Part 13: A step toward healing

By John Biewen

This past August, to mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the U.S.-Dakota War, a symbolic walk home was organized by several Dakota bands and reservations. Gwen and I went to the ceremony.

"We're standing here today in the midst of cornfields under an incredibly beautiful blue sky, at the state line between South Dakota and Minnesota," said Gwen, with emotion in her voice, "as we make that walk back into Minnesota 150 years after we were forced to leave."

The highway patrol has closed off a section of road where South Dakota's Highway 34 meets Minnesota Highway 30. There are a dozen Dakota on horseback, and many more on foot. A handful of white Minnesotans stand on the side of the road and greet them with signs saying, "Welcome home."

"Thank you. Thank you for coming back," said one woman to the group.

About 40 yards shy of the state line, about 100 people form a big circle around eight older Dakota women. They pass eagle feathers across the line into Minnesota and sweep sage smoke on themselves. There are prayers and tears. Gwen and I stood on a side road near the border.

"I have a much different response than I had anticipated," said Gwen. "I think it started yesterday when they told us Governor Dayton had declared today a day of remembrance and reconciliation, and he had repudiated Governor Ramsey's words about extermination and exile."

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton said he was appalled by Gov. Alexander Ramsey's words in 1862. Dayton stated flatly that the U.S. used deception and force to take Indian lands, and broke its promises.

"When I heard that, it was kind of overwhelming in a way that I hadn't anticipated," Gwen said. "I thought it would be, 'Yes, it's about time.' But that's not the way it felt. It was ... relief. It was an overwhelming feeling. And I wanted to cry, but I was in a restaurant and was glad I had sunglasses on, so I held it together then."

"About two weeks ago I was giving a presentation at the Minnesota Historical Society, and during the question session somebody said, 'What do you want? Do you want reparations?'" Gwen recalled. "And the person who asked the question was almost accusatory. 'What do you want? What more do you want?' And I said, what we want is acknowledgement that this happened. And so to hear what the governor did -- this is a turning point. We want to be acknowledged. And here it is."

INVENTING A 'FAKE HISTORY'

During this 150th anniversary year, there may have been more said in Minnesota about the 1862 war than in the last 100 years combined. There have been lots of broadcasts, newspaper articles, and talks in historical societies.

The history of every place is more complicated than the people who live there like to believe. And every moment in history is just as complex as the moment we're living in right now.

I have a friend, Tim Tyson, a historian at Duke University, who points out that in his home state of North Carolina, up to one-third of the white people were pro-Union during the Civil War. A year into the war, in 1862, that state elected a governor who'd opposed both slavery and secession.

"And yet there's no memory that white people opposed the Civil War. There's no memory that General Pickett, of Pickett's charge, came to Kinston, North Carolina in 1864, and the first thing he did was he hanged 22 local white boys on the courthouse lawn because they were loyal to the United States government," said Tyson. "You go down to Kinston now and you ... look at all those trucks and all those Confederate flag bumper stickers, and I just want to say, you don't know who you are. They hanged your great-granddaddy, and you got their flag on your bumper. That's kind of interesting."

"So we invent a fake history for ourselves that doesn't deal with the complexities," Tyson continued. "I think in some ways that's something the South and the upper Midwest have in common -- that there's a delusion at work about who we were. And that's why we have a hard time about who we are. So that kind of self-congratulatory history that passes for heritage - it keeps us from seeing ourselves and doing better."

One more place to see fake history? On the state seal of Minnesota. It shows a white farmer behind a plow, tilling the soil. He's looking up to watch an Indian man ride past on a horse. In 1983, the seal was redesigned to change the direction the Indian is facing, so he's now riding almost toward the farmer -- like a neighbor passing by.

In the original seal, though, adopted by Minnesota's first governor, Henry Sibley, the Indian is literally riding away into the sunset. He looks back at the white man. As far as one can tell, he's leaving willingly.

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