History of Survivance: Upper Midwest 19th-Century Native American Narratives

War Honors Shirt

Large burial mound at White Bear Lake, Minnesota

This image may not be reproduced for any reason without the express written consent of the White Bear Lake Area Historical Society.

The largest of nine American Indian burial mounds in the vicinity of Shady Lane and Lake Avenue along the shore of White Bear Lake prior to its demolition in April of 1889.

White Bear Lake Area Historical Society, PO Box 10543, White Bear Lake, MN 55110; http://www.whitebearhistory.org

http://reflections.mndigital.org/cdm/ref/collection/white/id/10

http://54.245.164.12:3000/mdl/items/wbl00003.tif

The tenure of the lands up the Upper Midwest by the Dakota (the eastern branch of the Lakota people, frequently also called Sioux) and Anishinaabe (also known as Ojibwe, Ojibwa and Chippewa) peoples can be archaeologically dated to a minimum of 11,300 years ago. Dakota oral histories describe an even longer occupation, starting with the gift of the land by the Creator in illo tempore. Anishinaabe oral history relates a prophecy where the people were told to move West, “to where the food grows on water.” Archaeological evidence indicates this was approximately 500 years ago. Regardless, the people themselves are, of course, still here.
What is perhaps so astonishing about the non-Native version of the history of Native America is that it essentially starts and ends with the colonization of the Upper Midwest by Europeans, a period of only a few centuries. Dakota and Anishinaabe traditions and culture are far older than that, and endure to this day.

Ancient Legacies

Colonization

Colonial Narratives

Conflict

Reservation Era

Survivance

Approximately 12,500 conical burial mounds built by the ancestral Dakota dot the landscape of southern Minnesota, and were particularly common in what is now the Twin Cities area. The mounds range in age from 2,500 to 600 years old, but Euro-Americans encountered Dakota people still living around and with the mounds in the 18th and 19th centuries.
While the Dakota always maintained their relationship to the mounds, there was general disbelief by Euro-Americans that modern Native Americans built them until the 20th century; past theories about the original Moundbuilders have included everything from a vanished “superior race” to extraterrestrials. The mound pictured here was among the hundreds in the Twin Cities vicinity alone that were later destroyed. Archaeologists estimate that as many as 80 percent of the Native mounds that were once part of Minnesota have been dismantled, largely from agriculture, looting, and road-building.

History of Survivance: Upper Midwest 19th-Century Native American Narratives

Burial Mounds

Burial Mounds