Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

October 3, 2013

Dakota Genocide: Chris Mato Nunpa Testimony to Peltier Tribunal

PRESENTATION
THE DAKOTA-U.S. WAR OF  1862:  SELECTED ASPECTS
INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL FOR LEONARD PELTIER

October 02-04, 2013
Green Bay, Wisconsin
Hosted By Oneida Nation
By Chris Mato Nunpa, Ph.D., RETIRED, Dakota
Associate Professor of Indigenous Nations & Dakota Studies


Ho, Mitakuyapi.  Owasin cantewasteya nape ciyuzapi do!  Mato Nunpa emankiyapi.  Damakota, k’a Oceti mitawa kin he Wahpetunwan.  Mini Sota Makoce heciyatanhan wahi.


“Hello, my Relatives.  With a good heart, I greet all of you with a handshake.  I am called Chris Mato Nunpa.  I am a Dakota, and my Fire is the Wahpetunwan, or “Dwellers In the Leaves,” indicating the woodlands heritage of my Fire.  I come from the “Land Where the Waters Reflect the Skies, or Heavens,”  or Minnesota.



Also, I wish to thank mitakoda, my friend, Bill Means and the Organizing


Committee for honoring me the privilege of presenting testimony at this


International Tribunal for Leonard Peltier.  I have used the documentary “Incident


at Oglala” many times in several of my  Indigenous Nations & Dakota Studies (INDS)


courses at Southwest Minnesota State University (SMSU) in Marshall, Minnesota.   


This same documentary you all will be seeing sometime during the event.  Also, I


have used also an article which appears in the book State of Native America (1992),


edited M. Annette Jaimes.  The article is titled “A Warrior Caged   The Continuing


Struggle of Leonard Peltier” by Jim Vander Wall” (Chapter X, p. 291).  I learned many


things from the documentary and the article.


In addition, there was a Native man by the name of Chris Spotted Eagle, a


media person, a producer of documentaries and films.  Mr. Spotted Eagle, a humble
and gentle man, a knowledgeable person, conducted a “Teach-In” on Leonard Peltier


for me while I was teaching the last 16 years of my professional career at SMSU.  


Before Chris spoke, and as people were filing in, I played a portion of some music by


“Rage Against the Machine,” which had to do with Leonard Peltier.  The students


thought I was cool for playing such music.  I learned more about Leonard Peltier


from mitakoda, “my friend,” Chris Spotted Eagle, at his “Teach-In.”


My job here is to talk about the Dakota People of Minnesota and what


happened to them, and who did it, especially concentrating on the tragic and


traumatic events of 1862 and 1863.  As I understand it, my presentation dealing


with the Dakota-U.S. War of 1862, along with other presentations, will provide a


historical and political context for what happened at Wounded Knee, both in 1890


and 1973, and what happened to Leonard Peltier and to other Indigenous activists


who are struggling against massive theft of our lands, against destruction of our


cultures, against suppression of our spirituality and ceremonies, and against the


genocide of not only the Dakota People of Minnesota, specifically, but also with the


Indigenous Peoples of the United States, in general.  


Also, I wish to say the Oyate, “People” or “Nation,” consisting of the Dakota,


the Lakota, and the Nakota, took up arms against the Wasicu (the Dakota word for


the white man, for the Euro-American, or the U.S. Euro-Americans) in one of the


longest sustained periods of resistance to the Wasicu.  This resistance began in 1862


when our Dakota People, under the leadership of Little Crow declared war on the


white man, a very disastrous decision, whose effects are felt today by the present-


day Dakota People of Minnesota and by the exiled Dakota who are spread over


several states and over several provinces in Canada.  This resistance spread into the


plains and the Lakota, of the Oyate, which means the “People” or “Nation,” continued


the struggle.  The Lakota, and some Dakota and Nakota, defeated Custer at the Little


Big Horn River, a decisive victory.  The Oyate’s struggle and resistance culminated in


the tragic and genocidal massacre at Wounded Knee in December 29, 1890.


There are parallels to be found in the continuing struggle of Leonard Peltier


and his supporters and allies, along with other Indigenous Peoples who resisted the


land-stealing, the treaty-breaking, the deprivations of our rights (even according to


their own U.S. Constitution), and suppression of our Native religions and languages.  


