Our project evolved quite a bit from start to finish. From the start, we encountered some challenges — not only in terms of scope and material available, but also on a theoretical level, as we thought about how to visualize the history we were researching in the form of a map. There is so much ambiguity and potential unreliability in the sources we were looking at that we were hesitant

A note on primary sources from the team of the Bdote Memory Map: “Many of the primary resources that present Dakota history and identity, and US-Indian relations, are based on assumptions that not only arise from non-Dakota perspective, but actively exclude any indigenous perspective. Challenging these assumptions is much more than a matter of political correctness; it is a requirement for any accurate understanding of our past. For instance, the

 This project was initiated by the Rice County Historical Society with the goal of increasing awareness of the historical Dakota presence in Rice County. As it evolved, we narrowed our scope to focus primarily on one hand-drawn map in the RCHS collections, “Map of Indian village in the valley behind the School and Colony, Faribault. Indians were removed to Morton, Minn. in 1895. Map drawn by Mrs. Wm. Lynch Sec.