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John Legg

Through Pain and Sacrifice:
Public Memory and Commemoration in the Minnesota River Valley 155 Years after

The Dakota War

Starting in 1965, merely a century after the conclusion of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862,
the Native American population in the town of Mankato, Minnesota, set out to commemorate
and remember those who lost their lives in a fight between the United States government, white
settlers, and Native Americans. Previously, all attention focused on the white settler population
that bore the brunt of Dakota attacks in the frontier country of Minnesota. Trying to move past
this, new ideas for celebrations brewed between Bud Lawrence, a prominent businessperson in
Mankato, and Amos Owen, an elder from the Prairie Island Mdewakanton Community.
Translated as dance, the Mahkato Wacipi created a promising three-day remembrance to bring
reconciliation back to the Dakota community along the Minnesota River Valley.1 This
commemorative effort uplifts the educational community in the region on Native American
culture, customs, and heritage by showing the lives and history of the Dakota peoples.
Envisioned as a powwow by the Mdewakanton community, this venture not only brings
reconciliation over the lives lost during and after the conflict in late 1862 but also “gradually
develops [the region] into a unifying social institution” by allowing current groups to come

1 Mahkato Wacipip: Honoring the 38 Dakota, 2016, “30th Annual Mahkato Education Day,”
Mankato, Minnesota, Accessed April 29, 2016. http://www.mahkatowacipi.org/education.php.