The Night Watchman(114)

The Turtle Mountain delegation really was partially funded by a benefit boxing match. The work of Chippewa scholar Millie Cloud was based on a combination of people, including Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin and Sister Inez Hilger. Dr. David P. Delorme authored the actual economic study that surprised and impressed the congressional committee. The meeting with the BIA in Fargo relies on the transcript of the actual meeting, as does the testimony in Congress. Leo Jeanotte, Edward Jollie, Eli Marion, and Theresa “Resa” Monette Davis Revard were some of the members of the original advisory committees. It is moving to me that Martin Cross came to lend his expertise, considering the devastation his tribe was suffering at that time with the inundation and destruction of their beloved homelands by the Army Corps of Engineers. For his support of the Turtle Mountain people, Cross was threatened several times with termination during testimony. He was a strong and principled advocate. On the other hand, Senator Arthur V. Watkins was indeed a pompous racist. But to give Watkins his due, he also was instrumental in bringing down Senator Joe McCarthy and ending an ugly era in national politics.

Garden of Truth: The Prostitution and Trafficking of Native Women in Minnesota, authored by Melissa Farley, Nicole Matthews, Sarah Deer, Guadalupe Lopez, Christine Stark, and Eileen Hudon, was the source for Vera’s story. Divena, a mermaid working in a large fish tank at the Persian Palms in Minneapolis during the 1970s, was the inspiration for Pixie’s waterjack.

Disturbingly, the memory of termination has faded even among American Indian people, and it was my sister the poet and artist Heid Erdrich who encouraged me to write this book to keep the knowledge alive. (Indeed, the Trump administration and Assistant Secretary of the Interior Tara Sweeney have recently brought back the termination era by seeking to terminate the Wampanoag, the tribe who first welcomed Pilgrims to these shores and invented Thanksgiving.) My sister Angela Erdrich, M.D., helped greatly by passing on to me the research materials on termination that she collected long ago through Baker Library at Dartmouth. I’d like to express my deep appreciation to Joyce Burner, a librarian at the National Archives at Kansas City, who told me she loved a treasure hunt and proceeded to find my grandfather’s boarding-school files, letters in which he argued his way into boarding school, as well as the actual ballots cast during one of his elections. I would also like to thank National Archives librarian Elizabeth Burnes for her devoted work. As always, I am most grateful to Terry Karten, an editor who offers inspiration as well as critical reports, and Trent Duffy, a copy editor of unequaled skills. Thank you also to Jin Auh and Andrew Wylie for steady work on behalf of all my books. My daughter Pallas provided technical support and is our family’s guardian angel. Kiizh lights our way. Netaa-niimid Amookwe, Persia, Ojibwe immersion teacher at Waadookodaading School in Lac Courte Oreilles, Wisconsin, is my consultant in Ojibwemowin, but all mistakes are mine. This book included a difficult editing transition handled with patience by Amber Oliver, John Jusino, and Lydia Weaver. Thank you! As always, thanks to Milan Bozic for cover design, Fritz Metsch for interior design, and Aza Abe for her creation of this book’s cover art, which is based on the spectrum of the northern lights.

Lastly, if you should ever doubt that a series of dry words in a government document can shatter spirits and demolish lives, let this book erase that doubt. Conversely, if you should be of the conviction that we are powerless to change those dry words, let this book give you heart.