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The
majority of the members of MMDC are from one of the families listed
below. The ancestry for most goes back to the French fur traders
who married Dakota women. In late 1875, the Reverend David Buel
Knickerbacker estimated there were approximately 75 Dakota living
in Mendota, on land owned by Henry Sibley. Sibley and others tried
unsuccessfully to get the government to grant land or money for
the land for the Mendota people. When Sibley died in 1891, our
people were made to leave the land. They moved to the old river
road in Mendota, but were again forced to move in 1952, when the
state acquired the land. Many stayed in the area surrounding Mendota.
In an excerpt from the Hastings Gazette in a column called "Mendota
Items" dated Saturday, February 13, 1886, it states "Everybody
goes to St. Paul this week to see the carnival. Most of the Indians
on the palace grounds are from here (Mendota)." In an interview
with Mary Louise Reding Auge in 1961, her recollections include
summer church picnics at Duncans Lake (since renamed Augusta Lake).
" The picnic grounds were on the west shore nearest Mendota,
while across the lake on ground now occupied by Resurrection Cemetery,
were row after row of Indian lodges. The young people would walk
along the lake shore and watch the squaws prepare corn meal by
cracking kernels between stones, and listen to their strange chatter
in the Dakota tongue." She also stated, without wishing to
unnecessarily rattle family skeletons, that many families of French
descent in northern Dakota County could boast of more than a little
Indian blood in their veins.
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