Revised Nov. 15, 2016, this article has a new title. ------------------------

---------A History Of The Dakota People In Minnesota

-----------------------------By Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer

The Sioux, or Dakota, consist of seven tribes in three major divisions: Wahpekute, Mdewakanton, Wahpeton, Sisseton (who together form the Santee or Eastern division, sometimes referred to as the Dakota), the Yankton and Yanktonai (who form the Middle division, sometimes referred to as the Nakota), and the Teton (who form the Western division, sometimes referred to as the Lakota). ref.

The words Lakota and Dakota (Lakota/Dakota) are sometimes used as different pronunciations of the same tribal name for the seven Sioux tribes, which means "the allies." ref.

"In 1656, the Dakotas were living near Mille Lacs in five villages numbering about 5,000 people. It is possible that the Tetons and Yanktons had at this point already began migrating west, although Hennepin found them above the Falls of St. Anthony on the Mississippi River in 1680. In 1701, they were at Lake Traverse. The Yankon and Yantonai left Mille Lacs at about this time." (ref. Minn. Hist. Soc.- download Santee history)

"Mille Lacs," or Mille Lacs Lake, is located in central Minnesota.

Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake)

"From what was written on this subject by Hennepin, La Hontan, Le Sueur, and Charlevoix, and from the maps published under the superintendence of these authors, it is sufficiently clear that in the latter part of the 17th century the principal residence of the Isanyati Sioux [Mdewakanton, Wahpeton, Wahpekute, and Sisseton] was about the headwaters of Rum river, .... " (Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll, I, 295, 1872.) ref.

Headwaters of the "Rum" (Wakan) River on the West shore of Mille Lacs Lake


"Father Louis Hennepin visited the Sioux at Mille Lacs Lake in 1680 and reported that it was the sacred lake of these Indians and the focal point of the whole nation, from which the tribes and bands spread out over a wide area. (Wilford 1944:329)." ref.

"The Mille Lacs area is rich in Native American history, from ancient tribes from the Old Copper Tradition dating back over 4,000 years, to the early Dakota people, a band called the Mdewakanton 'the people who live by the water of the Great Spirit.'" ref.

"Hundreds of years before Europeans settled in the region, the Dakota people established permanent villages along the shores of Ogechie Lake, and the Rum River. These people came to be known as the Mdewakanton, which translated means 'Water of the Great Spirit.'" ref.

The "Rum River" flows through Ogechie Lake. This lake is located one-eighth mile down river from Mille Lacs Lake, the source of this river.

At the Mille Lacs Kathio State Park, Chief Leonard E. Wabasha has an interpretive sign, it reads: "My people are the Mdewakanton Oyate. Mdewakanton means the People of Spirit Lake. Today that lake is known as Mille Lacs. This landscape is sacred to the Mdewakanton Oyate because one Otokaheys Woyakapi (creation story) says we were created here. It is especially pleasing for me to come here and walk these trails, because about 1718 the first Chief Wapahasa was born here, at the headwaters of the Spirit River. I am the eighth in this line of hereditary chiefs." ref.

The Dakota, or Sioux, name for the "Rum River" is Wakpa Wakan. It translates to English to mean "Spirit River".

When addressing the subject of Lakota/Dakota creation stories [Wilhelm K. Meya] one of the most active anthropologists working with the Lakota today, wrote: "The Mdewakanton are considered in the oral tradition, one of the most ancient divisions of the Sioux Nation or Ocetisakowin 'Seven Council Fires'. The sacred lake (Mille Lacs) figures prominently in Lakota/Dakota creation stories. The lake is considered sacred because the Dakota people emerged from it as human beings into this world."

Originally, the Lakota/Dakota people came up from the "center of the earth" and found themselves near Mille Lacs Lake, or "about the lakes at the head of the Rum River." Then after a flood they went into Mille Lacs Lake and lived as underwater "people". Then a whirlpool pulled them up to the surface and threw them out onto the shore, where they then, as people who walked on land again, explored the area and then began living at the headwaters of the "Rum River," or Wakpa Wakan (Spirit River) and at other places near and around the sacred lake. Link - The Lakota/Dakota creation story at Mille Lacs Lake.

