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Prairie Island Indian Community

5636 Sturgeon Lake Road

Welch, MN 55089

The Mdewakanton, "those who were born of the waters," have lived on Prairie Island for countless generations. This land, with the wooded shores of the Mississippi and Vermillion Rivers embracing a broad and fruitful prairie, is a spiritual place for our people. The medicine gatherers came here hundreds of years ago and come here still to pick medicines to heal our people, body and spirit.

As white settlers moved in from the east, treaties in 1837 and 1851 gave away our land, leaving the Dakota people a small reservation along the Minnesota River in western Minnesota. In return, the United States government promised farm implements and animals and an annual payment of money and food.

Those promises were broken. One trader said of us as we starved, "if they are hungry, let them eat grass." In 1862, many Indians rose up against the injustice. The Dakota War came and many people died. We were subjugated and our people flung across the map. More than 1,700 Dakota people were imprisoned at Fort Snelling, by St. Paul, Minnesota, although most of them had not fought in the war. They were deported, destitute, to the Crow Creek reservation in South Dakota.

Dakota language, culture and religion were suppressed for generations. Much of our identity slipped away.

Starting in 1880, some Mdewakanton families began to return to Prairie Island, buying back small parcels of our ancestral home. In 1936, the Prairie Island Indian Community was recognized by the federal government and 534 acres (a tiny portion) of the island became our reservation.

In 1968, our world changed once more with a second invasion. Northern States Power (now Xcel Energy) began building a nuclear power plant less than a half mile from our homes. We were not consulted; we were not compensated. We were promised jobs and training but that promise was never fulfilled.

Economic hope returned to Prairie Island in 1984 when we opened Treasure Island Bingo, which we expanded with slot machines and blackjack tables in 1988. In 1996, we remodeled the entire casino and added a 250 room hotel to make Treasure Island a destination resort for our customers. Another expansion recently completed in 2000-2001 improved the existing game floor and entrance and added additional office and warehouse space. We call gaming the new buffalo, for it has brought us jobs and income, water and sewer plants, paved roads and a future.

But the progress we've made since the '80s is threatened by our nuclear neighbor. Our people have suffered from unexplained health problems. We have asked the state and federal governments to address our health and safety concerns. But the answer has always been the same: nuclear power is safe and we have nothing to worry about. We couldn't disagree more. All it takes is one accident at the power plant and the health of our tribal members and the future of our tribe, including our successful tribal business, would be permanently devastated.

By 1990, NSP faced storage problems and sought permission to build a facility to store spent nuclear fuel on Prairie Island. Again, ignoring its responsibility to the tribe, the federal government granted NSP permission to build a nuclear waste storage facility and store up to 48 casks. The state legislature, noting the delay by the Department of Energy in developing a national repository, limited the storage to 17 casks.

Today, the federal government is ignoring its promise to build a national repository for the country's nuclear waste. But we are persevering. We are educating people about our concerns. Slowly, we are making progress. And for the first time the Prairie Island community has been included in federal emergency planning related to the nuclear plant and has a voice in future federal plans that affect our people and our home.