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

Land Cessions 

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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

The first translation of any portion of the Bible into the Dakota language was published in 1839, and the first complete Bible was produced in 1879. Seen here is a short tract on Christianity in the Dakota language that was produced by the American Bible Society in the 1880s for Dakota children at the Santee Normal Training School in Santee, Nebraska. Christianity was part of a series of Western challenges to Native lifeways in the 19th century, since Native religion is so integral to Native culture.

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

Religion

Religion