Support Dakota Treaty Rights

Support the U.S. Constitution Rally for the First Court Appearance

Thursday, March 2, 2006 8 AM
180 East 5th Street
St. Paul

United States of America versus Jim Anderson, Cultural Chair, Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community Susu Jeffrey, founder, Friends of Coldwater Chris Mato Nunpa, Indigenous Nations and Dakota Studies professor, Southwest MSU at Marshall Court begins at 9 AM Supporters should be prepared for airport-type security and to show government-issued photo I.D.

My approach to this treaty rights case is that the Constitution must be supported which means, in this particular case, honoring Dakota Treaty rights.

Constitution of the United States Article 6, Section 2 Supreme Law of the Land 2. This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. -- Susu

BACKGROUND: TREATY OF 1805. On October 14, 2005, two Dakota men were ticketed after entering the Minneapolis Coldwater campus area, without government permits, to exercise their treaty rights. The $125-offense was described as not complying with a federal police officer. Inside the fenced-off area, Jim Anderson (Dakota) led a Pipe Ceremony with Professor Chris Mato Nunpa (Dakota) and ten supporters. During the ceremony 25 more held a prayer circle outside the fence.

Mato Nunpa, Indigenous Studies at Minnesota State University at Marshall, and Anderson, Cultural Chair of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community, each received a U.S. District Court violation notice. Their first court appearance is on Thursday, March 2, in U.S. Federal District court at 9:00 a.m., Courtroom 5, St. Paul, 180 East Fifth Street.

A rally has been planned by supporters to be at the federal court house at 8:00 a.m. with speakers, Attorney Larry Leventhal, Howard Vogel of the Hamline Law School, and Mendota Dakota Community attorney Barbara Nimis.

The Treaty of 1805 was the first of several treaties signed between the Dakota Oyate and the United States. Coldwater Spring is in the ceded area according to the Treaty. Article 3 of the treaty states, "The U.S. promise on their part to permit the Sioux to pass, re-pass, hunt and do other things as they have formerly done in said district."

"We know that the falls which came to be known as Minnehaha Falls, was a sacred place, a neutral place, a place for many nations to come. . . . And that the spring from which the sacred water should be drawn was not very far, a spring that all nations used to draw the sacred water for the ceremony," Anishinabeg spiritual elder Eddie Benton Benais told Minnesota officials during court ordered testimony in March of 1999.

Benais said the mile and a half between Minnehaha Falls and Coldwater Spring "sacred grounds that were mutually held to be a sacred place" by Upper Mississippi tribes who regularly gathered there including Dakota, Anishinabeg, Ho Chunk, Iowa, and Sauk and Fox nations. Coldwater, south of Minnehaha Park, is an ancient spring, an acknowledged sacred site, and the last spring of size in the Twin Cities flowing at about 100,000 gallons a day.

Hydrologists say Coldwater Spring is 10,000-years-old, flowing under the last glacier. The spring forms a creek, wetland, and waterfall descending 130-feet down the Mississippi gorge.

Join us March 2nd!

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February 2006 Reports

Last updated on February 27, 2006