STATE OF MINNESOTA
Minnesota is in the north central United States. Near the geographic center of North America, it is bordered on the north by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario, on the west by North Dakota and South Dakota, on the south by Iowa, and on the east by Wisconsin and Lake Superior.
The state's name comes from a Sioux word meaning "cloudy water", the name for the Minnesota River. The state's most famous nickname, Land of 10,000 Lakes, is an understatement, for Minnesota has more than 15,000 lakes, 11,842 of of which are 10 acres or larger. Minnesota has other nicknames as well. Also known as the Gopher State, there are numerous stories concerning the source of the nickname. Some say it comes from the gophers commonly found in the southern part of the state; others that it's from a political cartoon in the 19th century that depicted dishonest railroad union organizers as gophers. Minnesota is also known as the North Star State, a translation of the French inscription on the state seal, L'Etoile du Nord.
Early History
The first humans came to Minnesota during the last ice age, following herds of large game as glaciers melted. Long before the first Europeans arrived, Native Americans from as far away as 1,000 miles came to make ceremonial pipes from soft red pipestone carved from sacred quarries. The Pipestone National Monument in southwest Minnesota illustrates how these quarries were and still are used. Five thousand years ago, natives made rock carvings of people, animals, and weapons that can be seen today at Jeffers Petroglyphs in southwestern Minnesota. These people also brought to Minnesota the idea of building earth mounds for graves and sacred ceremonies. At one time there were more than 10,000 of these mounds in Minnesota.
For over 10,000 years, humans have lived on the land now called the Superior. The earliest humans, the Paleo Indian culture, pulled travois and lived in skin tents. Not so long ago, French-Canadian canoers, or Voyageurs, inhabited the area. The forest adjoins a part of the Voyageurs Highway, a series of connected lake and river routes, once used by the Voyageurs to move fur and trade goods between Montreal and the North American interior during the late 18th and 19th centuries. These Voyageurs travelled via birch bark canoes and were the first humans to make use of the area's natural resources for economic gain--primarily transporting valuable furs trapped by local natives.
When the first French fur traders, or voyageurs, arrived in the late 1600s, the Dakota (or Sioux) people had lived in Minnesota for many years. They hunted buffalo, fished, planted corn, beans, and squash, and harvested northern beds of wild rice. They lived in warm skin tipis in the winter and had airy bark houses, or wigwams, for the summer. The Anishinabe (or Ojibwe, also Chippewa) people moved into Minnesota from the east. They lived much like the Dakota, but from the French fur traders they obtained metal tools and weapons, cloth, blankets, and ornaments. By 1800, the Anishinabe had taken over the lakes and woods of the north.
Meanwhile, Great Britain lost its claims to the portion of Minnesota east of the Mississippi to the United States as a result of the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which also recognized U.S. independence. The United States then acquired the area in Minnesota west of the Mississippi River with the purchase of Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, only three years after France had reacquired it from Spain.
In the early 1800s the U.S. government said it needed more land in this area. The Dakota signed a treaty with the U.S. government for the land where the Minnesota River joins the Mississippi, and in the 1820s Fort Snelling was built there. During the years that followed, the Dakota and Anishinabe tribes were forced to sign treaties to relinquish most of Minnesota to the U.S. government in exhange for trust funds and medical and farming aid. Thousands of new people poured into the region to build farms and cut timber. In 1858, Minnesota became the 32nd state.
By 1862, the Dakota were crowded into a small reservation along the Minnesota River. They came to greatly resent the treaties because promises of payments were often not kept as well as what were called "traders' papers." Dakota chiefs were tricked into signing documents promising to reimburse traders for the debts of Dakota individuals. Many of the traders' claims were false or grossly exaggerated, and many Dakota believed that the government had cooperated with the traders to cheat them. By 1863, following treaties with the Ojibwa, Minnesota's native people had surrendered most of their lands. Times were hard and Indian families hungry.
Finally, in August 1862, some of the Dakota, who had been assigned to reservations on the upper Minnesota River, attacked nearby white settlements. Led by Chief Little Crow, the Dakota were successful at first, but they tried and failed to capture Fort Ridgely and nearby New Ulm, although New Ulm was almost completely destroyed and around 500 settlers were killed.
In September 1862, a large force of Minnesota volunteers commanded by former governor Sibley drove most of the hostile Dakota people west into Dakota Territory and Canada. Many Dakota did not join in, but a military court martial board condemned 303 Dakota men to death for their participation. Because of the appeals of Episcopal Bishop Henry B. Whipple, President Lincoln limited the death sentences to 38 who had been convicted of murder or rape. The Anishinabe stayed in northern Minnesota, and were not involved in the war.
Industries
Farming turned the open prairies of the western and southern half of the state into a checkerboard of fields and pastures. Large-scale agriculture began in the 1870s in the Red River Valley, where "Bonanza" wheat farms were promoted by railroad corporations. Flour mills made Minneapolis the country's largest producer of flour from the 1880s to the 1920s.
The soil gave out and wheat farmers had to diversify. Today, crops include sugar beets, potatoes, corn, soy beans, and vegetables, along with livestock. Food processing includes meat packing, cheese making, brewing, and canning.
Logging began in the St. Croix Valley in the 1830s. Lumberjacks had to haul the logs on horse-drawn sleds. By about 1920, most of the pine timber was gone. Today smaller trees such as aspen are cut for making paper and other wood products. In southeastern Minnesota, hardwoods such as oaks and maple are used to make furniture and railroad ties. Millions of pine logs were transported from Minnesota forests to sawmills, where they were turned into pine boards for midwestern barns, houses, and fences.
Mining began in the 1890s as thousands of laborers worked on the Mesabi, Vermillion and Cuyuna iron ranges. Iron was first discovered in the Vermilion Range, where a consortium of Eastern capitalists headed by Charlemagne Tower exported the first ore from the Soudan Mine near Tower, Minnesota, in 1884. Mesabi Range ore, discovered by Lewis Merritt and his sons in 1890, was exceptionally rich, and it made Minnesota the leading iron-producing state. Minnesota miners built towns and dug huge pits to remove the valuable ore. The Hull-Rust mine in Hibbing became the largest open-pit mine on earth. Immigrant workers made "the Range" a place of many langauges and customs. The high-grade ore gave out after World War II. Now the mining is for taconite, a lower-grade ore that requires extensive treatment. Minnesota provides about 70 percent of the iron ore/taconite produced in the U.S.
Today Minnesota is a world leader in high-technology research, creating such breakthroughs as the cardiac pacemaker by Medtronics and supercomputers by Cray Research. Minnesotans have invented timely consumer products, such as 3M's "Post-it" notes and Scotch brand tape. Pillsbury's Little Doughboy, the Jolly Green Giant, and General Mills' Betty Crocker became household symbols of quality and convenience.
Tourism remains an important part of Minnesota's economy, as residents and visitors take advantage of the natural beauty and recreation offered by the pristine lakes and forests.
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