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ABSTRACT
In this essay, I explore how Native American rhetoric of resistance exposes the settler colonial logics that constitute a hegemonic force in the greater social imaginary. Focusing on two sites—the Minneapolis Walker Arts Center’s Scaffold exhibit and The Landing, a historic settlers’ village located twenty miles from the Walker—I assess both how settler colonialism is enacted in these spaces and how Native American activism represents a talking back to settler colonialism. I argue that examining places as networked arguments reveals the ways in which they can speak to each other and unsettle dominant ideologies. To better understand the settler colonial logics that Native American resistance rhetoric seeks to unsettle, I advocate for critical examination of how scholars and activists are constituted by those very centering logics.
Notes
1 Trudell. Directed by Heather Rae (Amherst, MA: Appaloosa Pictures, 2007).
2 Cheyanne St. John, Statement given at Walker Art Center, May 31, 2017, published by Lorie Shaull, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, May 31, 2017, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cheyanne_St._John,_a_member_of_the_Lower_Sioux_Indian_Community_%26_Tribal_Historical_Preservation_Office_Site_Manager_read_a_statement_addressing_Sam_Durant%E2%80%99s_sculpture,_%22Scaffold%22_at_the_Walker_Art_Center_2.jpg (accessed March 25, 2020). Statement confirmed by St. John via email correspondence with author, April 30, 2019. The legal matter of genocide is borne out most succinctly by Waziyatawin in her book What Does Justice Look Like?: The Struggle for Liberation in Dakota Homeland (Saint Paul, MN: Living Justice Press, 2008). A number of legal scholars examine specific issues central to Dakota history and the war. See: Carol Chomsky, “The United States-Dakota War Trials: A Study in Military Injustice,” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 13 (1990): 13–98, doi:10.2307/1228993; Colette Routel, “Minnesota Bounties on Dakota Men during the U.S.-Dakota War,” William Mitchell Law Review 40, no. 1 (2013): 1–77, https://open.mitchellhamline.edu/wmlr/vol40/iss1/2/; and Howard J. Vogel, “Rethinking the Effect of the Abrogation of the Dakota Treaties and the Authority for the Removal of the Dakota People from Their Homeland,” William Mitchell Law Review 39, no. 2 (2013): 538–81, https://open.mitchellhamline.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1491&context=wmlr.
3 Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Spoonbridge and Cherry (Walker Sculpture Garden, 1988).
4 Sam Durant, Scaffold (Walker Sculpture Garden, 2017). Prior to being displayed at the Walker, “Scaffold” was displayed at The Hague in the Netherlands; Edinburgh, Scotland; and Kassel, Germany. As described by Sam Durant in his May 29, 2017 public letter:
This wood and steel sculpture is a composite of the representations of seven historical gallows that were used in US state-sanctioned executions by hanging between 1859 and 2006. Of the seven gallows depicted in the work, one in particular recalls the design of the gallows of the execution of the Dakota 38 in Mankato, Minnesota in 1862 … Six other scaffolds comprise the sculpture, which include those used to execute abolitionist John Brown (1859); the Lincoln Conspirators (1865), which included the first woman executed in US history; the Haymarket Martyrs (1886), which followed a labor uprising and bombing in Chicago; Rainey Bethea (1936), the last legally conducted public execution in US history; Billy Bailey (1996), the last execution by hanging (not public) in the US; and Saddam Hussein (2006), for war crimes at a joint Iraqi/US facility. (Sam Durant, “A Statement from Sam Durant,” Walker, May 29, 2017, https://walkerart.org/magazine/a-statement-from-sam-durant-05-29-17 (accessed March 25, 2020))
In a public letter to The Circle, a Minneapolis-based local Native American online news source established in 1980, Viso explains how she first encountered Durant's piece and her intention in bringing it to the Walker. She writes:
[W]hen I first encountered Scaffold in a sculpture park in Europe five years ago, I saw a potent artistic statement about the ethics of capital punishment. Most importantly, I recognized its capacity to address the buried histories of violence in this country, in particular raising needed awareness among white audiences. I knew this could be a difficult artwork on many levels. This is invariably connected to national issues still embedded in the psyche of this country and its violent, colonialist past. (Olga Viso, “Learning in Public: An Open Letter on Sam Durant's Scaffold,” Walker, May 26, 2017, https://walkerart.org/magazine/learning-in-public-an-open-letter-on-sam-durants-scaffold)
5 First a note on the meanings of “nation,” “band,” and “tribe.” According to Bonvillain:
“nation” is a group of people who speak the same language (or dialects of the same language), who have a sense of territorial boundaries, and who share many (but not necessarily all) features of cultural practices and belief. “Tribes” and “bands” are specific types of societies having different kinds of systems of leadership, decision-making, and group cohesion. Bands are small, loosely organized groups of people that are politically autonomous and have minimal leadership. (Nancy Bonvillain, Native Nations: Cultures and Histories of Native North America, 2nd ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), 2)
6 For a concise summary of the interaction between the Ojibwe, another prominent nation in Minnesota, and the U.S. government see Carl Waldman, “Wars for the West: Sioux,” in Atlas of the North American Indian (New York: Facts on File, 1985), 154–9.
