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[“Honor Song” sung in Kiowa language by Cozad Singers]

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[Speaking Ojibwe] My name is The Star That Shines Low and I'm of the Bald Eagle Clan, and I'm from the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation in Minnesota.

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My English name is Bradley Harrington, and I currently serve as the Director of Tribal Relations for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

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One of the projects that I'm very honored to be able to serve on is the Upper Sioux State Park transfer.

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As an Ojibwe person, I do believe that this story is really best told by the Dakota.

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And they got resources online that you can find where the Dakota tell their story. It's a

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real story of how America was trying to, not just relocate or remove people from an area, but erase them from the face of the earth.

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The Upper Sioux Agency State Park is located in southwestern Minnesota, adjacent to the Upper Sioux Indian Community’s current land base, near the city of Granite Falls.

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It's about 1200 acres

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with

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tall prairie grass.

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There's a tree line

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near the buildings,

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and then there's kind of like a valley. And down there's a river.

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And a lot of it,

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you know, you can look out on it and almost see as far as you can see.

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Somehow for the Upper Sioux Community, the Upper Sioux Agency site came under Minnesota DNR control.

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Chairman Jensvold of the Upper Sioux Indian Community,

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- Has been making the request for nearly two decades

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to have that land returned back to the Upper Sioux.

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In 1805

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America started

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making movements towards what was then the Minnesota Territory

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and,

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there was a series of treaties and, of course, the first one,

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Treaty of 1805 is

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contested.

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But eventually the Dakota would cede the southern part of Minnesota, and they were to reside on a reservation which was ten miles north and south of the Minnesota River.

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They’re trying to feed people on a smaller chunk of land and the rations that were promised to the Dakota people were being withheld.

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The United States and

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the early founders of the Territory of Minnesota,

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they wanted them to move. They wanted them to go west.

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So the community, the Dakota communities there were then put in a very, very dire, critical state. You know, hungry kids, hungry elders, hungry people,

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- [voiceover] Our ancestors fought for our survival. They had to go to war to fight for survival. If they wouldn’t have fought, we would’ve all just died. We would’ve starved to death.

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- Very, very, very oppressed.

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People that used to be able to roam the land. They used to be able to visit their sacred sites and, and now they're being confined to these small areas and basically starved out

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And, the story as I know it, that I've been able to learn, it goes that some of the men of the village attempted to go steal their rations from the the Indian agency building there

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- [voiceover] On August 17th, 1862, four hungry Dakota hunters killed five white settlers at Acton Township, Meeker County. Some Dakota seized that moment to declare war on the whites, who would not keep their promises, and to reclaim their homelands. In the early morning hours of August 18th, they went to war.

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- That, kind of kicked off a

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series of

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battles.

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The United States would say that the Dakota provoked that and attacked the citizens of the town, but it was a whole decades-long process of genocidal tactics being made against the Dakota People

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and it all came to a peak as they were starving in their communities. And,

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eventually,

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the battles stopped and

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the Dakota People had been

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exiled out of the state of Minnesota, and then the United States Congress abrogated their treaties.

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So,

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they ultimately got pushed west.

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Decades later,

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their communities were recognized

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during the long spans of Indian reorganization.

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1963

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is when they established the Upper Sioux Agency State Park.

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- [voiceover] Upper Sioux Agency State Park is two square miles, and it's got a lot of varied topography because of the two river valleys that come together here.

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- So, when we think of state parks,

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it has, like, its essence and, a purpose. Right? A geographical feature, maybe there is a certain river or certain area, you know, people can experience terrain.

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- [voiceover] It's a mixture of both open prairies and woodlands. North-facing slopes and the Minnesota River valley are all heavily wooded.

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- But

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the Upper Sioux Agency is, is a tool, a tactic of genocidal practices made by the United States of America against the Dakota people.

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And now it's a recreational area.

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- [voiceover] There's three different camping opportunities in the park, and two of them are real close to the rivers.

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Chairman Jensvold

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he's a very, very thoughtful speaker.

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- I'm not only here on behalf of the 550 Tribal members that I represent, but also all of those future generations that depend upon my words today to compel you to move this bill forward on our behalf. And also all of our ancestors that have preceded in this world that's given me the opportunity to live today.

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- He has that spirited leadership in his Dakota way.

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It’s something very profound.

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And when he describes that

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his relatives, his community’s ancestors, the bones of his people

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are

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kind of scattered about the Upper Sioux Agency State Park,

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he expresses

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these words

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in a very, very heartfelt manner.

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- I use the word genocide, and I use the word holocaust because my ancestors died on that land. There are 13 known burial sites on that park, known to the United States, and countless others known only to the Dakota People. It is our ancestral homeland.

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- And they're right next to

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the state park. So they’ve got to see people having picnics on the graves of their ancestors, year by year, day by day.

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So, with Chairman Jensvold speaking about his community like that, hearing that in consultation, and then the state of Minnesota would talk about the bureaucracies involved, the administrative work that would go into doing the transfer. It was like they were talking about two different things. You know, they're the two different perspectives there.

