Leaving tribes off the map

The Lake Traverse Reservation is easy to find on most maps put out by the federal government and apps like MapQuest. But the home of the federally recognized Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate is nowhere to be seen on the state’s Department of Transportation map. It’s one of three reservations the agency chooses to leave off. The reasons are complicated and come down to interpretations of the legal definitions of each reservation. We’ll talk about what’s behind the omission and what Native scholars and others are doing to change it.

GUESTS

Angelique EagleWoman (member of Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate), law professor and director of the Native American Law and Sovereignty Institute at Mitchell Hamline School of Law and chief justice of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate Supreme Court

State Rep. Tamara St. John (member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate/R-SD 1), tribal archivist

Chairman J. Garret Renville (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate), tribal chairman of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate