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The Charge
The Charge
In the Spring of 2018, I was hired as an intern at the Amherst Wilder Foundation in St. Paul, Minnesota, to help facilitate and lead their Critical History Project.
Hired mainly for my research skills, I was tasked with digging through the archives to find the answers to two main questions:
- How did Wilder accumulate his money?
- At whose expense?
The Process
The Process
Professor Brenda Child was brought on as an advisor to the project, and we decided early on to focus not just on Wilder himself, but the structures of oppression and inequity that allowed people like Wilder make money. We focused primarily on the removal of Native Americans in Minnesota and the greater Midwest region. However, through careful historical research, we were also able to place Wilder in the larger industry of chattel slavery in both the United States and in Central and South America.
The Result
The Result
Our research culminated in a report which not only detailed specific information we had found, but which also constructed larger narratives about settler colonialism and early business in Minnesota. The Amherst Wilder Foundation is hoping to use this information and the report to inform future policies and projects, with an eye toward furter reckoning with the foundation's past.
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