The following interpretation of the name Mdewakanton, an interpretation that incorporates the Dakotas' creation story associated with Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake), is displayed on the Prairie Island Mdewakanton Dakota Community website. "The Mdewakanton, 'those who were born of the waters,'..." ref.

In an Isanti County News article about a 2008 Wakan Wakpa ("Rum River") Canoe Expedition that provided a group of inner-city Dakota boys from Minneapolis and St. Paul an opportunity to paddle the natural artery of their ancestors LeMoine LaPointe, director of the Healthy Nations Program at the Minneapolis American Indian Center, is quoted: (1.) "Their 165-mile paddle from Mille Lacs Lake to Minneapolis commemorated many important aspects of Dakota history and culture..." (2.)"The Rum, known for centuries as Wakan Wakpa (Holy River), is an important spiritual and cultural artery to the Dakota who, until 1745, lived at Mille Lacs (Mde Wakan) and considered it the center of their world." Another article about this topic is entitled Reclaiming the Wakpa Wakan .

On the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community website there is a statement that reads: "Many generations ago, our elders prophesied that a time would come when their descendants would return to the birthplace of the Dakota Nation to protect its sacred sites and bring Dakota culture back to its place of origin." This place is the Mille Lacs area. I am here today to help the Dakota fulfill that prophesy as best I can in the place where their ancestors lived.

In The Circle article titled Dakota Rising its author Jon Lurie describes how Wyatt Thomas (Dakota) traveled to Mille Lacs County from Nebraska where he lives on a reservation as a member of the Santee Dakota Tribe. "Thomas said that Minnesota, and Ogechie lake in particular, was, to him, home. Thomas was on a mission to scout his tribe's Minnesota ancestral lands. An important first step in reintroducing the Santee Dakota to their original homeland."... "Thomas is one voice in a growing chorus of indigenous cultural leaders who agree that the reclamation of traditional lands is crucial to solving the Dakota mental health crisis due to the brutality of their historic treatment."

I believe that many of the Dakota (Oceti Sakowin 'Seven Council Fires') will soon return to their sacred traditional/ancestral homeland, or sacred lake Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake), and that it will once again become "the focal point of the whole nation". More on this topic

According to one Dakota (Oceti Sakowin 'Seven Council Fires') creation story, a creation story that "figures prominently in Lakota/Dakota creation stories," the sacred lake Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) is where "the Dakota emerged as human beings into this world." The sacred lake is where the Lakota/Dakota people's Garden of Eden site is located, and it is the Garden of Eden from which the Isanti/Santee Dakota were forced out, and to which they will return. Mille Lacs Lake is where the Dakota people's (original/first) genesis site is located. And it is where the Isanti/Santee Dakota genocide first began.

A history of the Dakota people's expulsion from their sacred Wakan/"Mille Lacs" Lake homeland

"You must drive all the natives of the land before you. If you do not drive the natives of the country before you then those who remain will become disgusting to your eyes and a thorn in your side. They will harass you in the land where you live, and I will deal with you as I meant to deal with them." (Num. 33:51) Another Bible scripture reads: "I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." (Psalm 2 KJV)

According to a United Nations World Conference Against Racism document: "In the fifteenth century, two Papal Bulls set the stage for European domination of the New World and Africa. Romanus Pontifex, issued by Pope Nicholas V to King Alfonso V of Portugal in 1452, declared war against all non-Christians throughout the world, and specifically sanctioned and promoted the conquest, colonization, and exploitation of non-Christian nations and their territories." In Pope Alexander VI's papal bull of 1493 (Inter Caetera), he stated his desire that the "discovered" people be "subjugated and brought to the faith itself." By this means, said the pope, the "Christian Empire" would be propagated. These Papal Bulls, or "doctrines of discovery", sanctioned Christian nations to claim "unoccupied lands", or lands belonging to "heathens" or "pagans". ref.

"DuLuth traveled as far as the Dakota headquarters encampment, on the southwest shores of Lake Mille Lacs, and on July 2, 1679, claimed the area as a possession for King Louis XIV." ref.

It was the mission of the white European colonists to first claim the "discovered" native peoples' homelands and then later displace/force them from their homelands and then ultimately take possession of their homelands. And they often used westward moving, displaced Eastern tribes to force the long-established tribes from their sacred ancestral homelands.

