Local residents will get the chance to see the world as Native Americans and settlers saw it more than 100 years ago.

Riverland Community College will be one of the sites for a new statewide traveling exhibition that explores Minnesota’s native nations and the history of treaty making with the United States.

“Why Treaties Matter: Self-Government in the Dakota and Ojibwe Nations” opens Oct. 24 at the Riverland Library in the Austin East Building.

“It’s an area I don’t think we’ve had a lot of opportunities to study and be knowledgable about,” said Danielle Heiny, director of retention and student success, who also serves as one of Riverland’s diversity officers for students. Heiny and Ricki Walters, Riverland’s Regional Diversity Trainer, helped bring the exhibit to Riverland.

“We’re excited about it and we’re hoping that people will be able to … come in, and have an opportunity to take advantage of some of the programming,” Heiny said.

The exhibition will include 20 freestanding banners with historical text and contemporary photographs and maps, and a 10-minute video titled, “A Day in the Life of the Minnesota Tribal Nations.”

There will be additional events throughout Austin during the exhibit’s time in town. Dr. Anton Freuer, professor of Ojibwe from Bemidji State University, will give a presentation called “Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians but were Afraid to Ask,” at the Frank W. Bridges Theatre at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 2. The Herald J. Williams, Sr. Indian Building at the Mower County Historical Society will be open as well during the exhibit’s run.

“Why Treaties Matter,” reveals how Dakota and Ojibwe treaties with the U.S. government affected the lands and life ways of the Indigenous peoples of the place we now call Minnesota, and explains why these binding agreements between nations still matter today. It is meant to share cultural information with Minnesotans so they may better understand the circumstances surrounding Minnesota land, its use, and even the treatment of the land’s Indigenous peoples today.

“Treaties are agreements between self-governing, or sovereign, nations,” says Kevin Leecy, chair of the Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe and chair of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council. “Native Nations existed long before the formation of the United States. European powers recognized the sovereign status of Native Nations when they made treaties with us, as did the United States. Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution recognizes Indian Tribes as distinct sovereign entities on par with foreign nations.”

Minnesota’s Native tribes approved a partnership with the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, the Minnesota Humanities Center, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. in August 2010, which made the exhibit possible.

“The history of Indian treaties is the history of all Minnesotans and all Americans,” says Kevin Gover (Pawnee), director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. “Even now, states, Native nations, and the federal government continue to engage on a government-to-government basis every day, making in effect new treaties, building upon those made many years ago. We cannot have a complete understanding of what it means to be Americans without knowing about these relationships, whether we are Native Americans or not.”

The exhibit will run through Nov. 23. Library hours are Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and Fridays 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The exhibition will be open Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The library and exhibition will be closed on Nov. 11 for Veteran’s Day. Minnesota Humanities Center and its partner, the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, sponsor the exhibition.

For more information, visit www.riverland.edu/treaty and for statewide itinerary updates visit www.mnhum.org/treaties.