Lake Traverse Reservation is located in South Dakota and is home to 10,840 Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota people. It is
composed of descendants of the Isanti people. Isan means "Knife" and Isanti refers to the Knife Lake and Mille Lacs
Lake people of the Dakota nation. In the month of May, 2008 the editor of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Nation's
on-line
newspaper published the following article.
______________________________________________________________________
Sota Volume #32 Issue #22
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Sota guest editorial-
Healing the painful wounds of a genocide in Minnesota
By Thomas Dahlheimer
The Minnesota Sesquicentennial Commission has acknowledged that their state committed ethnocide and genocide
against American Indians during its early history.
(ref.1)
"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."
"Minnesota is home to 11 Tribal Nations. Tribes from Canada, the Dakotas, and Nebraska and elsewhere, and tribal
members here in Minnesota and others are coming together to participate in ceremonies of reconciliation, such as
that in Winona in May during Statehood Week, thanks to the efforts of native peoples and non-native peoples
working together for many years hosting such gatherings to bring about education and awareness."
When Minnesotans become aware of or able to look at their own history and acknowledge the painful wounds of
ethnocide and genocide right in their own state they will be inspired to go through a radical social, political
and religious transformation. A peaceful cultural revolution will occur and Minnesotans will be changed for the
better. And this will help to heal the Dakota Oyate's painful wounds caused by ethoncide and genocide.
Leonard Wabasha, a hereditary chief of the Dakota and director of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux (Dakota)
Community Cultural Resource Department, invited me to address the Dakota tribal leaders and governmental
officials during the May 16th reconciliatory ceremony in Winona.
During the reconciliatory ceremony, I spoke about the 15th century papal bull [Inter Caetera]. A papal bull
which was primarily responsible for Minnesota's ethnocide and genocide against the Dakota Oyate.
A movement to revoke the papal bull has been ongoing for a number of years. It was initiated by the Indigenous
Law Institute in 1992. At the Parliament of World Religions in 1994 over 60 indigenous delegates drafted a
Declaration of Vision.
It reads, in part: "We call upon the people of conscience in the Roman Catholic hierarchy to persuade Pope
John II to formally revoke the Inter Caetera Bull of May 4, 1493, which will restore our fundamental human
rights. That Papal document called for our Nations and Peoples to be subjugated so the Christian Empire and
its doctrines would be propagated. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling Johnson v. McIntosh 8 Wheat 543 (in 1823)
adopted the same principle of subjugation expressed in the Inter Caetera Bull. This Papal Bull has been,
and continues to be, devastating to our religions, our cultures, and the survival of our populations."
(ref.2)
I am on a mission to restore the fundamental human rights of Indigenous peoples.
(ref. 3)
Colorado is the first state to admit genocide against our nation’s indigenous peoples. The Colorado Legislature
passed a resolution Wednesday April 30, 2008 comparing the deaths of millions of American Indians to the Holocaust
and other acts of genocide around the world.
The resolution says Europeans intentionally caused many American Indian deaths and that early American
settlers often treated Indians with "cruelty and inhumanity." Sen. Suzanne Williams, D-Aurora, a Comanche
Indian, said: "Colleagues, this resolution is a recognition that up to 120 million indigenous people have
died as a result of European migration to what is now the United States of America."
(ref. 4)
Thomas Dahlheimer
Director of Rum River Name Change Organization, Inc.
Wahkon, Minnesota
Website:
http://www.towahkon.org/.
