IN-PERSON London Heritages. Section A

Abstract

This paper will examine recent revisions at two important sites operated by the Minnesota State Historical Society, Fort Snelling and the Lower Sioux Agency. These sites provide specific case studies that point toward the extensive transformation of sites throughout the United States and beyond, to incorporate a perspective on Indigenous history in line with current historical knowledge and contemporary political attitudes. Fort Snelling, at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers, occupies a site considered sacred by the Dakota; the creation of the fort was a major act in the European settlement of the area. Its historical presentations now include not only key episodes in European-Indigenous relations, but also material such as the fact that Drew Scott and his wife lived briefly at the fort because they were slaves owned by a doctor serving as a military surgeon. Their claim to freedom was rejected in one of the most important cases in Supreme Court history, when it was ruled that no African American could claim American citizenship. The Scott story is now featured both on-site and on-line. The Sioux Agency, about 125 miles from Fort Snelling, was a trading post where the Lakota obtained their annual stipend from the government. It played a central role in the Dakota uprising of 1862; the operator was killed by the Native Americans. The site is on reservation land and jointly operated by the Tribe and the Historical Society. Like Fort Snelling, it now displays a clear revisionist impulse at work.