History of Survivance: Upper Midwest 19th-Century Native American Narratives

Railroads

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This short tract in the Dakota language describes the American Bible Society, founded in 1816. The Santee Normal Training School instructed Dakota children in the Dakota language. These children came from families who were removed from Minnesota to Nebraska after the U.S.-Dakota War in 1863. Reverend A.L. Riggs founded the school in 1870 as an academy to train Native teachers. The school developed a printing press in 1871 and produced many materials in the Dakota language.

Synod of Lakes and Prairies, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 2115 Cliff Drive, Eagan, MN 55122

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Loss of land, culture, religion, and livelihood began in earnest for the Native people of Minnesota starting with the early 19th century. The establishment of American Army forts not as places of trade so much as places to keep Indians out started in 1819 with the founding of Fort Snelling near modern-day Minneapolis. Though missionaries were in the area long before actual congregations, the oldest established church in Minnesota was St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Mendota in 1840; it was built with the specific mission to minister to both the settlers and the Indians of the area. The first railroad began to snake its way through the territory in the mid-1850s, bringing with it a new rush of White settlers.
All of these colonial missions necessitated treaties between the US government and Native nations ceding Native land. While treaties may have started out small-scale in the early 1800s, by the 1830s the United States was claiming huge swathes of Native land by force and coercion.

Colonization

Ancient Legacies

Colonial Narratives

Conflict

Reservation Era

Survivance

Family Group of Sioux and Lodge, Minneapolis, Minnesota

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Women and children photographed in front of a lodge.

Ingersoll, Truman Ward; Ingersoll View Company (St. Paul, Minnesota)

Hennepin County Library, James K. Hosmer Special Collections Library, 300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, MN 55401; http://www.hclib.org

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Land cessions in what is now Minnesota began as early as 1805; it was then that Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike treated with the Dakota nation for the land on which Fort Snelling would eventually be established. The vicinity of Minneapolis-St. Paul was among the first land to be targeted, with all of the land along the southern interior border of the Mississippi River ceded by 1837. It may be hard for us to imagine today, but scenes such as this stereograph depicting a Dakota family in a traditional tipi were commonplace in this region until about 150 years ago.

History of Survivance: Upper Midwest 19th-Century Native American Narratives

Land Cessions

Land Cessions