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And they were coming at each other, but they just weren't quite lining up quite right.

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And then I remember after a, a consultation.

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we're discussing it there. And just something seemed to click.

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It just got boiled down to that this is the right thing to do. The return of the land to the Upper Sioux, regardless of any administrative barriers, it's the right thing to do for the Dakota People.

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So we started talking about it. What's it going to look like? What's everything involved? What's everything that the DNR has to do?

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When the state was expressing all of their barriers and everything it'll take to return the land and how impossible it was. the Chairman, in his own spirited way, said that's your problem. That's, it's not Upper Sioux's problem.

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Upper Sioux's problem is

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the bodies of our ancestors that have picnics laid across them year by year. That's Upper Sioux's problem. Your problem is that whole administrative process. So.

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I think that was that clicking moment that we experienced and where, on the state side, everything started making sense.

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So we went back and we started

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making a plan.

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But here's where a capable governing institution and planning comes in. So, as we are starting the planning at the DNR, months, months of planning now has gone by since that consultation.

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And then,

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we hear of this bill

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called the,

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Upper Sioux Agency State Park Land Transfer Bill coming out. So Upper Sioux was also talking to legislators of the state and a legislator agreed to submit the bill.

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So we at the DNR,

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we've been planning this out for months.

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It was looking to be a couple years.

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Minnesota State Legislature passed it. So it kind of put us on a fast track.

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It solved some of our barriers that we had

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so we went straight into

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community engagement.

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And

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here's more spirited leadership from the Upper Sioux. Chairman Jensvold and other members of the community attended those meetings. And I think that was some of the most powerful community engagement sessions that I've witnessed, that I've heard about.

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And the more that they happened, the more Upper Sioux was able to tell their story, it seemed to help.

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We are still moving forward with the return of the land, which is looking to be this year in 2024.

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A whole window of time to where it was looking to be 3 to 10 years long, we were able to accomplish in a little over about a year.

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When we're talking about land transfer, land back,

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it's a

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very powerful message.

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And

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when we start to get in to the work,

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it's a lot of commitment. There's a

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commitment to share, but there's also a commitment to learn.

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And

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each land parcel is going to have its own story, going to have its own history, own connections.

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And then, along with that, it's going to have its own story on ownership.

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How did it go from

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free

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land that was offered up for human beings to use, and how did it go from that to

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maybe being a fenced-off area that now has a single name deeded to be the ownership.

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So, one part that I think really made a strong impact with how the upper Sioux Agency land transfer took place is the Upper Sioux,

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they maintained their cultural connection.

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It was never about owning it because ownership is an American, European, Western term. They maintained that they didn't want it just to own it, right? They have strong cultural connections there, and that always aligned with how their leadership would express their want

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to have that land returned back to them.

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I don't want to speak for the Upper Sioux, but just me. I believe it's not going to fix... It's not going to erase anything that has happened to them.

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But it's going to empower them. It's going to give them access to energy that their ancestors had access to. It's gonna be a very important part of their history decades on down the road

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For the state, it's recognizing wrongdoing. Right? Sometimes it takes a lot just to be able to recognize wrongdoing.

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Sometimes it takes a long time to acknowledge, right? Recognition and acknowledgment are two different steps.

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And then the other part is, What are we going to do about it?

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A common phrase is we can't go back and change the past.

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Still

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we're talking

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thousands of years, 10,000 years,

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of connection that the Dakota People have to the land.

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Having it taken from them in that way....

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Loss of land,

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genocide carries trauma. And having to wake up and look out your window and

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see the wounds, see the

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tools

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used to inflict the trauma

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creates its own trauma over time. Intergenerational.

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With that, going back to the Upper Sioux, it's like they're given this back. With their own sovereignty, their own practical self-rule, they're able now to determine healing. They're able to take on, how they are going to benefit as a community without having that trauma constantly reoccurring day in and day out.

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On the state side,

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recognizing and acknowledging harm done, and figuring out a way to make reparations ain't going to completely wash their hands. But it's going to set them on a path to being able to have better working relationships, better relations with tribes once they're able to start making those reparations and letting those wounds heal.

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There has to be an action, right?

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For a wound to heal.

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I do believe that the state of Minnesota is recognizing that.

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With the state becoming more aware of the harm done, being able to understand it and then acknowledge it, we are then able to find paths on how to repair it.

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In Upper Sioux's case,

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this harm was done.

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It was detrimental

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to the Dakota People.

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It would be good,

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for our sake, and our healing’s sake, and our ancestors’ sake past, present and future, that this land be given back.

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It's not going to be the end. You know, there's lots to recognize, lots to acknowledge, and there's still a lot of work yet to be done.

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We still got, a world to save.

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water that can be clean; animals....our animal relatives to cohabitate with. So,

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with the wide spectrum of opportunity out there,

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I believe that we can get on a path to working together as one and achieving our common goal of having a livable world for our futures ahead.     [flute music and thunderstorm sound rises]