The French invasion of the East coast caused the French/Iroquois war...which, in turn, caused a band of Ojibwe in the area to flee their homeland on the East coast. They traveled west to escape the White civilization. They went west on the Saint Lawrence River, then across the great lakes to the southern tip of Lake Superior where they settled and then (after a short time of warfare with the Dakota) made frequent peaceful journeys to the Dakota people's Wakan/"Mille Lacs" Lake homeland villages.

At the time, intertribal marriages occasionally occurred. When the fur-bearing animals became scarce in the area, the French then instigated fights between this band of Ojibwe (now known as the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe) and the Mille Lacs Lake Dakota. The final Mille Lacs area Ojibwe/Dakota "fight" occurred around 1750. The Ojibwe used French guns, bullets and gun powder bombs to force the Dakota from their Mille Lacs Lake homeland. The Ojibwe then, temporarily, took possession of the Dakota people's stolen Mille Lacs Lake homeland. Later, many white "settlers"/invaders entered into the area and took possession of the Dakota people's stolen Mille Lacs Lake homeland. The area's Ojibwe were then given some of the white people's Mille Lacs Lake area stolen Dakota land to live on. They were also given "treaty" rights to the stolen Dakota land. The white people then forced the Mille Lacs area's Ojibwe (red pagans/heathens) to live in a subjugated state of existence.

Reference
After the Ojibwe were forced to leave their East Coast homelands they settled in the Great Lakes region. "Like other Indian groups, the Ojibwe were forced westward beginning in the 1640s when the [British weapons armed] League of the Iroquois began to attack other tribes in the Great Lakes region to monopolize the fur trade....The fur trade [including the introduction of alcohol and guns] brought about a westward expansion of the Ojibwes as the French built trading posts farther and farther west...The expansion of the Ojibwe into Wisconsin and Minnesota brought them into contact with the Eastern, or Santee Dakota. During the 1730s, the Ojibwe and Dakota began to fight over the region." ref.

In due time, the French used the Ojibwe to force the Santee Dakota from their sacred Mille Lacs area ancestral homeland in Minnesota. When there were a lot of fur-bearing animals in the Mille Lacs area the French fostered peace between the Dakota and Ojibwe. The French made more money off their fur trade business when both tribes were bring in furs for trade. But, inevitable, the fur-bearing animals would become scarce. It was at this time of scarcity that the French would often instigated fights between the different tribes competing for furs in any given area. At this time of scarcity, the French would arm the newly arrived tribes and use them to force the long-established tribes from their sacred ancestral homelands.

Reference:
In a Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe book about the Band's heritage, a book entitled, Against the Tide of American History: The Story of the Mille Lacs Anishinabe, there are the words: "As is true of all the Anishinabe or Chippewa who live in Minnesota, the history of the Mille Lacs people reaches back into ancient times and other settings in the eastern part of the United States where their ancestors lived before they came into the forest and lake country of eastern and northern Minnesota."

Reference:
The Ojibway, who lived in what is now Anoka County, had come to Minnesota with the French fur traders. The Ojibway and Dakota lived peacefully for a short time, often trading and occasionally intermarrying. White settlement of the east, however, eventually pushed the Ojibway onto Dakota lands. And the French traders apparently instigated feuds between the two tribes to establish the Ojibway as their allies. ref.

Reference:
"Early White/Indian intervention played an important role in the settlement of the area by white men. The French, instigated fights between the Ojibwe and Dakota so as to ally themselves with the Ojibwe." reference ~ Minnesota state DNR website

Reference:
"As Europeans settled the East coast, they displaced eastern tribes who then migrated to get away from the White civilization, and they, in their turn, displaced weaker local tribes they encountered, and pushed many of those tribes farther from their homelands, as they took over their homelands." ref.

Westward moving Europeans would give the displaced eastern tribes who had migrated west to get away from the White civilization guns, bullets and gun powder and they would then instigate fights between the newly arrived tribes and the long-established tribes in order to force the long-established tribes from their homelands; and in doing so, extinguish the long established tribes' ancestral ties that they have with the land, their ancestors and the spirit world. Evidence of this practice has shown itself time and time again throughout the Americas.

Around 1750, a displaced East coast band of Ojibwe were pushed into the Dakotas' homeland and they then used French guns and gun powder to violently force the Dakota from their Wakan/"Mille Lacs" Lake homeland.

The French instigated intertribal warfare/fights between a displaced East coast band of Ojibwe and the Mille Lacs Lake Dakota; and this warfare was fomented by the white European colonists' exploitation of these Native's weakness to abuse alcohol. The European colonists also used the Dakotas' weakness to abuse alcohol to lure many of them from their Mille Lacs Lake homeland to distant trading posts. This was the strategy that the European colonists used to greatly diminish the number of Dakota in their Mille Lacs homeland, which encouraged and made it possible for a French weapons armed, alcohol manipulated band of Ojibwe to violently force the Dakota from their sacred Mille Lacs homeland.

Reference:
According to Edward Neill "the Dakotas began to be led away from the rice grounds of the Mille Lacs region" by the French trading posts built by Nicholas Perrot and Le Seur (Neill 1852; cited in Warren 1984:157). ref.

"Fur traders did act as wilderness explorers but many aspects of their business were anything but heroic. It is vital to balance the picture of the fur trader as an explorer and pioneer with the less flattering portrait of the fur trader as a pusher of dangerous and addictive substances, a fomenter of intertribal and intratribal conflict,..." ref.

Reference:
"We have already waged a long war against the white man's poisons beginning with the introduction of alcohol by the French and English fur traders who caused our people to become addicted and dependent upon it as early as the 1700s. Our chiefs sent messages to the directors of the fur trade companies not to bring it into our camps, but the voyageurs brought it anyway." ref.

Reference:
In Benjamin Franklin autobiography 1706-1757 (Chapter 8) he wrote: "And, indeed, if it be the design of Providence [or the will of God] to extirpate these Savages in order to make room for cultivators of the Earth, it seems not improbable that rum may be the appointed means."

I am the co-founder and director of Rum River Name Change Organization, Inc.. Years ago, I made the following statement when writing about the contemporary movement to change the derogatory and offensive name of Minnesota's "Rum River."

"One of the reasons why I believe that the Rum River's name is derogatory and should therefore be changed is because, as stated in a book published by the Minnesota Historical Society, 'rum brought misery and ruin, as Duluth observed of whisky, to many of the Indians.' And the other reason why, is because... according to documents found in Minnesota Geographic Names, a book written by Warren Upham in 1920 and published by the Minnesota Historical Society, the Rum River received its current name by way of a 'punning translation' that 'perverted the ancient Sioux name Wakan.'"

On August 12, 2004, Jim Anderson, the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community's Cultural Chairman and Historian, wrote the following statement in his Dakota community's letter of support for the effort to rename the Rum River.

"I believe that renaming the river 'Wakpa Wakan' or 'Spirit River' is a great stride in mending the circle that we share with all four colors of man. We, as Dakotas, are very happy that there are people out there that are trying to understand that by using names like 'rum' and 'devil' to label sacred sites and places is degrading to our children, our elders and also to our ancestors. These places were already named in our language by our people because of their special meaning. When we have to tell our children why these places have been named after a poison or the worst words in their language. It is demoralizing to us to have to explain why a place is named after the same things that helped to steal our land and language. To have to be reminded of the cultural genocide that has been perpetrated on all Indian people. So, in changing the name back to the Dakota language, it will help in the healing process that our people continue to deal with."

In a 2008 article about a Dakota youth canoe trip down the Wakan Wakpa ("Rum River") LeMoine LaPointe, director of the Healthy Nations Program at the Minneapolis American Indian Center, is quoted as saying: It’s also important to the health of Native American people that the river be called by its original name.

"Rum is a pollutant, a destructive chemical. It’s not a poison river, it’s a holy river,” he said. “That river has contributed to the development of successful tribal communities for thousands of years. Recognizing it as Wakan Wakpa, Holy River, reattaches a positive connotation that will be felt in mind, body and spirit in many different ways.”

Reference:
"The trading companies brought their rum and it flowed freely during trading sessions. Drinking bouts and brawls were continuous among the natives while the traders justified their practices on the grounds of competition. This practice of getting his Indian trading partners drunk bothered Alexander Henry [a leading pioneer of the British-Canadian fur trade] even if it didn't stop him from using the technique himself. His February 25th, 1803 journal entry says, 'Now the Indians are totally neglecting all their ancient customs and manners and to what else can this degeneracy be ascribed but to their intercourse with us. If there is a murder among the Soultex it is always in a drinking match, so that we may in truth say that Liquor is the mother of all evil in the North West.'" (PPB, Dakota Datebook, 3-12-09)" ref.