7 After his death (in 1863) Taoyateduta's body was repeatedly desecrated; ultimately his scalp and one of his forearm bones would be displayed in a class cast at the Minnesota State Capital until 1918, when the grandson of Taoyateduta saw it at the capital and asked that it be removed. For fifty years it sat in storage until 1971 when the Minnesota State Historical Society returned it to Flandreau, South Dakota, where it is buried. See Curt Brown, “Little Crow's Legacy,” Star Tribune, August 17, 2012, http://www.startribune.com/little-crow-s-legacy/166467906/ (accessed March 25, 2020).
8 Ashley Fairbanks, “Genocide and Mini-Golf in the Walker Sculpture Garden,” City Pages, May 27, 2017, http://www.citypages.com/arts/genocide-and-mini-golf-in-the-walker-sculpture-garden/424797173 (accessed March 25, 2020).
9 Frederick Hoxie, “Preface,” in Talking Back to Civilization: Indian Voices from the Progressive Era, ed. Frederick Hoxie (Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001), viii.
10 Patrick Wolfe, “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native,” Journal of Genocide Research 8, no. 4 (2006): 387–409, at 388, doi:10.1080/14623520601056240.
11 My reference to the Minnesota River Valley reflects both a reference common in Minnesota to the geographical area surrounding the Minnesota River as well as a socio-cultural reference. There is, for example, the Minnesota River Valley Scenic Byway which is promoted by the Upper Minnesota River Valley, Explore Minnesota, and America's Byways which is an arm of the federal Department of Transportation (hereafter DOT). According to the federal DOT, America's Byways:
is the umbrella term we use for the collection of 150 distinct and diverse roads designated by the U.S. Secretary of Transportation. America's Byways include the National Scenic Byways and All-American Roads. America's Byways are gateways to adventures where no two experiences are the same. The National Scenic Byways Program invites you to Come Closer to America's heart and soul … (“America's Byways,” US Department of Transportation: Federal Highway Administration, https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/byways/ (accessed March 4, 2020))
12 From the time the site was created as a historical village in 1969 until 2008, it was known as Murphy's Landing. David Peterson, “A New Mission for the Landing,” Star Tribune, July 5, 2008, http://www.startribune.com/a-new-mission-for-the-landing/22714364/?c=y&page=2 (accessed March 25, 2020).
13 “Murphy's Inn,” The Landing: Minnesota River Heritage Park, Three Rivers Park District. The entire sign reads:
Murphy's Inn
The foundation before you is all that remains of the stone house and inn built by Richard G. Murphy around 1858. At that time, this property was situated at the crossroads of major river and stagecoach transportation routes. In its heyday, Murphy's Inn was likely a welcome site to weary travelers journeying up the Minnesota River Valley. A large main hall on the first floor provided guests with food and drink, while rooms on the second floor could be rented for overnight lodging.
Who was Richard Murphy?
Richard Murphy first arrived at Fort Snelling in 1848 as President James J. Polk's appointed Indian Agent to the Dakota Nation. He was heavily involved in politics throughout his life, having served for 12 years in the Illinois legislature before moving to Minnesota. In 1857, Murphy was elected to the Minnesota territorial legislature as Senator from Shakopee. He was president of the senate in 1858 when Minnesota voted for statehood. Richard Murphy died in 1875.
14 “Medicine Bottle,” The US-Dakota War of 1862, Minnesota Historical Society, http://www.usdakotawar.org/history/multimedia/medicine-bottle (accessed April 10, 2019).
