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Minnesota Treaties Quiz
How much do YOU know about treaties in
Minnesota’s History?
First Question
This painting of the 1851 treaty signing at Traverse de Sioux by Francis Millet hangs in the Governor's Reception Room in Minnesota's state capitol. On the stage, Dakota leaders shake hands, while at the table, individuals sign away the money now owed to them by the treaty to traders who have trapped them in a cycle of debt and dependence.
The painting celebrates the “gaining” of land of Minnesota. What message does having this painting still displayed at the state capitol send to present day American Indians?
How many American Indian - U.S.
Treaties affected Minnesota
Territory?
Incorrect Answer
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Correct Answer!
1 out of every 10.
Forty-one U.S.-Indian
Treaties affected
Minnesota Territory.*
Next Question
*Information courtesy of Allies: Research and Writing.
How many non-Native people lived in
Minnesota in 1850 when the
24 million acres to the U.S. government?
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Correct Answer!
6,000 non-Native people lived in Minnesota in
1850 when the Dakota ceded 24 million acres to the U.S. government.*
Map of Minnesota Territory
Map by Thomas Cowperthwait &
Company, 1850. Next Question
*Information courtesy of Allies: Research and Writing.
Territorial Governor Alexander Ramsey called for the ____________ of all
people in 1862.
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Correct Answer!
Extermination or banishment.
After the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862,
Governor Ramsey declared, "The
Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state.“
Many Dakota people were killed or forcibly removed from Minnesota after this war.
Governor Alexander Ramsey
Would the same declaration today be considered genocide?
Next Question
Minnesota Territory Treaties
involved how many sovereign
Indian nations?
Incorrect Answer
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Correct Answer!
Six. Minnesota treaties involved six sovereign nations: Dakota, Ojibwe,
Menominee, Ho-Chunk,
Sac, and Fox nations.*
*Information courtesy of Allies: Research and Writing. Map sources:
• Indian Land Cessions in the United States, compiled by Charles C. Royce and presented as Part 2 of the Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American
Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1896-97. Printed by the
Government Printing Office in 1899.
• Indian Land Cessions. U.S. Serial Set, Number 4015, 56th Congress, 1st Session.
Next Question
True or False: Reservations were portions of land given to
Indian nations by the U.S. government.
Incorrect Answer
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Correct Answer!
False. Reservations were portions of land reserved by Indian nations for themselves as part of land cession treaties in which
Indigenous people ceded land to U.S. control.
The U.S. government could not give away land that it did not own.
As of 2010 there are 11 federally-recognized tribes in the State of Minnesota
.
Next Question
True or False: American Indian –
U.S. Treaties are still relevant today.
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Correct Answer!
True. “Treaties are more than relics of the past.
Tribal sovereignty based on treaties works in everyday life, particularly in contemporary commercial ventures from fishing to the creation of utility companies.”*
Next Question
John Czeck of Leech Lake holds a sign during a protest at Bemidji waterfront park May 2010 in Bemidji, Minn.
The treaty the sign refers to is the 1855 treaty with the
Anishinaabeg by the state of Minnesota. MPR
Photo/Derek Montgomery
*Information courtesy of Allies: Research and Writing.
True or False: Treaties affected relationships between bands within Indigenous nations.
Incorrect Answer
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Correct Answer!
True. “The homelands of Indigenous nations – and subsequently their land cession – seldom corresponded to any U.S. state or territorial boundaries. Treaties, especially among the
Dakota and Ojibwe, were made by autonomous bands from within the larger nations; consequently, several of the treaties concern not only relations among the U.S. and Indigenous nations, but also relations among bands from within a single nation.”*
More Info
*Information courtesy of Allies: Research and Writing.
About the Minnesota American Indian Treaties Project
A collaboration between the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, the Minnesota Humanities Center, and the Smithsonian
Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian,
Minnesota American Indian Treaties project will explore the
“absent narrative” or missing story of circumstances surrounding our Minnesota land, its use, and the treatment of our land’s indigenous peoples today.
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“ Imagine if every child in Minnesota grew up having learned what tribal sovereignty is… Together, we can work to educate a new generation of Minnesotans who understand basic important facts about Minnesota’s tribal nations.”
- Kevin Gover, Director
National Museum of the American Indian
Coming
Spring 2011
Traveling
Exhibit
Website
Teacher
Resources
Learn more at www.MinnesotaHumanities.org
Glossary
• To cede : to yield or formally surrender to another.
• Sioux: a French word used to refer to
Dakota Indians.
• Sovereign: Independent of, and unlimited by, any other; possessing, or entitled to, original authority or jurisdiction; as, a sovereign state; a sovereign discretion.
(1913 Webster’s dictionary)
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