Reference:
"Pressures from fur and whiskey traders goes much further in explaining the Indian wars than any lack of "civilized" values. Who needed civilizing were the entrepreneurs who used such poisons to make the Indian dependent. While in one sense, we have become inured to the idea of alcohol being a symptom of American Indian despair, it is important to understand how this substance entered their society. Today, there are all sorts of investigative journalists reporting on how the contras introduced crack cocaine into the United States in order to fund the war in Nicaragua. An investigation of the introduction of whiskey into the northwestern Plains states would also be a good idea. Just as British capitalism used rum, sugar and slaves to drive its commercial expansion into the Caribbeans and American south, so did the fur trading companies use a combination of whiskey, furs and alcohol-addicted Indian hunters to increase their wealth." ref.

Reference:
"To put it more bluntly, the British and American fur traders lured the Indians into the cash trade by offering them whiskey, the one thing that was not available on the open range. They used whiskey in the same way that the British used opium in China. It was a way of breaking down the doors of a local economy that had little use for the lure of imported goods. ref.

Reference:
"The trading posts also introduced many types of alcohol (especially brandy and rum) for trade. European traders flocked to the continent and made huge profits off the exchange. ref.

Reference:
"One of the Dakota antagonists was the Ojibwa. These conflicts became exacerbated with the arrival of the White cultural, especially with the trading posts selling guns and whiskey, voyageurs and trappers selling guns to the Ojibwa, and possible government activity, which encouraged the arming of the Ojibwa." ref.

Reference:
"In 1683 Nicholas Perrot established a post at the mouth of the Wisconsin. In 1689 he established Fort Perrot near the lower end of Lake Pepin, on the Minnesota side, the first post within the Sioux territory, and took formal possession of their country for France. The Jesuit Father Joseph Marest, officially designated 'Missionary to the Nadouesioux', was one of the witnesses at the ceremony and was again with the tribe some twelve years later. Another post was built by Pierre LeSueur, near the present Red Wing about 1693." ref.

Reference:
"Wars with the Chippewas [Ojibwe] and the Crees contributed to the dispersion of the eastern Sioux - collectively called the Santee - from their homes around Mille Lacs, the Chippewas being armed by French Traders." ref.

French fur traders were transporting rum and other dangerously additive and often harmful alcohol beverages from their trading posts to the Dakota people's villages on the headwaters of the Wakan/"Rum" River. They were supplying them with enough alcohol to cause a lot of the Dakota people to become alcoholic drunkards. This was a method that the European colonists used to separate the Dakota from their traditional religion and spirituality - a religion and spirituality that was intimately connected with their sacred relationship with their land and, consequently, to their attachment to it. This made it easier to lure a lot of the Dakota people to leave their sacred homeland villages located on the headwaters of the Wakan/"Rum" River and go to distant trading posts where they could get a steady supply of rum and whisky to satisfy their alcoholic addition cravings.

After using dangerous and addictive substances (rum and whiskey) to lure a lot of the Dakota people from their Mille Lacs Lake homeland villages and entire Wakan/"Rum" River Watershed homeland...the French fur trading Europeans instigated fights between the newly arrived band of Ojibwe and the Mille Lacs Lake Dakota and also pushed dangerous and addictive substances on them, this eventually caused the historic 1750 "fight". A "fight" wherein French fur traders' guns and gun powder bombs were used to violently force the remaining unarmed Dakota from their Mille Lacs Lake homeland villages. And after being forces from their villages they moved away from their entire Wakan/"Rum" River Watershed homeland. And did so, to avoid further fights with a, French weapons armed, band of Ojibwe. A band that was diluted and prone to violently attack its supposed enemies because the white man had spread the decease of alcoholism amongst its people.

First, the European French explores came and claimed the Dakota people's sacred homeland for France. Then alcohol beverage supplying fur trading posts were established to take advantage of the Dakota people's weakness to abuse alcohol. And by taking advantage of this addiction weakness of theirs they were successful at tricking/luring a lot of Dakota from their Mille Lacs Lake homeland villages and entire Wakan/"Rum" River Watershed homeland.

