Why treaties matter
What does the research say?
Peer-reviewed scholarship in social studies education consistently documents that Indigenous peoples and nations are marginalized in K-12 curricula — confined to a pre-1900 timeframe, stripped of political status, and presented through a settler narrative of inevitable displacement rather than as sovereign, contemporary nations (Shear et al., 2015). Calderón (2014) describes this pattern as a “settler grammar” embedded in curriculum design itself, one that normalizes land dispossession by treating it as background rather than as a site of ongoing legal and political relationship. Brayboy’s (2005) Tribal Critical Race Theory (TribalCrit) offers a corrective framework, arguing that Indigenous peoples occupy a distinct legal-political status — not merely a racial or ethnic one — rooted in treaties, sovereignty, and government-to-government relationships with the United States. This is precisely the ground the Why Treaties Matter series occupies: rather than treating Dakota and Ojibwe history as a closed chapter, the guides foreground treaties as living legal instruments, sovereignty as an inherent and continuing status, and land-based knowledge systems (Barnhardt & Kawagley, 2005) as intellectually rigorous ways of understanding kinship, economy, and place.
Why is it important?
When curricula omit or misrepresent this legal-political dimension of Native nationhood, students — Native and non-Native alike — inherit an incomplete and often distorted civic education. Sabzalian (2019) frames the presence of accurate, contemporary Indigenous content in schools as a matter of survivance: the difference between curricula that reduce Native peoples to historical artifact and curricula that recognize their continued self-governance, resurgence, and contribution to civic life. This matters for every student’s civic literacy, not only for Native students’ sense of belonging and identity. Understanding usufructuary rights, the Nelson and Morris Acts, the Bryan v. Itasca County and Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band decisions, and the seven council fires or clan systems is not a niche cultural add-on; it is foundational to understanding federalism, property law, natural resource policy, and the structure of governance in Minnesota itself. The stakes are also personal and immediate: as the series’ own narratives (Ramona Kitto Stately’s account of the Dakota, Jim Jones’s account of relocation) make clear, treaty history is inseparable from present-day identity, family structure, and community wellbeing.
What are the implications for education?
Educators can make a huge difference by teaching treaty rights and sovereignty content as core disciplinary knowledge. These can be integrated across social studies, economics, environmental science, and civics rather than isolated into a single unit or heritage month. McCarty and Lee’s (2014) framework of culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy suggests that this content is most effective when it draws on Indigenous-authored primary sources (as this series does with Treuer, Stately, and tribal community members) rather than secondhand summary, and when it explicitly names contemporary tribal governments, enterprises, and legal victories alongside historical dispossession. Calderón’s (2014) land education approach further suggests pairing content with place: using local maps, local treaties, and local tribal nations as the entry point rather than a generic national narrative. For instructional designers, this means building assessments and activities (as the guides do) that ask students to locate, name, and reason about sovereignty and treaty rights as they operate today — not only as historical fact but as an active civic and legal reality educators themselves are obligated to teach accurately.
Accompanying educator guides
The below guides provide educators with background, student readings and activities, vocabulary lists, and suggested web and print resources.
- A Deep Connection to Place
- An Ojibwe Narrative: Reconnections to Place
- The Chippewa National Forest
- Traditional Anishinaabe Economy
- Treaty Economy
- Ways of Learning: An Ojibwe Childhood
- We Have Always Been Sovereign Nations
- Terminology Primer
About the guides
This curriculum was developed by a team of educators, cultural resource specialists, and community members convened by the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council and the Minnesota Humanities Center: Frank Bibeau (Tribal Attorney), Priscilla Giddings-Buffalohead (retired Indian Education teacher and college lecturer), Jim L. Jones, Jr. (Cultural Resource Director, Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, Pillager Band), Jack Judkins (Curriculum Connections Minnesota), Nanette Missaghi (anthropologist and consultant), Amanda Norman (White Earth Nation), Dennis W. Olson (Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa; MN Dept. of Education, Office of Indian Education), Ramona Kitto Stately (Santee Dakota), Linda Thain (retired teacher, Saint Paul Public Schools), Dr. Anton Treuer (Bemidji State University), and Travis Zimmerman (Minnesota Historical Society). The guide reflects lived expertise, tribal knowledge, and direct community and classroom experience rather than a peer-reviewed publication record — a distinct and well-established basis for curriculum design (Kovach, 2009). The sections above use this guide as a primary source and case example for the peer-reviewed research on Indigenous education discussed throughout.