As a Minnesotan who has dedicated much time to researching and understanding Minnesota’s early history, I found Slavery’s Reach to be thoroughly enlightening and achingly tragic.
What if the past had turned out differently? What if the outcomes of history were flipped—changed completely? What would the world look like today? The U.S.–Dakota War of 1862 was a watershed event in Minnesota and American history with tragic and long-lasting results. But what if the defeated were the victorious? What if Little…
Philander Prescott, who came to Minnesota in 1820, was one of many victims when war broke out on August 18, 1862.
As for my reaction as a white Minnesotan, I am unnerved, saddened, and, in a way, capitulating. It is undeniable that what happened to the Indigenous populations of Minnesota, America, and the Western Hemisphere was a crime against humanity. It was a genocide…
The treaty that was signed October 2, was not the first attempt to obtain the Red Lake and Pembina Ojibwe lands, nor was it the final agreement…
In 1868, the United States Government signed a treaty with various tribes of Lakota and Arapaho people in which they “set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation” the region known as the Black Hills. But in 1877, the United States government illegally seized that land.
On November 29, 1864, approximately 700 U.S. army soldiers commanded by Colonel John Chivington, attacked some 1,000 Cheyenne and Arapaho people camped near Big Sandy Creek in eastern Colorado. It is estimated that between 150 and 500 Cheyenne and Arapaho were killed and mutilated, two-thirds of whom were women and children. The tragic event,…
When a contingent of Dakota soldiers attacked and killed several hundred citizens living in south and southwestern Minnesota, sparking the U.S. – Dakota War of 1862, Wisconsinites, upon hearing the news, released their growing apprehension in a show of community by community statewide panic.
Most libraries are continuing to serve their communities by offering virtual programs, ebook and audio book lending, and curbside pick-up.
A few months before the U.S. – Dakota War, President Lincoln signed into law the Homestead Act, giving land free to settlers who promised to make improvements upon it.