Manuscripts Collection
The collection provides extensive information on the administration of the American Fur Company and the general status and conduct of trade; on individual traders and Dakota bands in the Minnesota area; on prices for furs, trade goods, and supplies; on the company's system of agreements and credits for traders and Indians; on missionaries, explorers, and others who visited pre-territorial Minnesota; on Sibley's long-standing rivalry with Henry M. Rice; on the gradual decline of the fur trade and its replacement by general merchandising; and on all of the treaties concluded in the Minnesota area with the Dakota, Ojibwe, and Winnebago Indians during 1834-1851.
There are accounts and correspondence from Sibley's position as co-sutler at Fort Snelling (1836-1839) and from his various investments in lumbering, river transportation, railroads, and land. Beginning in 1848, there is substantial information on Minnesota politics, particularly Sibley's service as territorial delegate in Congress (1848-1853), the development of roads and mail service and other issues important to the territory, and the split in the Democratic party between the Sibley and Rice factions. There is considerable data on the 1862 U.S.-Dakota War, on the 1863 punitive expedition led by Sibley, and on his subsequent service with several Indian affairs commissions and boards.
Also present are the records of a St. Paul grasshopper relief committee, which Sibley chaired (1874); documentation of his involvement in various other civic affairs; an unfinished autobiography; two Dakota lexicons; and a small non-microfilmed addition (Manuscript Material) that consists of photocopied letters, agreements, and miscellaneous papers.
These documents are organized into the following sections:
Microfilm M164 described in: Jane Specter Davis, Guide to a Microfilm Edition of The
Henry Hastings Sibley Papers (St. Paul, 1968). A copy of this guide is available in
the repository (filed as M164) and in
Microfilmed originals (18 boxes, including 112 volumes) are closed to general use.
Access to and use of reserve materials requires the curator's permission.
Quotation or publication beyond the fair use provisions of the copyright law from items that appear on Microfilm M164, Reels 17 and 32, and that were loaned by the Burton Historical Collection or the Sibley House Association of the Minnesota Daughters of the American Revolution requires written permission. Consult the reference staff for more information.
M164: St. Paul, Minn. : Minnesota Historical Society, 1966-1968. 32 reels; 35 mm.
M164-A: St. Paul, Minn. : Minnesota Historical Society, 1988. 2 reels; 16 mm.
Microfilm available for sale or interlibrary loan from the Minnesota Historical Society.
Accession numbers: 1727; 1745; 2280; 2498; 2626; 2713; 3015; 3668; 3671; 3722; 3889; 4249; 6557; 6770; 6880; 6931; 7673; 7679; 7758; 8678; 9858; 10,636; 10,773; 10,882; 12,302; 12,417; 12,599; 13,744; 13,963; 14,095; 14,133; 14,331; 14,332; 15,824; 16,307; 16,439; 16,456; 16,978
Processed by: Deborah M. Kahn, December 1987; David B. Peterson, May 1990, September 1991, July 2004; Christopher G. Welter, June 2010; additions by David B. Peterson, May and July 2015
Catalog ID number: 001733678
Henry H. Sibley's personal papers (mainly 1834-1874) consist of correspondence and miscellaneous papers, a series of volumes (account books, letter books, and scrapbooks), and supplemental material that document his life as a fur trader, territorial delegate to Congress, first Minnesota state governor, and general in the United States Army. The papers are a rich source of information on the fur trade of the Upper Mississippi Valley and Dakota and Ojibwe Indian affairs, the U.S.-Dakota War (1862), and politics, economic development, and settlement in Minnesota (1849 to 1860).
Microfilm M164 is also described in
Sibley's correspondence and miscellaneous papers include letters received, drafts of letters sent, certificates of election and appointment to various offices, accounts, drafts of speeches and articles, a few newspaper clippings, some maps and plats, and other miscellaneous items.
The bulk of the collection was given to the Society from the Sibley estate in 1893 and was arranged the following year by Return I. Holcombe, who made the penciled notes which appear on the back of many items.
The papers are microfilmed in chronological order, excepting Sibley's papers for the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce Grasshopper Relief Committee (1873-1874), which are filmed as a group on rolls 16-17. Enclosures, no matter what their date, have been filed whenever possible after the item in which they were enclosed.
Mr. Holcombe and other catalogers have attempted to date many undated items. Although an effort has been made to check undated or questionable items, it was not possible in the preparation of these papers for microfilming to spend the time necessary for a full study of these dates. Therefore, the reader is advised to use the undated items and items dated in brackets with some caution.
The volumes (1823-1930, bulk 1834-1863) include those for the fur trade (volumes 1-69); accounts of the sutler store at Fort Snelling (volumes 70-88); letter books (volumes 89-93); and miscellaneous volumes (volumes 94-112).
The Sibley House Association has loaned, for inclusion in this microfilm, Mrs. Charles Frederic Sibley's scrapbook of clippings, 1883-1930 (volume 110).
The fur trade volumes have been arranged chronologically in groups and subdivisions, although most are not complete sets. They are miscellaneous records (volumes 1-10); Indian credit books (volumes 11-23); daybooks (volumes 24-41); ledgers (volumes 42-50); traders and Indians ledgers (volumes 51-57); cash books (volumes 58-59); and invoice and inventory books (volumes 60-69). Targets on the film indicate relationships between the daybooks and the ledgers. Several of the volumes were used for more than one purpose and contain a variety of material. For example, volume 50, which is grouped with the ledgers, contains a summary and settlement of accounts, invoices, and fur packing lists. The majority of these volumes were kept at Mendota for Sibley's outfit, which was variously identified as Sioux Outfit (1834-1845, 1848-1854), Upper Mississippi Outfit (1842), and St. Peter's Outfit (1845-1847). Four of the volumes (1, 11, 12, 51) antedate Sibley's arrival in what is now Minnesota and were probably given to him by other traders.
