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

Poh-ah-be-one and Pony Hoof

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This short tract in the Dakota language describes the American Bible Society, founded in 1816. The Santee Normal Training School instructed Dakota children in the Dakota language. These children came from families who were removed from Minnesota to Nebraska after the U.S.-Dakota War in 1863. Reverend A.L. Riggs founded the school in 1870 as an academy to train Native teachers. The school developed a printing press in 1871 and produced many materials in the Dakota language.

Synod of Lakes and Prairies, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 2115 Cliff Drive, Eagan, MN 55122

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Loss of land, culture, religion, and livelihood began in earnest for the Native people of Minnesota starting with the early 19th century. The establishment of American Army forts not as places of trade so much as places to keep Indians out started in 1819 with the founding of Fort Snelling near modern-day Minneapolis. Though missionaries were in the area long before actual congregations, the oldest established church in Minnesota was St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Mendota in 1840; it was built with the specific mission to minister to both the settlers and the Indians of the area. The first railroad began to snake its way through the territory in the mid-1850s, bringing with it a new rush of White settlers.
All of these colonial missions necessitated treaties between the US government and Native nations ceding Native land. While treaties may have started out small-scale in the early 1800s, by the 1830s the United States was claiming huge swathes of Native land by force and coercion.

Colonization

Ancient Legacies

Colonial Narratives

Conflict

Reservation Era

Survivance

American Indians in parade, Red Wing, Minnesota

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A group of American Indian women wrapped in blankets parading behind a Calvary unit. This may have been on the 4th of July.

Goodhue County Historical Society, 1166 Oak Street, Red Wing, Minnesota 55066; http://www.goodhuehistory.mus.mn.us

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This strange circa 1898 image is of a group of Mdewakanton Dakota women covered in blankets, being paraded down Third Street in downtown Red Wing, Minnesota behind a contingent of the US Cavalry. It may have been part of the Fourth of July celebration there that year, and is probably intended to portray the vanquished Dakota being led away from eastern Minnesota to reservation lands in the west.

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

On Parade

On Parade