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From Fort Snelling Looking Up, Seth Eastman, 1848"'Where the two waters come together,' otherwise referred to as Bdote, is the center of Dakota spirituality and history.  This is where the Dakota people began."

Sheldon Wolfchild, Lower Sioux Community of Dakota, 2011

The junction of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers--known to the Dakota as Bdote--is a place of major social, cultural, and historical significance to all people inhabiting the region, a place whose history evokes both pride and pain.  It is a place of cultural importance to many Dakota people as a site of creation, as well as a historical gathering place and the site of the internment of Dakota people in the wake of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862.

Learn more about Bdote and other places of creation and historical importance:

Bdote Memory Map
Minnesotahistory.net
PBS: Circle of Stories 

 

 

Bibliography: 

A Confluence of Dakota Indian History. The National Park Service, 2012.

Waziyatawin. What Does Justice Look Like? The Struggle for Liberation in Dakota Homeland. St. Paul, MN: Living Justice Press, 2008

Waziyatawin. In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors: The Dakota Commemorative Marches of the 21st Century. St. Paul MN: Living Justice Press, 2006.

Resources for Further Research: 

Websites

Bdote Memory Map

Date, Steve. A Visual Visit to Fort Snelling.

Friends of Coldwater Spring.

MinnesotaHistory.net: The Park Service must leave Coldwater Spring. 

Circle of Stories. PBS.

Secondary

A Confluence of Dakota Indian History. The National Park Service, 2012.

Waziyatawin. What Does Justice Look Like? The Struggle for Liberation in Dakota Homeland. St. Paul, MN: Livnig Justice Press, 2008

Historic Sites

Historic Fort Snelling

Historic Fort Snelling and Fort Snelling State Park

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