This land is their land

UW-Madison grapples with Wisconsin’s ugly treatment of the Ho-Chunk

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As the school year begins, UW-Madison’s newest students will leave their dorms to make a groggy trek across campus for the first classes of the semester.

Along the way the students will pass several iconic UW-Madison landmarks: The Memorial Union; Bascom Hall with its Abraham Lincoln statue firmly looking toward the state Capitol; Observatory Hill and its expansive view of both Lake Mendota and Picnic Point.

Many of them won’t realize they’re walking across land the Ho-Chunk inhabited for some 12,000 years before Native Americans were forced out by white settlers. But some students, like Kendra Greendeer, will. She also has a different take on those campus landmarks.

Greendeer, a third-year graduate student in art history who is Ho-Chunk, shudders every time she walks by the statue of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln ordered the largest mass execution in United States history, condemning 38 Dakota men to death-by-hanging in Mankato, Minnesota, in 1862.

Greendeer says the close relationship between the Dakota and Ho-Chunk “needs to be acknowledged. Especially since that statue is just so, so prominent and viewed in such a positive way. It’s part of campus culture.”

Before 1828, Observatory Hill was home to a village called Wakandjaga, or “Thunder Bird,” extending from the base of the hill to the head of Picnic Point, or Mo-pah-salya, the “Long Point.” The village was surrounded by 12 burial mounds. Only two remain visible and undisturbed — a bird and the two-tailed water spirit.

These histories, documented by Charles E. Brown, the founder of the Wisconsin Archeological Society, only scratch the surface of the history of life in Taychopera — the “Land of the Four Lakes.”

“We have these massive cultural archaeological expressions that were built over 1,000 years ago that define Madison,” says Aaron Bird Bear, assistant dean for student diversity programs in UW-Madison’s School of Education. “It’s amazing that our public doesn’t understand or even know about how special this place has been to humans for so long.”

It’s the significance of this place, as Bird Bear notes — and the hard history that goes along with the repeated forced removals of the Ho-Chunk Nation from both Madison and Wisconsin — that the university hopes to address through Our Shared Future, an ongoing effort to recognize and teach Ho-Chunk history.

Beginning with a plaque dedication on June 18, Our Shared Future is a way for the university to move from “ignorance to awareness,” says UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank.

“As a university, we are rightly proud of many aspects of our history. We tell these positive stories often, and we will continue to do so. But if we are to become a more welcoming and inclusive campus, we also must confront the difficult truths from our past and learn from them,”  Blank writes in a statement to Isthmus. “The heritage marker is part of that effort, and long overdue.”

The effort aims to go beyond campus to inform the Madison community about its Ho-Chunk neighbors.

“This is hopefully the opportunity, the spark, to encourage our community to understand the deep human history of this place,” says Omar Poler, UW-Madison’s American Indian Curriculum Services coordinator. “Both the tremendous beauty of this place, the wonders of this place, but also the painful stories of this place that we have long omitted and erased from the stories that we tend to tell about Madison.”

Poler — a Mole Lake Sokaogon Ojibwe — hopes the community can begin to bear some of the burden of years of forced removals, cultural genocide and the erasure of Native people. “Ho-Chunk people have lived with this history, have carried this history alone for generations,” he says. Everyone needs to “own this history,” he adds. “To grapple with the hard truths of our place.”

Wisconsin is home to the greatest indigenous diversity east of the Mississippi River. Twelve indigenous nations — 11 of which are federally recognized — currently live within the state’s borders.

According to Bird Bear, UW-Madison’s campus is likely the most archaeologically rich campus of any in the United States. He says there used to be 20,000 earthworks or burial mounds in southern Wisconsin alone. Only about 4,000 remain in the entire state.

And while Wisconsin’s human history goes back thousands of years, Bird Bear — a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation — notes only a small fraction of that history is told.