This would include the struggle of the Dakota People of Minnesota since 1862 and


1863 right up to the present time.  With Leonard Peltier, we see the lies, i.e., the


complete fabrications by the FBI, which is the police of the U.S. government, the


threatening and intimidation of witnesses, the coerced affidavits, the false evidence,


and other instances of misconduct by the FBI.


In the “Wounded Knee Leadership Trial” of Russell Means and Dennis Banks,


we see what Jim Vander Wall calls a “classic example” of “the use of the courts to


pursue political ends” (p. 293).  The comments of the judge (Nichols) was


enlightening in which he talked about the pattern of “misconduct” by the FBI


throughout the trial.  It caused Judge Nichols to write, “The waters of justice have


been polluted” (p. 293, Jaimes).  It is this writer’s perception that the “waters of


justice” have been “polluted” ever since the conception of the United States some


237 years ago.  Judge Nichols comment is, also, how I perceive what happened in the


“trials” of the 392 Dakota men, of which 303 were sentenced to be hanged.


Eventually,  38 Dakota warriors, Minnesota’s first patriots and martyrs, were


hanged on December 26, 1862 in what is considered the largest mass simultaneous


hanging from one gallows in the history of the United States.  These courageous men


gave their lives in defense of their country!  They, actually, did fight for Minnesota


and for freedom of the Dakota Oyate!



The Trials of the Dakota Men


Back in 1862, in the “kangaroo court’’ military commission, we see these


same acts of misconduct and criminal actions by the military and the U.S.


government.  For example, sometimes up to 42 Dakota men were tried in one day,


and some of the “trials” lasted less than five minutes.  If a Dakota man was seen at a


battle site, he was guilty.  The Dakota men were allowed no lawyers to defend them.  


They were considered war criminals instead of prisoners of war.  They were


considered, automatically, guilty without any specific charges brought against them,


and without any trial, to have these charges either proved or disproved.  These


actions, along with other unfair and unjust actions, or “misconduct,” by the


government and military, caused Roy Meyer to write, in his History of the Santee


Sioux (1967, 1993), “Thus, the revered Anglo-Saxon principle of law that a person is


considered innocent until proved guilty was reversed in the case of the Indians”


(p.125).


Since the Dakota men who fought against the white man were automatically


considered war criminals and were executed, Carol Chomsky, a law professor at the


University of Minnesota Law School, conducted research about the trials and the


mass hanging of the thirty-eight (38) Dakota men and wrote a paper from a legal
perspective.  The paper is titled “The United States-Dakota War Trials:  A Study in


Military Injustice.”  This paper was published in the Stanford Law Review in


November 1990.  Also, the Copyright year is 1990.


Professor Chomsky said several things which are damning to the


perpetrators:   


One, “the Dakota were tried as common criminals, not as legitimate


belligerents of a sovereign nation.  The only proper charge against a belligerent is


violation of the laws and customs of war” (p. 26).


Two, “As members of a sovereign nation, the Dakota should not have been


condemned for fighting in a war with the United States” (p. 26).


Three, “Clearly, if the Dakota were sovereign and fighting a war, killing


soldiers in battle would not be a violation” (p. 26).


Professor Chomsky goes on to say, “We have seen that the trials of the Dakota


were conducted unfairly in a variety of ways.  The evidence was sparse, the tribunal


was biased, the defendants were unrepresented in unfamiliar proceedings


conducted in a foreign language, and authority for convening the tribunal was


lacking.  More fundamentally, neither the Military Commission nor the reviewing


authorities recognized that they were dealing with the aftermath of a war fought


with a sovereign nation and that the men who surrendered were entitled to


treatment in accordance with that status “ (p. 28).


These statements certainly imply that the proceedings of the Military


Commission were not legal.  Or, one could say the hanging of the 38 Dakota men on


December 26, 1862 was “legalized murder.”  In fact, Roy Meyer, in his book


mentioned above, did use this phrase “legalized murder” to characterize the mass


execution of Dakota men on December 26, 1862 (p.138).


Professor Chomsky’s statement re: “the tribunal was biased” was not only


true for the Dakota men back in 1862 but also for Leonard Peltier in his trial


proceedings in March 21, 1977 in Fargo, North Dakota, in which trial Mr. Peltier had


a biased judge.  An Anishinabe friend of mine, George Mitchell, from Minnesota, and


a  founding member of the American Indian Movement back in 1968 would often


say, “Justice for the white man means “just us.”  To reiterate an earlier assertion, it is


my perception that this statement re: U.S. law, “just us,” has been true since the


beginning of the United States of America and, most certainly, is true today.


