A Written Response from Canada

Why would someone, a Dakota from Canada, suggest such an honoring of our late Dakota relatives who were force marched 140years ago from the Lower Sioux Agency in Minnesota to a concentration camp in Fort Snelling, Minnesota? The following comments will provide an insight. It may take a bit of time to read it, but we as Dakota people now have to begin telling our side of the story, so that our Dakota children and grandchildren can truly begin to understand our own Dakota history. The information in this article may appear repetitive at times.¹ This repetition, however, modeled on the traditional aboriginal style of storytelling with its cyclical learning and communication, is intended to make this more meaningful, understandable, and accessible to the Dakota people.² In addition, I intend to provide an emic, social scientific perspective, referred to as the "insider's" or "native's" perspective of reality.³ The information to be provided is based on the fundamental principles of social scientific inquiry, which includes both oral Eastern Dakota history, specifically the Dakota bloodlines of M'dewakantonwan, Wahpekute, Wahpetonwan, and Sissitonwan, as well as previous written documentation. Thus the story of the Dakota Commemorative March is provided from a Dakota perspective.

First, one needs to know that after the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, while many of our Dakota relatives were force marched from the Lower Sioux Agency to a concentration camp in Fort Snelling, there were many of our Dakota people who moved back north of the 49th parallel, to the country now known as Canada. Written documentation and Eastern Dakota tribal history reveal that this land has always been a part of the Indigenous tribal homelands of our Dakota people as members of the Oceti Sakowin or Seven Council Fires.⁴ Further, many of our Dakota First Nations in Canada have Pre-Confederation Treaty Medals with the British Crown received in 1763, 1779, and 1812 from King George III.⁵

Second, through oral history that has been passed down from our Dakota parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, and more recently through written documentation found in the National Archives of Canada, as well as in Minnesota, many of our Dakota people of Canada are now just beginning to find our relatives across the border.⁶ For me, I can truly say that this would not have happened if it were not for my Tahansi (cousin) Chris Mato Nunpa, who along with his daughter, my niece Angela, and their families, made an effort to come from Minnesota to Canada in 1996 looking for their Dakota relatives. To me, this showed courage, for they had done this from their heart.

Yes, I can say with pride that Tahansi Chris Mato Nunpa, his children, and their families truly understand and have lived up to the Dakota saying Mitakuye Owasin. ⁷ I now have come to understand why my late uncle, Deksi Ernest Goodvoice, passed on the Dakota name Wanbditanka⁸ (Big Eagle) to me. I say pidamayaye do (thank you) to my Tahansi and his family for showing me where one of our Dakota heroes, Wanbditanka, is buried adjacent to the Upper Sioux Reservation in Minnesota. Yes, we as Dakota do have heroes. In my numerous trips to Minnesota since then, I always stop and offer tobacco at the burial site of my namesake, Wanbditanka.

Because of my Tahansi Chris Mato Nunpa and his family's encouragement in seeking out surviving Dakota relatives in Canada, and based on family oral history passed down from my late uncles Robert Goodvoice and Archie Waditika and my late mother Mahpeya Ku Winyan (Edith Omani), I was able to locate written documentation about my late great-grandfather, Anpetu Wasicu, also known as John Sioux, in the National Archives of Canada, cited in the 1901 Canadian Census as a U.S. Sioux Indian. Further, I was able to locate written documentation at the Minnesota Historical Society about my late great-grandfather Anpetu...