Since 2018, various Macalester College departments and organizations have included land acknowledgements at the beginning of events, classes, and as part of their official publications and online presence. The land acknowledgement, written by Jennings Mergenthal and Sam Manz of Proud Indigenous People for Education (PIPE) in collaboration with the Department of Multicultural Life (DML) and Professor Katrina Phillips of the history department, is as follows:

We would like to take a moment to honor the fact that we are on Dakota land. This is the ancestral homeland of the Dakota people who were forcibly exiled from the land because of aggressive and persistent settler colonialism. We make this acknowledgment to honor the Dakota people, ancestors, and descendants, as well as the land itself.

Land acknowledgements, such as the one above, do much to fill in the gaps between the knowledge that settlers have about the land they occupy. The ignorance around the violent history of the land is an intentional aspect of settler colonialism. According to the collaborators who wrote it, the land acknowledgment “allows people to recognize that there were first inhabitants here on the land, [and] while land ownership did not necessarily mean the same thing it does now, it still did belong to them and it has cultural significance.” As Dakota professor and activist, Waziyatawin, writes in her book What Does Justice Look Like? The Struggle for Liberation in Dakota Homeland, “most Minnesotans remain naively or purposefully ignorant of the reality that violent and morally reprehensible crimes were perpetrated so they could not only freely obtain Indigenous lands, but could also settle on them without fear of any violent retribution.” By ignoring the history of the land and the violent way in which it was taken by Minnesotan settlers, non-Indigneous people can continue to reside on this land without fear of retribution. However, Waziyatawin continues, and argues that “a truth-telling forum… would allow us to bring those accounts to the forefront of the consciousness of the settler society in the state of Minnesota. This would disallow Minnesotans from denying or ignoring the history of genocide and the perpetration of human injustices.” As Waziyatawin argues, the truth-telling of the history of the land, potentially in the form of a land acknowledgement, is a necessary part of honoring the land and the people who it was forcibly and violently removed from. Truth-telling is at the heart of the creation of the Macalester land acknowledgement, as Jason Jackson, the former director of the DML, articulated in an interview: 

“truth telling is crucial, and essential. If it allows someone to feel free and seen and heard and acknowledged. Putting a statement up and allowing people to wrestle with it for a second—that is the work. I can’t undo colonialism, and racism, and sexism in the United States but I sure as hell can include you in the conversation. Build a seat for you if there isn’t one–that’s our responsibility.”

 By identifying oneself as a settler, as part of the history of this land, and telling the truth about the history of the land through the land acknowledgement, there becomes a “moral imperative for restorative justice.”

However, many are hesitant about the power of the land acknowledgment. As Samantha Manz, ‘19, a co-chair of PIPE articulates, “it’s not enough to just acknowledge it.” Wallace Cleaves and Charles Sepulveda write that “acknowledgement runs the risk of becoming rote and performative.” Without concrete practices and actions that fulfill the wants and needs of the Indigenous people whose land was stolen and is actively being settled, the acknowledgement alone is an empty promise. In the case of Macalester, those involved in the creation of the Macalester land acknowledgement hoped that further action would arise out of the acknowledgement in the form of “discussions on the significance of colonialism, more courses about the history of Indigenous peoples, and/or an increase in the number of Indigenous staff and faculty.” Another example of action taken from land acknowledgements is “land back,” which can be simply defined as “any action taken with the purpose of returning jurisdiction, authority, and resources to Indigenous people,” which includes a variety of practices and actions that allow Indigenous people to reconnect with their land in meaningful ways. While this can literally mean returning stolen land to Indigenous people, there are also ways of redistributing resources and returning wealth from land that Indigenous people recognize as transformative changes that meet decolonization demands. Cleaves and Sepulveda argue that acknowledgments must also lead to the inclusion of “Indigneous communities in actual discussions of how the land can and should be used.” Thus, the acknowledgement of land on its own is not a sufficient decolonial action on its own, and requires substantial and material transformations.

The more wide-spread version of the land acknowledgement fails to incorporate the material changes, and can therefore appear as performative. However, there is an expanded version of the land acknowledgement that is often excluded from official Macalester events and publications: 

We recognize that this acknowledgment is but a first step in recognizing and dismantling aggressive and persistent policies of settler colonialism that continue to oppress to this day. These are the contexts in which the archives function to this day. The work of acknowledgement must be paired with active practices like the amplification of Indigenous voices and land repatriation in order to be substantive and meaningful.