One of the events that my group, which I founded, the Oceti Sakowin


Omniciye, or “Seven Fires Summit,” has been talking about and doing some planning


for a Tribunal in which we would place the former governors of the state of


Minnesota, Alexander Ramsey and Henry Sibley, on trial for Genocide and Crimes


Against Humanity.  The Tribunal would consist of a tentative number of five (5)


jurists, which would be Indigenous judge or lawyer types.  These jurists would be


from outside the United States and would apply International Law and the UN


Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.   And it is precisely for the reason


stated above - that the U.S. law is for whites only, that it protects whites and the U.S.


government.  U.S. Euro-American law is not for Indigenous Peoples of the U.S.


The Treaty of 1805


Vine Deloria, Jr. writes this about treaties, “In looking back at the centuries of


broken treaties, it is clear that the United States never intended to keep any of its
promises.  Like other areas of life, the federal government adapted its policies to the


expediency of the moment.  When the crisis had passed, it promptly proceeded on


its way without a backward glance at its treachery”  (Custer Died For Your Sins


(1969, 1988), pp. 48-49).  Note the term “treachery” which Deloria applies to the


United States of America.


In 1805 the Dakota People made a treaty with the United States, which was


the Oyate’s first treaty with the U.S..  The U.S. wished to establish dominance in the


Upper Mississippi River valley.  Therefore, the U.S. needed land  to build a fort.  Forts


were necessary because they would enable the white settlers to steal Dakota land,


and when the Dakota would resist, the white soldiers, housed at the fort, would be


called upon to either kill the Dakota or removed them.  So, the U.S. sent Zebulon Pike


to negotiate a treaty with the “Sioux Nation of Indians.”  


There were three (3) articles involved in the treaty.  Article 1 dealt with the


obtaining of land and building of a fort.  Article 2 involved “consideration,” or


money.  Zebulon Pike estimated the value of the 155,000+ acres of land at $200,000.  


However, when the treaty went to the Senate back east, the Senate wrote in Article 2


the figure of $2,000, which was $198,000 short of the $200,000 expected by the


Dakota.  This was a deceptive and dishonest trick that had been done, earlier, many


times to other Indigenous Peoples, and now it was being done to the Dakota.  It


reminds the writer of a statement of Roy Meyer in which he speaks of “moral


obliquity,” in his History Of The Santee Sioux, “Many observers have noted the moral


obliquity that seemingly afflicted white men in their dealings with Indians.  Men


justly respect for integrity and fairness in their relations with other white men saw


nothing reprehensible about resorting to all manner of chicaner and equivocation


when dealing with Indians” (p.77).  Then, the U.S. government did not pay the


$2,000 until several years later.  The Senate decided to pay the $2,000 in goods.  


However, as the goods were coming up the Mississippi River in boats, a Sauk and


Fox person said that white men had killed his brother and he wanted some


payment.  Some of the goods intended for the Dakota were, then, paid to the Sauk


and Fox person.  Thus, the Dakota did not even get the $2,000 that the Senate wrote


in Article 2.  Today, the position of many of the Dakota People is that we have not


been paid.  Much of St. Paul and Minneapolis is located on this 155,000+ acres,


which is stolen land and has not been paid for.  We are asking for payment of the


land, the return of some of the land, payment for back rent, and reparations for


Genocide.


Also, the Dakota are struggling for their rights according to Article 3 of the


1805 Treaty which states, “The United States promise on their part to permit the


Sioux to pass, re-pass, hunt, or make other uses of the said districts, as they have


formerly done in said district . . . . ”  We are fighting for our treaty fishing rights, our


treaty hunting rights, and our treaty religious rights (e.g., access to Coldwater


Spring, etc.).  We have had a number of fish-ins which we called “The Great Oyate


Fish-In.”  Some of us have been arrested, many times, have faced white men armed


with guns, and have appeared in federal court a number of times.  The charges have


generally been dismissed, not on treaty issues but on legal technicalities and flawed


law enforcement.


