- Improved academic performance of America Indian students;
- Improvement of the quality of the education in Minnesota;
- Preservation of the self awareness, artistry, history, language, and cultural traditions of the Dakota and Ojibwa people;
- Documentation on contributions the Dakota and Ojibwe people made to all aspects of Minnesota society;
- Development of better informed and culturally appropriate responses to the challenges of the Dakota and Ojibwe people.
This traveling exhibit will explore American Indian treaties in Minnesota. The exhibition, which consists of twenty banners featuring text, images, and a video presentation, reveals how treaties affected the lands and lifeways of the indigenous peoples of the place we now call Minnesota, and explains why these binding agreements between nations still matter today.
Key learning concepts include:
- treaties are considered the supreme laws of the land
- treaties recognize independent, self-governing Indian Nations
- treaties represented land loss, land removal, and cultural erosion
- treaties represented the retention of some lands, resources, and rights
- treaties are still relevant today and Native people are members of sovereign nations within the United States endowed with unique rights within the U.S. Constitution.
Learn more: www.mnhum.org/treaties.
The Minnesota Humanities Center and the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council are collaborating with the National Museum of the American Indian on a traveling exhibit exploring U.S.-Indian treaties in this place we now call Minnesota. This programming is a real and important Absent Narrative or missing story about this state's formation and in whose stories lie the foundation of indigenous issues still alive today.
This programming is meant to share important cultural information with American Indian and non-American Indian peoples alike, that they may better understand the true circumstances surrounding this land, its use, and even the treatment of the land’s indigenous peoples today. This programming begs discourse on ethics, stewardship, equal rights, and a host of other highly relevant cultural and social issues affecting all Americans in the 21st Century.