History of Minnesota

Early history

Until the middle of the 19th century, two major peoples occupied what is now Minnesota: the Ojibwa (also called Chippewa or Anishinaabe) in the north and east and the Dakota (Sioux) in the south and west. Between the time of European exploration and statehood, the Ojibwa occupied the forested areas of the state and pushed the Dakota southward and southwestward onto the prairie. Native Americans from as far away as the Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains met in a sacred place in southwestern Minnesota to quarry a hard red rock that was used for making peace pipes; today this area is preserved as the Pipestone National Monument.

European settlement

Some claim that Norsemen may have explored the area in the 14th century, citing a slab of sandstone inscribed with medieval Germanic script that was unearthed on a farm near Kensington, in west-central Minnesota, in 1898. (The Kensington Stone is now in a museum in Alexandria, Minn.) But the first European presence verified in what is present-day Minnesota is in the 17th century, when French explorers came searching for the Northwest Passage. The first settlement was made where the French fur traders, known as voyageurs, had to leave Lake Superior to make a 9-mile (14-km) portage around the falls and rapids of the Pigeon River (at the present-day northeastern boundary of the state). Before the American Revolution (1775–83), this outpost, known as Grand Portage, was the hub of an enormous commercial empire stretching 3,000 miles (4,800 km) from Montreal to Canada’s northwestern wilderness. It was the inland headquarters of the North West Company, which trapped beaver and marketed their pelts, and was also the meeting place each July and August for fur buyers and sellers. Grand Portage became U.S. territory after the Revolution but did not pass into American hands until 1803, when the North West Company moved 30 miles (48 km) up the Lake Superior shore to Fort William (now Thunder Bay, Ont.). (Today Grand Portage is a national monument, and part of the fur traders’ route east of International Falls has been preserved as Voyageurs National Park.)

The first permanent U.S. settlement was at Fort Snelling, a military outpost established in 1819 overlooking the junction of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers; the site has been restored as a state park. Immigration into the region was slow during the first half of the 19th century, but, once the value of the vast forestlands of northern and central Minnesota was realized, lumberers from New England led a large wave of permanent settlers.

Territory and statehood

The area of Minnesota northeast of the Mississippi River was part of the original Northwest Territory, which came under the jurisdiction of the Ordinance of 1787; the section of the state that lies southwest of the Mississippi was part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The northwestern portion of the present-day state was granted to the United States in 1818 as part of an Anglo-American convention that set the northern boundary of the U.S. territories at the 49th parallel, thus defining the U.S.-Canadian border. Minnesota became a U.S. territory in 1849; its boundaries at that time reached as far west as the upper Missouri River, but most of its 4,000 settlers were located in the Fort Snelling–St. Paul area, in the eastern part of the territory. The lumber industry developed rapidly, and major sawmills were soon built at Stillwater, on the St. Croix River, and at the Falls of St. Anthony, in the village of St. Anthony on the east side of the Mississippi River. In 1849 settlers had begun occupying land on the west side of the river; this area was incorporated as the village of Minneapolis in 1856. These two villages were merged in 1872, and St. Anthony was absorbed into the larger and more aggressive city of Minneapolis.

Ties with Canada were important during the early settlement period. In 1811 a colony had been established in the lower Red River valley, near modern-day Winnipeg, Man. As there was little effort to mark and enforce the international boundary, goods and people passed unhindered between the two countries. Immigrant groups that entered Minnesota via this route were Canadians and New Englanders of English, Scottish, Scotch-Irish, and French extraction. Because it was much easier to supply this area from Minnesota than it was from eastern Canada, supplies were shipped from St. Paul via St. Anthony to Fort Garry and other Red River valley settlements. As a result of this lucrative trade, people from both sides of the border sought U.S. annexation of northern and western Canada, then known as Rupert’s Land. This notion received little support in the U.S. Congress, however, mainly because residents of Southern states were concerned with maintaining a geographic balance. Moreover, any Canadian desire to defect to the United States was effectively undercut by the British North America Act of 1867, which brought about the formation of the Dominion of Canada, giving Canada self-governing authority. The efforts of Minnesota expansionists ended in 1870, when Canada established the province of Manitoba and sent troops to Winnipeg.

When Minnesota became a U.S. state in 1858, its boundaries were cut back from the Missouri River eastward to the Red River. In 1861 Minnesota was the first Northern state to send volunteers to serve in the American Civil War. Meanwhile, a Dakota revolt, which became known as the Sioux Uprising of 1862, one of the bloodiest Indian wars in the country’s history, was occurring in Minnesota. The Dakota, who had not been driven from the state during European settlement, were confined to small reservations. The federal government had forced the sale of some of these lands, reversing earlier treaty agreements. Driven to desperation by crop failures and starvation, the Sioux attacked isolated farmsteads. In only a few weeks, more than 500 civilians, soldiers, and Dakota were killed. Also in 1862 the state’s first railroad, connecting Minneapolis and St. Paul, was completed.