The year 2008 was the 150th birthday of Minnesota as a state.  Thus, the state


of Minnesota was “celebrating” its birthday.  Some of the young Dakota People told


the Sesquicentennial Commission that the Dakota did not have anything to


“celebrate,” that Minnesota was built on Dakota blood, on Dakota lives, and on


Dakota lands and resources.  However, the Dakota People and their allies and


supporters did other things which engaged in Truth-Telling, to counter the


“celebration” and the lies that have been told for the past 150 years.  


One of the events was holding four days of ceremonies at a sacred site,


Coldwater Spring.  The newspapers, the radio stations, and the television stations


said we were “protesting” and “demonstrating.”  Instead,we were conducting Inipis,


a purification ceremony;  the Canduhupa, or the Pipe Ceremony;  plus speakers and


panels.  Various law enforcement personnel were there including:  Hennepin County


Sheriff’s deputies,  Minneapolis Police,  Federal Marshalls,  Homeland Security, and


there was even one SWAT team from Edina, Minnesota.  These law enforcement


personnel would drive their cars slowly down the road by our camp, turn around at


the end, and return slowly.  Their windows were tinted – we couldn’t see them but


they could see us.  Their purpose was to intimidate and harass us.  Also, in the last


two days, there were two helicopters hovering above us.  We are fairly certain that


they were taking pictures of everyone that was there and were recording the


speeches and the panelists.


The main point is that we, like so many Indigenous Peoples and groups, are


struggling for our lands, for our languages, for our constitutional rights (i.e., the U.S.


Constitution), and our treaty rights.  And, like other Indigenous Peoples, who resist


the white man, we are up against overwhelming numbers, guns, and their law which


protects them and not us, the First Nations Peoples.


I would like to close this discussion on treaties with another quotation from
Vine Deloria, Jr., “When the Kennedys and King were assassinated people wailed and


moaned over the “sick” society.  Most people took the assassinations as a symptom


of a deep inner rot that had suddenly set in.  They needn’t have been shocked.  


America has been sick for some time.  It got sick when the first Indian treaty was


broken.  It has never recovered” (p. 76)



Genocide:  The Forced March


On November 07-13, 1862, 1,700 of our Dakota People, primarily women and


children, and some elders, were force-marched 150 miles from southwestern


Minnesota (in the Morton and Redwood Falls area) to the Concentration Camp at Ft.


Snelling near the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis.  Dozens of our Kunsis (or


“Grandmothers”) were killed on this death march., including one of my


grandmothers who was bayoneted in the stomach by a white soldier on horseback.  


Her “sin,” or crime, was not understanding a white soldier’s order, given in a foreign


language, English.   Another friend of mine, now deceased, tells the story of his


grandmother who was on the march.  She needed to relieve herself and she, for


modesty’s sake, headed for the trees alongside the march route.  A white soldier


waved her back, signaling her to get back on the road and keep walking.   The


grandmother walked until she could no longer hold it, and, again, she headed for the


woods.  The white soldier became angry and shot and killed the grandmother.  


We do not know how many of our women and children were killed on that  


150-mile march   We do not know how many children and elders succumbed to
violence, hunger, cold, disease, despair, and terror.  We do not know how many


elders were killed if they lagged behind on the march.  Also, we do not know how


many of our Dakota women were raped along the 150 miles.  We, the Dakota People


and other Indigenous Peoples who have experienced the genocidal marches, do


know that all these horrible acts of killings, deaths, rapes, etc. were common to all


the forced marches of the Indigenous Peoples, including the Dakota People of


Minnesota, in the 19th century with the Indian Removal Act of 1830.


The forced-march fulfills criterion “c” of the five criteria of the 1948 UN


Genocide Convention, “Deliberately inflicting upon the group conditions of life


calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”  This forced


march is state-sponsored Genocide!  Violence, sickness, despair, and terror


characterized the conditions of the Dakota People.  



Genocide:  the Concentration Camp


When the women and children completed the 7-day forced march, they were


“concentrated” at the site below the bluff on which the fort was situated.  This area


is now known as Ft. Snelling State Park.  Hundreds of our women and children were


murdered here.  According to oral accounts, there were burials every day from sun-


up to sun-down.  There were no shovels to dig a grave.  The Dakota had to use sticks,


sharp rocks, and their hands, whatever was available, to dig the graves.  So, the


graves were shallow.  It was not uncommon, in the mornings, to see a dog dragging


human bones around, bones of infants, children, elders who had been buried the day


before.


