HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE MINNESOTA RIVER VALLEY

In viewing the historical and genealogical development if the Minnesota River Valley, we should take a step backwards and look behind the dusty drapes of history at the initial contacts that the earliest explorers had with various Indian tribes that peopled the land and their descriptions of not only the Minnesota valley but the whole known territory of Minnesota romantically described as a "Garden of Eden" and the center of the earth, according to Indian lore.

Looking back into the past the Minnesota River evolved from the Glacial Lake Agassiz which covered northwest Minnesota. According to Lucie Hartley in The Carver Story, "the Red River of the North was formed on the floor of the old lake. Some of the flow went northward and the glacial River Warren subsided, leaving the much smaller Minnesota River to flow through the valley. Between Mankato and Fort Snelling lies a pre-existing gorge formed by a glacier. The valley width varies from one to three miles. The glacial Minnesota River joined the Mississippi at St Paul where they reached an old valley and fell into it with a waterfall twice as wide as Niagra and twice as tall. As Clyde and Shirley Ryberg describe in Minnesota River from its Mouth at Mississippi River to New Ulm , "The force of the falling water, continually undercut the falls and finally the upper shelf fell and the falls moved back a few feet. Over the centuries this was repeated many times and the falls moved until they came to the junction of the Mississippi and the Minnesota where they split. The cutting action went up the Mississippi until halted by man about a century ago at St Anthony Falls."



Early Explorers and Settlers

The period from 1659-1823 was the era of early exploration. Groselliers and Radisson were the first white men in Minnesota and the first to come into contact with the Sioux Indians. Groselliers was a fur trader and he traded around Lake Superior. The early tribes mentioned were Hurons, Ottawas and Sioux.

The Canadians formed a company to trade furs with the Sioux. One of the merchants was Daniel DuLuth. In the summer of 1680 Hennepin, DuLuth, Augelle and Faffort all visited St. Anthony Falls. The first description of the valley of the upper missions was written by LaSalle. In 1682 LaSalle took possession of all land "watered by the Mississippi." He named the entire territory Louisiana after King Louis XIV of France. King Louis became the nominal ruler of the Minnesota River Valley which was a part of Louisiana.

LeSueur, a native of Canada, came to lake Pepin in 1683 with Perrot. LeSueur entered the Minnesota River and went as far as the Mankato or Blue Earth River, created Fort L'Huillier which was abandoned two years later. Jonathan Carver came from Connecticut in 1763 bent on exploring the Northwest. He arrived at Mackinaw and then on to Green Bay. He was ythe first to noticve the existence of ancient monuments in the Mississippi Valley near Lake Pepin. He discovered entrences and breast works which were verified by other early explorers. He describes a cave 13 miles below the falls of St Anthony with an entrance 5 feet high and 10 feet wide with a lake within the cave and Indian hieroglyphics written on the walls.

The St Croix River was so named because on of LaSalle's men was shipwrecked at the mouth of the river. Schoolcraft found the source of the Mississippi and formed the name "Itasca" from the Latin words for truth and head, "veritas" and "caput". He struck the first syllable of ver/itas and the last syllabe of cap/ut and came out with Itasca. This was confirmed in one of Schoolcraft's letters. Some thought Itasca was an Indian princess!

Louisiana fell to Spain as a result of the Seven Year's War and back to France again by the Treaty of San Ildefonso by Napolean. He sold Louisiana to the United States in 1803. At that time, upper Louisiana was part of the Missouri Territory.

Lt. Zebulon Pike was to explorer the Mississippi and to record topographical observations and note population and residences of Indians. He made camp on what is now Pike's Island. He attempted to get the Sioux to make a permanent peace with the Chippewa Indians. The tract that Pike acquired at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers was for a military post, and was not open to settlement.

In 1811 Scotch Earl of Selkirk had a controlling interest in the Hudson Bay Co. He wanted to establish colonies of Scotch peasants, but he had to fight off troops from the Northwest Co., a competing fur company and the animosities continued until the two companies merged in 1821. Selkirk also brought over Swiss families who lived near FT. Snelling (having come from the Red River area) and these Swiss became the earliest settlers withing a radius of 20 miles if Fort Snelling.