“There’s this very thin but hardy veneer, which is 1848 forward,” he says. “So, it’s this story of European American intellectual and social achievement … negating the 98.5 percent of humanity of this place that exists prior to 1848.”

Bird Bear says few in the student body know much about Native Americans “because of the settler colonialism education model, which is to negate and obscure the 12,000 years — or probably 15,000 years — of humanity on this continent.”

Amy Lonetree writes about that ignored Ho-Chunk history in People of The Big Voice.

Lonetree, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation and associate professor of history at the University of California-Santa Cruz, writes that the Ho-Chunk Nation’s claims to Wisconsin are “deep and long-standing.”

Originating near Green Bay, the Ho-Chunk lived for thousands of years on territory stretching across southern Wisconsin into northern Illinois. During the 19th century, the U.S. government began seizing land from the Ho-Chunk, forcing them — often at gunpoint — from their homes. Historians are unsure how many Ho-Chunk people died during the removals.

“What truly happened — and what always should be remembered — is that deliberate acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide were committed against indigenous people throughout the United States,” Lonetree writes.

While the U.S. began forcing the Ho-Chunk Nation to sign treaties in 1829, the Treaty of 1832 holds particular significance for the Ho-Chunk who lived in what is now Madison. That treaty, the first signed after the federal government passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830, forced the Ho-Chunk to give up lands south of the Fox-Wisconsin River portage.

Poler calls that treaty Madison’s founding document.

“Without that treaty, there’s no Madison, there’s no UW-Madison,” he says. “Oftentimes, when we tell stories of a place, it’s when the wagons come in, or the boats come in, but not long before that there was a treaty that allowed for access for settlement.”

In 1837, the Ho-Chunk were forced from the rest of their land in Wisconsin, in “exchange” for land in western Iowa. Lonetree writes: “Ho-Chunk leader Dandy described what compelled the men to relinquish control of our homelands after long, painful negotiations: ‘[Their Indian] agent told them … if they did not sign the treaty, he would … kill them.’”

The Ho-Chunk people were later offered land in what is now Long Prairie, Minnesota, Patty Loew writes in her book Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal.

In 1855, that land was swapped for “more desirable” land in south-central Minnesota, near Blue Earth. But in 1862, the “Sioux Uprising” — of which the Ho-Chunk had no part in — caused enough fear among the settlers that they demanded the Ho-Chunk be removed again. This time, they were sent to an area along the Crow Creek in South Dakota.

“In the winter of 1863, the government ordered the Ho-Chunk to move, ignoring [Chief] Baptiste’s objections and his pleas to wait for better weather,” Loew writes. “The chief’s worst fears were realized when a quarter of the tribe — more than 550 of the nearly 2,000 tribal members — died en route to South Dakota.”

More than 1,200 Ho-Chunk escaped South Dakota, heading down the Mississippi River to take refuge with the Omaha in Nebraska. In 1865, the Ho-Chunk in Nebraska purchased part of the Omaha reservation — today, they make up a tribe politically distinct from the Ho-Chunk in Wisconsin.

Despite years of being shuttled across several states, many Ho-Chunk people continued to return to Wisconsin — often being sent back to whatever reservation they had earlier been sent to. That survivance is a great source of pride for the Ho-Chunk community today.

“One of the first things as a Ho-Chunk citizen that you hear is that we were the ones they could not keep on that reservation,” Lonetree tells Isthmus. “The Ho-Chunk people in Wisconsin are incredibly proud of our steadfast determination to return to Wisconsin, against all odds. That was our territory. Wisconsin is our beloved homeland. And our fight to remain there is such an incredibly important story.”

In 1881, Congress passed legislation allowing the Ho-Chunk 40-acre homesteads in 16 different Wisconsin counties, ending decades of forced removals. Some of that land was later seized by local governments through tax defaults.

Lonetree says telling these stories can help indigenous people — especially students — feel more comfortable in places with a deep, difficult past.