Dr. Jack Weatherford, in his book Native Roots (1991) says this after looking


at photographs of the Ft. Snelling concentration camp.  He writes,


Those old photographs have an eerie quality . . .
The pictures show us the birth of an institution, the
beginning of a whole new social practice of concentrating
innocent civilians into an area and imprisoning them for protracted
periods without charging them with any crime . . . By the middle of
the twentieth century, the concentration camp had spread virtually around the world” (p.178)


Again, the concentration camp fits not only criterion “c”, mentioned above


but also criterion “b”, “Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the


groups,” and Criterion “a” as well, “Killing members of the group.”  Thus, our Dakota


grandmothers were murdered by cold, hunger, disease, and despair.  Also, they were


terrorized.  I remember my Tunwin (which means “Aunt”) Naomi Bear Cavender


who talked about white soldiers urinating on the tipis of the women.  In Dr.


Waziyatawin’s article, “Colonial Calibrations:  The Expendability of Minnesota’s


Original People” (2013),  she quotes the missionary, Stephen Riggs who wrote, “It is


a very sad place now.  The crying hardly ever stops.”  Gabriel Renville reported, “We


were so crowded and confined that an epidemic broke out among us and children


were dying day and night” (William Mitchell Law Review, Vol. 39:2, p. 474).  


Some racist white academics and other people will deny that genocide


occurred at the concentration camp site at Ft. Snelling.  Dr. Waziyatawin writes, “if


we perceive these deaths as anything other than part of the genocide, we are


denying the standards used in other genocidal contexts” (p.  473).  Professor


Waziyatawin goes on to quote Dr. Robert Venables, a historian from Cornell


University, Ithaca, New York, who, in reference to the Indigenous holocaust asks the


question:  “Does it matter that millions of the Indians who perished died of disease


and malnutrition rather than by the sword?  Are we not to count the Jews who died


of disease and starvation, and only those gassed or shot?” (p. 473).



Genocide:  Forcible Removal


By the end of the six months (November & December 1862,  and January,


February, March, and April of 1863), there were now 1,300 women and children


who had survived the 150-mile forced march and the six months in the


Concentration Camp.  These tired, sickly, starved, etc. Dakota people were loaded


onto two cattle-boats, or steam boats, and forcibly removed from our ancient


homelands in Minnesota, transported down the Mississippi River to the mouth of


the Missouri River.  Then, they went up the Missouri River to Crow Creek, South


Dakota where the majority of the women, children, and elders ended up.


This forcible removal of the Dakota from their ancient homelands fits right


into the fine tradition established by the U.S. Congress, the highest legislative body


in the nation, with the passage of the Indian removal Act in 1830, an act which was


enthusiastically implemented by President Andrew Jackson, another white “hero”/


President in the long line of U.S. genocidaires, i.e., perpetrators of Genocide.  It, no


doubt, would be of interest of the reader to know that Thomas Jefferson, an


advocate of Extermination and Extirpation of the Indigenous Peoples of the U.S., had,


also, suggested, in 1803, that the First Nations Peoples be either exterminated or


removed.  However, it was not until 27 years later that Jefferson got his wish when


Congress passed the Indian Removal Act.  In 1863, thirty-three (33) years after the


Indian Removal Act was passed, the state of Minnesota passed the act titled “an Act


for the Removal of the Sisseton, Wahpeton, Medwakanton, and Wahpakoota Bands


of Sioux or Dakota Indians.”  Such legislative acts of Forcible Removal of Dakota and


other Indigenous Peoples are not only state-sponsored Land Theft but also state-


sanctioned Genocide.  The white supremacists, the imperialists (believers in


Manifest Destiny), and the colonizers used their laws to pursue their genocidal and


land-theft ends.


Thus, the state of Minnesota and its Euro-Minnesotan citizenry repeated the


deliberate and systematic policy of expropriation of lands and resources, by the


forcible removal of Indigenous Peoples from their homelands, by removing the


Dakota People from their ancients home lands in Mini Sota Makoce, “Land Where


The Waters Reflect the Skies, or Heavens” (Dr. Mato Nunpa’s translation).  Again,


many Dakota were killed by hunger, cold, thirst, and despair, as well as by violence.  


Again, terror characterized the mental and emotional of the Dakota People.  These


conditions were deliberately inflicted upon the Dakota People by the Genocidaires,


thus fulfilling criterion “c,” as well as criteria “b” and “a,” of the 1948 UN Genocide


Convention.



