The Dakota called Mní Sota Makoce ("Land Where the Waters Reflect the Clouds") home long before Western contact and exposure to the toxicity of imperialism and settler colonialism perpetuated by the United States and its citizens. 

There are many Bdote's ("where two waters come together") but the most important one to the Dakota is at the confluence of the Mní Sota ("Minnesota") and Ȟaȟáwakpa ("Mississippi") Rivers. This Bdote is known as the place of the genesis of Dakota people and the center of their world. 

The Anishinaabe (Ojibwe/Chippewa) migrated to northern Minnesota from the East Coast after a prophecy foretold of their need to move to lands where food grew out of the water. In finding wild rice, they found their home before Western contact. 

Other peoples, such as Cheyenne and Ho-Chunk, also called this land home. 

UMN was founded not once, but twice with land grabs, the largest being the Morrill Act of 1862. This legislation, signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln, expropriated 11 million acres of Indigenous land to 52 "Land Grant Institutions” in the years and decades that followed its signing. During a 15-year period of wealth transfer, the University of Minnesota received more than 186,000 acres of Indigenous land. 

In order to understand our relationships, we must ask ourselves where we have been and what steps were taken that got us to where we are today.