15 The reference used during the Scaffold protest and in other Dakota references to the war, 38+2, refers to the 38 Dakota hanged in Mankato as well as Sakpe and Wa-kan-o-zhan-zhan. While this reference is common outside of the Scaffold controversy, it was central to the activism: “Peaceful protests continue at the site, where the partially erected ‘Scaffold’ can be seen. A website, Not Art 38+2, and a social media condemnation at #Takeitdown also contributed to the art center's rethinking of the installation.” Konnie LeMay, “‘Scaffold’ Sculpture Taints Memory of Dakota 38, Prompts Protests,” Indian Country Today, May 30, 2017, https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/archive/scaffold-sculpture-taints-memory-of-dakota-38-prompts-protests-Y7In_G55pkSVY_cVWKF33g. Writing about what Fort Snelling means to Sheldon Wolfchild, descendant of Medicine Bottle, LeMay writes, “the fort holds particular pain because it is where his ancestor, Medicine Bottle, was hanged along with Little Six; they are the two killed after the mass execution and remembered as the Dakota 38+2.” Konnie LeMay, “Dakota Elders Will Oversee Dismantling, Burning of ‘Scaffold,’” Indian Country Today, June 1, 2017, https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/archive/dakota-elders-will-oversee-dismantling-burning-of-scaffold-19_sDGCaf0O1hDGe0q80Wg (accessed March 25, 2020).
16 The city of Mankato's website describes the park, dedicated in 1997, as “a site to reflect, meditate and remember.” See: “Dakota Monuments: Reconciliation Park,” Visit Greater Mankato, https://www.visitgreatermankato.com/mankato/explore/history/dakota-monuments/ (accessed March 4, 2020).
17 Casey Ryan Kelly and Jason Edward Black, “Introduction: Decolonizing Native American Rhetoric,” in Decolonizing Native American Rhetoric: Communicating Self-Determination, ed. Casey Ryan Kelly and Jason Edward Black (New York: Peter Lang, 2018), 19; Italics in original.
18 See: Jason Edward Black, “Plenary Rhetoric in Indian Country: The Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock Case and the Codification of a Weakened Native Character,” Advances in the History of Rhetoric 11/12, no. 1 (2008): 59–80, doi:10.1080/15362426.2009.10597380; Jason Edward Black, “Native Authenticity, Rhetorical Circulation, and Neocolonial Decay: The Case of Chief Seattle's Controversial Speech,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 15, no. 4 (2012): 635–46, www.jstor.org/stable/41940626 (accessed March 25, 2020); Danielle Endres, “The Rhetoric of Nuclear Colonialism: Rhetorical Exclusion of American Indian Arguments in the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Siting Decision,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 6, no. 1 (2009): 39–60, doi:10.1080/14791420802632103; Casey Ryan Kelly, “Orwellian Language and the Politics of Tribal Termination (1953–1960),” Western Journal of Communication 74, no. 4 (2010): 351–71, doi:10.1080/10570314.2010.492821; and Mary E. Stuckey and John M. Murphy, “By Any Other Name: Rhetorical Colonialism in North America,” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 25, no. 4 (2001): 73–98, doi:10.17953/aicr.25.4.m66w143xm1623704. Important also to this discussion is the work of rhetorical scholars who examine Native Americans’ efforts to assert themselves outside of colonialist logics. See: Lois E. Bushwell, “The Oratory of the Dakota Indians,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 21, no. 3 (1935): 323–7, doi:10.1080/00335633509380113; Randall A. Lake, “Enacting Red Power: The Consummatory Function in Native American Protest Rhetoric,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 69, no. 2 (1983): 127–42, doi:10.1080/00335638309383642; Randall A. Lake, “Between Myth and History: Enacting Time in Native American Protest Rhetoric,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 77, no. 2 (1991): 123–51, doi:10.1080/00335639109383949; Richard Morris and Philip Wander, “Native American Rhetoric: Dancing in the Shadows of the Ghost Dance,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 76, no. 2 (1990): 164–91, doi:10.1080/00335639009383912; Richard Morris, “Educating Savages,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 83, no. 2 (1997): 152–71, doi:10.1080/00335639709384178; and John Sanchez and Mary E. Stuckey, “The Rhetoric of American Indian Activism in the 1960s and 1970s,” Communication Quarterly 48, no. 2 (2000): 120–36, doi:10.1080/01463370009385586.
19 See: Jason Edward Black, American Indians and the Rhetoric of Removal and Allotment (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2015); Jason Edward Black, “Re/Performing and Re/Claiming Native America: Image Events in the Thanksgiving Day of Mourning Protest,” Enculturation 6, no. 2 (2009), http://enculturation.net/6.2/black (accessed March 25, 2020); Jason Edward Black, “Native Resistive Rhetoric and the Decolonization of American Indian Removal Discourse,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 95, no. 1 (2009): 66–88, doi:10.1080/00335630802621052; Jason Edward Black, “Remembrances of Removal: Native Resistance to Allotment and the Unmasking of Paternal Benevolence,” Southern Communication Journal 72, no. 2 (2007): 185–203, doi:10.1080/10417940701316690; D. Anthony Tyeeme Clark and Malea Powell, “Resisting Exile in the ‘Land of the Free’: Indigenous Groundwork at Colonial Intersections,” American Indian Quarterly 32, no. 1 (2008): 1–15, doi:10.1353/aiq.2008.0009; Danielle Endres, “American Indian Permission for Mascots: Resistance or Complicity within Rhetorical Colonialism?” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 18, no. 4 (2015): 649–90, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.18.4.0649; Granville Ganter, “Red Jacket and the Decolonization of Republican Virtue,” American Indian Quarterly 31, no. 4 (2007): 559–81, www.jstor.org/stable/30113977; Casey Ryan Kelly, “Détournement, Decolonization, and the American Indian Occupation of Alcatraz Island (1969–1971),” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 44, no. 2 (2014): 168–90, doi:10.1080/02773945.2014.888464; Casey Ryan Kelly, “‘We are Not Free’: The Meaning of <Freedom> in American Indian Resistance to President Johnson's War on Poverty,” Communication Quarterly 62, no. 4 (2014): 455–73, doi:10.1080/01463373.2014.922486; and Rachel Presley, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Rhetorical Strategies for Environmental Protection and Tribal Resistance in the Dakota Access Pipeline Movement,” in Decolonizing Native American Rhetoric: Communicating Self Determination, ed. Jason Edward Black and Casey Ryan Kelly (New York: Peter Lang, 2018), 285–302.
20 Hoxie, “Introduction: American Indian Activism in the Progressive Era,” in Talking Back to Civilization, 5.
21 Hoxie, “Introduction,” 5.
22 Stuckey and Murphy, “By Any Other Name,” 75.
23 While many examples of this abound, the use of Native American figures as mascots is particularly reflective of putting representations of Native Americans in service to narratives of colonialism. See, for example, Endres, “American Indian Permission for Mascots.”
24 Black, “Native Authenticity,” 636.
25 Wolfe, “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native,” 388. See also: Patrick Wolfe, “The Settler Complex: An Introduction,” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 37, no. 2 (2013): 1–22, doi:10.1080/14623520601056240; and Lorenzo Veracini, “‘Settler Colonialism’: Career of a Concept,” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 41, no. 2 (2013): 313–33, doi:10.1080/03086534.2013.768099.
26 Adam J. Barker, “Locating Settler Colonialism,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 13, no. 3 (2012), doi:10.1353/cch.2012.0035.
27 For more on this see: Martin Case, The Relentless Business of Treaties: How Indigenous Land Became U.S. Property (Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2018).
28 Kay Anderson and Mono Domosh, “North American Spaces/Postcolonial Stories,” Cultural Geographies 9 (2002): 125–8, at 126, doi:10.1191%2F1474474002eu239xx.
29 To be sure, both Ojibwe and Dakota inhabited this land well into the 1850's. See: Thomas Peacock and Marlene Wisuri, Ojibwe Waasa Inaabidaa: We Look in All Directions (Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2009); and Anton Treuer, Ojibwe in Minnesota (Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2010).
30 Derek T. Buescher and Kent A. Ono, “Civilized Colonialism: Pocahontas as Neocolonial Rhetoric,” Women's Studies in Communication 19, no. 2 (1996): 127–53, at 130, doi:10.1080/07491409.1996.11089810.
