"Two hundred years ago today, on behalf of the United States, a young Army lieutenant named Zebulon M. Pike signed the first treaty with the Dakota or Sioux Indians in what would be, half a century later, the state of Minnesota.

It was pretty much all downhill for Indians after that.

While most Minnesotans may not know much about the Treaty of 1805, there are still those who do: The descendants of the Dakota tribes that lived here then still live here now, and they know the story.

"It was shameful," says my old friend Chris Mato Nunpa, a Dakota historian and college professor who teaches Indigenous Nations and Dakota Studies at Southwest State University in Marshall, Minn., and who believes (as do I) that Minnesota's treaty history should be taught in state schools."

Get the Story:
Nick Coleman: A name of fame, but an anniversary of shame (The Minneapolis Star Tribune 9/23)
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