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

Delegations

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

Reservation Era

Survivance

Portrait of Little Hill, Blue Earth County, Minnesota

Images from this document may not be reproduced for any reason without the express written consent of the Blue Earth County Historical Society.

Portrait of Little Hill, Winnebago chief.

Blue Earth County Historical Society, 415 Cherry Street, Mankato, MN 56001; http://www.bechshistory.com/

http://reflections.mndigital.org/cdm/ref/collection/blue/id/2855

http://54.245.164.12:3000/mdl/items/umn44855.tif

Blue Earth County Historical Society

Minnesota Digital Library

Nearly totally forgotten in the state of Minnesota is the presence of the Ho-Chunk people. Also sometimes known as Winnebago, this Dakota-speaking nation occupied the southeastern corner of the state and the adjacent areas of Wisconsin and Iowa. They were forced by the US military onto reservations in southwestern Wisconsin and northeastern Nebraska permanently after the US-Dakota War via a treaty signed in 1865.