Panel wrestles with future of Minnesota Capitol's paintings

MANKATO, Minn. (AP) — In the 1905 painting, “Treaty of Traverse des Sioux,” which hangs in the state Capitol, a Dakota chief and the United States Indian commissioner shake hands under a canopy of tree branches, the very image of amity.

But a fraught history lurks behind the harmonious facade.

With the agreement, the Dakota were forced to cede nearly all of their land in Minnesota, 21 million acres, for 7.5 cents an acre. The government kept more than 80 percent of the payment and eventually went back on a provision to set up two reservations.

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