[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 114 (Tuesday, September 21, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9396-S9398]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    OPENING OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION'S NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE 
                            AMERICAN INDIAN

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, this is a happy and historic day for all 
Americans, and especially for the First Americans. Right now, about a 
dozen blocks from this Capitol, an estimated 15- to 20,000 Native 
Americans representing tribes from South Dakota to South America are 
beginning a grand procession down Pennsylvania Avenue. The procession 
is the largest gathering ever of American Indians in our Nation's 
Capital. As someone from South Dakota, proud homeland of the Great 
Sioux Nation, I can tell you, it is an incredibly beautiful sight.
  The procession marks the beginning of a week-long festival in 
Washington celebrating the opening of the spectacular new National 
Museum of the American Indian. The new museum--part of the Smithsonian 
Institution--is America's only national museum dedicated to Native 
Americans. And it is the largest museum in the world dedicated to 
telling the story of indigenous people in their own authentic voices. 
Every detail reflects the views of Native people, from the text of the 
exhibits to the menu in the museum restaurant. The building itself was 
designed by the famed Native architect, Douglas Cardinal. Its curved 
exterior walls, made of rough-hewn limestone, suggest the ancient cliff 
dwellings of the American Southwest.
  Inside those walls are 8,000 extraordinary artifacts representing 
more than 10,000 years of history from more than 1,000 indigenous 
communities fromas far north as Alaska and as far south as Chile. The 
museum includes three permanent exhibits. ``Our Universes'' features 
the spiritual beliefs of native communities, including the Oglala Sioux 
Tribe. ``Our Peoples'' looks at historical events through native eyes. 
``Our Lives'' focuses on native people today. There is also space for 
changing exhibits of artwork by contemporary Native artists, and large 
spaces for Native American ceremonies and performances. In this museum, 
Native people and communities are not anthropological oddities or 
historical footnotes. They are not stereotypes. They are vibrant, 
living cultures.
  I want to commend the museum's director, Dr. Richard West, a member 
of the Southern Cheyenne nation, and all of museum's dedicated staff 
and volunteers, who have worked so hard to make the dream a reality, 
including assistant curator Emil Her Many

[[Page S9397]]

Horses, a native of Pine Ridge, who was raised on Rosebud.
  I also want to thank our colleague, Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, 
a long-time champion of the museum. I especially want to thank my dear 
friend, Senator Dan Inouye, co-chairman, with Senator Campbell, of the 
Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and the original sponsor in 1987 of 
the bill creating the National Museum of the American Indian. No 
Senator has ever worked longer or harder to get our government to honor 
its trust and treaty obligations to Native American tribes, to Native 
Hawaiians and Alaska Natives than Danny Inouye, and I am proud to be 
able to work with him to keep those sacred commitments.
  As many as 6 million visitors are expected to visit the National 
Museum of the American Indian every year. They will come away with a 
deeper understanding of America's rich Native cultures. It will lead, 
it is hoped, to a healing and reconciliation between Native Americans 
and those of us whose families came here from other nations.
  It is moving to see this living monument to the First Americans take 
its rightful place on our National Mall, along side our Nation's other 
great monuments. At the same time, we know that there are priceless 
cultural and historical artifacts all across Indian Country that also 
must be preserved.
  I would like to tell you about one such treasure: an extraordinary 
collection of letters known as ``The Dakota Letters.'' They were 
written 140 years ago by members of the Dakota Nation, the original 
inhabitants of what is now Minnesota. Four years ago, copies of 150 of 
the Dakota Letters found their way to the home of some of the 
descendants of the original letter writers: the Sisseton Wahpeton 
reservation in eastern South Dakota. What makes these letters rare--and 
possibly unique--is that they provide first-person, written accounts of 
a tragic and little-known chapter in our Nation's history--as seen 
through Native eyes.
  That chapter has been called many things. The first accounts, written 
by white historians in the 1880s and 1890s, referred to it as ``the 
Great Sioux Massacre.'' Later, it was called ``the Sioux Uprising.'' 
Today, it is known as ``the U.S.-Dakota Conflict--some say the U.S. -
Dakota War--of 1862. It was the opening of the Great Plains Indian 
Wars, three decades of armed resistance by Plains Indians against white 
settlers and government soldiers.
  The roots of the Dakota Conflict stretch back to 1851, when the 
Dakota were coerced into signing treaties giving 90 percent of their 
land, including their hunting grounds, to the U.S. government. The 
government promised the Dakota annual payments of gold and goods for 
the land, as well as help building schools and farms. The promises were 
never kept.
  A decade later, in August of 1862, the Dakota were starving. The 
annuity payments were late and the government agent refused to sell on 
credit food that was being stored in warehouses for sale to the Dakota. 
When Dakotas complained, he stunned them by telling them to ``eat 
grass.'' Four days later, a hunting party of hungry Dakota youth killed 
five white settlers in a dispute over some stolen eggs. It was the 
spark that ignited the war.

