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Sibley, Henry H. (1811–1891)

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Black and white carte-de-visite photograph of Henry H. Sibley, c.1870.

Carte-de-visite photograph of Henry H. Sibley, c.1870.

Henry Hastings Sibley occupied the stage of Minnesota history for fifty-six active years. He was the territory's first representative in Congress (1849–1853) and the state's first governor (1858–1860). In 1862 he led a volunteer army against the Dakota under Ta Oyate Duta (His Red Nation, also known as Little Crow). After his victory at Wood Lake and his rescue of more than two hundred white prisoners, he was made a brigadier general in the Union Army.

Sibley was born in Detroit in 1811. His father later served as chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. At eighteen, Sibley joined the American Fur Company. He spent five years as manager of its store on Mackinac Island. In 1834 he became a partner in the company's Western Outfit, with responsibility for fur trading with the Dakota.

Living at Mendota, he had personal and business connections with Fort Snelling. He ran the sutler's store (1836–1839) and contracted for mail delivery (1837–1839). He also maintained close ties with the Protestant missionaries who arrived in 1835.

An ardent outdoorsman and hunter, Sibley established ties with the Dakota who lived nearby. He had a relationship with a young Dakota woman who bore him a daughter, Helen, in August 1841. Sibley acknowledged the child and provided for her support and education. In 1843, however, he married Sarah Jane Steele. She was the sister of Franklin Steele, the new Fort Snelling sutler.

Sibley was deeply critical of United States policy towards Native people. In 1842 he lobbied hard for a treaty that would have created a Native territory and state in what is now southern Minnesota. Later, while in Congress, he argued for the preservation of Native land from "the grasping hand of the white man."

The American Fur Company failed in 1842. Its demise and the rejection of a northwestern Native territory convinced Sibley that his own and the region's only future lay with white immigration. He began to invest in steamboats, timber, and land.

After the admission of both Iowa (1846) and Wisconsin (1848) as states, Sibley helped persuade Congress to create Minnesota Territory (1849). Treaties signed in 1851 effectively dispossessed the Dakota. Their terms opened the new territory to legal white immigration.

Sibley played an unofficial but key role in the agreements. He helped shape the terms so that he and other former fur traders received payment of less than half of the debts they claimed. These terms and amounts were disputed by some Dakota. As territorial representative he achieved the treaties' ratification after a bruising battle in Congress, where Southern interests opposed them.

As a politician and framer of the state's constitution Sibley sought to stay above partisan feuds. Although loyal to the Democratic Party, he drew away from its proslavery wing in the 1850s.

Sibley's role in the US–Dakota War of 1862 remains the most controversial aspect of his career. While working for the release of hostages, he made promises to the Dakota that he failed to keep. He had been told by Major General Pope to treat them "like wild beasts" and he bowed to public demands for a mass execution.

Sibley set up a military commission that conducted brief trials of Dakota prisoners. He approved death sentences for more than three hundred men. Tension in the state mounted when President Lincoln limited executions to only thirty-eight prisoners shown to be guilty of murder or rape. Despite threats of mob action, Sibley's forces preserved order. The mass hanging was carried out according to law.

In 1863 Sibley led an expedition against the Dakota to the west, marching to the Missouri River and back. Meanwhile he used his army position to try to protect other Dakota from the anti-Native hysteria of white citizens. His restraint earned him abuse in Minnesota newspapers for being "soft" on Natives.

In his final twenty-five years Sibley remained active as an elder statesman and civic leader. A lifelong lover of books, a scholar, and a published writer, Sibley had long contributed to the state's cultural life. He worked with the Smithsonian Institution to publish a dictionary of the Dakota language in 1852. He was a founder of the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota Historical Society around the same time. Sibley died in St. Paul in 1891.

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Blegen, Theodore, ed. The Unfinished Autobiography of Henry Hastings Sibley Together with a Selection of Hitherto Unpublished Letters from the Thirties. Minneapolis: Voyageur Press, 1932.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/umhtml/umhome.html

——— . "Henry H. Sibley, Pioneer of Culture and Frontier Author." Minnesota History 15, no. 4 (December 1934): 382–394.
http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/15/v15i04p382-394.pdf

Davis, Jane Spector. Guide to a Microfilm Edition of the Henry Hastings Sibley Papers. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1968.
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/m0164.pdf

Gilman, Rhoda R. Henry Hastings Sibley: Divided Heart. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2004.
Editor's note: The biography cited above contains an exhaustive bibliography of sources by and about Sibley. Selections from that bibliography are listed here.

M164; M164A
Henry H. Sibley papers, 1815–1932
Manuscript Collection, St. Paul, Minnesota Historical Society
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00595.xml
Description: Correspondence, financial records, legal papers, speeches, and miscellany. More than a third of the papers concern the fur trade with the Dakota of the Upper Mississippi Valley from 1815 to 1855 as well as Sibley's interest in the treaties, wars, and welfare of the Dakota.

