The Duluth Indigenous Commission (formerly the Duluth American Indian Commission) wants to hear the stories of Native people with connections to the Duluth area. On Saturday, April 27, 2013, at 1:00 p.m., the Duluth Indigenous Commission is sponsoring a meeting of members of the community to begin to recover Duluth’s Indigenous history and culture. The meeting will be held at Trepanier Hall, 212 W. Second St., next door to the Gimaaji-Mino-Bimaadizimin building in downtown Duluth. The meeting will include speakers, a drum group, food, and the opportunity for Duluth’s Indigenous community to have its voices heard.
In September 2012 the Indigenous Commission, under the auspices of the City of Duluth, received a planning grant from the Minnnesota Historical Society, through the Legacy Amendment Historical and Cultural Heritage Grants program, to plan an ethnographic study of the contributions of Native Americans to the history and culture of Duluth.
The goal of the planning grant is to write a grant proposal for a larger project to study the Indigenous heritage of Duluth, and to suggest goals for such a study. What places in Duluth are important to Indigenous heritage? Who are the elders who should be interviewed for the study? Should an archaeological survey be done to identify and protect Native American burial places in Duluth? What are ways to tell the Indigenous story to the larger Duluth community? These are just a few of the questions that the Indigenous Commission wants to ask at the community meeting on April 27.
Among the speakers at the meeting will be David Mather, Archaeologist with the Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office in St. Paul, who will speak about the possibilities for identifying, preserving, and interpreting Native American archaeological sites in the Duluth area.
For more information, contact Ricky Defoe at rdefoe@indigenousduluth.net or 218-340-4148. Also visit the IndigenousDuluth.net website for more information or to leave messages about the project.
The Duluth Indigenous Commission is committed to building alliances with governmental, tribal, and community partners that will support the restoration of Indigenous cultural values and principles, thereby creating collaborative relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous citizens.
One of the earliest photographs of an Anishinaabeg village site in the area of Duluth, taken in the 1860s, used here courtesy of the Northeast Minnesota Historical Center, University of Minnesota Duluth Library.
