As a child, Mary Kunesh watched her father travel from reservation to reservation in northern Minnesota, working as a pro bono attorney for tribal lands that needed legal assistance. She heard stories from her grandfather about her family’s history, filled with brave Lakota women like her aunt Josephine Gates, the first tribal chairwoman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.
As a child, Kunesh learned how the US forced indigenous peoples from their homelands, agreed to provide housing, education and economic opportunities in return, then reneged on those agreements. She learned how settlers changed the landscape by clearing forests and eliminating buffalo, and how dam construction displaced indigenous peoplesagain, making it possible for mills and factories to pollute the water and air.
But as Kunesh grew older, she realized that history wasn’t widely known: Non-Native people around her often took reservations for granted and didn’t realize exactly how tribal nations got there.
Now, Kunesh is the first native to serve in the Minnesota Senate.
Last year, she wrote legislation that backfired sacred land to the Upper Sioux community, and this year she successfully pushed through a bill to return land to the Mille Lacs Band of the Ojibwe. She is also working on two accounts to give back state land in White Earth State Forest back to the White Earth Nation and land in Upper Red Lake back to the Red Lake Nation. The latter two bills died this year after causing a lot of backlash locally, but Kunesh said she has no intention of giving up.
“There are many people who say, well that was then, we should just forget about the past and move on. But no, legally those lands belong to the tribe, and they must be returned to the tribe to be the steward of the land,” she said.
Grist spoke with Kunesh about what motivates her, and what she sees as the future of the Land Back movement.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q. How would you describe the relationship between land retreat and climate change?
A. Many of the lands here in Minnesota that we are asking to be returned have been stripped of all their timber. They’re commercialized – the lake and the shorelines are commercialized, and a lot of people come and go and bring in invasive species, which don’t treat the environment the way they should. When it was only the indigenous people on the lands, the lands were healthy, the four-legged animals were in tune with the seasons and it was a symbiotic relationship with man. It is important that we allow the tribes to go back to their indigenous roots of caring for the lands and I think we will see a very positive outcome in doing so.
I was in Washington, DC last week and ended up sitting next to an Anishinaabe woman from Red Lake who I had been corresponding with and we had a really good conversation about the importance of stewardship of the lands for the indigenous people to retain I didn’t know it, but northern Minnesota used to have a very strong and robust caribou population. And now they are all gone. The white-tailed deer have replaced them, but that’s because all the white oaks have been cut down. And those white oak trees, the lichen likes to grow on them and that’s what the caribou ate. Once those forests were gone, the caribou were gone. This is another example of how through colonization and timber destruction we have pushed away an entire part of the environmental cycle in northern Minnesota. It is therefore extremely important that the indigenous people are able to reclaim their lands and manage and care for the lands as the ancestors have done for hundreds of years.
Q. One of the bills you passed this year requires the state of Minnesota to offer to sell state land within a reservation’s boundaries, or just outside, to that tribe first at its appraised value. Why did you push for that measure?
A. I think that’s really important because, number one, it allows the tribe to expand tribal lands that are connected to them, but it also helps provide a buffer around those tribal lands. Often these are lands that can be forested land, they can be natural swamps, they can be wild rice lakes. They may be the place of medicinal and sacred plants that have been here forever. I think it respects the sovereign rights of the nations, that they also have the right to buy land, just like anyone else. And why wouldn’t we at least provide that? Sometimes those lands sit there as tax-forfeited land for decades and generate no taxes at all. And it’s certainly a way to help some of those counties that keep telling us, “We’re the poorest county in Minnesota, and don’t take our lands.” It’s a way to work with those provinces to generate the revenue they need.
Q. What would you say to critics who say that indigenous people don’t have to buy back their land?
A. I would agree with them. In general, I don’t believe the tribes should have to pay for those lands at all. But if it is part of the agreement and the tribe agrees to it, then they should be able to express and use their sovereignty to make their own individual agreements.
Q. What was surprising to you about this job?
A. We have a very strong base of support from non-Native people here in Minnesota. Many of the faith-based organizations, environmental organizations, those who are sensitive to the inequities and the racism in Minnesota towards our native people, are very supportive of these land return bills and are very happy to come in and write letters to the paper, and come testify when we hearings at the Capitol. So it is not just a movement of the only indigenous population. There are many, many organizations and individuals who do not identify as Native who support the work we do.
This [faith-based] organizations look at the doctrine of discovery, the papal decree that says to send out all these explorers and any country they touch can be claimed for whatever country they represent. That you can take all the wealth, that everything you get you can claim for land.
They recognize the injustice of this and the destruction of the indigenous people who lived on the lands before Europeans came there. This is an opportunity not to undo, but to pay the pipe-head for what happened to the indigenous people, acknowledging the fact that for all these hundreds of years they never got their due. And so for them I think they feel it’s really a moral issue and are willing to stick their necks out and often their money and their time for this.
Q. What advice do you have for other Indigenous advocates hoping to make Land Back and similar goals happen in their own communities?
A. I think the first thing I would advise our people in – and this is a very difficult thing for most of them – is to get involved in the community. For so long natives were not encouraged or welcomed in City Council or school boards or those positions of decision making for the community. They felt unwelcome. They felt racially segregated. They felt threatened and they didn’t feel heard or recognized. And with the increase in indigenous people starting to run for these positions, I think I’ve made a very big difference.
I am the first Native American woman to serve in the Minnesota Senate in history. And that is a sad thing. You know, people say, “Oh, hooray, the first, the first!” But we must stop being the first. We must be the second, fourth, eighth, 50th. When I was elected to the Minnesota House, there were only two Native women before me who had served in the House. And so my suggestion would be to please start stepping up and serving in ways in your community, not only to show that tribal people are involved in their community, but they also bring such a unique voice to the issues that is in question. And it can be hard to talk about those issues, especially if it’s really personal, it can be hard to advocate for your people when you’re in the minority and historically treated so poorly. But the more and more of us get into positions where we can talk about the hardships and the historical trauma that our people have had and work for positive change, I think that will serve all of our communities, indigenous anywhere, whether it’s South America is , Australia, New Zealand, North America, wherever – even the Sami people in Finland. But we have to start showing up, and we have to start putting ourselves in positions where we can make decisions that are going to be good not only for our own people, but for all the communities that we represent or the states that we represent.
Be there. Be vocal. Write letters to the editor on important issues and work with your community in ways that will build trust and cooperation, so when an opportunity to do things like return land, when there’s a lot of opposition, maybe you in a position to speak to it or advocate for it or educate people about the issues. But we can no longer sit back and not participate. And the other thing is please take part in elections and know who represents you and do they represent you and your community in the best way? And if not, either become that candidate or support candidates who represent your values and your goals in life, not just for today or tomorrow or the next ten years, but as we say, for the next seven generations.
Q. If all goes well with Land Back efforts, what might happen next?
A. What I would really like to see is the ability for the tribes to manage the lands they were promised, and for the United States and Minnesota to ratify and honor the treaties as written and then not stand in the way or don’t try to micromanage the tribes when those lands are returned. Let them do it through their own, sovereign governments. I think we will be a better state for it. I think environmentally we definitely will. Especially when we are concerned about mining in Minnesota and the waterways of Minnesota. The last thing we want to see is any of those things that are polluted or destroyed, but we can also see the return to some of the native lands, the swamp lands, the prairie lands, the woodlands, which is the environment in a very good, healthy way. Through co-management or co-stewardship, Minnesota will become a healthier place, a happier place, and a place where the racial tensions that existed – which most people won’t admit – are almost non-existent.