Coldwater: the 1805 Pike Treaty

By SUSU JEFFREY

There were more cops in the courtroom than supporters for the first appearance of three defendants, who were charged with petty misdemeanors after entering the sacred Coldwater Spring site last October. The case is United States of America versus Jim Anderson, Cultural Chairman of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community, Chris Mato Nunpa, Indigenous Nations and Dakota Studies professor at Southwest State University at Marshall, and this writer, founder of Friends of Coldwater.

The 27-acre Coldwater Spring campus is federal land located between Minnehaha Regional Park and Fort Snelling State Park. The spring is ancient, estimated to be 10,000 years old, flowing even under the last glacier. Today it pours out of limestone bedrock at about 100,000 gallons a day down the Mississippi gorge. Coldwater is the last natural spring in Hennepin County. (The Great Medicine Spring in Theodore Wirth Park and historic Glenwood Spring were permanently dewatered in the 1980s with the construction of Interstate 394. The William Miller “Spring” in Eden Praire off Highway 212 comes out of a pipe.)
This court case is the latest in the enduring Hiawatha-Highway 55 reroute saga. Coldwater Spring was not mentioned in MnDOT’s 1985 Environmental Impact Statement for the reroute, although the spring’s groundwater supply flows under Highways 62 and 55.

After losing the Four (burr) Oaks to the State of Minnesota in 1999, environmentalists, Native Americans, non-Indians practicing earth-based spirituality, and the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District finally halted the road project in 2001. The watershed district proved in court that a third of the spring’s flow comes through the Highway 55/62 interchange. Hennepin County District Court Judge Franklin J. Knoll ordered the watershed protectors and the highway builders to work it out. The compromise is a roadway sunk 6.5 feet into the water table, surrounded by a waterproof liner.

Coldwater was fenced off as a Cold War research facility for metallurgy and mining, from 1960 to 1996, when it was closed and abandoned. From 1920 to 1960 the area was a southern extension of Minnehaha Park land. Coldwater furnished water to Fort Snelling from 1820 to 1920. The soldiers who built the fort lived at “Camp” Coldwater, which became a civilian support community to the fort. Camp Coldwater pioneers founded Pigseye (later St. Paul), St. Anthony, Minneapolis and Bloomington. Before 1820 the area was a gathering place for upper Mississippi peoples including Dakota, Anishinabeg, Ho Chunk, Iowa, Sauk and Fox.

MnDOT and the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community were ordered into federal supervised mediation by Hennepin County District Judge Peter H. Albrecht in early 1999. Among those testifying was Anishinabeg spiritual elder Eddie Benton Benais from northern Wisconsin who spoke of the Coldwater area. Benais called the land around the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers “sacred” and “neutral” and spoke of great religious-spiritual gatherings where people camped between the falls and the sacred water place, between Minnehaha Falls and Coldwater Spring.

In 1805 Lt. Zebulon Pike signed a treaty with the “Sioux Nation of Indians” for nine miles of land on either side of the Mississippi River from below the confluence with the Minnesota, north to the Falls of St. Anthony for the “purpose of the establishment of military posts.” The native people retained the rights to “pass, repass, hunt or make other uses of the said districts, as they have formerly done.”

In trade for the land use, the assembled Dakota people received 60 barrels of whiskey and $200 of the promised $200,000. Two of seven Dakota leaders “touched the pen” (signed the treaty). The treaty has never been tested in federal court—until now.
Now three defendants are in U.S. District Court on petty misdemeanor charges of “fail/show permit” or “fail/comply w/off[icer] order/signal.” Their attorney, Larry Leventhal, asked for a formal written complaint.

On Aug. 8, 2005, the caretaker of the property, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), closed the entrance to the spring except for one hour a week—Friday afternoons from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., during rush hour. Robyn Thorson, FWS Midwest Regional Director, said the property was closed for “safety” reasons although the Coldwater campus had been open to the public since 1997.
The restricted time excluded most working people and school children. In addition to the entrance limitation, Coldwater visitors were required to show a paper permit that involved four mailing steps to secure. Nevertheless Friday afternoons saw a cluster of people with water jugs at the spring.

Mendota Dakota Community member Tiffany Eggenberg rushed her sons, aged 12 and 7, from school to get to the site within the allotted time. “My boys just learned how to pray,” she said. “But it’s hard for them to pray when they can see a line of people waiting for them to leave.”
On Sept. 23, 2005, Dakota people, historians and legal scholars commemorated the 200th anniversary of the Pike treaty. Inspired by legal rights Mendota Dakota Cultural Chairman Jim Anderson declared, “I’m not getting any permit to be on my own land anymore.”

Treaties are the supreme law of the land according to the United States Constitution, Article 6, Section 2. “This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”
Extra chairs were brought in to accommodate the defendants, their dozen supporters, and defendants in other cases waiting to be heard. It seemed entirely appropriate that weapons were absent, creating a neutral arena to settle a sacred site dispute.

The proceeding was over in 40 minutes and the defendants, their lawyers and supporters retired to Coldwater Spring to thank and encourage each other. The next court appearance is scheduled for Thursday, April 6 at 9 a.m. at 180 East Fifth Street (between Jackson and Sibley), St. Paul.
Coldwater Park is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
For more information: www.friendsofcoldwater.org.