New mural at UW-Stevens Point aims to ‘make people stop and take notice’ of Indigenous peoples buried under campus
STEVENS POINT - Artist Christopher Sweet (Ho-Chunk) wanted his new mural at UW-Stevens Point to represent the four nations of people who had been unceremoniously buried and forgotten under that campus.
His mural, “Awaken the Healing,” was installed this spring on an outside wall of the university’s communication arts center building and was blessed by a tribal ceremony and ghost feast last week.
An official unveiling celebration will take place at 4:30 p.m. May 5.
At 15 feet tall, the mural is Sweet’s largest yet and is meant to bring attention and honor to the approximately 80 Indigenous people underneath, who had died during a scarlet fever epidemic in the 1860s.
“It’s a really big deal for this acknowledgement,” Sweet said. “I think it was important to create something on a larger scale to make people stop and take notice and make them ask questions.”
A prominent feature in the mural is a depiction of four UWSP graduates in their caps and gowns adorned with symbols and regalia from each of the impacted tribes from Wisconsin: Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Potawatomi and Ojibwe.
Surrounding them are depictions of Indigenous people wearing the attire of the time while celebrating.
“They are standing on the land of their ancestors and they feel their presence,” Sweet said of the mural in a statement. “The ancestors are always with us and they sing and celebrate our victories. The young graduates look out across the land and into a bright, prosperous future. I want this mural to be uplifting and an inspiration to all the people that see it.”
Included on the mural is a poem from Sweet’s cousin, Dee Sweet, a former Wisconsin poet laureate.
Sweet said he venerated the ancestors while creating the mural.
“I … wanted to do this in a good way, a respectful way, so I burned sage throughout the process and asked the ancestors to guide my hands,” he said.
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Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers happened to be in the area when the mural was being installed and stopped by to thank Sweet and those who supported the memorial.
“Honoring and remembering the history of the Native Nations across Wisconsin is incredibly important to me as governor, but it’s also important for Wisconsinites today to recognize, understand and reflect upon that history, including its countless injustices,” Evers said in a statement. “This is an important tribute to those buried at the site and opportunity to celebrate and learn more about the history, culture and modern-day contributions of Indigenous people in Wisconsin.”
Karen Ann Hoffman, a UWSP alumna and a citizen of the Oneida Nation, has been working for years toward a memorial project on the campus.
She was grateful when the memorial mural was finally approved and moving ahead, but said more needs to be done.
“Some of the elders have expressed a desire to have something on the site that more fully explains the situation,” Hoffman said.
Ray Reser, a retired UWSP history professor, first became aware of the massive burial in 2016 when a colleague, Ryan Howell, forwarded him a 1932 Stevens Point Daily Journal article that mentioned the grave had been rediscovered.
It was a surprise to the city crew in 1932 that uncovered a human skeleton in the area, according to the news article.
The reporter in that article interviewed two local historians who said the Indigenous people in the burial ground had died some 60 years earlier.
The graves were once again soon forgotten.
The story started when a conglomerate of Indigenous peoples from the four nations had camped outside Stevens Point in the mid-1800s because the area was the site of a Menominee prehistoric village.
The camp consisted of up to 1,000 people, according to Reser, when a scarlet fever epidemic that had started in Stevens Point between 1863 and 1870 spread throughout the camp, claiming dozens of lives.
Their bodies were not allowed to be buried in established cemeteries by the local white population, so many were buried in an abandoned quarry.
The living Indigenous people eventually moved away, and the quarry where their dead were buried soon became a city dump, where locals deposited their trash on top of the graves.
As the city of Stevens Point grew and developed around the dump, it eventually closed the dump, but the site remained empty.
The area around the two-block site was prime real estate, but Reser believes locals at the time knew the site was an Indian burial ground and no one wanted to build there.
The land was eventually deeded to the state, which established UWSP at the site in 1894.
Read more:
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Frank Vaisvilas is a Report for America corps member who covers Native American issues in Wisconsin based at the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Contact him at fvaisvilas@gannett.com or 815-260-2262. Follow him on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank. You can directly support his work with a tax-deductible donation online at GreenBayPressGazette.com/RFA or by check made out to The GroundTruth Project with subject line Report for America Green Bay Press Gazette Campaign. Address: The GroundTruth Project, Lockbox Services, 9450 SW Gemini Drive, PMB 46837, Beaverton, Oregon 97008-7105.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: UW-Stevens Point mural honors Native Americans buried under the campus
