"'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
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.
Websites
Date, Steve. A Visual Visit to Fort Snelling.
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