Genocide: The Punitive Military Expeditions of Sibley & Sully


In 1863, in the aftermath of the Dakota-U.S. War of 1862 in Minnesota,


hundreds of Dakota men, women, children, and elders were killed in 1863 in the


areas now know as South and North Dakota.  Sibley and Sully, with their punitive


and genocidal military expeditions, destroyed wholesale many Dakota villages and


indiscriminately slaughtered hundreds of innocent Dakota civilians and then called


these massacres “battles.”  Many of these Dakota People had never fought against
the white man, and some had never been in Mini Sota Makoce.  Their sin was being


Dakota.  It appeared that Sibley and Sully were consumed by a genocidal lust and a


racial hatred of Dakota People.  One soldier wrote in a diary that the white soldiers


did much worse things to the Dakota than the Dakota ever did to the Euro-


Minnesotan citizenry.  These murderous and hateful acts by Sibley and Sully, and


their troops, fulfilled Criterion “a” of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, “Killing


members of the Group.”


Not only did Sibley and Sully kill non-combatants but they also destroyed


their food supplies and their means of feeding their families, children, and elders.  


As Dr. Waziyatawin writes,  that in addition to killing large numbers of Dakota


People, “ . . . the expeditions were incredibly harmful to Dakota People.  In addition


to causing terror, the expeditions destroyed vast quantities of Dakota supplies and


equipment.  The battles primarily consisted of Dakota warriors trying desperately to


fend off white soldiers while their women and children fled behind them.  Of course,


most of the casualties of these expeditions would occur the following winter when


the Dakota populations on the run starved or died of exposure” (What Does Justice


Look Like? (2008, p. 49).



Genocide:  The 400 Dakota Men Imprisoned in Davenport, Iowa


About 400 Dakota men were imprisoned in the new concentration camp at


Davenport, Iowa for three years.  Approximately, one-third of the men were


murdered there, dying of violence, hunger, cold, disease, despair, and terror,


including one of my relatives on my father’s side, Wicanhpi Nunpa, or “Two Stars.”  


This action and conditions fulfill criterion “c” of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention,
“deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical


destruction in whole or in part.”


One of the significant points that could be made here re: the imprisonment of


the Dakota men at Davenport, Iowa, is the fact that they were separated from their


women.  This, also, occurred with the imposition of the concentration camps.  The


Dakota women and children were at Ft. Snelling, and the men were at the Mankato


concentration camp.  When the genders are separated, there can be no procreation.  


There will be no children burn.  This is “flatly and intentionally genocidal,” to use


David Stannard’s words in American Holocaust (1992), p. 119), for no population


can survive” (p. 119) if there are no children being born.  These actions of forcible


separations of the genders by the state of Minnesota and by the U.S. government


fulfill criterion “d” of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, “Imposing measures


intended to prevent births within the group.”



Genocide:  Bounties


One of the most barbaric and heinous acts perpetrated by Governor Ramsey,


by the Minnesota state legislature, and by the Euro-Minnesotan citizenry was the


placing of bounties on the scalps of Dakota People.  There was no gender


discrimination – both Dakota men and women were target for the Euro-


Minnesotans.  There was no age discrimination – men, women, and children were


fair game.  The bounties placed on the Dakota People began with the sum of $25,


then, it was raised to $75, and, finally, to $200 (Meyer, p. 135).  According to people


who understand the economics of the 1860s in the state of Minnesota, $200 was an


annual salary.
It was theoretically possible for an entrepreneurial Norwegian or German


young man to shoot a Dakota and buy a quarter-section of land, and begin a career


in agriculture.  It is understandable why western European immigrants loved this


country.  There was so much opportunity!  Other immigrants saw Minnesota as


Canaan, the Land of Milk and Honey.  When I first read comments like this, I


shuddered because I knew what this meant.  The Assemblies of God were one of


three Christian denominations to send missionaries to our little Dakota community.  


