The Inextricable Whole of Culture and Place

(First published November 30, 2008 on www.onthecommmons.org.)

Dedicated to an old friend: you welcomed me to the circle many times and fed me from an endless pot of homemade soup. To you I give thanks.

The young don’t seem to question the provenance of the bit of earth they stand on. It is up to the rest of us to teach the story of people and place—but first we must learn the most truthful account for ourselves.

Here in Minnesota on the occasion of the 150th Anniversary of Statehood, in the United States of America at the national holiday called Thanksgiving, I have been given a challenge to unlearn and learn again how I came to be in this physical place at this time. How the land on the banks of two great rivers, once held in common by indigenous tribes, was snatched and parceled out amongst settlers and state; how language, culture and a collective way of life was destroyed; how people were starved, imprisoned, executed and exiled from their homeland.

Actions by my predecessors and my government separated Native Americans in many ways—from their lands, from each other and from their culture. Tribalism was equated with “barbarism” and judged to be in direct opposition to self-reliance, self-determination and Christianity.

Native artists, historians and scholars are increasingly finding ways to share the story of their homeland. I recently reconnected with producer/media artist Mona Smith (Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota Oyate) of Allies: media/art. Smith has a portfolio of audio, video and media exhibits and presentations that evoke and enhance understanding of Native ways of being. She addresses the invisibility of Native people in their homeland and seeks to deepen the sense of place for all Minnesotans. She uses media to “enhance learning FROM Native people” and is piloting an interactive media website called the “Bdote Memory Map.” Bdote means the joining place of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers.

CLICK HERE for the pilot Memory Map at Allies:media/art

I feel specifically connected to these two rivers and was eager to

learn more about the bones of the earth buried beneath concrete, brick and steel of the cities, highways, and railroads located alongside the water. I was curious about the story of rural villages, farms, and processing plants on the rich, alluvial land.

Smith told me about the 2008 Dakota Commemorative March, the fourth such event which traces the deadly, 150-mile forced march of Dakota prisoners from southern Minnesota to the site of their 2-year imprisonment near Fort Snelling at the joining of the two rivers. Being reminded of this March was a poignant moment for me—causing me to access powerful childhood memories.

A few weeks ago, on the evening of November 13, when I thought the marchers had probably arrived at Pike Island after their four day trek, I walked to the bridge over the Mississippi River in my neighborhood and looked southward. It was a warm, misty night. The full moon disappeared frequently in the clouds and would then shine out again illuminating the trees on the banks of the gorge and glimmer back up at me up from the brown water 60 feet below. I was pensive and sad. Somewhere inside I was regretting that I had lived so long in this place but knew so little about the first inhabitants and the violence perpetrated on them.

And so I have spent the last weeks learning about the March and other events of the US-Dakota War. From Smith’s media art website and others I pieced together the story I was never told.

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I was born and raised in and near Mankato, in the Minnesota River Valley. My childhood holds memories of floods, bridges, rapids, cliffs, the smell of dense vegetation on bottom roads, and good times swimming in the river shallows, tributaries and quarries.

School day afternoons my siblings and I walked across the bridge to North Mankato to be tended by my aunt until dinnertime. Vaguely I remember a bronze plaque somewhere on my route that said, “Here were hanged 38 Sioux.”

The county historical society produced a booklet that was prominently displayed in the Carnegie Library. Mankato’s preferred claim to fame was Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy book series, however the Blue Earth County booklet devoted some space to early settlers and mentioned Indian conflicts. I was fascinated with place names based on Indian words: Minneopa, Kasota, Watonwan, Winnebago. I did not notice that Native Americans as real people were absent from community life. I have no recollection of meeting anyone identified as Native American until college. I had no understanding of the history, tribal structure, or culture of the first people of the river valley I loved. I did not understand what “Indian reservation” or “removal” meant.

“Here were hanged 38 Sioux” was a phrase from the past that conveyed little to me. I have since understood the ignominy of the largest execution in US history that took place on December 26, 1862 on the banks of the river of my hometown.

The causes and effects of the US-Dakota War were deep and the conflict never ended until the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. A series of events including treaties that were unfair and destructive of Native American culture, and payments or food withheld dishonestly by corrupt agents created the conditions for the beginning of the War in summer of 1862.

In September, two groups of Dakota people surrendered, expecting by many accounts to be treated as prisoners of war—but that was not to happen. Instead Dakota warriors were separated out and tried for murder or other crimes against civilians at the Lower Sioux Agency near Morton, Minnesota.

The trials were conducted at lightening speed, nearly 400 trials in six weeks, some no more that 5 minutes each. 303 Dakota were sentenced to death and transported to Mankato. There 264 of the prisoners were pardoned (historical accounts say by intercession of President Lincoln, who questioned the validity of the war crimes charges but did not pardon all for fear of the consequences with the white settlers) and one reprieved but they spent the winter in prison nonetheless and were then sent by river to another prison in Illinois. The survivors of this group were finally released in exile four years later in Nebraska.

The 38 Dakota whose death sentences stood were executed December 26 en masse on a large platform and quickly buried in the riverbanks. The bodies were later unceremoniously dug up and distributed for medical study, including to the famous Mayo brothers.

On November 7 the other group that had surrendered, 1700 mainly women, children and elderly, were force marched 150 miles from the Lower Sioux Agency to a prison encampment at Fort Snelling in Saint Paul, where they spent two winters. Those who survived the harsh conditions were shipped to St. Louis and finally exiled to a reservation in South Dakota.

After the War some Dakota people stayed in Minnesota, keeping a low profile to avoid danger. Others left for familiar territory outside of the States. Subsequently the US Congress cancelled treaties and took back reservation land. The Governor placed a bounty on the head of any Dakota found in Minnesota—in other words the intention was annihilation of an entire people.

I live now in Minneapolis near the Mississippi River, close to where it is joined and fed by the Minnesota. Native American people live here also. Some city families maintain connections with their “home” reservation—ironically often lands in the Northern US or Canada where their ancestors were sent or migrated. Like me they may not know the story of this earth we walk and drive on everyday or the rivers that cut through Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

Allies: media/art

According to some creation stories this place is the center of the earth—where their people began. Now, almost 150 years later an organized education effort is burgeoning.

Smith’s Memory Map and other media works provide a rich, interactive mix of natural sounds and images, Dakota voices, historical photos and contemporary commentary. This living history has taught me more than any teacher or textbook about the people who lived here before me (pre-colonial, pre-industrial and pre-enclosure of commonly held land) and their enduring connection to the physical surroundings.

Several times in the pilot of Memory Map and related audio tracks I heard the words “we are here” and “we are home” intoned by Dakota voices.

I am home, too. I am here and more at peace for Smith’s gentle guidance through the loss and remembrance of the indigenous culture that lingers in this place. In her 2004 “Cloudy Waters: Dakota Reflection on the River” video, a Native voice says “we are all related, and if we look at it the world that way, things become simpler.” Yes, that’s true. Thank you for teaching me so.

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For more on Native Americans as invisible commoners and severalty see Lewis Hyde on the On the Commons website. He draws historical connections between British property laws, the US Congress “allotment” of Native American lands in the 1880s and current legal aggression against other contemporary commons. He talks about the Dawes Act and other government action. Those who were willing to be separated from their commonly held lands were recognized as citizens and all other Native Americans became “invisible” in the eyes of the law.

On the Dawes Act and other topics see also the downloadable videos of Waziyatawin, Ph.D, Wahpetunwan Dakota from the Pezihutazizi Otunwe (Yellow Medicine Village) in southwestern Minnesota on the Minnesota Humanities Center Responses to Statehood
project site.