After white colonists tricked and used a band of newly arrived Ojibwe to violently force the remaining Dakota from their Mille Lacs Lake homeland villages and entire Wakan/"Rum" River Watershed homeland, the white U.S.A. government built a fort near the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers (Fort Snelling) to protect a planned for massive migration of white "setters"/invaders into the area.

The U.S.A government knew that the new "settlers" would invade and occupy the Dakota people's Wakan/"Rum" River Watershed homeland and convince/coerce the band of Ojibwe that white colonists tricked and used to force the Dakota from their sacred homeland would be much easier to subjugate, or convince that they did not own any land in the area, than it would have been to convince/coerce the Dakota to believe that they did not own any land in the area. reference ~ 18th paragraph This is a good example of the strategy that the white invaders used to steal Native lands, reduce their numbers so that they would be easier to exploit, and destroy their traditional religion, language and culture.

According to European international colonial law, or the "doctrine of discovery," a doctrine based on two 15th century Papal bulls that denied indigenous peoples their fundamental human rights, the European colonists' land "purchasing"/stealing transactions were not finalized until the Natives living in an area were "subjugated", or coerced to believe that they (red pagans) did not own the land that they were living on and that only white European Christian nations could (and did) own land...and later, by extension, the "doctrine of discovery" was modified and incorporated into U.S.A. law (Johnson vs McIntosh, 1823). This law states that only the newly established white Christian (U.S.A.) nation owned land. And that the native/aboriginal peoples' no longer owned land. ref. 1. ref. 2. ref. 3.

To justify the dispossession of the Indian tribes' homelands the U.S. Justice Department even cited two scriptures in the Bible: That what lands any of the Indians in this jurisdiction have possessed and improved, by subduing the same, they have just right unto, according to that in Gen. 1, 28, and Chapter 9, 1, and Psal. 115, 16.

An accompanying footnote of the U.S. legal brief reads: Gen. 1:28. “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: . . . Chap. 9:1. “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.” Psal. 115:16. “The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s; but the earth hath he given to the children of men [humans].”

Another Bible scripture reads: "I shall give thee the heathen [dehumanized indigenous tribes] for thine [you Christians'] inheritance [property], and the uttermost parts of the earth [the area to be 'replenished' by Christians] for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." (Psalm 2 KJV)

Because of the U.S. Justice Department's religious form of reasoning based on Christian dominionism/bigotry, which says that Indian nations are not entitled to exist free from U.S. domination because their ancestors were not humans because they were not Christians when the Christian invaders first arrived, the Indian nations' human rights to own land and be free independent sovereign nations are still being denied. To this present-day Indian nations are still living under the dominating tryrannical U.S. government. ref.

The band of Ojibwe that was tricked and used to force the Dakota from their Mille Lacs Lake homeland villages and entire Wakan/"Rum" River Watershed homeland were later given a small section of U.S.A. Mille Lacs Lake area land to live on, and they were also given hunting, fishing and gathering "treaty" rights within the area. They were given special "treaty" rights to U.S.A. stolen Dakota land for helping the white people force the Dakota from their Mille Lacs Lake homeland villages and entire Wakan/"Rum" River Watershed homeland.

The Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe oral tradition tells that, by the end of the 1750 Kathio battle, their ancestors had violently forced the Dakota from their Mille Lacs area homeland by using the white colonists guns and gun powder to do so; and that that is how they took possession of the Mille Lacs area land that they now live on. However, it is no longer their land, it is U.S.A. land that they now live on.

The following statement can be found in a Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe book about their heritage: "The Dakota, according to Warren, occupied the lake (Mille Lacs Lake) at two large villages, one being located at Cormorant Point (Nay-Ah-Shing Point) and the other at the outlet of the lake. A few miles below this last village, they (the Dakota) possessed another considerable village on a smaller lake, connected with Mille Lacs by a portion of the Rum River which runs though it. These villages consisted mostly of earthen wigwams...'. At Nay-ah-shing the Chippewa attacked and destroyed the Dakota village. A few survivors escaped to the next village at the outlet of the Rum River. At this village, the Chippewa warriors threw bags of gunpowder into the smoke holes of the earth lodges. They exploded killing those inside. The few who escaped from this village moved to the last village on the smaller lake. Here the Chippewa also drove them out. The last of the Spirit Lake Dakota escaped south down the Rum River in their canoes." "After 1750, the Mille Lacs region became a permanent homeland for many Chippewa families."