Records of Governor Henry H. Sibley, 1858–1859
State Archives Collection, St. Paul, Minnesota Historical Society
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/gov015.xml
Description: Includes accounting records; appointment records; records concerning charges against public officials; letters received; attorney general's opinions; and records relating to pardons and reprieves, among other materials.

Solomon Sibley papers, 1750–1918
Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library
http://dplbibdiv.pbworks.com/f/bhc02399.html
Description: Includes correspondence between Solomon Sibley and his son, Henry H. Sibley, as well as from Henry H. Sibley to other family members and acquaintances.

West, Nathaniel D. D. The Ancestry, Life, and Times of Hon. Henry Hastings Sibley, LL.D. St. Paul: Pioneer Press, 1889.

White, Helen M. Henry Sibley's First Years at St. Peters or Mendota. St. Paul: Turnstone Historical Research, 2002.

Related Images

Black and white carte-de-visite photograph of Henry H. Sibley, c.1870.
Black and white carte-de-visite photograph of Henry H. Sibley, c.1870.
Color image of a fur trading license issued to Henry H. Sibley, 1838.
Color image of a fur trading license issued to Henry H. Sibley, 1838.
Mendota from Fort Snelling
Mendota from Fort Snelling
Black and white daguerreotype of Sarah Jane Steele Sibley, wife of Henry H. Sibley, c.1848.
Black and white daguerreotype of Sarah Jane Steele Sibley, wife of Henry H. Sibley, c.1848.
Black and white photograph of Sarah Jane Steele Sibley, wife of Henry H. Sibley, 1858.
Black and white photograph of Sarah Jane Steele Sibley, wife of Henry H. Sibley, 1858.
Oil-on-canvas painting of Henry H. Sibley, 1860.
Oil-on-canvas painting of Henry H. Sibley, 1860.
Black and white photograph of Henry Sibley wearing the uniform of a brigadier general, 1862.
Black and white photograph of Henry Sibley wearing the uniform of a brigadier general, 1862.
Color image of sword and scabbard used by Henry Sibley.
Color image of sword and scabbard used by Henry Sibley.
Color image of United States Army officer's epaulettes worn by Brigadier General Henry H. Sibley, 1863.
Color image of United States Army officer's epaulettes worn by Brigadier General Henry H. Sibley, 1863.
Color image of United States Army major general's frock coat worn by Henry H. Sibley, c.1865.
Color image of United States Army major general's frock coat worn by Henry H. Sibley, c.1865.
Black and white photograph of Henry H. Sibley while he was the director of the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce, 1889.
Black and white photograph of Henry H. Sibley while he was the director of the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce, 1889.
Color image of Sibley House Historic Site, 2014.
Color image of Sibley House Historic Site, 2014.

Turning Point

On December 22, 1848, Sibley's eloquent speech before a US House committee gains him a seat in the House and the opportunity to maneuver successfully for the creation of Minnesota Territory.

Chronology

1811

Henry Hastings Sibley is born in Detroit, Michigan Territory, to Solomon Sibley and Sarah Sproat Sibley.

1828

Seventeen-year-old Henry goes to Sault Ste. Marie for a position as clerk in the army sutler's store at Fort Brady.

1829

Sibley obtains employment with the American Fur Company on Mackinac Island.

1834

Sibley becomes a partner with Hercules Dousman and Joseph Rolette Sr. in the Western Outfit of American Fur and moves to the upper Mississippi.

1837

Treaties signed with the Dakota, Ojibwe, and Ho-Chunk cede all Native land east of the Mississippi to the US, thus opening it to legal white immigration

1841

After a winter spent hunting with a band of Dakota in northern Iowa, Sibley becomes the father of a Dakota daughter. He names the child Helen Hastings.

1842

A treaty for creation of a northwestern Native territory is defeated in the US Senate. The American Fur Company closes its doors, forcing the partners of the Western Outfit to turn to the Chouteau Company of St. Louis as their supplier.

1844

Norman W. Kittson, under contract to Sibley, opens a post at Pembina on the US–British border. Trade with northern Native groups and the Métis community over the Red River trails builds the river port of St. Paul.

1849

Sibley turns to politics and scores a notable victory in achieving the creation of Minnesota Territory with himself as its representative in Congress.

1851

Working in close cooperation with the territory's Whig governor, Alexander Ramsey, Sibley engineers the signing of treaties to purchase all of the Dakota lands except for a narrow reservation.

1857

Polarized by party politics, Minnesota Democrats and Republicans meet separately to frame a state constitution. Sibley chairs the Democratic convention and is elected governor.

1858

After a long delay, Minnesota becomes a state on May 11. Sibley takes office as governor for a single term.

August 19, 1862

Sibley takes command of a volunteer force assembled to defend white residents in the western part of the state against attack by Dakota under Ta Oyate Duta (His Red Nation, also known as Little Crow).

Septem-ber 23, 1862

Sibley defeats Ta Oyate Duta at the battle of Wood Lake.

1867

Working in cooperation with Bishop Henry B. Whipple, Sibley helps secure partial restoration and some food relief for the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands of Dakota—an effort that continues until 1868.

1891

Sibley is buried in St. Paul's Oakland Cemetery.