In 1820 Col. Henry Leavenworth was granted 9 square miles at the junction of the two rivers for acts of kindness to the Indians. It was on the southern side of the rivers, from the first bend below the village of Black Dog (Burnsville), three miles into the prairie back from the river. Leavenworth gave this land Duncan Campbell, his sister Peggy, and Pike's Island to Pelagie, the wife of Jean Fairbault.

In 1835 George Catlin, the Indian painter, and Robert Wood visited the Pipestone Quarry where the rose colored quartz was mined for peace pipesl It's now called Catlinite after Catlin. The same year George Featherstonhaugh made a geotlogical survey of the river and upon returning to England published a book called "Canoe Voyages Up the Minnay Sotor". He says he passed a village called shakpay or Six, the name of the chief.

The first settlement in Dakota County was by Jean Fairbault on Pike's Island. He later built the first house at Mendota, moving from Pike's Island because of flooding. Henry Sibley came in 1834 as superintemdemt of the fur company based in Mendota.


Indian Settlements

It is believed that Indians came from migrations across the Bering Strait. Earliest records show that the Minnesota River area was peopled by two tribes, the Chippewas and the Sioux. The Sioux were the "beef-eaters", and the most savage. Though they were nomadic they had settlements on the Minnesota River 20 miles above its mouth, known as the Shakopee band. The Sioux had held the whole of Minnesota but gradually they pushed farther and farther south by the Chippewa who in turn had ben pushed west by the Iroquois. The Sioux abandoned the villages east of the Mississippi and settled on the Minnesota River. There were many battles between the Chippewa and the Sioux which involved Indians from Black Dog's Village, Lake Calhoun, Lake Harriet and areas near Ft. Snelling. Most of the battles were retaliatory.


POTTERY

Pottery-making is an old art among the Mdewakanton Sioux whose traditional homeland ranged along the Mississippi in Southeastern Minnesota. This branch of the Sioux or Dakota peoples, living as they did on the edge of the Great Plains area, relied on corn agriculture as well as hunting for their livelihood in pre-white contact times. Though many of their containers were made from hides, such as quivers, tobacco pouches, food carriers, and holders for sacred objects, they also made and used pottery for cooking, water jars and grain and food storage.

During the wars between the united States government and the Dakota peoples in the 1800's, the members of the Mdewakanton Sioux became dispersed, some to reservations in Nebraska, some to prisons in Iowa, others escaping into Canada and surrounding states. As relations became less violent, some of the families returned as close as they could to their Minnesota homeland, settling near Morton, on land they had purchased.

They live there now in a community known as the Lower Sioux Agency, carrying on where their fathers and grandfathers hunted.

Here they have revived their old art of pottery-making in a shop owned by the community and run by community members. Mdewakanton Sioux artisans handcraft their vessels on potter's wheels, making each artifact unique and incapable of being exactly duplicated. The clays in the pots and glazes are in the main sought from local deposits.

Designs on the artifacts are either painted or applied by scratching through a light overlay so that the darker red clays show through. The designs themselves are either traditionally Sioux, as remembered and passed on by the grandfathers, or are the products of the subtle and fruitful imaginations of the Sioux craftsmen and women.

The flourishing of the ship now means that the members of the Mdewakanton Sioux are making their was in a world vastly changed from 100 years ago in a manner that reflects and affirms their pride in their people and their heritage.

Courtesy of Lower Sioux Agency


The Missionaries

In 1834 Samuel and Gideon Pond came to Ft. Snelling from Connecticut to do missionary work with the Indians. They taught plowing to the Indians and Major Taliaferro, the Indian agent from Ft. Snelling, gave the Pond brothers free quarters near Cloudman's village on the east bank of Lake Calhoun. They built a two-room cabin of oak logs on four acres. They were to take charge of the agricultural establishment started by Taliaferro. The Pond brothers learned the Dakota language so they could start teaching the gospel. At times they existed on a pork barrel and sometimes only muscles from the lake. They devised the "Pond Alphabet" of the Dakota language, and translated the story of Joseph, the first publication in the Dakota language. They lived and hunted with the Indians to better learn their language.

