In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors tells stories of the Dakota Commemorative Marches, both past and present, in words and images from the participants.
November 7, 1862, was the beginning of a brutal forced march of Dakota women, children, and elders that took them 150 miles from the Lower Sioux Agency to Fort Snelling in Minnesota. There they were interred for the winter before being transported from their homeland. Many of them did not survive.
In November of 2002 and again in 2004, Dakota people from the U.S. and Canada commemorated this painful journey by again walking the route of their ancestors. For the Dakota, the Commemorative March is an opportunity to remember and grieve the suffering endured by their ancestors, as well as to relate a perspective of the event which has rarely been told.
