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Thanks for this, Kim. I like how you tied together the violence of current events in Minnesota to the violence of the past. So much for Minnesota nice. I'm reminded of Gwen Westerman's telling of the history of this land and people in an episode of Scene On Radio. https://tinyurl.com/yetq7lfs

And thank you for the link to Innes book and your personal reflections on the tensions that can come with how "Making kin is to make people into familiars in order to relate."

I had an awakening in my own piece this week on Interplace as I was re-introduced to Joseph Brant. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz gives mention to him in her essential read, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States on page 81 and the history of the Battle of Fallen Timbers. But in researching more about him and his family, it seems he and his Christian White parents were made kin by the Mohawk people.

Much like traditional American history education has avoided the telling the rich and complex multi-cultural story of Little Crow and his relatives, so too have we forgotten the story of Brant - a white Mohawk leader - and his kin. Instead, the area is memorialized by naming Fort Wayne, Indiana after the genocidal murderer, "Mad Anthony" Wayne, in the aftermath of Fallen Timbers.

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hi brad, thanks for this comment. i'll need to check out gwen's interview. she's a relative of my brother's and i suppose mine too then. i haven't read dunbar-ortiz's book yet although i do think it's on my shelf to read.

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