On a Minnesota Historical Society plaque located near the mouth of the river that is currently named "Rum River" there are the words: "About 1750 the Chippewa moving westward from lake Superior captured the village, and by this decisive battle drove the Sioux permanently into southern Minnesota." ref.

The following two quotes present the Lower Sioux Mdewakanton perspective on why their ancestors left their sacred homeland at the headwaters of the Wakan/"Rum" River around 1750. (1.) "Long ago, the Mdewakanton Dakota lived around Mille Lacs Lake in central Minnesota. Around 1750, our ancestors were displaced by another nation, the Anishinnabe, and they relocated throughout the southern portion of the state." (2.) "This was not the last time the Mdewakantons would be forced into a new home. Treaties in 1851 and 1858 resulted in nearly 7,000 Dakota people being moved onto a narrow reservation along the Minnesota River." ref.

The S.D. Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe states on a website about their history that: "The Santee Sioux bands had begun a stage of transition into a new culture with their expulsion from their traditional homeland around Mille Lacs."

On Nebraska's Santee Tribe website where is an article with the heading SANTEE SIOUX AGENCY 1918. In the article, this former Minnesota Dakota (Santee) band states that: "The Santee's defeat by the Chippewas at the Battle of Kathio in the late 1700s forced them to move to the southern half of the state which would bring them into close contact and eventually conflict with the white settlers. From that point on, survival for the Santee Tribe would become a daily struggle." ref. The "daily struggle" eventually escalated causing the historic 1862 Dakota conflict.

Reference:
"More challenging to the defense of Minnesota was the Dakota War of 1862. Grieved by the loss of their lands, dissatisfied with reservation life, and ultimately brought to a condition of near starvation, the Dakota appealed to US Indian agencies without success. The murder of five whites by four young Dakota Indians ignited a bloody uprising in which more than 300 whites and an unknown number of Indians were killed. In the aftermath, 38 Dakota captives were hanged for 'voluntary participation in murders and massacres,' and the Dakota remaining in Minnesota were removed to reservations in Nebraska. Meanwhile, the Ojibwa were relegated to reservations on remnants of their former lands." ref.

What happened to the Dakota in 1862 and afterward was a grievous crime against humanity. If it had occurred in this present day and age the United Nations and the international community would condemn it and declare it to be ethnocide and genocide. A United Nations world court indictment would be issued and the perpetrators of this ethnocide and genocide would be rounded up, tried, convicted and punished for crimes against humanity.

In 2008, when it was time for Minnesota to celebrate its sesquicentennial, Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty appointed a Minnesota Sesquicentennial Commission (MSC). The staff of the MSC had a page on their web site titled May is American Indian Month in Minnesota. The statement there was intended to "...bear witness to the tragic side of Minnesota Statehood in 1858 and acknowledge the pain, loss and suffering of the Native American culture in Minnesota." The statement continued with the healing words:

"Minnesotans pride themselves today on living in a state that is forward-thinking and compassionate. We have become a haven for refugees from countries where genocide still occurs. We recoil at the holocausts of World War I and II, and the more recent acts of savagery in Eastern Europe and the Middle East."

"Yet we remain either unaware of or unable to look at our own history and acknowledge the painful wounds of ethnocide and genocide right here in Minnesota. We have a very hard time acknowledging that the pain remains and that it has affected much of our history thru to the present day."

A former Minnesota Governor, Alexander Ramsey, made an ethnocidal and genocidal declaration on Sept. 9, 1862. He declared that "the Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state."

Because of Governor Ramsey's declaration, hangings occurred, concentration camps and forced imprisonments took place, forced gender segregation occurred, invasions into Dakota Territory to hunt down and terrorize those trying to flee occurred, bounties on Dakota scalps were officially sanctioned, Dakota scalps were taken and sold -- all these atrocities are examples of how Ramsey's genocide and ethnic cleansing agenda was successfully implemented. The Dakota have never recovered from these atrocities committed against them.

