We often think of the second Monday in October as Columbus Day, but a growing number of states across the U.S., including Minnesota, are now recognizing it as Indigenous Peoples Day. This trend is no small change. It represents a monumental shift in societal thought from ‘Columbus Discovered America’ to, as MN Lieutenant Governor Flanagan puts it, “Columbus, frankly, didn’t discover anything – there were already people here, with communities and cultures and societies.” Flanagan is, by the way, the highest ranking indigenous woman elected to executive office in U.S. history.
As present-day inhabitants of this land, we have a lot to be proud of. Our pride comes not only from the 162-year period that the land has officially been called the State of Minnesota, but also from the 12,000+ year period before that in which inhabitants lived off the land and its majestic ‘clear blue waters’ (which is the rough translation of the Dakota word ‘Minnesota’). While there’s much to be proud of, to more fully unlock our state’s potential, we must help it recognize some of the uglier realities of the past.
One particularly sad reality, which is tightly woven into Minnesota’s formative years as a State yet which was left out of MN educational curriculum until only recently, is the events surrounding the largest mass execution in U.S. history. After the U.S. broke peace treaties and caused widespread starvation among the Dakota Indians, several tribes were provoked into what became the months-long U.S.-Dakota War. On December 26, 1862, the warring culminated in the hanging of 38 Dakota Indians in Mankato, on orders from President Abraham Lincoln. If interested to learn more, I would highly recommend checking out Little War on the Prairie, a podcast episode originally produced for This American Life.
Indigenous People’s Day helps build awareness of the past. It also helps build awareness of the present and future. Today, there are 11 sovereign American Indian nations within our State’s borders. 7 are Ojibwe and 3 are Dakota. While people with Indigenous background live throughout the state, Indigenous culture undoubtedly centers around Native land. Many Americans have never stepped foot on tribal land and so have less of a mental framework to understand the culture. One step to gain a better sense would be to check out the Netflix series Basketball or Nothing. It tracks a Navajo basketball team from Chinle, AZ. The mini-series is unique in that it sheds light on both challenges and opportunities on the Rez and it does so through the lens of Indigenous people.