Initial page of a circular distributed by the General Land Office and dated March 21, 1857. The circular explains how land will be divided among the "Dacotah or Sioux Half-breeds or Mixed-bloods" following the act approved by Congress on July 17, 1854.
Initial page of a petition sent by members of the Sioux (Dakota) Nation to U.S. Secretary of War Joel Roberts Poinsett in September of 1838. The petition's writers urge the secretary to divide the land within the Lake Pepin Half-Breed Reserve into plots so that individual titles may be awarded.
The 1830 Treaty of Prairie du Chien set aside 320,000 acres of potentially valuable land west of Lake Pepin for so-called "half-breed" members of the Dakota nation. The move set off a series of events that enriched a number of Minnesotans—none of them of Native American heritage.
After the death of Tatanka Mani (Walking Buffalo, also known as Red Wing) in 1829, Lawrence Taliaferro, the United States Indian Agent at Fort Snelling, recognized Wacouta as Tatanka Mani's successor.
In spring 1829, Wacouta (Shooter) faced two challenges upon becoming leader of the Red Wing band of Mdewakanton Dakota. He needed to fend off challenges from rivals within his village and also find success in dealings with United States government officials.
Henry Lewis's 1855 lithograph shows Red Wing's village forty years after Tatanka Mani (Walking Buffalo, also known as Red Wing) brought his people there.
Tatanka Mani (Walking Buffalo) was a leader of the Mdewakanton Dakota in the upper Mississippi Valley. Euro-American immigrants who met him as they advanced into the region in the early nineteenth century came to know him and his village as Red Wing.