A teacher must understand the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the disciplines taught and be able to create learning experiences that make these aspects of subject matter meaningful for students.

As a social study teacher, I must understand and demonstrate my knowledge of the subject. I should understand the importance of certain concepts within my discipline. What are some of the misconception that we need to overcome for students to be fully informed? How do I prepare myself to rely on the information in ways that can relate to the students and gain the most out of the subject? I am an expert that guide students to be lifelong learns. I will use a different example to explain certain phenomena and use a multitude of medium to convey my messages. I will do my very best to encourage students to understand, analyze, interpret, and apply ideas from varied perspectives.

Subject Matter Sample

Dahir Wako

Mendota Mdewakanton Sovereignty: research paper for Indian America final class project, taught by Professor Pauline Danforth at Metrostate University.

Mendota Mdewakanton Sovereignty

This paper examines the struggle behind the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota community to be a sovereign nation. They have been seeking federal recognition for over 18 years through a process known as the Federal Acknowledgement Process. This process is governed by Code of Federal Regulations (CFD), title 25, part 83 that sets prerequisite procedures for establishing that an American Indian Group exists as an Indian Tribe (Utter, 2001). The difficulty behind such a lengthy process is that the elders who started petitioning the federal government have passed onto the next world by the time of a final determination by the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs. This paper will set forth the historical relevance of Mendota Mdewakanton community while it ascertains the need for Mendota Mdewakanton to attain its sovereignty.

It is important to understand the Dakota people were once the primary sovereign nation calling all of Minnesota and western Wisconsin their homelands. Although in early 18^th century the first dispute over territories that pushed the Dakota bands to the land south of the Minnesota River was between the advancing Ojibwe, and according to Westerman and White the treaties of 1851 marked the beginning of the Dakota’s exile from their homelands in Minnesota (Westerman & White, 2012). Treaties between the indigenous nations and the United States were used to acquire land for white settlement. As a result of these treaties, the federal government reaffirmed its special relationship with American Indian tribes through numerous congressional acts, executive orders, and court rulings to limit and restrain tribal sovereignty.

Despite incursion to push the native people from the area, no matter how far they have gone, they have journeyed back to Minnesota. However, the U. S. - Dakota War, which emerged from social injustice and deprivation of the Dakota people, exacerbated the situation, killing over 1,200 whites and Dakota (Meyer, 1968; Peacock, 2000; Westernman & White 2012). This resulted in widespread hatred for the Dakota among whites that punished the Dakota’s severely, regardless of their actions. Although more than 260 Dakotas had been sentenced to hang, President Abraham Lincoln pardoned the majority while approving the execution of 38 Dakota men to be hanged for public appeasement on December 26, 1862, in Mankato, Minnesota (Meyer, 1968; Westernman & White, 2012; Peacock & Day, 2000). This was the largest mass execution of Americans the U. S. government ever condoned. Due to the war, approximately 700 Dakotas were placed in a concentration camp below Fort Snelling, where many died (Peacock & Day, 200). In the spring of 1863, the remaining condemned men and the survivors of the Fort Snelling concentration camp were forcibly removed from Minnesota. However, a few hundred Dakota people remained in Minnesota, some providing assistance as scouts and soldiers in battles against their fellow Dakota (Peacock & Day, 2000; Meyer, 1968; Westernman & White, 2012). After the events of 1862, a small group took refuge in Mendota under the protection of Henry Sibley, who at that time was seeking to punish their relatives who had never been captured and others were protected in Faribault under Alexander Faribault and Bishop Henry Whipple, who continued to make use of their traditional resources (Westernman & White, 2012). Because of Henry Sibley’s protection, the Mendota Mdewakanton community has been continuously living in the Mendota area through and amidst all the conflicts.

The Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota are a non-federally recognized community consisting of a number of families of Dakota descent, mostly from the town of Mendota. Bruce White, a well-renowned historian and author of the Dakota people, who I had a pleasure of meeting at the Mendota Dakota Wacipi, their annual pow-wow event, directed me to relevant resources which include some of his work. The writing on the Mendota Mdewakanton Tribe board page, entitled “Thank you, Bruce, for writing this story,” published in March 15, 2009 links the Mendota Mdewakanton lineage to the long living Dakota bands (Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Tribe, 2009). In the article, White states, “Many are descended from Angelique Renville, who was a member of Little Crow’s Kaposia band of Dakota prior to 1862 and was Little Crow’s cousin. Angelique Renville married Hypolite Dupuis, who was the bookkeeper for Henry H. Sibley” (Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Tribe, 2009). Due to this connection, White believes Angelique Renville, along with her other relatives, were not exiled from Minnesota with the other Dakota in the spring of 1863. Although they are intermarried with other tribes and countries, Mendota Mdewakanton lineage continued to live at Mendota to this day.

There is nothing more important to Indian people than their sovereignty. However, there needs to be a deeper understanding of what the term “sovereignty” means since its interpretation differs among different people. Marge Anderson, Chief Executive of Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, states “sovereignty is often a hard concept for people to grasp [since] there is no clear definition of sovereignty” (Anderson, 1996, p. 1). The term original derived from the Latin term “superanus” through the French term “souveraineté,” which was originally meant to be equivalent to supreme power (Levy, 2006). However, in practice, it has often departed in its definition, concept, and application. Some define sovereignty as the quality of having independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory, while the current notion of state sovereignty contains four aspects, consisting of “territory, population, authority and recognition” (Anderson, 1996; Biolsi, 2005; Levy, 2006). In this paper, we are especially interested in ascertaining sovereignty for Mdewakanton community through recognition of federal government by the realm of international examples of what intergovernmental recognition means. For example, at the creation of Israel, the United States was the first country to recognize their independence. Many African nations, after the colonization, sought to obtain diplomatic recognition from other nations. This is the type of recognition that the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota seeking to attain from the Federal Government because without it, they are not considered a sovereign tribe.

In the United States, there are three types of sovereign government: there is the federal government, sometimes called the supreme sovereign; the state governments, which derive their sovereignty from the federal government; and there are Indian governments, whose sovereignty predates both the federal and state governments (Anderson, 1996). This means Indian governments have inherent sovereignty which is not derived from any other government but rather from the people themselves. Duane Champagne (2005,) articulates this point while advocating for Native study discipline in UCLA, he states, “native people who live in or have ties to their traditional community see themselves as part of longstanding communities or nations with the right to self-government, land, and resources that predate the U. S Constitution and are granted by the Creator.” The inherent Indian sovereignty refers to the fact that before Europeans came to North America, Native American tribes conducted their affairs and needed no outside source to legitimize their powers or actions. However, when the various European powers did arrive, they claimed dominion over the lands that they found, thus violating the sovereignty of the tribes who already were living there.

In my short time visiting with the Mendota Mdewakanton community, I have witnessed many of the attributes of sovereignty, as they are a close-knit people who have a language, a moral and religious structure, cultural traditions, and have a specific geographical area. Although they are doing everything they can to attain their sovereignty, they are not recognized by the federal government as a tribal nation. In my correspondence with Greg Strandmark, a member of the tribal council of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community, the need for sovereignty initially arises from exhaustion with seeking membership in other communities likes the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux community. Since the Mendota Dakota were already a distinct community, little did they realize forming their community meant more than just creating a formal nonprofit recognition through 501c3.

