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 [...]]]> 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 hope for the future, then, does not stem from my belief that President Obama will address the ongoing denial of freedom to indigenous peoples within our own homelands. Indeed, while many Americans are celebrating what they perceive as a victory over racism in the election of a black man to the White House, my only hope concerning his election is that it will clearly elucidate the difference between racism and colonialism in America.

As he invokes the memory of America’s founding fathers and refers to Americans as the "heirs of those early patriots," he reminds indigenous peoples that America was built at our expense. We paid the price of America’s nationhood with our blood, our lands, and our resources. America lives because indigenous populations were exterminated and dispossessed of much that was dear to us.

WAZIYATAWIN, GRANITE FALLS, MINN.; RESEARCH CHAIR, INDIGENOUS GOVERNANCE PROGRAM, UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA

He has posted comments to this blog and we met face-to-face for the first time recently at the Coldwater [...]]]> 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.

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 [...]]]>

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 books on the site, "… was written with the advice and contributions of many Dakota people."

I was pleased when MN Sesqui Executive Director Jane Leonard mentioned it in her speech on the steps of the State Capitol on May 18, in part because so few people seem to know about it.

It seems, however, that the DNR is missing a huge opportunity by

• Not having anything about the exhibit on its Fort Snelling State Park website; and
• Not even mentioning the existence of the concentration camp on the History section of the park’s website, where the narrative reads:

For hundreds of years before Europeans arrived, generations of Dakota people lived in villages along the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers that meet in Fort Snelling State Park. The river confluence was believed to be the place of origin and center of the earth by the bands of Mde-wa-kan-ton-wan Dakota, the "Dwellers by Mystic Lake." By the late 1600s, Europeans had visited the area. In the 1820s, historic Fort Snelling was built on the bluff above the two historic rivers to control the exploration, trade, and settlement on these waterways. The area was established as a state park in 1961. The swimming beach, added in 1970, remains a popular recreation attraction in the park. In 1997, a new visitor center opened to the public.

To its credit, as part of the MN Sesqui, the Park has scheduled an event titled Bdote – Rivers and People Coming Together for Saturday, July 19 at 10 am. The description of the event includes the phrase "concentration camp:"

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.

So what could be done?

1. I’d really like to see a multimedia version of the Dakota Concentration Camp exhibit on the Fort Snelling State Park website, or possibly a separate web site altogether. This would be an inexpensive project for the DNR’s web team and make it much easier for many thousands of Minnesotans to discover the exhibit and learn more about the Concentration Camp.
2. I’d really like to see a mobile version of the Dakota Concentration Camp exhibit that could be easily set up at civic events, classrooms, and other temporary locations around the state. Volunteer interpreters could be trained, a DVD with a narrative could be created, and it could be a significant first step towards getting the full story told in the Minnesota History curriculum of our public schools.

The apology begins a 5-year process led [...]]]> 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.

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 [...]]]>

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 and stealing of land from the original people who lived in this state.

I am glad I supported the events that tried to grasp the concepts of the past 150 years but I fear people missed an opportunity for reconciliation with native people and the word exclusion comes to my mind.

MPR’s Tom Robertson did a story about Audrey Thayer back in 2004 when she was hired by the ACLU for the position in Bemidi.

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 [...]]]> 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:

Click play to listen. 4 minutes, [...]]]>  
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, 26 seconds.

Or alternately, download the MP3.

Media coverage:

I got this email today [...]]]> 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
• WCCO-TV: Why Some Native Americans Are Upset With Minnesota

I got this email today from Waziyatawin Angela Wilson, pictured above on the right:

Hi Griff. If you are going to do this work for the Sesquicentennial so that they can say they are addressing Dakota or "Native American" issues, I hope you will include more critical voices.  Right now it seems as if the commission (through your work) is trying to appropriate our voices and to ameliorate the effects of our protest.

This statement from my father, Chris Mato Nunpa, in response to Jane Leonard’s speech on Sunday, must also be included in your blogsite.  He is absolutely right on and effectively addresses why Jane’s speech was so offensive to those Dakota people in attendance.  I am pasting it below.  Please post it.

Thank you.

Waziyatawin

I wrote her back and said I’d be happy to blog Chris’ critique here. I’ve included a photo of him that I took last week at Mounds Park.

Jane, I just heard a brief excerpt of a speech you gave at the State Capitol.  Again, you talk a good game.  You have fine rhetoric.    As long as you don’t talk about massive land theft, 24 million acres alone in the 1851 treaties signed at Traverse des Sioux and at Mendota,  as long as you don’t talk about the broken treaties with the Dakota, which were violated by the U.S. government and its U.S. Euro-Minnesotan citizenry;  and as long as you don’t talk about the genocide of the Dakota People of Minnesota, you are still presenting, literally, a white-washed history.

