The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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April 30, 2012

Your View: Winnebago Indians left out of commemoration

By John LaBatte, New Ulm

— Regarding Rick Lybeck’s Your View published April 25: Lybeck doesn’t seem to have an opinion. If he does, I would like to hear it instead of his nonsense attacks on people, their opinions and their projects.

Lybeck mentions monuments in the region that are one-sided. I know of no  monuments, markers or signs in Blue Earth County dedicated to white participants or white victims of the Dakota War. Lybeck’s last paragraph is unintelligible. The Dakota War was also a war between the Indians who wanted war and those who opposed war. My Dakota ancestors were on both sides. I choose to call those who wanted war “hostile” and those who opposed war “friendly.” Whether or not Lybeck likes  this, I don’t care.

More than 600 white people were killed by hostile Indians during the war. Dr. Asa Daniels wrote that at least this many whites died after the war, as a result of the war. If not for the friendly Indians, the war would have been prolonged and more people would have been killed. Don’t try to negate their heroism with a senseless attack on me.

The Mankato City Council has approved a monument in Reconciliation Park for “The 38”. Honoring one side is not reconciliation. The name of this park should be changed to one that represents this prejudice. There is another group of victims who are being ignored — the Winnebago Indians. Some 2,000 were shamelessly removed from their reservation south of Mankato at the same time most of the Dakota were removed from the state.

The Winnebago Indians did nothing wrong. Who will remember them?

 

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