31 See: Waziyatawin Angela Cavender Wilson, “Burning down the House: Laura Ingalls Wilder and American Colonialism,” in Unlearning the Language of Conquest: Scholars Expose Anti-Indianism in America, ed. Four Arrows (Wahinkpe Topa) aka Don Trent Jacobs (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006), 66–80. A number of rhetorical scholars have examined the use of memory and nostalgia. See: Greg Dickinson, “Memories for Sale: Nostalgia and the Construction of Identity in Old Pasadena,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 83, no. 1 (1997): 1–27, doi:10.1080/00335639709384169; Greg Dickinson, Brian L. Ott, and Eric Aoki, “Memory and Myth at the Buffalo Bill Museum,” Western Journal of Communication 69, no. 2 (2005): 85–108, doi:10.1080/10570310500076684; Greg Dickinson, Brian L. Ott, and Eric Aoki, “Spaces of Remembering and Forgetting: The Reverent Eye/I at the Plains Indian Museum,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 3, no. 1 (2006): 27–47, doi:10.1080/14791420500505619; Kendall R. Phillips, “The Failure of Memory: Reflections on Rhetoric and Public Remembrance,” Western Journal of Communication 74, no. 2 (2010): 208–23, doi:10.1080/10570311003680600; and Bradford Vivian, “Jefferson's Other,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 88, no. 3 (2002): 284–302, doi:10.1080/00335630209384378.
32 See: Danielle Endres and Samantha Senda-Cook, “Location Matters: The Rhetoric of Place in Protest,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 97, no. 3 (2011): 257–82, doi:10.1080/00335630.2011.585167; and Danielle Endres, Samantha Senda-Cook, and Brian Cozen, “Not Just a Place to Park your Car: Park(ing) as Spatial Argument,” Argumentation and Advocacy 50, no. 3 (2014): 121–40, doi:10.1080/00028533.2014.11821814.
33 Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, “Decolonization is not a Metaphor,” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1, no. 1 (2012): 5, https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18630 (accessed March 25, 2020).
34 Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998), 10. A number of scholars take up the centrality of the frontier thesis to nation-building. See: Ronald H. Carpenter, “Frederick Jackson Turner and the Rhetorical Impact of the Frontier Thesis,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 63, no. 2 (1977): 117–29, doi:10.1080/00335637709383373; Leroy G. Dorsey and Rachel M. Harlow, “‘We Want Americans Pure and Simple’: Theodore Roosevelt and the Myth of Americanism,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 6, no. 1 (2003): 55–78, www.jstor.org/stable/41939809 (accessed March 25, 2020); and Margret McCue-Enser, “Constituting the Diasporic Collective: Irish Americans at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century,” Iowa Journal of Communication 47, no. 1 (2015): 154–76.
35 Jeff Corntassel, “Re-Envisioning Resurgence: Indigenous Pathways to Decolonization and Sustainable Self-Determination,” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1, no. 1 (2012): 86–101, at 88, https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18627 (accessed March 25, 2020).
36 Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 2nd ed. (New York: Zed Books, 2012), 5.
37 See: Darell Enck-Wanzer [Wanzer-Serrano], “Decolonizing Imaginaries: Rethinking ‘the People’ in the Young Lords’ Church Offensive,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 98, no. 1 (2012): 1–23, doi:10.1080/00335630.2011.638656; Lisa Flores, “Advancing a Decolonial Rhetoric,” Advances in the History of Rhetoric 21, no. 3 (2018): 320–2, doi:10.1080/15362426.2018.1526550; Kent A. Ono, “Darrel Wanzer-Serrano's The New Young Lords and the Struggle for Liberation: Theoretical Contributions,” Advances in the History of Rhetoric 21, no. 3 (2018): 315–19, doi:10.1080/15362426.2018.1526549; Vincent N. Pham, “Building and Being a Community Control,” Advances in the History of Rhetoric 21, no. 3 (2018): 323–5, doi:10.1080/15362426.2018.1531666; Darrell Allan Wanzer [Wanzer-Serrano], “Delinking Rhetoric, or Revisiting McGee's Fragmentation Thesis through Decoloniality,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 15, no. 4 (2012): 647–57, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/490122 (accessed March 25, 2020); and Darrell Wanzer-Serrano, “Decolonial Rhetoric and a Future Yet-to-Become: A Loving Response,” Advances in the History of Rhetoric 21, no. 3 (2018): 326–30, doi:10.1080/15362426.2018.1526551.
38 Devon A. Mihesuah and Angela Cavender Wilson, “Indigenous Scholars versus the Status Quo,” American Indian Quarterly 26, no. 1 (2002): 145–8, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4128478 (accessed March 25, 2020).
