The Prairie Island Indian Community and Minnesota Historical Society are battling over the “ownership” of a specific artifact preserved in MNHS’s archives. The item, a rope used to hang Wicanhpi Wastedapi (Good Little Stars, or Chaske) in Mankato on Dec. 26, 1862, has been in MNHS’s collections since the 19th century. Today, various Dakota communities are asking for repatriation to complete a sacred healing ceremony. Despite MNHS’s deliberations, Dakota people believe the rope should be turned over immediately under the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act.
The MNHS holds a variety of objects, artifacts and sources from the era of the U.S.-Dakota War. In addition to discussing the rights and access to physical materials, these conversations should include the digital materials on the MNHS website.
We live in a digital age, where people expect public access to things at the snap of their fingers. Archives worldwide have embraced digitization to scan, reproduce and copy sources from the past and make them readily available online. Digitized items also require a set of information, called metadata, that details necessary details on where to find specific information about a source. This method has helped countless researchers who may not be able to travel far distances for historical research. However, despite the ability to transform analog sources into the digital realm, we should still consider the implications of using such materials — especially items that hold value as “cultural heritage” that connect the past with the present.
As researchers, we have a responsibility to adapt our own filters to consider whether we should be engaging with historical and cultural heritage objects, something very close to the present debates about archives like the MNHS holding sacred Dakota items for preservation.
I use the MNHS’s newly developed website as one example that sheds light on this situation.
The MNHS offers researchers access to a large body of primary sources created in the past that curate information about the U.S.-Dakota War, among other topics. Within this collection stands a large body of images captured by photographers during the 19th century. Many of these photographs depict Dakota incarceration, confinement and voyeurism.
White photographers, like Joel Emmons Whitney, rushed to Fort Snelling in 1863 (and later in 1864-65) to capture images of the Dakota people incarcerated there. They then profited off selling these images printed on cheap cardstock called cartes-des-visits, which were popular during the Civil War era. To the average researcher, these photographs detail a visual record of a period when white Minnesotans sought vengeance on any Dakota person after 1862. However, the continued digitization of these images represents the cyclical nature of colonialism in Minnesota.
These images are curated for research and to support MNHS’s endeavors. Users can access these photos as low-quality thumbnails, but they would need to purchase a copy of the file if they wanted to use the image even in non-commercial works. With this purchasing option, the MNHS perhaps unknowingly profits from selling reproduction copies of imagery depicting Dakota incarceration. These images were taken under duress and confinement. White photographers profited from white audiences who collected these photos like baseball cards. Digitization, thus, has created another method for non-Native groups’ voyeurism over the Dakota past, a past predicated in violence, dispossession and exile.
In her blog post “Digitization: Just because you can, does not mean you should,” diversity consultant Tara Robertson sheds light on the ethical concerns surrounding digitization and emphasizes that not all materials may need to be digitized. As we increasingly live in an age of instant search results curated to our needs, we must have new conversations about the ethics involved with our engagement in digital cultural heritage recast as “historical” collections.
We cannot rely on colonial institutions to “do the right thing.” We must understand the filter needed by institutions and the public when engaging with such cultural heritage to understand what’s right and wrong. With this filter, understanding of the past through physical objects and digitized scans can help us move toward a more unified conversation about Indigenous representation and sovereignty over items.
John R. Legg received his Ph.D. from George Mason University and is currently writing a book about Dakota migration after the U.S.-Dakota War. He will be teaching at Minnesota State, Mankato, this fall.
