Week 1
History of University Land
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What better way to start the course than to begin by discussing the genesis of the University?
This course is designed to challenge your thinking about the University of Minnesota and how the University is (or is not) managing its dark history with Minnesotan indigenous communities.
Each week, there will be content from external sources and creators. Your responsibility will be to read and consume the content for each week and complete the assignment.
Image from MNOpedia
The land that the University of Minnesota Twin Cities East Bank currently resides on was taken from Dakota in the Treaty of 1837. The treaty offered financial compensation for Dakota and Ojibwe tribes in the form of cash and goods.
In 1862, the Morrill Act was signed. This Act established federal funding for public colleges that emphasized development of agriculture and mechanic arts. The University was able to use the land taken from 1837 to continue expanding the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.
The University of Minnesota officially starts its story in 1851, before Minnesota was an official state.
This website has an overwhelming amount of information. You do not carefully have to read over it all, but the more you read the more you will get out of it. Explore the University of Minnesota and how it benefits from the Morrill Act and Indigenous displacement.
Your assignment this week will be a short write-up that will show your understanding of this topic and encourage you to think critically about what it means for information to be included and excluded.
In your first paragraph, write about your understanding of the history of the land in the Twin Cities and how the University acquired it and uses it.
In your second paragraph, offer a reflection of whether the history from the University of Minnesota website is complete or what information it is lacking. If it is lacking information, what should be added? If it is not lacking information, explain why?
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