Nullifying The Christian Basis Of U.s. Land Title To Dakota Territory

By Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer

Statements on Minnesota's Department of Natural Resources website read: "Hundreds of years before Europeans settled in the [Mille Lacs] region, the Dakota people established permanent villages along the shores of Ogechie Lake, and the Rum River." ... "Early White/Indian intervention played an important role in the settlement of the area by white men. The French, instigated fights between the Ojibwe and Dakota so as to ally themselves with the Ojibwe."

The French armed a displaced band of East Coast Ojibwe with guns and then used them to force the Dakota from their Mille Lacs homeland. The European colonists used displaced eastern tribes who had been forced to move west to escape the invading white civilization to extinguish the long established western tribes' ancestral ties that they had with the land, their ancestors and the spirit world. This made it easier to Christianize and civilize these natives.

In the April 26, 2017 issue of the Mille Lacs Messenger, a county newspaper, Brett Larson, a former editor of the Messenger, stated in his letter to the editor that the Ojibwe bands that net fish in Mille Lacs Lake "retained their right to do so when they ceded a vast amount of land to the U.S.." White people used the Ojibwe to force the Dakota from their homelands and then granted the Ojibwe legal rights to stolen Dakota land that the Ojibwe then - in respect to a vast amount of it - ceded to the U.S.. Dakota tribal leaders have told me that the fish in Mille Lacs Lake rightfully belong to their people.

[SIZE=12.8px]The stolen Dakota land that the Ojibwe ceded to the U.S. was not considered to be Ojibwe land by the U.S., the Ojibwe only had "occupancy rights" to this U.S. land. On July 2, 1679, Daniel Greysolon Sieur Duluth claimed the Dakota people's Mille Lacs area as a possession for the French King Louis XIV. Later, the British inherited it from France and then the U.S. inherited it from Britain.[/SIZE]

According to a United Nations World Conference Against Racism document: A series of Papal Bulls, or "doctrines of discovery", collectively known as the Doctrine of Discovery, sanctioned Christian nations to claim "unoccupied lands", or lands belonging to "heathens" or "pagans". .... These "doctrines of discovery" were primarily used internationally to support decisions invalidating aboriginal possession of land in favor of colonial or post-colonial governments.

[SIZE=12.8px]In The Circle article "Dakota Rising" its author Jon Lurie states the reason why Wyatt Thomas (Dakota) traveled to Mille Lacs County from Nebraska where he lives on a reservation [/SIZE]as a member of the Santee Dakota Tribe[SIZE=12.8px]. Mr. Lurie wrote: [/SIZE][SIZE=12.8px]"Thomas said that Minnesota, and Ogechie Lake in particular, was, to him home." And that:[/SIZE][SIZE=12.8px] "[/SIZE][SIZE=12.8px]Thomas was on a mission to scout his tribe’s Minnesota ancestral lands. An important first step in reintroducing the Santee Dakota to their original homeland.”[/SIZE] [SIZE=12.8px]And that: "Thomas is one voice in a growing chorus of indigenous cultural leaders who agree that the reclamation of traditional lands is crucial to solving the Dakota mental health crisis due to the brutality of their historic treatment.”[/SIZE]

I have a Facebook group site named "Regaining the Dakota Oyate's Mille Lacs Homeland. On it I have a link to video of a Standing Rock protest. It’s a video of a Christian delegation of allies to Standing Rock marching on a standoff roadblock. The narrator says that "they [the bishops] are denouncing the Doctrine of Discovery and thus nullifying the Christian basis of [U.S.] land title to Dakota territory."