  Reluctantly, some of the Dakota chiefs chose to go to war rather than 
surrender the young men for hanging. Some hoped that the Army might be 
so distracted by the Civil War that the Dakota could drive them from 
the Plains. That was a tragic miscalculation.
  The fighting lasted 38 days, raging across the Minnesota River 
Valley, south to Iowa and west to the Dakotas. Most Dakota people 
opposed the war and did not fight. Many risked their lives to save 
white settlers. When the war ended, nearly 100 American soldiers, 
approximately 359 settlers and an estimated 29 Dakota soldiers were 
dead.
  Most of the Dakota warriors who led the fighting escaped north. 
Nearly 400 men who remained were captured and taken to a prison in 
Mankato, MN, where they were tried by a military commission. As many as 
40 trials were conducted in a single day--a single day. The prisoners 
were all denied counsel. Many spoke no English and most likely did not 
understand the charges against them.
  Of the 393 men tried, 323 were convicted, and 303 were sentenced to 
die. President Lincoln commuted all but 38 of the death sentences. The 
38 condemned men were hanged in the Mankato prison the morning after 
Christmas of 1862 in what remains the largest public execution in our 
Nation's history. Among the 38 were men who almost certainly had not 
taken part in the fighting and two men whose names were not even on the 
list of the condemned.
  For the rest of the Dakota people, the worst was still to come. After 
losing the war, they lost their nation. In March of 1863, the Dakota 
prisoners at Mankato were sent to Camp McClellan in Davenport, IA. More 
than 1,600 other Dakota people who had nothing to do with the war were 
also taken captive after the war and held at Fort Snelling, MN. In 
April of 1863, they were forcibly removed to Crow Creek, SD. That same 
month, Congress cancelled all treaties with the Dakota and used the 
money that had been promised to the Dakota to pay claims by settlers. 
Hundreds of Dakota family members died at Fort Snelling. Hundreds more 
died on the way to Crow Creek, and many more died on the Crow Creek 
reservation. Eventually, some of the families moved from Crow Creek to 
Sisseton Wahpeton. It is there, 140 years later, that the letters of 
the Dakota prisoners have been translated into modern English by their 
descendants.
  Like the exhibits in the new museum, the Dakota Letters speak in the 
authentic voices of the First Americans. The writers speak of their 
love and concern for their families. They also speak of their 
uncertainty and their fears. One of the most extraordinary of the 
letters was written 3 days after the assassination of President 
Lincoln, whom the Dakota call respectfully ``Grandfather.'' The letter 
was written by a man named Moses Many Lightning Face to a missionary 
the Dakota prisoners trusted and referred to as a relative. The writer 
expresses fear about what might happen to the Dakota prisoners now that 
the man who had spared their life once was dead. These are his words:

       Well, my relative, I wish to write you a letter. We have 
     heard the news. They say that Grandfather was killed. But 
     someone of authority should tell us if this is not true. 
     Thus, I write to you this letter. Also, I have heard some 
     rumors. Grandfather has compassion for us and, so far, we are 
     still alive. But they told us he was killed, and we are 
     saddened. Those of us here think if this is so, we are 
     heartbroken. Perhaps the attitude of the cavalry soldiers may 
     change toward us. Tell me what your thoughts are; I want to 
     know; that's why I write to you. Then I wish to hear exactly 
     how they killed Grandfather. . . . This is all I am going to 
     say. I shake all your hands. Moses Many Lightning Face. This 
     is me.

  What makes the Dakota Letters so rare is that, like most Native 
American languages, Dakota in the mid-1800s was not a written language. 
Missionaries developed a written form of the language to teach the 
Bible to the Dakota. The missionaries who visited the Dakota prisoners 
taught it to them.
  In Sisseton Wahpeton, the letters were translated by five tribal 
elders, working with Dakota language and history experts from Sisseton 
Wahpeton College. It was a complicated process more like code-breaking 
than simple translation. The words are first translated from Dakota, 
then into literal English, then into modern English. The translation of 
the letter to President Lincoln shows this process. I ask consent that 
it be printed in the Record immediately following my remarks.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, like the exhibits in the new museum, the 
Dakota Letters illustrate in a powerful way that we do not have 
separate histories, but we see the same history through different eyes. 
This gift of being able to see our history from others' perspectives 
can only help heal our Nation and make us stronger.
  I believe strongly that the Federal Government, which had such a 
direct hand, for so long, in efforts to destroy Native cultures, has a 
responsibility to help preserve these cultures not just on the National 
Mall in Washington, but in tribal communities throughout America. And 
we are making a start.
  Next month, the first applications will go out for a new grant 
programs