39 Paulette Regan, Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling, and Reconciliation in Canada (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010).
40 Regan, Unsettling the Settler Within, 11.
41 Regan, Unsettling the Settler Within, 25.
42 Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies, 2.
43 Michael Middleton, Aaron Hess, Danielle Endres, and Samantha Senda-Cook, Participatory Critical Rhetoric: Theoretical and Methodological Foundations for Studying Rhetoric In Situ (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015), xiii. See also Michael K. Middleton, Samantha Senda-Cook, and Danielle Endres, “Articulating Rhetorical Field Methods: Challenges and Tensions,” Western Journal of Communication 75, no. 4 (2011): 386–406, doi:10.1080/10570314.2011.586969; and Carole Blair, “Reflections on Criticism and Bodies: Parables from Public Places,” Western Journal of Communication 65, no. 3 (2001): 271–94, doi:10.1080/10570310109374706.
44 See: Michael Calvin McGee, “Text, Context, and the Fragmentation of Contemporary Culture,” Western Journal of Communication 54, no. 3 (1990): 274–89, doi:10.1080/10570319009374343.
45 Samantha Senda-Cook, Michael K. Middleton, and Danielle Endres, “Interrogating the ‘Field,’” in Text+Field: Innovations in Rhetorical Method, ed. Sarah L. McKinnon, Robert Asen, Karma R. Chávez, and Robert Glenn Howard (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016), 25.
46 Samantha Senda-Cook, “Rugged Practices: Embodying Authenticity in Outdoor Recreation,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 98, no. 2 (2012): 129–52, at 136, doi:10.1080/00335630.2012.663500.
47 Senda-Cook, Middleton, and Endres, “Interrogating the ‘Field,’” 38.
48 A number of scholars attend to the question of who can study Native Americans and the questions that should guide non-Native American scholars in such research. See Devon Abbott Mihesuah, So You Want to Write about American Indians?: A Guide for Writers, Students, and Scholars (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005); and Duane Champagne, “American Indian Studies is for Everyone,” American Indian Quarterly 20, no. 1 (1996): 77–82, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1184943 (accessed March 25, 2020).
49 The Landing Journal: Murphy's Landing, A Minnesota Valley Restoration of 1840–1890, Spring 1990, Gale Family Library, Minnesota Historical Society.
50 These treaties resulted in the sale of almost all Dakota land; after signing them Dakota were relegated to a 20-mile strip of land on either side of the Minnesota River. See: “Relations: Dakota and Ojibwe Treaties,” TreatiesMatter.org, http://treatiesmatter.org/treaties/land/1837-ojibwe-dakota (accessed August 31, 2019).
51 Brian W. Dippie, “The Winning of the West Reconsidered,” The Wilson Quarterly 14, no. 3 (1990): 70–85, at 85, http://archive.wilsonquarterly.com/essays/winning-west-reconsidered (accessed March 25, 2020).
52 “The Landing” brochure.
53 “The Landing,” Three Rivers Park District, https://www.threeriversparks.org/location/landing (accessed April 13, 2019).
54 2020 Summer Camps, Three Rivers Park District, https://www.threeriversparks.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/Summer%20Camps/SummerCamps2020-web_0.pdf (accessed March 4, 2020).
55 See: Wilson, “Burning down the House.” The enduring endearment for the work of Laura Ingalls Wilder reflects the entrenchment of settler colonialism as a dominant ideology.
56 According to the CHS River Terminal website, the Savage location (next to the Shakopee City line) has a “bushel storage” of “1,325,000.” “CHS Savage Terminal Storage Available,” CHS River Terminals and Processing Facilities, https://www.chsag.com/savage (accessed April 24, 2019; accessed March 4, 2020).
57 According to the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community 2018 Donation Report, “In fiscal year 2018 alone, we provided $18 million in donations for education, youth programming, health care programs, legal aid, community development and infrastructure, women's health, arts and culture, local communities, environmental protection, and many more worthwhile causes and enterprises.” “2018 Donation Report,” Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, https://shakopeedakota.org/resources/smsc-reports-links (accessed March 4, 2020).
58 Waziyatawin, “The Paradox of Indigenous Resurgence at the End of Empire,” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1, no. 1 (2012): 68–85, at 72, https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18629 (accessed March 25, 2020).