This statement appears in Counterbalance, an extension of the archives created by students, which facilitates and empowers ongoing discussions of Macalester’s history through work that is often left out of institutional narratives. This version of the land acknowledgement includes a call to action by the institution. Over the past few years, some action to amplify Indigneous voices has been taken by the college, in accordance with this land acknowledgement, including the hiring of more Indigneous faculty and staff and the $1 million grant that will allow “Macalester to create a multi-faceted initiative dedicated to engagement with and scholarship around Indigenous people, culture and history.” However, these actions, for many students at Macalester, do not appear to be substantive enough to repair the harms the institution has caused to the Dakota people by continuing to settle on this land. By calling for land repatriation, the Indigenous students who wrote the land acknowledgement, meant just that. 

Although land acknowledgements that simply discuss the history of the land without any concrete action are not enough, an understanding of the history of the land is a necessary first step in the actions that lead to decolonization. Without a complete history of the land, its various meanings, and the impacts of settler colonialism, land acknowledgements can be performative, and do very little to make connections with the land. It appears that a comprehensive history of the land Macalester college owns is not widely known or regularly discussed. 

Thus, what is the history of the two block main campus of Macalester College? Macalester College is situated in Mni Sota Makoce, or the Land Where the Waters Reflect the Clouds, on Dakota homeland. Figure 1, which is the map entitled Dakhóta Thamákhočhe, places these important Dakota locations geographically.

At the center of Mni Sota Makoce is Bdote, which is located about three miles south of Macalester’s campus at the confluence of the Mississippi River, Wakpá Tháŋka, and Minnesota river,Wakpá Mnísota.  This location is considered by many Dakota people as a “sacred place of creation,” as it is understood as the place “where the Dakota arrived in human form.” Recognizing Bdote as the center of Dakota history and existence is necessary to honoring and acknowledging the land, as “claims of Dakota origins in places other than Mni Sota Makoce conflict with Dakota oral narratives and ultimately undermine Dakota connections to the land.” Erasing the connections that the Dakota have to Bdote and this land, not just by claiming alternative origins, but by refusing to acknowledge the sacredness of the site, similarly undermines the Dakota connections to the land, and makes attempts for land acknowledgment futile.

In 1805, as part of an expedition to explore the northern part of the Louisiana Territory, United States Army lieutenant, Zebulon Pike, negotiated a deceitful treaty that ceded 100,000 acres of Dakota land to the U.S. government for $2,000 so that they could build a military fort, which was eventually erected as Fort Snelling. The land itself was valued at $200,000, but the U.S. government only agreed to pay $2,000 for it. The land purchased as part of this treaty included two tracts of land, each nine square miles, on each side of the Mississippi River, as seen in the image of the map in figure 2. Similar to many other land grab treaties, there has been much doubt around the validity of the 1805 Treaty of St. Peters. For example, of the seven tribal leaders present, only two signed the treaty, and those who did sign treaties often relied on interpreters who were paid by the U.S. government, calling into question whether they were aware of the terms of the treaty. Even if they were aware of the terms, understanding the context in which these treaties occurred makes it obvious that colonial power and genocide made it impossible for the Dakota to consent to the theft of their land.

The construction of Fort Snelling, overlooking Bdote, began in 1819, and construction was completed in 1825. In 1839, the commander of Fort Snelling, Major Joseph Plympton, ordered the tract of land to be surveyed, and expanded the boundaries east of the Mississippi River, North to Marshall Avenue, and East to the St. Paul Cathedral. In 1848, the land between what is now Marshall Avenue and St. Clair Avenue and West of Fairview to the river was given to an Irish settler. In 1849, the remainder of the land purchased in 1805 was split into plots, and the lines of those plots established most of the major streets in the area. 

In 1854, the federal government sold the remainder of the tract in plots by auction. As a result of intimidation, settlers fixed the sale price and bought the plots at the minimum bid fee of $1.25/acre. The land that Macalester sits on was passed from hand to hand, until it was parched by Thomas Cochran Jr., on behalf of Macalester’s board of managers, who purchased the land for $24,000 for the purpose of building the college. All of the land that Macalester college sits on was stolen from the Dakota through nefarious and deceitful treaties, and violence that forced the separation of the Dakota from their ancestral homeland. Macalester College is necessarily part of this violent history, and cannot be separated from it.

