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

Reservation Era

Title is listed in Descriptive Catalogue of Photographs of North American Indians. By W.H. Jackson of the Survey

http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/Jackson/id/2364

http://54.245.164.12:3000/mdl/items/MSS_1608_p66_b1_f9_98a.tif

The fight for the land came to a head in the mid-19th century in Minnesota, culminating in the US-Dakota War of 1862. While this conflict started and centered around the southern Minnesota city of Mankato – deep in Dakota lands – the conflagration spread to engulf Ojibwe lands as well, threatening the lives of every Native group in the state.
The reasons for the War are clear – Dakota bands in Minnesota were left to starve in the face of an increasingly uncaring and hostile Federal government. Relations between nations finally broke down in August of 1862, when a government trader Andrew Jackson Myrick refused to sell food to the Dakota at the Lower Sioux Agency. When the Dakota pleaded with him that their people were starving, Myrick reportedly replied, “…then let them eat grass or their own dung.” The unfortunate result is that there is distrust and enmity between Native and non-Native residents of the state of Minnesota to this day.

Conflict

Ancient Legacies

Colonization

Colonial Narratives

Survivance

Portrait of Po-Go-Nay-Ke-Shick, also known as Hole in the Day, an Ojibway Native American, St. Paul, Minnesota

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

This is a photograph of Po-Go-Nay-Ke-Shick, also known as Hole in the Day, an Ojibway Native American. The photograph was taken in the studio of St. Paul photographer Joel E. Whitney. The photograph was purchased in 1862 by a woman from Indiana.

Whitney, Joel E., 1822-1886; Whitney's Gallery (St. Paul, Minnesota)

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/1020

http://54.245.164.12:3000/mdl/items/mhs00067.tif

Nicollet County Historical Society

Minnesota Digital Library

While Native Americans successfully resisted many of the changes colonization forced upon them, certain facets of traditional leadership changed drastically by the mid-19th century. Whereas leaders among the Anishinaabe and Dakota had previously been picked from specific clans among bands, intermarriage with Whites had started to erode the old kinship system dramatically. Leaders with a cult of personality, rather than a traditional legitimate claim to authority, began to emerge.
 Hole In The Day (Bagone-giizhig in Anishinaabemo.win) was one of these leaders. His flamboyancy and brinksmanship-like strategies made him appealing to many Anishinaabe during the confusing upheaval of the 1800s.  Not all Anishinaabe were pleased by Hole In The Day’s rise to power, however, and he was assassinated in 1868 by his own people.