I. SEEDS OF ENLIGHTENMENT

Blue Earth, Minnesota had been founded on lands that had always been home to the native Sioux people, who ceded them to the United States in the 1850’s.

What followed was years of one-sided “treaties” to usurp the Sioux’s own lands, the US reneging on agreed upon annuity payments leading to starvation, triggering the US-Dakota War of 1862, followed by internment camps, forced marches akin to the Trail of Tears, bounties, and ultimately exile from the State of Minnesota. In subsequent years, the Sioux who were later allowed back were stripped of their customs, their language, their clothing, and made to attend religious Indian Schools to “Americanize” them.....