The land acknowledgement recognizes aspects of this violent colonial history, and understands the enduring legacy of the land grabs that allowed Macalester College to settle and establish itself. However, the critical history that was laid out in this case study is widely unknown, resulting in the naivety that allows settlers to ignore the violent injustices that have historically and are presently occurring. Moreover, the land acknowledgment is limited in its ability to acknowledge and name the ways in which Macalester College, and other institutions, is continuing to expand its land ownership in order to strengthen the colonial institution. The High Winds Fund, which “was established in 1956 through an initial gift to Macalester College from DeWitt Wallace to sustain property values he had seen deteriorate around other urban college and university neighborhoods.” Through this fund, Macalester College funds neighborhood projects that “improve and enhance the beauty, serenity and security of the neighborhood,” increasing property values of the neighborhood and expanding the reach Macalester college has in the Twin Cities. The High Winds Fund, alongside other property purchases in the neighborhood and other plans to expand Macalester’s property holdings, are a part of the colonial legacy that Macalester upholds, yet are often not included in discussions of land acknowledgements. The land acknowledgement is a first step in filling those knowledge gaps, but there remain areas of Macalester’s history and land ownership that have not been included in this recognition.

Beyond Macalester’s main campus an area is the Katharine Ordway Natural History Study Area, an area of Macalester ownership that is not discussed frequently on campus. The Katharine Ordway Natural History Study Area is a 278-acre field station that Macalester has owned since 1967. Before we explore Macalester’s acquisition of the land, we believe it is important to understand  and emphasize the pre-colonial significance of the land, to recognize that the Ordway Field Station lies on the Mississippi River, on Dakota land. Archeological research done at Ordway estimates that Dakota people have been present on the land where Ordway now sits  since the Woodland Period (500 BCE to 1250 CE). The Ordway station is just 10 miles away from Bdote. As explained above, Bdote is considered the place of genesis for all Dakota people, making the area surrounding Bdote central to the culture and lives of the Dakota people. We must recognize the historical and cultural significance of this land, to push back on the idea that this area was empty land that settlers claimed for a purpose. This places the Ordway Field Station, like Macalester’s main campus, on historically Dakota land that was not only near the Dakota origin point and utilized by the Dakota people, but also a place of genocide. White, European settlers forced the Dakota people off of the land where Ordway sits, through the same explicit violence that allowed for the colonization of Macalester’s main campus. Following the genocide and relocation of the Dakota people, the land that Ordway sits on was transitioned into property to be bought and sold by and to white settlers. This transition from land as a home to land as a resource and commodity is an important connection point in EJ studies. We must recognize that the land Ordway sits on has not always been property, all land existed before the concept of property existed. Property is a lens we apply to land that allows us to commodify and thus generate profit off of it. Through looking at this history we hope to understand that the mechanisms that allowed Macalester to own Ordway come from a history of colonization, genocide, and resource extraction. 

In 1967, Katharine Ordway gave Macalester $150,000 in order to purchase land for an ecological field station; money that was used to purchase Ordway. Katherine Ordway gave the money to Maclester on behalf of her brother, Richard Ordway, who at the time served as the Chair of Macalester’s Development Council for the Board of Trustees. Richard and Katherine Ordway are of the St. Paul Ordway family, children of Lucius Pond Ordway, a prominent financial figure in St. Paul’s history. The Ordway family gained their wealth due to Lucius Pond Ordway’s investments and work with 3M (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company), a legacy that Richard Ordway continued. This history is important because it allows us to trace the money Macalester used to buy Ordway and thus financial connections and legacies that Macalester upholds. 

The history of 3M’s complete disregard for the health of US and international citizens, as well as for law and regulations are well documented. It extends from hundreds citizens who have sued 3M and other companies claiming cancer and other health problems are from toxic levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contained in aqueous film forming foams (AFFF), and found in other 3M products that they failed to disclose information about the risks. Their issues extend internationally to Belgium where in July 2022, a €571 million(what is this in dollars?) a settlement between the Flemish government and 3M Belgium was reached, around the PFAS contamination of soils, groundwater, wind, and agricultural land in Antwerp, Belgium. This settlement was reached after at least 20 years of 3M contamination of the ecosystem with PFOS, a type of PFAS. A similar settlement of $850 million was reached between the state of Minnesota and 3M in 2018, after the Minnesota attorney general sued 3M for damaging drinking water in the Twin Cities. 