Not only did the Dakota suffer the consequences of ethnocidal and genocidal policies, many other indigenous peoples throughout our nation also suffered from (first) European and then (later) American ethnocidal and genocidal crimes. This is a painful legacy that Minnesotans and other Americans will have to eventually address. To ease a people's conscience and provide reparative justice to those so radically abused, recognition of ethnocide and genocide will demand restoring the indigenous peoples' human rights to them. Including, granting them both, absolute root ownership of much of their traditional/ancestral homeland and full sovereignty rights on their newly regained land. ref.

Summary:

The Dakota had been living in their sacred Wakan/"Rum" River Watershed homeland for many centuries. But then, around 1750, French colonists, after using the disease of alcohol addiction to lure a lot of the Dakota people from their homeland, tricked and used an alcohol manipulated band of Ojibwe to violently force (with the help of the colonists' gun powder and guns) the remaining unarmed Dakota to move from, not only their Mille Lacs area homeland villages located at the headwaters of their sacred Wakan/"Rum" River, but also from their entire Wakan/"Rum" River Watershed homeland, to the southern half of the state which would bring them into close contact and eventually conflict with the white "settlers"/invaders.

From that point on, survival for the Dakota would become a daily struggle. Around one hundred years after their expulsion from their sacred Wakan/"Rum" River Watershed homeland, the historic 1862 Dakota conflict occurred. A conflict that ended with most of the Dakota being exiled from Minnesota into neighboring states. When all of the white mans' injustices committed against the Dakota are added up, it is quite clear that, according to the United Nations definition of genocide, a Minnesota genocide was committed against the Dakota people.

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My email address is Wahkonrainbow@gmail.com

My facebook group named Regaining the Dakota Oyate's Mille Lacs Homeland is located here.

Rum River Name Change Movement

Related articles of mine:

Healing the Dakota's Painful Wounds Of Genocide

Alcohol was used to commit atrocities against Native people

Conquest

Helping the Lakota/Dakota People To Regain Their Traditional/Ancestral Mille Lacs Homeland

The Coldwater Spring Deception

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News

On November 14, 2016, Indian Country Today Media Network (ICTMN), the world's largest Indian news source, posted a summitted comment of mine on an article by Steven Newcomb, a world renowned Indigenous/Indian activist who is on the cutting edge of the global movement to usher in a new age and new world order wherein indigenous peoples will regain their traditional ancestral homelands and full nation-state sovereignty rights. My comment is about my effort to help the Dakota Oyate regain their sacred Mille Lacs traditional ancestral homeland in Minnesota. The ICTMN article that I am referring to is entitled ‘Void When Initiated; You Can’t Grant What You Don’t Possess’. ICTMN posted three selective comments on the article. My comment is the third comment. An article about this comment of mine is located here.

On November 19, 2016, the Union-Times, a newspaper for the Minnesota, Mille Lacs County communities of Princeton and Milaca, published a letter to the editor of mine that was given the title, Dahlheimer: Group – Land title to Dakota nullified. [This letter is also located here on my website.] Princeton and Milaca are cities located on the "Rum" (Wakan) River, a traditional and recently reclaimed "important spiritual and cultural artery" to the Dakota Indian tribe.

Articles with (1.) excerpts from the above article, (2.) a presentation of my name, and (3.) a link to this article:

UNIVERSITY Of MINNESOTA
Minnesota's Multilingualism and English learner education* - A Historical Prespective by Eliane Tarone - University of Minnesota

Global Research, November 22, 2016
The History of Dakota Resistance, The Crimes Committed against America’s First Nations (1492-2016) by Dr. Gary G. Kohls MD

Consortiumnews.com, November 28, 2014
The Troubling History of Thanksgiving by Dr. Gary G. Kohls MD

Reader, November 23, 2016
From Columbus to Plymouth Rock to the Sioux Uprising to the Standing Rock Water Protectors Resistance Movement of 2016 by Dr. Gary G. Kohls MD

MINNPOST, July 3, 2014
For Ojibwe, Lake Mille Lacs is a way of life — not just a fishery *** Distorted History Article by Melanie Benjamin ... Submitted Comment by Mark Kessel

TRANSCEND Media Service, November 30, 2015
Duty to Warn - Why Minnesota Governor Ramsey and Sibley Should Be Posthumously Tried for Crimes against humanity by Dr. Gary G. Kohls MD

Mass Murder Inc. - Native American
Native American Genocide