Land Acknowledgement

WAHPETON BAND OF THE DAKOTAH OYATE

WAHPETUNWAN (People Dwelling Among the Leaves)

In our October newsletter we promised to share with you each month an article on one of the four tribes/nations who resided on the land we now “own” and care for. We encourage you to watch the videos of our Wahpeton brothers and sisters today and to hold them in your minds and hearts when their band of the Dakotah Oyate are honored in Good Shepherd’s Land Acknowledgement statement.

The Wahpeton (WAH-peh-ton) Band is one of four bands of the Isanti (Santee) or eastern Dakotah who speak the Dakotah dialect (4).  “The word ‘Dakotah’ can be translated into English as ‘friend’ and is the preferred identification of the … Wahpeton band.  The real significance of the word ‘Dakotah’ derives from the word ‘WoDakotah,’ which means ‘harmony, a condition of being at peace with oneself and in harmony with one another and nature…(2).’”  Oyate (oh-YAH-tay) means people or nation and is preferred over the words “Sioux Tribe (1).”

“At the time of initial contact with European traders and missionaries in the mid 1700s, the … Wahpeton band resided in villages extending from Manitoba, Canada to their present homelands on the Lake Traverse Reservation and further south into Minnesota and Iowa (1).”  “Historically, the Santee Dakota moved their villages and varied their work according to the seasons. … In the spring, winter villages dispersed, and men left on hunting parties while women, children, and the elderly moved into sugaring camps to make maple sugar and syrup.  During the summer months families gathered in villages to hunt and fish.  They processed the game and harvested traditional medicines and indigenous plants, as well as crops such as corn, squash, and beans.  In autumn families moved to the year’s chosen hunting grounds for the annual hunt that also prepared them for the upcoming winter. … Winter months were spent living off the stores of supplies they built up during the previous year, along with continual fishing and hunting.  This traditional lifestyle of communal support and a deep connection to the land and natural resources are the basis for Dakota society and culture (4).” 

In the 1800s, daily life for the Dakotah centered on survival.  The Wahpeton Band lost its homeland in Minnesota and Iowa due to conflicts with the Sauk and Meskwaki over Iowa lands, pressure from incoming settlers and land speculators, and threats and coercion from Territorial, State, and Federal governments.

In 1825 the US government arranged a treaty with multiple tribes, including the Wahpeton, Sac and Fox, Iowa, and Ho Chunk, setting boundaries of tribal land and making it simpler for the government to negotiate with the Indians to purchase their lands (4).  Five years later, in 1830, the cession of lands began “being anxious to remove all causes which … may create any unfriendly feeling” between the tribes and “being anxious to provide other sources for supplying their wants besides those of hunting (12).”  The Siouxbands, including the Wahpeton, ceded a strip of land 20 miles wide from the Mississippi to the Demoine River north of a line established in 1825 (Tract 153) as did the Sac and Fox south of the line (Tract 152) (5,12).  Tract 153 included Cresco and Decorah and Tract 152 Waukon.

Pressured by traders and threatened with military force, the eastern bands of the Dakotah were coerced into signing treaties (Treaty of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota) in 1851, ceding all their remaining lands in Minnesota and Iowa (35 million acres) (Tract 289).  Under the Treaty des Sioux, the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands alone ceded 21 million acres in both States.  The treaties also called for setting

 up reservations on narrow strips of land on the north and south sides of the Minnesota River forcing the Dakotah to become farmers (Tracts 414, 413, and 440) (4,5,6,11).  This massive loss of Dakota land allowed a flood of settlers and land speculators to move into lands formerly occupied by the Dakotah people.  

In 1858 Dakotah leaders were taken to Washington D.C. to sign away land north and east of the Minnesota River.  US officials were under pressure from settlers and speculators to acquire the land for farming and economic development and were convinced that the Dakotah had failed to improve their reservation land by farming.  They coerced the tribal leaders, including the Wahpeton, to cede the north side of the Minnesota River—probably the most fertile land in the State (Tracts 413 and 414) (3,5,6,8,9,10).  

Having only a small strip of land on which to live, and without access to hunting land, the Dakotah revolted in 1862 against reservation life when the Government did not meet its treaty obligations and non-Indian traders refused to allow food and provisions to be distributed, causing starvation and extreme hardship among the Dakotahs (4).  The Wahpeton were not considered a hostile party during the uprising (7).

In 1863 Congress passed The Dakota Expulsion Act that “abrogated and annulled” all treaties with the Dakotah people and shortly after passed a bill providing for the removal of the Dakotah from their ancestral homelands.  It applied to all Dakotah, regardless of whether they joined the war in 1862.  It has never been repealed (4,6).

The Lake Traverse Treaty of 1867 allowed remnants of the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands to retain a small triangular shaped piece of land known as the Lake Traverse Reservation, in the northeastern corner of South Dakota and a small portion of the southeastern corner of North Dakota (2,3).  The treaty was created for the “friendly” Sisseton and Wahpeton bands who did not participate in the hostilities of 1862 and who were deemed “homeless wanderers” subject to intense suffering.  Banned from their homelands to this reservation, the Sisseton/Wahpeton have nevertheless survived mission schools, boarding schools, hundreds of educational laws and policies, and more.  The reservation currently has a combined membership of 13,872 Sisseton-Wahpeton peoples (3). 

Watch the videos below to hear Sisseton-Wahpeton voices today.

Telling the history of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate | Dakota Life

Almanac | Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation

 

REFERENCES

  1. South Dakota Department of Tourism with contributions from the Cheyenne River, Crow Creek, Flandreau Santee, Lower Brule, Oglala, Rosebud, Standing Rock, and Yankton Sioux Tribes and the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate (2022).  A guide to tribal nations: Oceti Sakowin homelands. Pierre, SD: South Dakota Department of Tourism.
  2. Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate (2022).  Sisseton wahpeton oyate.  Retrieved from https://www.SWO-NSN.gov
  3. Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate (2022).  Tribal history.  Retrieved from https://www.SWO-NSN.gov
  4. Minnesota Historical Society.  The dakota people.  Minnesota Treaties.  Retrieved from https://www.mnhs.org
  5. Library of Congress.  Indian land cessions in the United States.  Indian land transfers—United States.  Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov.
  6. Native Land Digital.  http://www.native-land.ca  Search for territories, languages, and treaties by address.
  7. Oklahoma State University.  Treaty with the Sioux-Sisseton and Wahpeton bands, 1867.  Retrieved from http://treaties.okstate.edu
  8. Minnesota Historical Society.  1858 Dakota Treaty Delegation.  Retrieved from http://www.usdakotawar.org
  9. Treaties Matter.  1858 land cession treaties with the Dakota.  Retrieved from http:/www.treatiesmatter.org.
  10. Oklahoma State University.  Treaty with the Sioux, 1858.  Retrieved from http://treaties.okstate.edu
  11. Wikipedia.  Treaty of Traverse des Sioux.  Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org
  12. Oklahoma State University.  Treaty with the Sauk and Foxes, etc., 1830.  Retrieved from http://treaties.okstate.edu