Ebooks MN Highlight: Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota

Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota, a very popular title in Ebooks Minnesota, focuses on the Dakota people's deep cultural connection with the land that is Minnesota. Written by Gwen Westerman and Bruce M. White, and published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press, the authors conducted intensive research to determine how the Dakota people got on through the 19th century.

Westerman and White used a series of interview questions as a way to conduct oral histories and obtained detailed information from journals, speeches, formal council meetings, and informal conversations that were written down.  By using written and oral sources the authors were able to shape new ways of looking at and understanding Dakota history.  The book offers sidebars, maps, illustrations with dates, a timeline, and a pronunciation guide. 

This book looks at all aspects of Dakota life as well as interactions with French explorers and Jesuit priests.  The authors help to expand the readers' knowledge of the Dakota people outside of their known conflicts with pilgrims and pioneers. The name Minnesota comes from the Dakota people who named their homeland Mni Sota Makoce, or "land of cloud-tinted waters."  Appropriate for middle schoolers to research scholars, this book does a wonderful job of using primary materials to "make an eloquent case that Minnesota is the Dakota homeland."