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for tribal museums. Under the Native American/Native Hawaiian Museum 
Services Program, tribes can receive grants of up to $20,000 a year. 
The museum program, and a similar program to support tribal libraries, 
are both administered by the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences.
  The Tribal Historic Preservation Program in the National Park Service 
gives tribes control of decisions about cultural preservation on tribal 
lands by establishing tribal historic preservation offices, just like 
State historic preservation offices.
  The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, passed in 
1990, lays out a process to identify Native American sacred and 
funerary objects and return them to their people.
  In Sisseton Wahpeton, tribal elders and educators hope to use 
technology to record translation sessions of the Dakota Letters and use 
the recordings to teach the Dakota language. They also want to use 
distance learning to teach Dakota history and culture lessons based on 
the letters. They can't do that now because they have run out of money 
for the Dakota Letters project. An amendment Senator Inouye is 
sponsoring to the Native American Languages Act might help the tribe 
finish the Dakota Letters project. It would provide additional 
resources for immersion schools and other intensive efforts to save 
Native American languages--which we are now losing at the alarming rate 
of one each month.
  All of these efforts, and more, need and deserve the support of 
Congress.
  Newspaper accounts of the executions of the Dakota prisoners at 
Mankato note that the men met their deaths with courage and dignity, 
chanting a Dakota death song. One reporter recorded that their final 
words were a simple plea for recognition: ``I am here.''
  Those same words echo from every ancient corner of this Nation. Long 
before Europeans and others arrived, Native Americans were here. And 
they are still here today, greatly enriching our national identity and 
culture. On this happy and historic day, as we celebrate the opening of 
America's spectacular new National Museum of the American Indian, let 
us also celebrate the Native American history and culture that exists 
all across America. And let us vow to work together to preserve that 
history and culture everywhere it exists.


                               exhibit 1

  1. mitakuye ito wowapi cicage kta wacin nakaha wotanin naonhonpi
  2. Well, my relative, I want to give you this paper now we have heard 
news
  3. Well, my relative I wish to write you a letter, we have heard 
news.

  1. tonkansidon ktepi keyapi
  2. They said they killed Grandfather.
  3. They have said that Grandfather (Abraham Lincoln) was killed.

  1. tuka hecen tuwe taku tanyan onkokiyakapi kta iyecece sni
  2. But then someone should tell us if this is not true.
  3. But someone of authority should tell us if this is not true.

  1. hecen mitakuye wowapi cicu
  2. Thus, my relative, I give you this paper
  3. Thus, I write to you this letter.

  1. eya taku wanjikj nawahon
  2. To say, I have heard several rumors
  3. Also I have heard some rumors

  1. tonkansidan he onsiondapi qa dehanyan nionyakonpi
  2. Grandfather had compassion for us, and so far we are still alive
  3. Grandfather has compassion for us, and so far we are still alive.

  1. tuka hecen nakaha ktepi keyapi heon cante onsicapi
  2. but then now they killed him they said therefore our hearts are 
sad.
  3. but they told us he was killed, and we are saddened.

  1. tona onkiyukcanpi hecinhan ehna cante onsicapi
  2. Some we think if this is so, we are heartbroken.
  3. Those of us here think if this is so, we are heartbroken.

  1. hehan hecan isantanka kin hecen tokan kante onkiyuzapi kta naceca
  2. Then this Big Knives the thus how heart hold us will maybe
  3. Perhaps the attitude of the calvary soldiers may change toward us.

  1. idukcan hecinhan omayakidaka wacin qa heon wowapi cicage ye do
  2. what you think, if you tell me, I want, therefore paper I make for 
you.
  3. Tell me what your thoughts are, I want to know, that's why I write 
to you.

  1. hehan tonkansidan token ktepi hecinhan he tanyan nawahon kta wacin
  2. then Grandfather how they killed him if this is good I hear will I 
want.
  3. Then I wish to hear exact1y how they killed Grandfather.

  1. hehan eya anpetu waken eca token owakihi waokun wicawakiye
  2. Then to say day holy when how I am able to preach to them
  3. Then, also on Sundays when I am able I do the preach to them.

  1. henana epe kte owasin nape ciyuzapi
  2. That's all, I say will all hand they shake,
  3. This is all I'm going to say, I shake all your hands.

  Mowis Itewakanhdiota--he miye
  Moses Many Lightning Face--This is me.
  Translation key:
  1. original Dakota
  2. Dakota to English
  3. English translation
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my leader 
comments not be taken from the first hour of the Democratic allocation 
of time.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, will the minority leader yield?
  Mr. DASCHLE. I am happy to yield to the Senator from Delaware.

                          ____________________