Chief Buffalo Celebration: Mural Unveiling, Feast and Public Forum

The Chief Buffalo Memorial Mural will be unveiled during a celebration that includes a feast consisting of frybread tacos with vegan options. There will be an opportunity for community members to meet the project’s lead artists and connect with the city’s Indigenous Commission.

The event is hosted by the mural artists, All Nations Indigenous Center and American Indian Movement Twin Ports Support Group, in partnership with members of the Duluth Indigenous Commission. An intro and keynote speech on decolonization will be presented by Rick Defoe.

The artwork installed is a continuation of the murals started in fall 2019, when the artists and community came together to recreate a pictograph that Chief Buffalo used (among others) on his journey to meet the President of the United States in 1854. The mural project began shortly after the Duluth Indigenous Commission renamed Lake Place Park — Gichi ode’Akiing (a grand heart place). The Indigenous Commission listed remembering Chief Buffalo as one of its goals for the newly renamed park. Moira Villard and Kassie Helgeson from the Duluth Indigenous Commission began contacting descendants of Chief Buffalo and, with their guidance, began the Chief Buffalo Memorial Project.

Since 2019 there have been multiple community painting sessions where volunteers and passersby have been invited to design artwork for the walls. An estimated 200 individuals have contributed to painting the murals and creating work for the site, with four Ojibwe artists taking the lead in designing and coordinating the most prominent walls. Those artists are Moira Villiard (Fond du Lac Ojibwe descendant), Michelle Defoe (Red Cliff Band of Ojibwe), Awanigiizhik Bruce (Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe) and Sylvia Houle (Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe). Additional help by Mana Bear Bolton and Conor Fairbanks was recruited for the creation of maps.

The artwork includes maps of regional treaty territories, references to Chief Buffalo’s travels and the Sandy Lake tragedy, as well as visuals of Ojibwe florals, folklore and cosmology. Additionally some murals depict contemporary Indigenous people engaging with the land (based on photos taken by Ivy Vainio).

Chief Buffalo’s famous journey to Washington D.C. took place as a response to what is known as the Sandy Lake Tragedy, a strategic effort by leadership in Minnesota territory to bring harm to Ojibwe communities through a Removal Order. The order directly resulted in the deaths of more than 300 Ojibwe people.

Chief Buffalo traveled this journey at 90 years old with a small team by canoe and train to Washington D.C., all to request that the Removal Order be rescinded, to rally support, and to implement the Treaty of 1854, which resulted in the creation of multiple reservations, assured tribal rights to hunting and fishing, and essentially established the grounds for Duluth and other cities in the region to exist on what would become ceded territories. Duluth may not have existed had this journey not taken place.

This project is a collaboration between project manager and artist Moira Villiard alongside lead artists Michelle Defoe, Awanagiizhik Bruce and Sylvia Houle, the Duluth Indigenous Commission, Zeitgeist Center for Arts, AIM Twin Ports Support Group, and descendants of Chief Buffalo, with sponsorship and funding by individual donors, the American Indian Community Housing Organization (through Bush Foundation and Arts Midwest), Duluth Art Institute (through the St. Paul and Minneapolis Foundation), the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council (through legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund), the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation, and the Ioby Artists Lead program.

Links
Chief Buffalo Memorial Murals Facebook Page
History on Chief Buffalo
Fundraiser