Additionally in Minnesota over the past two years the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency(MPCA) announced two different enforcement agreements with 3M due to the company's lack of compliance with standards. One focused on the lack of properly disposed of hazardous waste in Cottage Grove, resulting in them paying $80,000 in civil penalties. Then, in May 2022, another agreement was reached with 3M after the conclusion of a 2 year investigation finding that 3M failed to properly use, dispose of and store hazardous waste contamination, including arsenic, PCBs, lead, mercury and more. The MPCA fined 3M $2.8 million, a laughable amount compared to the $34.762 billion made in revenue from September 2021-2022. 

3M had conducted studies since 1950 that showed PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, could build up in our blood, and since 1960 known that these chemicals could pose serious health risks, and hid these studies and information from employees and the public for many years. To this day, 3M continues to deny that there are conclusive results from these studies, and insists that the hazard of PFAS and other chemicals they manufacture are not as hazardous as science suggests. 

Through researching the use of Ordway and the context that Macalester views it in, we have utilized EJ’s lens on conservation. As we have discussed, Ordway is utilized at Macalester as space for conservation efforts and scientific research. There is a focus throughout the conversation surrounding Ordway on “protecting” the land. The concept of protecting the land creates a sharp distinction between humans and nature, a depiction of nature that has violent consequences for indigenous communities. Alexander Zaitchek explains,

 Conservationists advocating the creation of protected areas insisted on drawing a clear line separating nature—understood as raw, unpopulated wilderness—and culture, meaning any human activity that impacted the local environment. As a result, both governments and conservation groups view the traditional inhabitants as obstacles to be removed, if they were considered at all. Advocates for expanding protected areas saw indigenous displacement, and the disruption of traditional practices, as the sad but necessary consequence of environmental protection. 

The view of environmental protection removes the idea of reciprocity between humans and land while denying the benefit of indigenous stewardship of the land. This creates a hierarchy where Western pedagogies of science and conservation are seen as superior to indigenous practices and knowledge. This is a destructive framework that focuses us solely on the scientific, moving our conservation efforts to block out the interconnectedness of colonialism, capitalism, and environmental degradation. It is explained from Hoodwinked in the Hothouse, that, “Real environmental solutions must be guided by Indigeous traditional knowledge and real solutions must be holistic in tackling intertwined ecological and social harm.” Thus, conservation efforts must go beyond scientific research and an understanding of ecology of the land, they must incorporate Indigenous knowledge and work in connection with anti-colonial/anti-capital views. 

The Landback movement offers an alternative and supplemental approach to conservation. The Landback movement has been answering the question of what to do about institutional environmental injustice in ownership. Landback is an Indigenous led movement that mixes ecological protection with the need for Indigenous sovereignty; recognizing that protecting the environment will always be linked to fighting against colonialism. It comes with the inherent recognition that extractive policies harm nature and humans. The Landback Manifesto explains, “It is the reclamation of everything stolen from the original peoples: land, language, ceremony, food, education, housing, healthcare, governance, medicine, and kinship” and continues with the following principles, which we believe are important to read in their entirety, 

“It is a relationship with Mother Earth that is symbiotic and just, where we have reclaimed stewardship.

It is bringing our People with us as we move towards liberation and embodied sovereignty through an organizing, political and narrative framework.

It is a long legacy of warriors and leaders who sacrificed freedom and life.

It is a catalyst for current generation organizers and centers the voices of those who represent our future.

It is recognizing that our struggle is interconnected with the struggles of all oppressed Peoples.

It is a future where Black reparations and Indigenous LANDBACK co-exist. Where BIPOC collective liberation is at the core.

It is acknowledging that only when Mother Earth is well, can we, her children, be well. It is our belonging to the land - because - we are the land.”

These principles guide the long legacy of Indigenous activism that strides for reparations and the literal returning of stolen lands. However, the literal return of lands is not enough to undo the history of violence and extraction that settler colonizers have impacted the land with. Waziyatawin explains, “Monetary compensation should not be the end goal, but what we need instead is the essential support for the creation and development of an Indigenous infrastructure that will allow Dakota People to live according to our values and worldviews…. Land return alone is not enough to create justice. Instead, Minnesotans also have to return those lands to pristine conditions.”

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