Non-fiction regional history by Gwen Westerman and Bruce White
Recommended by Beth E. Waterhouse

Dakota authors have done extensive research to bring us their truth about the settlement of the area we call Minnesota– the ancestral lands of the Dakota people.  With authentic place names and from stories told by the people whose relatives remember them, readers are given the settlement story. We learn some of the language and about a centuries-old love of place—the way the Dakota lifestyle moved seasonally and supported families with the resources (fish, maple syrup, wild rice, game) that the land had to offer.  European ways and values did not jive, and the results are a heart-breaking narrative. 

Never before and nowhere else have I found such extensive detail, given from an Indigenous perspective, of 200 years of history before my ancestors stepped foot onto Minnesota land. This is the history we never learned in school.  It shows again and again a heartless European hunger for ‘ownership’ of a land that settlers knew full well was inhabited and not theirs, at least not without a series of relocations, lies and broken promises. The authors tell this harsh story kindly and accurately.  This is not an easy read, but I recommend it if we want to learn the truth.