Samuel Pond kept a residence Lake Harriet. From there he moved to Lac qui Parle and later to Shakopee. The Indians of the Lake Harriet mission moved to about 6 miles above Ft. Snelling on the north side of the Minnesota because they felt that they were too accessible to the Chippeswas. In the summer of 1848 the Pond families moved into the large log house that Gideon built near the Indian camp on the Minnesota in what is now Bloomington.

Gideon was an advisor to both Gov. Ramsey and Gov. Sibley. He contributed many papers the the Minnesota Historical Society and when he died he was mourned by both Indian and white people alike. Samuel was invited to Shakapee to open a school and mission. He built a house at Prairieville as he named the place and he lived there until his death in 1891. He married Cordelia Eggleston in the first wedding of white people in the vicinity of Lake Harriet. Among the guests were Gen. Sibley and Dr. Emerson. The owner of the noted slave, Dred Scott.

The Pond brothers knew and spoke the Dakota language better than any other white men. They also knew and spoke French, Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Samuel made a small Hebrew-Dakota dictionary and wrote on the chronology of the Septuagint.

The brick house that still stands in Bloomington was a two-story house made out of bricks which Gideon made and his granddaughter still lives there. He raised 13 children and 3 stepchildren. His church was later hauled on skids on 102nd and Penn where it stands today.

Also associated with Shakopee was Father Ravoux, who moved his chapel to Shakopee until it was dismantled and floated to Wabasha and Father Galtierm who ministered to a flock at Mendota and also to a colony on the opposite side of the river. He built a log chapel which he dedicated to St. Paul. It was known as St, Paul's Landing and later just St. Paul. It didn't become an independent parish until the arrival of Rev. Joseph Cretin, the first bishop of St. Paul. There were about 30 families in the settlement of St. Paul in 1845. A post office opened there in 1846, one at Stillwater in 1845, and at Ft Snelling as early as 1828.


Early Settlement

The original boundaries of Minnesota included not only the present state but also North and South Dakota east of the Missouri and White Earth rivers. St Anthony, later to be Minneapolis, became the site of the University of Minnesota, the prison was located in Stillwater and the capitol became St. Paul. The county of Hennepin was established in 1852 with the county seat at Lt. Anthony Falls on the west side of the Mississippi. It was then called "Albion" until one of the preemptors proposed the name "Minnehapolis". The legislature omitted the "h" and formally adopted the name.

The period 1851-1859 was a period of revolution throughout Europe and the aftermath of the potato famines of Ireland in 1847 and later. Thousands of immigrants came to the United States. It was the German influx first and then the Irish that made up most of the early pioneers of the Minnesota Valley. They came as soon as the Indian lands opened for settlement. The first permanent white settlement in Dakota County was as Mendota by Jean Baptiste Faribault.


Naming the Minnesota River

The Minnesota River is 332 miles long, entirely withing the state boundaries. It raised out of Big Stone Lake at the South Dakota border and joins the Mississippi at Mendota. Carl Schurz, a German statesman and writer, described the Minnesota River "with its hilly gently sloping banks was like the most beautiful parts of the famed Rhine..."

LaSalle referred to the river in 1682 as the Maskoutens. The earliest tracing on a map by a French engineer called it Les Mascoutens Nadouis-sioux, the river of the Ssioux of the plains. According to the Pond alphabet the name of the river should be spelled "Minisota". Samuel Pond said "sota" means invisible and Minisota means turbid, not clear, translucent, not transparent. Gideon Pond called it whitish blue, also sky-tinted water as the correct translation of "Minnesota". The Dakota dictionary in 1852 defines "sota" as slightly clouded...of milky whitish appearance...Wakpa minisota...whitish water.