“So much of the experience for Native students is that they feel isolated. Their history is never told, never acknowledged in the classroom,” Lonetree says. “I’m hoping that with this plaque, and with the programming around it, people will have a greater sense of Native American history, so those silences will no longer exist, and then Native people can feel that these spaces are more welcoming to them, because we begin by acknowledging their presence.”

Greendeer knows what it’s like to feel isolated. While she’s had many good experiences and feels supported by her department, Greendeer has also felt romanticized. She’s heard classmates say negative things about Ho-Chunk people, assuming there weren’t any in the room.

“I’m sure every other indigenous student has that same story where you’re trying to be a student, but at the same time you’re educating as much as some of the instructors you have are,” Greendeer says. “It’s hard enough being a grad student, and everyone understands that, but I don’t think anyone realizes the additional work that goes into being a Native student or a student of color.”

Will Tracy, a Ho-Chunk student in his sophomore year, says being one of the few Native students at UW touched every aspect of his first year. This year, he has a plan. “One of my main things is getting more connected with the Native community,” Tracy says. “It was just the difficulty of figuring out where to look.”

Tracy recently got involved in Wunk Sheek — a student organization that serves indigenous students and those interested in learning more about indigenous issues, culture and history. He’s also taking an American Indian Studies class. He urges UW officials to connect Native students with classes and resources.

“As we’re signing up for classes or something like that, have somebody that’s knowledgeable, to know how to bring in and make Native students feel more welcome,” he says.

Greendeer earned her undergraduate degree at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and her master’s at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. “When I was in other places it seemed as though the students that had ancestral ties were a little bit more respected,” she says. “Or there was that acknowledgement that this is where their ancestors are from.”

With the UW’s attempt to highlight Ho-Chunk history, Greendeer hopes more Ho-Chunk will see the university as a place they can get their education. The university needs to understand that Western education isn’t the only way for people to learn, she adds. “Individuals that only grew up with indigenous knowledge — they have so much knowledge to share.”

The Our Shared Future plaque is a toned-down version of what students originally requested. In 2016, student groups called for the Lincoln statue’s removal. The following year, UW’s student government asked Blank to put a plaque on the statue recognizing his role in the execution of the Dakota 38.

According to The Daily Cardinal, Blank rejected that request, saying Lincoln “had played a ‘restraining role’ in the deaths of 38 Dakota men in 1862.” But the university agreed to create the plaque, which was dedicated in June, acknowledging the Ho-Chunk people’s ties to Madison.

According to Poler, the plaque was written by UW-Madison staff with guidance from various Ho-Chunk members. After the Native American campus signage committee approved the language, it was sent to the former Ho-Chunk public relations director Collin Price for approval. After Price signed off on it, UW representatives took it to Black River Falls to get former Ho-Chunk President Wilfrid Cleveland’s blessing and invite him to campus for the dedication.

The plaque reads:

The University of Wisconsin-Madison occupies ancestral Ho-Chunk land, a place their nation has called Teejop since time immemorial.

In an 1832 treaty, the Ho-Chunk were forced to cede this territory.

Decades of ethnic cleansing followed when both the federal and state government repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, sought to forcibly remove the Ho-Chunk from Wisconsin.

This history of colonization informs our shared future of collaboration and innovation.

Today, UW-Madison respects the inherent sovereignty of the Ho-Chunk Nation, along with the eleven other First Nations of Wisconsin.

But it will take more than a plaque to undo centuries of cultural erasure and violence. Forrest Funmaker, Ho-Chunk Nation’s new public relations director, says the plaque hits all the wrong notes and needs to be rewritten.

“Some of the words in there, I think need to be questioned. Is it from a Ho-Chunk point of view? Does it support our cause? ... Is the tone endearing enough to say we’re sorry?” he asks. “I don’t see that in any of the words. Occupies? Cede? Ethnic cleansing? It’s like, yeah, we relished in this all this time and we’re going to now put it on a plaque and tell you what we did to you.”

