Godfrey, Joseph (ca.1830–1909)

The US–Dakota War of 1862 was a turning point in Minnesota history. Joseph Godfrey, an enslaved man, joined the Dakota in their fight against white settler-colonists that summer and fall. He was one of only two African Americans to do so.

Grand Portage National Monument

The Grand Portage National Monument in far northeastern Minnesota was established in 1960, after the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (Ojibwe) ceded nearly 710 acres of their land to the US government. A unit of the National Park Service (NPS), it consists of the eight-and-a-half-mile Grand Portage trail and two trading depot sites—one on the shoreline of Lake Superior and one inland, at Pigeon River. A partially reconstructed depot sits at the Lake Superior site.

Greysolon, Daniel, Sieur du Lhut (c.1639–1710)

Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut (also known as du Luth), was born in Lyons, France, around 1639. A nobleman who quickly rose to prominence in the French royal court, he traveled to New France (Quebec, Canada) in 1674 at the age of thirty-eight to command the French marines in Montreal.

Grignon, Antoine (1829–1913)

Antoine Grignon was a French Indigenous interpreter and fur trader who lived and worked along the Mississippi River between Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, and St. Paul, Minnesota. With Ho-Chunk (Winnebago), Dakota, and French roots and a bilingual education, Antoine, like many mixed-race people, was frequently called upon to interpret or negotiate for the US government.

Gunflint Trail

The Gunflint Trail is a nationally designated scenic byway, also known as Cook County Road Twelve. It starts in Grand Marais and runs fifty-seven miles northwest to Trail’s End Campground near Saganaga Lake on the border with Canada. The trail, which cuts through parts of the Superior National Forest and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, is a popular destination for fishing, camping, canoeing, hiking, and other outdoor recreation.

Heart of the Earth Survival School

In 1970, the American Indian Movement (AIM) declared its intention to open a school for Native youth living in Minneapolis. AIM had identified the urgent need for Indigenous children to be educated within their own communities. Two years later, Heart of the Earth Survival School opened its doors, providing hope to Native families whose children had endured the racial abuse prevalent in the Minneapolis public schools.

Hennepin, Louis (ca.1640–ca.1701)

Father Louis Hennepin, a Recollect friar, is best known for his early expeditions of what would become the state of Minnesota. He gained fame in the seventeenth century with the publication of his dramatic stories in the territory. Although Father Hennepin spent only a few months in Minnesota, his influence is undeniable. While his widely read travel accounts were more fiction than fact, they allowed him to leave a lasting mark on the state.

Hiawatha and Minnehaha (sculpture)

Jacob Fjelde's sculpture Hiawatha and Minnehaha has stood in Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis since the early twentieth century. A popular fixture of the park in the twenty-first century, its placement there was originally controversial.

Ho-Chunk and Blue Earth, 1855–1863

In 1855, a federal treaty moved the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) people from their reservation near Long Prairie to a site along the Blue Earth River. The Ho-Chunk farmed the area's rich soil with some success but drew the hostility of settler-colonist neighbors who wanted the land for themselves. Though they did not participate in the U.S.–Dakota War of 1862, they were exiled from Minnesota during the conflict's aftermath.

Ho-Chunk and Long Prairie, 1846–1855

In 1848 the U.S. government removed the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) from their reservation in the northeastern part of Iowa to Long Prairie in Minnesota Territory. The Ho-Chunk found the land at Long Prairie a poor match for their needs as farmers. In 1855 they were moved again, this time to a reservation in southern Minnesota.

Indian Mounds Park, St. Paul

The six burial mounds at St. Paul’s Indian Mounds Park are among the oldest human-made structures in Minnesota. Along with mounds in Crow Wing, Itasca, and Beltrami Counties, they are some of the northernmost burial mounds on the Mississippi River. They represent the only ancient Native American burial mounds still extant inside a major US city.

Indian Reorganization Act in Minnesota

In 1934, the US Bureau of Indian Affairs set up a new organizational model to transform Native American tribal governments. The articulation of that model, the Indian Reorganization Act, influenced the governance systems of Native people, including Minnesota’s Ojibwe and Dakota. They now work to customize the government forms imposed upon them.

Inyan Ceyaka Otunwe

Inyan Ceyaka Otunwe (Village at the Barrier of Stone), also called Little Rapids or simply Inyan Ceyaka, was a summer planting village of the Wahpeton Dakota. Located near present-day Jordan on the Minnesota River, the village was occupied by the Wahpeton during the early 1800s, and likely before. Burial mounds indicate that Paleo-Americans—possible ancestors of the Dakota—lived at the site as early as 100 CE.

