Waziyatawin Angela Wilson: Time to level

I would like to extend a big "thank you" to Lori Sturdevant for initiating an important public discussion regarding Dakota history and the sesquicentennial of Minnesota statehood ("A time when cultures met -- and clashed," Oct. 28). She rightly points out that for Minnesota's original people, statehood marked the ending of a way of life, and that there will be "no better opportunity for some serious truth-telling about early Minnesota."

That is exactly what some of us have proposed to the Minnesota Sesquicentennial Commission. We have argued that instead of celebrating some benign or positive historical legacy, the motto for the year should be "Minnesota: 150 Years of Statehood, The First Year of Truth-Telling." It is time for Minnesota to acknowledge the dark side of its past.

Sturdevant's article only touched on the deeper and larger issue of Minnesota's painful origins. Far worse than a "conflict resolution method" that "must never be repeated," what happened in 1862 and afterward remains one of the most heinous crimes in human history. If the same events were to happen today, the international community would accurately cry "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing," while most of Minnesota's founding fathers would be put on trial in criminal courts such as the Hague for crimes against humanity. Citizens of the state would, at the very least, be subject to moral condemnation for their support and execution of genocidal policies.

While many of the atrocities of the 1862 war are now better known -- such as the mass hanging of 38 Dakota patriots, the concentration-camp imprisonment, and the forced removal of Dakota men, women and children from the state -- the larger context is still not acknowledged.

Once Gov. Alexander Ramsey made his infamous declaration on Sept. 9, 1862, that "the Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state," his genocidal agenda was widely and wildly supported by white Minnesotans. His call was very clearly a demand for what we would today identify as ethnic cleansing. Everything that followed fit into this larger agenda, an extraordinarily successful genocidal effort from which Dakota people have never recovered.

The hangings, the concentration camps and forced imprisonments, the forced gender segregation, the punitive campaigns into Dakota Territory to hunt down and terrorize those trying to flee, the bounties on Dakota scalps -- all are examples of how Ramsey's plan was successfully implemented. In addition, Dakota people suffered the consequences of similarly genocidal policies carried out nationally against all indigenous peoples. What this means is that genocide in Minnesota and the United States was systematic and that it was carried out and supported in different forms by regular people throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

This also means that Minnesotans and other Americans have a painful legacy to address. In the context of Minnesota history, Dakota people paid a terrible price so that white Minnesotans could claim this beautiful and bountiful land. The first step in dealing with this past is public acknowledgement of the magnitude of harms perpetrated against Dakota people. Once this history of genocide is acknowledged, Minnesotans will have to ask themselves, "What does recognition of genocide demand?"

Certainly, a celebration of what was gained as a consequence of genocide would be unthinkable. If those who are aware of the genocide continue to celebrate, they will only add to the lengthy list of wrongs already done to Dakota people. When Minnesotans celebrate statehood, we hear that genocide is acceptable as long as white people benefit from it. This is a message we have heard our entire lives. Not one generation of Minnesotans has attempted to send a different message. What will this generation decide to do?

I believe the recognition of genocide requires a period of mourning. It requires contrition. And it requires reparative justice. As long as Dakota people live and breathe, we will struggle for the recognition of our humanity and for justice in our Minisota homeland.

Waziyatawin Angela Wilson is editor of "In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors: The Dakota Commemorative Marches of the 21st Century" and author of the forthcoming book, "What Does Justice Look Like? The Dakota Struggle for Justice in Our Minisota Homeland."