Law | Trust

Lawsuit seeks establishment of new reservation in Minnesota

Thursday, May 22, 2014

The plaintiffs in a new lawsuit are hoping to restore a reservation that was supposed to have been set aside for their ancestors.

In 1863, Congress authorized the selection of land for the loyal Mdewakanton to reward them for supporting the federal government during the 1862 Dakota War. The Interior Department set aside 12 square miles for the Dakota and their descendants but that land is now in private hands and within the reservation of at least one other tribe.

“We’re going to clear these people off this land and go to North and South Dakota, Nebraska and Canada and invite back those whose ancestors were chased out of Minnesota in 1863,” attorney Erick Kaardal told The Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The defendants are mainly municipal governments and private landowners. But also named is the Lower Sioux Indian Community.

"We are trying to figure out how we became a defendant, and we are trying to sort all this out,” President Denny Prescott told the Tribune.

The Dakota descendants previously sued the federal government for money that was generated on the land. The lawsuit, however, was dismissed.

Get the Story:
Dakota heirs sue to reclaim 12 square miles in southern Minnesota (The Minneapolis Star Tribune 5/22)

Federal Circuit Court of Appeals Decision:
Wolfchild v. US (September 27, 2013)