Jeffers Petroglyphs

Jeffers Petroglyphs is an internationally significant Native American sacred site and the location of the largest group of Indigenous petroglyphs (rock carvings) in the Midwestern United States. Situated in Dakota homeland, it is sacred to multiple Native American nations, including the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Iowa, and Ojibwe.

Kegg, Maude (1904–1996)

In 1904, along Portage Lake, in a birch-bark-and-cattail wigwam, a baby named Naawakamigookwe (Middle of the Earth Woman, also called Maude) was born to Agwadaashiins (Nancy Pine) and Gwayoonh (Charles Mitchell). She took her first breath in the traditional Ojibwe home of her family. It was the beginning of a life guided by cultural traditions, continuous adaptation to a fast-changing world, and an inherent skill for interpreting her people’s culture and history.

Lac qui Parle Mission

Lac qui Parle Mission in Chippewa County was the leading station of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions’ work among Dakota people between 1835 and 1854. Though missionaries cited it as the most successful project of its kind among the Dakota, the mission failed in its objective to replace Dakota culture with European American lifeways. Throughout its existence Lac qui Parle was a multicultural community, where Dakota people and European Americans cooperated with each other but experienced deep divides.

Lacemaking at Birch Coulee, 1893–1926

The lace-making school that operated at Birch Coulee at the turn of the twentieth century is an important part of the history of the Lower Sioux Indian Community. Although the school was an extension of the assimilation efforts directed towards Dakota people in the late 1800s, the Birch Coulee lace-makers used the project to support their community, and to continue a long tradition of communal artmaking among Dakota women.

Lake Winnibigoshish, Leech Lake, and Pokegama Falls Dams

Winnibigoshish, Leech Lake, and Pokegama Falls Dams were built in the Mississippi Headwaters during the late nineteenth century. These structures preceded the construction of the Headwaters reservoir system and played key roles in flood prevention and river control during the 20th century.

Little Round Hill Trading Site

Ojibwe oral tradition identifies Little Round Hill, a small elevation on the banks of the Crow Wing River, as the location of a late-1700s French fur trading fort and a skirmish between Ojibwe hunter-traders and Dakota warriors. Located in Old Wadena County Park at the confluence of the Partridge and Crow Wing Rivers, it was the site of the first intensive archaeological excavation within Wadena County.

Little Wolf, William (1899–1953)

William Little Wolf left his home on Minnesota’s White Earth Reservation as a child to attend a series of boarding schools. In 1917, he ran away from Carlisle Indian Industrial School in order to join the Navy and fight for the United States in World War I. He earned praise for his service as a gunner on the USS Utah and returned in 1919 to live out the rest of his life in Minnesota.

Lower Sioux Agency

The Lower Sioux Agency, or Redwood Agency, was built by the federal government in 1853 near the Redwood River in south-central Minnesota Territory. The agency served as an administrative center for the Lower Sioux Reservation of Santee Dakota. It was also the site of key events related to the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862.

Maple Sugaring and the Ojibwe

Ojibwe people have made maple sugar, a traditional dietary staple, for centuries. It is easily accessed in the woodlands of Minnesota and can be stored for months without spoiling. While the technology used in the process has changed over the years, Ojibwe people continue to harvest maple sugar in the present day.

Métis in Minnesota

In the Minnesota region during the eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, métis, or mixed-ancestry, people often acted as bridges between white and Native American communities. The Métis cultural community of Pembina formed out of fur trade dynamics and influenced Minnesota during its territorial birth.

Meyer, Roy Willard (1925–2007)

Roy W. Meyer's studies of Dakota people and the US government policies that affect them brought about thoughtful public conversation during the late 1960s and 1970s, a time of social turmoil in the country.

Military Land Warrants in Minnesota, 1854–1863

State militia soldiers fought many wars against Britain, Mexico, and American Indian nations to take land for the United States. The federal government rewarded them with military land warrants—certificates that could be redeemed for up to 160 acres of U.S. public land. The warrants were quickly sold and then traded on Wall Street to land agents in the country’s western territories. The agents made huge profits from selling and loaning them to struggling farmers. In Minnesota, German immigrants used land warrants to buy Dakota land, start farms, and found the town of New Ulm.

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