These missionaries taught us Bible verses and Bible stories.   I learned about the


“Chosen People,” the Jews.   I learned about the “Promised Land,” Canaan.  I learned


that the Canaanites and the Hittites, et. al., were to either be removed or “utterly


destroyed.”  This was the command of the Old Testament God to his “Chosen


People,” the Israelites.  I had learned, later, that the Old Testament God didn’t like


the first Peoples of the Promised Land, the Canaanites.  Well, when these white men


came and saw Minnesota, and said “Canaan, Land of Milk and Honey,” I knew what


that meant.   That meant that the white men were the “chosen people.”  our ancient


homelands were “Canaan,” or their “Promised Land,” and we, the Dakota People,


were the godless Canaanites and Hittites that needed to be either exterminated or


removed.


John Toland wrote what is considered the definitive biography of Adolph


Hitler.  In his book, Toland points out that Hitler told his inner circle, on a number of


occasions, how much he admired the “efficiency” of the U.S. genocidal programs


against the Indigenous Peoples of the U.S., including the Dakota People of Minnesota,


and viewed them as models for his own programs against the Jews, the Gypsies, the


physically handicapped, homosexuals, and everybody else he did not like.


Hitler, an evildoer, learned and committed many of the things that U.S.


perpetrated against the Indigenous Peoples of the U.S., the Dakota People being one


of the Native Peoples, including genocide, concentration camps, forced marches, and


removals, mass executions, etc.  Hitler shared the same racial hatred toward the


Jews that the U.S. and its Euro-American citizenry displayed toward the Indigenous


peoples of the U.S.  Hitler even borrowed certain terms and phrases that the U.S.


used re: the Aboriginal Peoples of the U.S.  For example, the phrase “final solution”


was used by the U.S. re: the First Nations Peoples, and Hitler used this phrase in


regard to the Jews and Gypsies.  Hitler, also, applied the term “Redskins” to the


Russians, a term which Hitler learned from the U.S.  When the German Nazis were


about to invade Russian, Hitler told his troops that they must treat the Russians as


“Redskins.”  The United States was an excellent teacher and Hitler was an excellent


student.


An incidental comment -  most of us are aware of the Washington Redskins, a


professional football team, and most Indigenous Peoples are painfully aware that


the U.S. Euro-Americans are okay with this term even though this term “Redskins,”


is extremely offensive and disrespectful to the First Nations Peoples.  We do not


wish to be U.S. America’s “fun and games,” as Dr. Ward Churchill would put it.


There is one thing that Hitler did not do with the Jews that the U.S. did with


the Native Peoples of the U.S., and that Ramsey and the Euro-Minnesotans did with


the Dakota People.  Hitler did not place bounties on the scalps of Jewish People.  If


Hitler had placed bounties on Jewish scalps, one can just imagine the howls of


protest that would have arisen from the fine Christian U.S. Euro-Americans.  As it is,


that U.S. Euro-American public did apply to Hitler and the Nazis the terms of


“Criminals,” “Murderers,” “Barbarians,” and “Butchers.”  Yet, these U.S. Euro-


Americans and Euro-Minnesotans think it is just fine if they do these same genocidal


actions against the Dakota People and to other Indigenous Peoples, and, at the same


time, think that is wrong for Hitler and the Nazis to do the same things to the Jews.  


This is one of dozens upon dozens of instances in which the U.S. displays its


hypocrisy and the use of double standards in the genocidal and oppressive


treatment of the Indigenous Peoples.



CONCLUSION


With the few examples I have provided re: the broken treaties, the use of


their law to pursue their ends to crush the Dakota;  to expropriate our lands;  to


perpetrate genocide on the Dakota people which denied the Dakota their physical


lives; to deny us our religious rights by disallowing access to our sacred sites, etc., I


trust that this bit of information, along with the other presentations at the Tribunal


event, have shown that the United States is not a friend of Indigenous Peoples but is


an enemy intent on denying us our rights, our cultures, and is intent on stealing


what lands and resources we still have.   And the U.S. has shown over its 237 years


of existence that it is more than willing to use their soldiers, their law enforcement


personnel, their SWAT teams, their guns and helicopters, and their laws to crush us


and deprive us of our rights.   


Even though the forces against us are overwhelming, and I sometimes


despair, it is unacceptable to do nothing.  I must speak up, I must act, and I must
write, as the Indigenous Peoples here at this event are doing.  I am taking


encouragement and strength from all of you at this conference.


Owasin wopida tanka eciciyapi do!  “I say thank-you to all of you.”


Mitakuyapi owasin!  “All my Relatives!”




Chris Mato Nunpa, Ph.D.
5690 250th Ave.
Granite Falls, Minnesota 56241

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