Unless an Indian group currently desiring federal recognition can gain independent acknowledgment of its tribal status from Congress, it must comply with the Interior Department’s petition process. The steps to be taken are outlined in Title 25 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), part 83 (Utter, 2001). This procedure is to establish that an American Indian group exists as an Indian Tribe with a unique political entity. This relationship is ultimately traceable to the Indian Commerce and the Treaty Clause of the United States Constitution (Utter, 2001). Because of this, getting federal recognition for an Indian community is an impossibly difficult and cumbersome process that requires lots of energy and money. This is to pay for the research, the lawyers, and the genealogists, to gather and present information about a community to meet a set of arbitrary standards that a few recognized groups would be unable to meet today if they had to prove their legitimacy (Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Tribe, 2009). This hard process has frustrated the Mendota Mdewakanton community, because the more they worked, the farther away the goal seemed to get. However, they managed to continue the work, albeit a tedious process; citing their cultural connection and under Pike’s treaty of 1805, Article 3. In this agreement, the United States promise the Dakotas to “pass, repass, hunt or make other use of said districts, as they have formerly done, without any other exception, but those specified in the article first” (Westernman & White, 2012, p. 220).

This prolonged process has taken the Mendota Mdewakanton community over eighteen years. Some of the elders who started petitioning have passed on. However, before Bob Brown, the leader of the community, passed on, he and other Dakota decided that they would focus on being the people that they wanted the federal government to recognize them as being, “the Dakota community that cared about the cultural heritage of being Dakota” (Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Tribe, 2009). Through his writing, Bruce White illustrates that Brown’s families, and many other members of the Mendota Dakota began to take responsibility for the cultural heritage of Bdote, the sacred area where the Minnesota River meets the Mississippi River. This place is known to the Mdewakanton Dakota Indian as "Makoce Cokaya Kin," meaning "Center of the Earth” (Minnesota Humanities Center, 2013). The river confluence was also referred to as "Mdota," a Dakota word used to name the present-day city of Mendota (Minnesota Humanities Center, 2013). Therefore, the main need for the Mendota Mdewakanton community is to acquire its sovereignty so they can adequately protect the sacred area to the Dakotas.

In my two hours of stay with the Mendota community, I have seen people in a circle as they honored those who have passed to the spirit world, through special chanting and dancing. Everything the Mendota Mdewakanton did was in a circle because they believe everything the power of the world does is in a circle. Many of the speakers spoke great things about Bob Brown, and how his work influenced many of them. Even for the first timers, like me, the importance of Bob Brown to the Mendota Mdewakanton community is evidently clear. Because of Brown’s encouragement, many survivors have empowered themselves to continue the struggle he championed; the need for Mendota Dakota sovereignty.

Among many things, sovereign Mendota Mdewakanton community will practice their Dakota cultural and religious ceremonies without question from federal, state and local governing entities and their various agencies, the likes of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Park Service, US Fish and Wildlife, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, etc (Personal Communication, October 19, 2013). It will give them a stand to preserve and protect Dakota sacred sites includes Coldwater Springs, Oheyawahi or Pilot Knob Hill. The sovereignty of Mendota Mdewakanton will protect, secure, and enforce Dakota treaty rights. By attaining sovereignty, the Mendota Mdewakanton community wants to have recognition of other tribes as equals, a cultural center, and a land base to call their own. Most importantly, they want to be able to preserve and secure the Dakota language for seven generations. Strandmark eloquently depicts the influence of Mendota Mdewakanton community on their influence and how their sovereignty functions as follows;

If the Mendota Mdewakatonwan's [sic] were a federally recognized tribe, the opportunities that would be available would be immeasurable. Our location, in the heart of a major metropolitan area, across the Minnesota River from the Minneapolis/ St. Paul International airport would be a highly desirable location, so any revenue generating businesses would do better than at most reservations which are located in rural and remote areas in the United States (Personal Communication, October 27, 2013).

The Mendota Mdewakanton community is truly pleased for its sites. Indeed, if they get the recognition they desire, Mendota would be the key for both historic and advancement purpose.

Despite the long subjugation to dehumanize and exile the Dakotas from their original homelands, the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota have survived amidst many adversaries. Governor Ramsey, in 1852 states, “Ever since the territory’s organization, white inhabitants had the most friendly relations with this nation” (Westerman & White, 2012 p198). The Mendota Mdewakanton reside in a historical site where many believe the place where Dakota came to its existence. They have lived in Mendota continuously longer than any inhabitant of the state of Minnesota. Thus, they have earned the right to be a sovereign nation.

References

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