first 30 minutes but submitted this question to [...] Front page of yesterday’s StarTribune: Reclaiming a lost legacy – The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community is purchasing land in Scott County at a pace that’s worrying Shakopee city leaders. … the tribe’s land purchases, which are surging as the price of land sags, are turning up a different sort of heat in Scott County. Civic leaders [...] The StarTribune’s Nick Coleman has a column in today’s paper titled, First Americans should finally get apology long owed to them. The late Gov. Rudy Perpich proclaimed a Year of Reconciliation in 1987 in the hope that the 125th anniversary of the 1862 Dakota War would be a fitting time to talk honestly about the [...] |
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