MPR’s Melissa Olson reports on Lower Sioux Community exploring reconciliation through an 'honor tax.' The Mni Sota Makoce Honor Tax was created as another way Minnesotans and Dakota people could build relationships.
Located in the Minnesota River Valley, the Lower Sioux Community is part of a larger diaspora of Dakota communities extending as far west as Nebraska and as far north as Manitoba.
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2024 Indigenous Media Award, third place in Professional Division III – Radio / Podcast – Best News Story category
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SPEAKER: A Minneapolis attorney is exploring reconciliation through the creation of an honor tax as a way to build relationships with one Dakota Community in Minnesota. Melissa Olson has the story.
JESSICA INTERMILL: My family's homestead is in Kansas. It's right on the Kansas-Nebraska border. When I was growing up, we would go and run the pastures. And it would be my job to spot the thistles. And Grandpa would give me a nickel a thistle to help him pull him out so that the cows didn't go eat them.
MELISSA OLSON: That's Jessica Intermill. She's an attorney practicing in federal Indian law. When she became an attorney, she began to wonder what her family's land looked like when Indigenous people lived on it, before it was ceded to settlers. Her work as an attorney, along with her research into her family's homestead, led Intermill to create the Minnesota Makoce honor tax. Mobilized as a website, people who live in, work on, and visit traditionally Dakota land may make payments directly to the Lower Sioux Community, a federally recognized tribal nation in Minnesota. Funds are deposited directly into an account held by the Lower Sioux Community.
It looks like a donation, but has layers of meaning Intermill says. One key difference, she says, is that like a property tax or a rent payment, an honor tax is paid to a sovereign nation who, in turn, allocates funding according to their own priorities. It also goes beyond land acknowledgments, written statements that some use to acknowledge Indigenous sovereignty over the lands they use. Intermill remembers being invited by the Lower Sioux Community Council to talk about the honor tax.
JESSICA INTERMILL: I don't know if you can see side eye on a microphone, but that was happening. And they're like, so it's what? It's a white people tax? How is this going to work?
MELISSA OLSON: Lower Sioux Community President Robert Larson remembers a similar conversation following that council meeting.
ROBERT LARSON: You're thinking, well, would anybody really even do this? I mean, there are people that genuinely care in our area. But when you get out and people that have learned more history, they want to help somehow.
MELISSA OLSON: In March of 2022, the elected leadership of the Lower Sioux Community passed a resolution. The resolution states the tax is entirely voluntary and emphasizes the council's hope Minnesotans might learn the history of US treaty making and broken treaty promises. Located in the Minnesota River Valley, the Lower Sioux Community is a part of a larger diaspora of Dakota Communities, extending as far west as Nebraska and as far north as Manitoba.
Under the terms of a mid-19th century treaty, Dakota Communities reserved a parcel of land along the Minnesota River, but were violently expelled. In the 1930s, the United States recognized land Dakota people themselves had purchased, recognizing the community it now calls Lower Sioux Indian Community. Eagan resident Kristi Mandel learned about the honor tax through a program for employees at the University of Minnesota, and decided to make a payment.
KRISTI MANDEL: The fact that this exists, that seems like a natural next step on how to honor the people that came before us.
MELISSA OLSON: Mandel says, she aspires to pay an amount equal to what she pays in property taxes.
KRISTI MANDEL: I need to keep reminding myself that it's not a donation, because it's easy to use that word. By recognizing that Indigenous tribes were here, and I am on land that used to be their homeland, I'm recognizing the fact that I'm paying rent in a way.
MELISSA OLSON: The Minnesota Makoce honor tax website went live in February of 2023. So far, Intermill says she's seen individual contributions averaging between $15 and $25. She estimates that approximately a hundred people have made payments. Larson says the community has prioritized youth programming and land acquisition.
ROBERT LARSON: Dakota is what we call ourselves, and that was always the ally. I think the past leadership and the past community have made such great decisions and charted a great course, that we are OK. We're not rich kings, but we're all right and we're still here. Hopefully, this is one way that can help to make the future better community-wide and for our relationship building outside of our community.
MELISSA OLSON: Melissa Olson, MPR News.