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

Red Bird

This image may not be reproduced for any reason without the express written permission of the Nicollet County Historical Society.

Nicollet County Historical Society, 1851 North Minnesota Avenue, St. Peter, MN 56082; http://www.nchsmn.org

http://reflections.mndigital.org/cdm/ref/collection/nico/id/1614

http://54.245.164.12:3000/mdl/items/umn10280.tif

The traditional colonial narrative of Minnesota tells the tale of Indians, a homogenous and ultimately ill-fated indigenous population – doomed by lack of resistance to disease, doomed by an inherently violent culture, and doomed by their inability to adapt to change. It is frequently the story of savage Natives attacking defenseless White settlers with no warning, being defeated by a brave and outnumbered Army, and then disappearing into the untamed, faceless West.
 The full story, inclusive of Native perspectives, is necessarily more complex. In the following section are some images relating to colonial views of the Natives peoples of Minnesota.

Colonial Narratives

Ancient Legacies

Colonization

Conflict

Reservation Era

Survivance

This is a print by the artist and military officer Seth Eastman, who was stationed in Minnesota before statehood. It shows a Dakota campsite along a body of water.

http://reflections.mndigital.org/cdm/ref/collection/nico/id/1605

http://54.245.164.12:3000/mdl/items/umn10271.tif

This early work by Seth Eastman depicts a pastoral scene in which a small Dakota seasonal village starts to break camp. At left, a single woman can be seen starting to pull the hide walls off her tipi (home).
Eastman himself took a Santee Dakota wife, 15 year-old Wakaninajinwin, in 1830 during his first tour of duty at Fort Snelling. When he was reassigned to a different Army posting in 1832, he declared the marriage null, leaving his wife and newborn daughter, Mary, behind. He remarried a White woman from Virginia in 1835; they returned to Fort Snelling in 1841. Eastman’s youngest grandson from Mary is the famed Charles Eastman, the first Native American medical doctor.

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

Dakota Encampment

Dakota Encampment