59 Waziyatawin, “The Paradox of Indigenous Resurgence,” 72.
60 See: E. Cram, “Archival Ambience and Sensory Memory: Generating Queer Intimacies in the Settler Colonial Archive,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 13, no. 2 (2016): 109–29, doi:10.1080/14791420.2015.1119290.
61 Peterson, “A New Mission.”
62 The timelines of the installation and the resistance are captured in a local online news site, MinnPost:
The news that “Scaffold” would be a permanent part of the Sculpture Garden – it had already been installed near the iconic “Spoonbridge and Cherry,” but without most people knowing what it was – lit a fuse. The response was immediate, fierce and widespread. Native people weren't the only ones who condemned the sculpture. They were joined on Facebook and Twitter (#TakeItDown) by non-Native artists, tribal groups, arts leaders, community leaders, politicians and other supporters. On Friday and Saturday, protestors gathered outside the chain-link fence surrounding the Garden, hung signs on the fence and wrote on the sidewalks with chalk.
On Friday The Circle published Viso's public letter and the Walker Art Center tweeted: “We have been listening to feedback regarding the ‘Scaffold’ artwork in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.”
By Saturday, the signs posted Friday had been removed. The protests continued and more signs were added. City Pages published a piece by Anishinaabe artist and writer Ashley Fairbanks titled “Genocide and Mini-Gold in the Walker Sculpture Garden.” Dakota activist and artist Graci Horne, who is related to one of the Dakota 38, circulated an email describing the sculpture and plans for a “peaceful and prayerful demonstration.” Horne noted that “Dakota People and Various Supporting Native relatives have started to keep space at the nearest location to the sculpture which is on Bryant Avenue S. and Kenwood Pkwy.” A new website, Not Art 38+2, was born. (Pamela Espeland, “Walker to Discuss ‘Scaffold’ Sculpture's Future with Dakota Elders,” MinnPost, May 30, 2017, https://www.minnpost.com/artscape/2017/05/walker-discuss-scaffold-sculptures-future-dakota-elders/ (accessed March 25, 2020))
63 Durant, “A Statement from Sam Durant.”
64 Olga Viso, “Learning in Public.”
65 Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Vintage Books, 1993).
66 Levi Rickert, “Gallow Used to Execute Dakota 38 Inspiration for Minnesota ‘Art’ Causes Ire,” Native News Online, May 27, 2017, https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/gallow-used-execute-dakota-38-inspiration-minnesota-art-causes-ire/ (accessed March 25, 2020).
67 LeMay, “'Scaffold’ Structure Taints Memory.”
68 This approach is reflected in the Idle No More Movement, which began in 2012 in Canada, and is a productive lens through which to examine the ways in which, despite or perhaps because of visibility, state-surveillance, is an effective way to assert indigenous sovereignty and relation to land. The movement uses protest to assert its mission to “‘honour Indigenous sovereignty, and to protect the land and water.’” Using flash mobs, marches on government buildings, blockades, and other public actions, Idle No More resists being confined to representation via the lens of the settler state and moves beyond it to set the terms of their visibility. “The Vision,” Idle No More, http://www.idlenomore.ca/vision (accessed June 20, 2015). Native American activists in Minnesota have been working with Idle No More since 2012. See: “Why Idle No More Matters,” Honor the Earth, August 11, 2019, http://www.honorearth.org/why_idle_no_more_matters; “Hundreds Attend Native American Protest at MOA,” CBS Minnesota, December 29, 2012, https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2012/12/29/hundreds-attend-native-american-protest-at-moa/; and Andrew Crosby and Jeffrey Monaghan, “Settler Colonialism and the Policing of Idle No More,” Social Justice 43, no. 2 (2016): 37–57, www.jstor.org/stable/26380302 (accessed March 25, 2020).
69 The published and common reference used to sum up the events leading up to and after August 1862 has changed over the decades. See: Chester M. Oehler, The Great Sioux Uprising (New York: Oxford University, 1959, 1997). See also: Duane P. Schultz, Over the Earth I Come: The Great Sioux Uprising of 1862 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993); Schultz’s work had the honor of being a 1992 New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Finally, see Kenneth Carley, The Sioux Uprising of 1862 (Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1961, 1976), which was retitled The Dakota War of 1862: Minnesota's Other Civil War in 2001.
70 “Dakota Elders Announcement,” All My Relations Arts, May 29, 2017, http://www.allmyrelationsarts.com/dakota-elders-announcement/ (accessed March 25, 2020).
