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https://apnews.com/article/minnesota-native-american-land-back-b09c0dc8dd6289a1545684e04599f94f>
"GRANITE FALLS, Minn. (AP) — Golden prairies and winding rivers of a Minnesota
state park also hold the secret burial sites of Dakota people who died as the
United States failed to fulfill treaties with Native Americans more than a
century ago. Now their descendants are getting the land back.
The state is taking the rare step of transferring the park with a fraught
history back to a Dakota tribe, trying to make amends for events that led to a
war and the largest mass hanging in U.S. history.
“It’s a place of holocaust. Our people starved to death there,” said Kevin
Jensvold, chairman of the Upper Sioux Community, a small tribe with about 550
members just outside the park.
The Upper Sioux Agency State Park in southwestern Minnesota spans a little more
than 2 square miles (about 5 square kilometers) and includes the ruins of a
federal complex where officers withheld supplies from Dakota people, leading to
starvation and deaths.
Decades of tension exploded into the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 between
settler-colonists and a faction of Dakota people, according to the Minnesota
Historical Society. After the U.S. won the war, the government hanged more
people than in any other execution in the nation. A memorial honors the 38
Dakota men killed in Mankato, 110 miles (177 kilometers) from the park.
Jensvold said he has spent 18 years asking the state to return the park to his
tribe. He began when a tribal elder told him it was unjust Dakota people at the
time needed to pay a state fee for each visit to the graves of their ancestors
there.
Lawmakers finally authorized the transfer this year when Democrats took control
of the House, Senate and governor’s office for the first time in nearly a
decade, said state Sen. Mary Kunesh, a Democrat and descendant of the Standing
Rock Nation."
Via Frederick Wilson II.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
