Courtesy of: http://www.duluthsuperior.com
By MARY HUDETZ
Associated Press
Heather Larsen, a tribal college student in Sisseton, says she could afford to raise her son and pay tuition at a state university if she got money from land that was set aside for her ancestors.
Her father, Jesse Larsen, knows his lot in life would change, too.
"I got cousins back in Shakopee who are millionaires," he said.
The Larsens are among 10,000 people nationwide who have researched their family trees to go after a share of the profits from tribal casinos in Minnesota.
For almost 20 years, Larsen and others have watched relatives from Minnesota's Shakopee, Prairie Island and Lower Sioux Mdewakanton communities profit from three tracts of land originally placed in trust in 1886 for just a couple hundred Dakota Sioux Indians and their descendants.
Casinos have been built by the three tribes. The Shakopee community's Mystic Lake casino, near Minneapolis, is one of the country's most profitable.
The controversy stretches back to the Dakota Conflict of 1862, when a group of Dakota revolted against the government because food and money promised to them in exchange for land were not delivered.
Hundreds of white settlers were killed, 38 Dakota warriors were hanged in the largest mass execution in U.S. history and thousands of Dakota Sioux were forced out of Minnesota as a result of the fighting.
The original beneficiaries of the disputed lands were members of the Mdewakanton band of Dakota Sioux, who did not attack the settlers. Some of the group even rescued the whites during the fighting.
Many of them were relocated or fled to present day South Dakota, Nebraska, Montana and Canada with other Dakota Indians, and some stayed in Minnesota.
The government documented 208 of them in an 1886 census and bought three tracts of land for their benefit and their descendants.
"We don't have any history of those times," Jesse Larsen said. "We don't have any documentation of how we lived."
But a case in the Federal Court of Claims means that many - including the Larsens - now have documentation of who they are.
In 2004, Judge Charles F. Lettow ruled that the U.S. government breached its responsibilities as trust holders to the peaceable Dakota and their descendants. But whether any damages will be awarded is still undetermined.
Regardless, almost 10,000 people nationwide have researched their lineage to the peaceable Dakotas and intend to join Sheldon Wolfchild, chairman of the Lower Sioux community, as plaintiffs in Wolfchild vs. the United States, said Eric Kaardal, an attorney representing almost 6,500 of the plaintiffs.
About one-third of Kaardal's clients live in South Dakota, and every reservation in the state has residents involved, he said. Seven South Dakota attorneys also are representing some of the plaintiffs.
The genealogy helps make the case significant because most of the lineal heirs to the trust already have been determined, Kaardal said. "We actually have people lined up to be paid damages."
People seeking representation from Kaardal helped set record high visitor numbers at the South Dakota state archives this spring to meet a June 23 deadline, the state's historical society said. The deadline was eventually extended to July 12.
Virginia Hanson, a state archivist, has helped 10-20 people a day since Lettow's decision opened the door to recover damages. Many researched for months through as many as 14 generations to prove their descendency to the peaceable Dakota with baptismal, birth, bible records and other documents, she said.
"I'll have to admit most of the researchers started from oral history," Hanson said. "Finding the documents to prove their history, that was the challenge this past year and a half."
Larsen said his "golden document" was his grandmother's baptismal record found in an old Catholic Church in Fort Snelling, Minn.
His great-great-grandmother, Rosa Coursoll, is on the 1886 census.
He has reconnected with family in Minnesota and North Dakota since joining the Wolfchild case, he said, and has over 100 relatives from Minnesota to Montana involved.
"I got five grandkids, these are two that are going to benefit from this," Jesse Larsen said optimistically about his interests in the case while sitting with his two grandsons and his daughter.
The U.S. could owe billions of dollars in damages, Kaardal said. The Shakopee and Prairie Island tribes have demonstrated concern over their stakes by filing documents in support of the federal government. Wolfchild's Lower Sioux tribe has filed a motion to intervene as a plaintiff.
"The tribe will protect its interest to the fullest extent possible," said Willie Hardacker, spokesperson for the Shakopee tribal leadership. "The people here have sacrificed and worked hard to build a very successful, functioning, very generous tribal government and the plaintiffs are looking to destroy it."
The tribe donated almost $16 million in 2005 to American Indian organizations and other charitable groups, with some going to South Dakota tribes, schools and other nonprofit groups, according to a donations report.
The recognition and documentation of almost 10,000 Mdewakanton Dakota descendants is historic, Wolfchild said.
"We will always know who we are because we will have proof of who we are," he said. "Our people have now been found in South Dakota."
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