71 “Dakota Elders Announcement.”
72 Alicia Eler, “2017 Moments: ‘Scaffold’ Ignited a Debate about Art and Cultural Appropriation,” Star Tribune, December, 28, 2017, http://www.startribune.com/2017-moments-scaffold-ignited-a-debate-about-art-and-cultural-appropriation/467032633/ (accessed March 25, 2020).
73 Jenna Ross, “At Walker, American Indian Artists Discuss the Art World: ‘These Changes Need to Be Permanent,” Star Tribune, March 30, 2018, http://www.startribune.com/at-walker-native-american-artists-discuss-the-art-world-these-changes-need-to-be-permanent/478407813/ (accessed March 25, 2020).
74 “Indigenous Arts Commission: Call to Artists,” Walker, https://walkerart.org/call-to-artists-indigenous-public-art-commission (accessed January 16, 2019).
75 “Indigenous Arts Commission.”
76 “Walker Art Center Announces Artist Angela Two Stars as Finalist for Indigenous Public Art Commission in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden,” Walker Art Center, September 17, 2019, https://walkerart.org/press-releases/2019/walker-art-center-announces-artist-angela-two-stars-as-finalist-for-indigenous-public-art-commission-in-the-minneapolis-sculpture-garden (accessed March 25, 2020).
77 “Historic Fort Snelling Revitalization Update,” Minnesota Historical Society, https://www.mnhs.org/fortsnelling/revitalization (accessed April 26, 2019).
78 Bill Salisbury, “‘Fort Snelling at BDote’? Senate Passes GOP Measure Cutting Historical Society Funds over ‘Revisionist History,’” Twin Cities Pioneer Press, April 25, 2019, https://www.twincities.com/2019/04/25/fort-snelling-at-bdote-republican-senators-threaten-minnesota-historical-society-funds-over-alleged-revisionist-history/ (accessed March 25, 2020).
79 Salisbury, “‘Fort Snelling at BDote?’”
80 Stuckey and Murphy, “By Any Other Name,” 78.
81 Brian Ott, Eric Aoki, and Greg Dickinson, “Ways of (Not) Seeing Guns: Presence and Absence at the Cody Firearms Exhibit,” Communication & Critical/Cultural Studies 8, no. 13 (2011): 235.
82 Gwen Westerman and Bruce White, Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota (Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2012), 223. Though he examines the Western Apache nation, his work makes visible the centrality of place to nation; see also Keith H. Basso, Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language among the Western Apache (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996).
83 Stuckey and Murphy, “By Any Other Name,” 90.
84 “Trump Says ‘Our Country Is Full’ during Border Visit,” CBS Evening News, YouTube, April 5, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-eIvUVzsXU (accessed March 25, 2020). While many U.S. presidents have had a dire impact on Native American nations, President Andrew Jackson ranks among the greatest. His paternalism toward Native Americans, as well as his disregard for the separation of powers and abuse of presidential powers, led to the removal of the Cherokee nation and the Trail of Tears which resulted in the deaths of 4000 Cherokee people. Historian Alfred A. Cave explains the division between Jackson and Congress. He writes:
The Indian Removal Act passed by Congress in 1830 neither authorized the unilateral abrogation of treaties guaranteeing Native American land rights within the states, nor the forced relocation of the eastern Indians. Yet both occurred, on a massive scale, during Andrew Jackson's administration and were the result, not of an explicit congressional mandate, but of an abuse of presidential power. (Alfred A. Cave, “Abuse of Power: Andrew Jackson and the Indian Removal Act of 1830,” The Historian 65, no. 6 (2003): 1331–2, www.jstor.org/stable/24452618)
The similitudes between Jackson and Trump are many, not only for the abuse of presidential power but also for the appeal to white populism. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz writes of Jackson:
[l]and-poor white rural people saw Jackson as the man who would save them, making land available to them by ridding it of Indians, thereby setting the pattern of the dance between poor and rich US Americans ever since under the guise of equal opportunity. (Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2014), 109)
85 Sarah L. McKinnon, Robert Asen, Karma R. Chávez, and Robert Glenn Howard, “Introduction: Articulating Text and Field in the Nodes of Rhetorical Scholarship,” in Text+Field: Innovations in Rhetorical Method, ed. Sarah L. McKinnon, Robert Asen, Karma R. Chávez, and Robert Glenn Howard (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016), 19–20.