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Footnote 5

In April 2020 the High Country News published a “comprehensive investigation…that reveals how land taken from tribal nations was turned into seed money for higher education in the United States” (LandgrabU). In tracing the theft of land by the US government from tribal nations through the Morrill Act of 1862, HCN lays out the staggering wealth accumulation, by 52 universities through “over 160 violence-backed treaties and land seizures.”

The theft of Chippewa land located within the boundaries of what the United States considers Minnesta through various means ceded by treaty, seized without treaty/agreement on both former reservation and non-reservation lands raised $52,954 for 26 universities beyond the state of Minnesota. Universities benefiting from the sale of these lands added to endowments of:

Cornell University,
Pennsylvania State University,
Ohio State University,
University of Illinois,
University of Tennessee,
University of New Hampshire,
University of Vermont,
Purdue University,
University of Kentucky,
University of Delaware,
University of Maine,
University of Rhode Island,
North Carolina State University,
Rutgers University,
University of Connecticut,
University of Massachusetts,
South Carolina State University,
Clemson University,
University of Florida,
Texas A&M University,
University of Arkansas,
Auburn University,
University of Maryland,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Kentucky State University, and
West Virginia University.

Adjusted for inflation, the cessions of 395 Morrill Act parcels of 53,738 Minnesota acres moved $976,384 out of Indigenous control and opportunity for wealth building between 1819-1837 with impacts continuing into the present and by law in perpetuity for the support of university funds.

The University of Minnesota gained $10,622,888 (adjusted for inflation) for its existence through the theft of Indigenous lands across the state from the Wahpeton and Sisseton, the Medewakanton and Wahpekuta, and the Chippewa of the Mississippi and Lake Superior. “The income became part of the Permanent University Fund, which was stocked with land/proceeds from other federal land grants used for the university” in 2016 “the market value of the PUF was $543 million” (https://www.landgrabu.org/universities/university-of-minnesota).

With this history of land grabbing, universities have padded their coffers with money from the sale of stolen lands and in spite of their colonial “good fortunes” find themselves continuing to exploit public policy structures like increasing tuition so as to gain access to more student loan money that they are never on the hook for repayment. The university has no obligation to repay these immoral debts of land grant grabs, nor do these institutions of higher learning seem fiscally accountable to individual students as they and their families continue to bear the burden of student loan debt in this fiscal structure nightmare.

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Footnote 5

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