You are like the other colonizers/white supremacists (not meant to be mean-spirited but to convey a reality) who suppress the TRUTH and substitute myth for reality.  The wagon train at Ft. Snelling is an excellent example of replacing the TRUTH with myth.  The invaders/settlers came up the river by boat to steal land in Minnesota.    You, the Sesquicentennial Commision, the Minnesota Historical Society, etc. would rather create lies (the wagon train) and suppress the TRUTH (bounties, concentration camps,  mass executions, etc.) about what really happened in this state, especially in the past 150 years.

I did notict that you said "internment camp" instead of calling it what it really is – a CONCENTRATION CAMP.  This is the social practice of herding innocent civilians, non-combatants in one concentrated place, holding them there for protracted periods of time without charging them with any crime.  This is a Concentration Camp.   As Jack Weatherford writes in his book NATIVE ROOTS, as he studies a photograph of the concentration camp consisting of tipis, he said he was watching "the birth of an institution which was to haunt the 20th century."

You talk about "mistreatment" – how about "GENOCIDE"      Bounties, Concentration Camps, forced marches, forced removals/ethnic cleansing,  warfare,  all related to various criteria of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention such as:  #1  killing members of the group (viz., Dakota People).  Bounties, Warfare, would fit this;   #3  deliberately inflicting conditions upon a group calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the group in whole or in part.  concentration camps,  forced marches,  forced removals/Ethnic Cleansing fulfill this criterion.   If you think you’re telling the TRUTH, then you need to begin using these terms.

Also, you talk about "Reconciliation," which, in my opinion, is a totally inappropriate term.  This implies that that once Dakota People and the wasicu were once one entity.  They were NOT!   The Wasicu (white man) always wanted land, he had no land.  The Dakota People had land.  Then, the White man stole the land, and now, the Dakota People are living in a state of oppression and exploitation in their own land.  What is more appropriate (than reconciliation) are terms such as TRUTH,  JUSTICE,  and  MUTUAL RESPECT.

TRUTH   acknowledging the bounties,   concentration camps, the stolen lands   the lands which have not been paid for    broken treaties     GENOCIDE    etc.  and then teaching this true history in the public schools and in the colleges and universities.

JUSTICE   land restitution, i.e., the return of state and federal lands, e.g. within the Treaty of 1805, the 155,000+ acres upon which the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis set;     land reparations – payment for the lands.  For example, the lands upon which St. Paul and Minneapolis set have not been paid for (the Treaty of 1805).   The 24 million acres involved in the Treaties of 1851 were grossly under-paid for.    and, finally,  reparations for GENOCIDE which the U.S. government, the State of Minnesota, and its Euro-Minnesotan citizenry perpetrated upon the Dakota People!

MUTUAL RESPECT     The white man, including the Euro-Minnesotans of yesterday and of today, have generally NOT respected for the past 500 years the languages, religions,  the world-views,  the perspectives,  the values,  the customs and traditions,  the cultures,  etc. of the Indigenous Peoples of the U.S., and of the Dakota People of Minnesota.  They have NOT respected the Indigenous Peoples as human beings, as PEOPLE.   Instead, the Euro-Minnesotan and the U.S. Euro-American have viewed the Indigenous Peoples and the Dakota People as sub-human,  as animals, wild animals, therefore, it’s OK to put bounties on them, and as uncivilized and SAVAGE!

These things the Euro-Minnesotan, the Sesquicentennial Commission, the Minnesota Historical Society, and the other colonial institutions of the U.S. and of Minnesota need to acknowledge and then to teach in the texts and schools and in the colleges and universities.

I have some time now – I am now retired.   I may have to attend some of the sessions where you, and representatives of the MHS, and of other racist, colonial institutions are talking and then add my two cents to the discussion.  You need to invite people like me,  Dr. Chris Mato Nunpa;   Waziyata Win (Dr. Angela Cavender Wilson);   Jim Anderson of the Mendota Dakota Community;   Ms. Gaby Tateyuskanskan of the Sisseton Wahpeton Reservation.  If you can’t tell the TRUTH, we can!!!!

Chris Mato Nunpa, Ph.D., Formerly Associate Professor of Indigenous Nations & Dakota Studies (INDS) at Southwest Minnesota State University, Marshall, Minnesota

5690 250th Ave.
Granite Falls, Minnesota 56241

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 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 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 painful legacy of the state’s treatment of its indigenous peoples.

Click play to listen. 4 minutes.