Fort Snelling

Mass Incarceration and Educational Remembrance - Bridging the gap between history, perspective, and the Carceral Fort Snelling

Fort Snelling has had many histories. One history most often forgotten is its role as a site of mass incarceration – a history that imprisoned over 1,700 innocent Dakota lives within the same piece of land that brought their ancestors life. To understand how this history is taught – or neglected – today, we must first understand the facts. Through Fort Snelling's current interpretation and the rhetoric of materials used in official school texts, we know that the educational picture is not complete.

Follow ‘The History’ in order to experience the a brief history of the US-Dakota War and the events that led to the mass incarceration at the site. After we review these events - or if you feel well-versed, please continue to:

‘The Site’ in order to go directly to an analysis of educational rhetoric and materials used in classrooms today. The way we talk about mass incarceration and historic injustice says everything about how we value this past. The youth of our state must be fully educated on the breadth of our discriminatory carceral history, and this site aims to begin to paint that picture.

Was Fort Snelling an internment camp? A prison camp? A concentration camp? Through veiled rhetoric and limited information the truth is often withheld. Please follow along through our paths to find out for yourself.

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