Shakopee, MN - The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community will help fund an exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., with a grant of $500,000. The exhibition will be a comprehensive history of treaties and tribal relations with the United States. It will include how the United States walked away from its responsibilities and treaty obligations, how Indian Nations have resisted violations of their treaty rights, and how the abandonment of the treaty relationship resulted in overbearing federal supervision of tribal affairs, and more.

"It is important for the United States to tell the true history of relations with Indian Nations," said SMSC Chairman Stanley R. Crooks. "So much has been left out of the history books and what is taught in the educational system is insufficient. The result is that public knowledge on this subject is sadly lacking. People don't realize that the 562 federally recognized Indian Tribes are sovereign nations which are not beholden to states or other subdivisions of local governments. We are each an independent nation with direct government to government relations with the federal government. We have retained rights which we had before the Europeans and others came to this continent, rights which are guaranteed us under the United States Constitution. We are not a special interest group. We hope that this exhibit will help correct these types of misperceptions which are often at the root of important issues which impact our people today, like having tribal land protected through the trust process."

The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian opened its doors to the public on Sept. 21, 2004. The museum, which was 15 years in the making, is the first national museum in the country to present all exhibitions from a Native American viewpoint and the first constructed on the National Mall since 1987.

The five-story, 250,000-square foot, curvilinear building was built on the last open space available on the National Mall, located between the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum and the U.S. Capitol. Established in 1989 through an Act of Congress, the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian is an institution of living cultures dedicated to advancing knowledge and understanding of the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of the Native peoples of the Western Hemisphere. The NMAI system includes the National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall; the George Gustav Heye Center, a permanent museum in lower Manhattan; and the Cultural Resources Center, a research and collections facility in Suitland, Maryland.

NMAI's collections include materials not only of cultural, historical, and aesthetic interest, but also of spiritual significance. Funerary, religious, and ceremonial objects associated with living cultures are displayed only with the approval of the appropriate tribes.