Breton's Unpublished Letter to Star Tribune, De. 10, 2007

Dear Editor,

I want to thank Joe Tompkins for his letter showing the absurdity of the discussion about our history on this land. Essentially, the questions are: Is it okay to steal a state's worth of land through genocide? Moreover, if we were in the same position today with the Dakota-if they today occupied Minnesota's 140 million acres and we wanted those lands-would we do the same thing all over again?

By “the same thing,” I mean commit fraud, violate all agreements, cause starvation, then, when the inevitable war of resistance finally occurs, use the war as a justification to commit all-out extermination of an Indigenous People by every conceivable means, so that their land can be “cleared for settlement” by the invaders. Evidently, some Minnesotans believe we didn't go far enough in eradicating the Dakota People from their ancestral homeland. Presumably, genocide remains today, as it was in 1862, an acceptable means for taking what we want.

The sesquicentennial of Minnesota statehood gives us an opportunity to confront these issues head on. We like to think that we-and I am white-have “progressed” in these 150 years, that we hold greater respect for those different from ourselves and that we do not ascribe to “might makes right” or “white makes right.” But is this so?

The clear choice of the state-funded, state-sponsored Sesquicentennial Commission to promote “celebrations” holds up a mirror that shows us exactly where we are. The choice to celebrate statehood is a choice both to deny and to endorse genocide, since all the riches, bounty, and achievements that Minnesotans have gained in these 150 years on this land has come at the price-the ultimate price-paid by the Dakota People. Since 1862, Minnesotans have held regular celebrations of the extermination of the Dakota People, and evidently, we have not “progressed” beyond this white, colonizer norm.

What could we do as we approach this time of remembering?

Instead of funding the celebration of genocide, we as a state could put our energies behind hearing our history from a Dakota perspective. We have heard the Euro-colonizer view; for 150 years, that is all we have heard. Conquerors typically write history in ways that justify their conquest. It is myth and propaganda, not history. If we want to know how we got to where we are today, we need to hear the accounts passed down through generations of Dakota people both living here and scattered across this continent, where Dakota people fled to escape Minnesota's state-sponsored terrorism.

As the wider picture emerges, we see more clearly not only who suffered and who benefited but also whose descendants continue to suffer and whose descendants continue to benefit. Whereas the non-Dakota inhabitants of Minnesota number five million people, less than two thousand Dakota people live on Dakota-held lands. And whereas at one time the state's 54 million acres were counted as Dakota homeland, only 3,200 acres remain under Dakota control today-less than .006 percent. Genocide, land theft, and the dispossession of the Dakota People from their ancestral homeland have been exceedingly effective.

Some of those I speak to about our history with the Dakota People quickly tell me how recently they or their ancestors came here, implying that the obligations created by these immense harms do not apply to them. Yet any non-Dakota person living in this state benefits from the massive dispossession and suffering of the Dakota People. This is not to blame anyone; it simply states a fact.

Again, the question is: What do we do about this fact? How do we respond, especially as we mark 150 years of statehood?

Minnesota is an international leader in restorative justice. Restorative justice explores how we can respond to harms in a good way, so that the harms do not happen again. Our restorative justice professionals travel all over the world advising other countries in how to come to terms with and rectify atrocities embedded in their past. The process involves hearing the stories, acknowledging the harms and the obligations that the harms create, holding each other accountable, whether as perpetrators or as beneficiaries of harms, and then working together to “make things right.” More than talk, the restorative justice process requires making amends and restitution-doing what it takes to make victims whole again. Yet not only the victims benefit. Engaging in this process can be profoundly transformative on both sides of harm.
Restorative justice suggests to me that the opportunity remains for all of us to “be here in a good way.” But celebrating genocide-which celebrating statehood without confronting the genocide that statehood entailed boils down to doing-won't get us there. For respectful coexistence, we need truth, and we need justice: the same things we all need when we have suffered harm.
Denise Breton lives in Saint Paul and is the executive director of Living Justice Press, a nonprofit publishing company devoted to restorative justice and the publisher of In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors: The Dakota Commemorative Marches of the 21st Century by Waziyatawin Angela Wilson.