Funmaker says that the Ho-Chunk Nation wants to put an additional sign on Bascom “in our language, which tells our story of these lands, why we must care for them, why we came back in the face of danger to ourselves, our elders and our children to face the enemy again and again. We are not afraid! We persevere. We are courageous.”

Funmaker wants the university to put its money where its mouth is. “If this university wants to help out the Ho-Chunk Nation — not just to occupy a part of the land space — why aren’t they sending over resources and people to help out?” he says, adding that he doesn’t remember the university ever asking how they can actually help the Nation.

He’d like the university to use its academic prowess to run analytics and to provide resources and training that assist the Ho-Chunk Nation’s economy, education and health care. He also finds irony in the fact that while the university is on Ho-Chunk land, Ho-Chunk students have to pay to attend the institution. He points outs that the University of Michigan and Michigan State University waive tuition, housing, food and textbook costs for eligible Native American students. According to UW, Native students are eligible for the Indian Student Assistance Grant, which is capped at $3,150. They’re also eligible for Bucky’s Tuition Promise — a four-year scholarship program for Wisconsin residents with families that make $56,000 or less.

Blank says UW’s effort will be successful when the message of the plaque is fully integrated in campus life. “Success will mean members of the campus community will understand that this place has a rich, 12,000-year cultural and archaeological history. It will mean that our decisions on land stewardship are guided by this knowledge. And it will mean that our Native students feel welcome and fully a part of our student body — and in numbers greater than they are today,” Blank tells Isthmus. “Finally, success will mean that we, as a university community, honor the promise I made Ho-Chunk leaders in June that UW-Madison would be a better partner, a better communicator, and a better listener.”

To raise awareness of Our Shared Future, Kasey Keeler, assistant professor of Civil Society and Community Studies and a citizen of the Potawatomi Nation of Oklahoma and Tuolumne Me-Wuk, spoke “on behalf of Native Nations” at freshman convocation on Sept. 3. Later this month, on Sept. 23, Samantha Skenandore, a tribal law attorney and member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, will give a talk titled “Indigenuity & Teejop: Launching Mindfulness of this Sacred Place.” The event, 7:30 p.m. at Shannon Hall, will serve as the kick-off to other Ho-Chunk learning events. For a year and a half the plaque will travel to various campus locations — hosted by faculty and departments that are integrating its message into their curriculum.

The university is considering creating an American Indian studies research center. While individual faculty members at UW are engaging with tribes across the state, there’s no unified department to connect their efforts, Bird Bear says.

In 2015, the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies hosted the university’s first Native Nations-UW Summit. It was the first time in over 100 years that representatives from all of Wisconsin’s Native Nations gathered on campus to meet with university leadership. From that summit came the creation of the Native Nations-UW Strategic Working Group and a website to track some of the ongoing partnerships between UW and the tribes.

“We still don’t really know the depth of outreach to Native American nations since everybody can work in their own corner doing their own thing,” Bird Bear says. “The downside of this highly decentralized model is that we go visit reservations for projects and they’re like you guys were just here yesterday — they just think of us as this completely disorganized and kind of inept institution.”

UW officials hope the center rectifies this lack of organization.

“If you have an interdisciplinary idea that you want different faculty from different areas to come together and think about, you create a center,” Bird Bear says. “It’s just in its infancy, there hasn’t been a proposal … but at least it was announced to the Native Nations and they said ‘good idea — we like the idea in principle.’”

While these gestures are being fleshed out, Poler says the commitment is not up for negotiation.

“The chancellor has made a commitment that we would do this work,” he says. “This is something that we value, this is something that’s important to us.”

Funmaker is waiting to see just how strong that commitment is.

“I hope that there is a positive way to get what the Nation needs now,” he says. “That we can negotiate — in a fair and reasonable manner — to say that we did our best to get our young people an opportunity to be a part of these two worlds.” 

Note: Jenny Peek works full time for Wisconsin Public Radio, which is a service of UW-Madison.