Dakota Philosopher by David Martinez

Author:David Martinez
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press
Published: 2009-08-13T16:00:00+00:00

5

Exile From Mnisota Makoce

Eastman and the 1862 U.S.–Dakota War

Can you charge the Indians with robbing a nation almost of their whole continent, and murdering their women and children, and then depriving the remainder of their lawful rights, that nature and God require them to have?

William Apess, An Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man

Once upon a time, at least in the eyes of a Dakota child, life in southern Minnesota was simply idyllic. In his 1902 autobiography, Indian Boyhood, Eastman very fondly recounts life as being filled with long days of plenty and contentment. Eastman writes, “When our people lived in Minnesota, a good part of their natural subsistence was furnished by the wild rice, which grew abundantly in all of that region. Around the shores and all over some of the innumerable lakes of the ‘Land of Sky-blue Water’ was this wild cereal found. Indeed, some of the watery fields in those days might be compared in extent and fruitfulness with the fields of wheat on Minnesota’s magnificent farms today.”1

As he recounts this episode, the youthful Eastman is joyfully oblivious to the fact that surrounding the Dakota, more of a threat than their traditional Ojibwe rivals, was an encroaching settler community whose hunger for land was growing. Whereas the Dakota would take only enough wild rice to meet their needs, the white settlers and the white businessmen and politicians who backed them wanted everything. Most bizarre of all was the way in which the Americans sought to express their land lust in very formal and legalized terms, written out in treaties that they gave the Dakota not much choice but to sign.

What is a treaty? In the simplest sense of the word, it is an agreement between two sovereign nations, each with the power and authority to carry out the stipulated terms. Or, to word the definition much more formally, as did Francis Paul Prucha in his epic treatise American Indian Treaties, a treaty is “a contract between two or more states, relating to peace, alliance, commerce, or other international relations, and also, the document embodying such a contract, formally signed by plenipotentiaries appointed by the government of each state.” According to Eastman in Wigwam Evenings, the very first treaty was made between “man and the animal people” after they battled to see who would be the hunter and who the hunted. Little Boy Man, who fought on behalf of humankind, managed to prevail because of his cunning and innovation. However, when the animals sued for peace, agreeing “to give him of their flesh for food and their skins for clothing,” Little Boy Man reciprocated by promising never to kill any animals “wantonly.” He further agreed that the animals may “keep their weapons to use in their own defense.” Thus, balance and order was achieved. From a Dakota perspective, the “treaty” between man and the animal people is a paradigm for treaties between nations—order and balance ought to be the objective, as opposed to revenge, exploitation, and subjugation. In this sense, a treaty is a solemn oath between two peoples before the eyes of the Creator.

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