Financial records kept at Fort Snelling during the period when Sibley and Samuel C. Stambaugh were co-sutlers (May 1836-April 1839) include an inventory, a ledger, a general account book, five daybooks, ten account books for companies of the U.S. First and Fifth Infantry regiments, and a civilian account book. Volume 73 is filmed in two parts: pages 1-32 are ledger entries and follow volume 72, while pages 32-52 contain daybook entries and are filmed with the other daybooks following volume 77.
Sibley kept two sets of letter books during the period 1849-1855; one set (volumes 89-91) contains business and political letters while the other (volume 92) contains private and miscellaneous letters.
A small segment of volume 91, however, continues the private letter series of volume 92 and is therefore refilmed following volume 92. Volume 93 is a fragment containing a few scattered letters for the years 1858-1859. Letters for the period 1850-February 1854 (when Sibley was territorial delegate to Congress) include some written by Sibley's brother, Frederic B. Sibley, who managed the trade at Mendota during his brother's absence.
Among the miscellaneous volumes are three lexicons for the Seneca and Dakota Indian languages, memorandum books, financial records for investments other than the fur trade, scrapbooks, and Sibley's unfinished autobiography. There are also two volumes for the Civil War period: an order book for Sibley's command during the 1862 U.S.-Dakota War, and Sibley's diary, which contains both military and personal notes, and covers the 1863 Dakota expedition.
Includes half-breed trust funds and 1837 Dakota treaty.
Filmed translations of eight letters (1837-1840) from the explorer Joseph N. Nicollet and forty-eight letters (1834-1854) from fur trader Joseph LaFramboise. There are also seven letters from other fur traders. These translations were probably made in 1893-1894 by Rose Morin, working under the direction of Return I. Holcombe, the collection’s original cataloger.
Although the originals of the letters were at one time in the Sibley papers, they have since been lost, and it is therefore impossible to check the translations’ accuracy. Nevertheless, because of the value to the researcher, and because the translations have been a part of the collection for many years, they are filmed here as supplemental material.
The research note cards reproduced on this microfilm enhance access to the microfilm edition (M164) of the Henry Hastings Sibley Papers by providing more detailed information on individual manuscript items, authors, and subjects than could be included in the published guide to the microfilm edition. However, because the cards are selective rather than all-inclusive, it is possible that some items, persons, and subjects are represented in the papers even though they are not referred to on the cards.
The cards are divided into three series: 1) chronology cards; 2) author cards; 3) subject cards. All of the author and subject cards and some of the chronology cards were created in the 1960s during the production of the microfilm edition; some of the chronology cards were made under the auspices of the Society at some earlier time.
The chronology cards abstract the contents of selected manuscript items and/or identify the dates on which significant events occurred. They are filed in a single chronological sequence by month, day, and year. In general, cards referring to undated items are filed before those with dates, and cards with partial dates appear before those that are fully dated. Each card usually includes the date and author of the item referred to and an abstract of its contents or the date and a description of the event. Sometimes the number of pages and the place at which a letter was written also are present.
Author cards identify an item or selected items written by a particular individual. Subject cards identify an item or items pertaining to a person or topic. The author and subject cards are arranged in two separate alphabetical sequences by name and by subject. Multiple cards for the same person or subject are in chronological order. In general, each card includes information on the author(s), date(s), and contents of the item(s) to which it refers. A card may contain biographical and/or historical information on an author or a subject.
Letters, agreements, and miscellaneous papers related to Henry Hastings Sibley, nearly all of which are photocopies. The original documents (with the exception of the Young papers) have been interfiled by date with the main body of Sibley papers (Closed Originals). These photocopies are supplementary material to Microfilm M164.
There are also two indexes for authors in the Sibley correspondence files: (1) alphabetical; (2) chronological.
These materials include letters from Joseph Cretin concerning the establishment of Roman Catholic schools for Winnebago and Dakota mixed-bloods. There are also transcripts made by Rhoda Gilman (formerly of the Minnesota Historical Society) of extracts of letters from Sibley to his wife during the time of the U.S.-Dakota War (1862) as he headed a military expedition to the Minnesota River Valley to suppress the Dakota. The original letters were apparently destroyed by unknown persons some years ago. Transcripts made by Gilman from a diary chronicle a military expedition (the Sibley Expedition) in pursuit of the Dakota into Dakota Territory during summer 1863. The diary itself was filmed as volume 104 during the microfilming project.
There are agreements (1829, 1830) making Sibley a clerk and storekeeper for the American Fur Company. Letters from Sibley to Joseph W. Furber (Cottage Grove, Minnesota) detail the establishment of a post office at that place (1849), Sibley’s efforts to have Furber appointed marshal of Minnesota Territory (1851), and national and territorial politics.
An Indian Affairs file includes letters (1852) from Presbyterian missionary Stephen R. Riggs concerning pending ratification of the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux and Riggs’s publication of a Dakota-language dictionary and grammar. In a letter (1853) to Senator William K. Sebastian, an Arkansas democrat, Sibley defends himself against charges that he and Alexander Ramsey had defrauded the Dakota Indians. A letter from President Millard Fillmore (1852) requests information about the scalping of missionary Elijah Perry. A letter from fur trader and territorial legislator Norman W. Kittson (1852) talks about the fur trade and Indian affairs, including Indian attacks at Pembina. An 1851 letter from Sibley’s brother Fred (Frederick Baker) Sibley describes in some detail problems stirred up among the Indians by one Sweetzer [fur trader Madison Sweetser?] in connection with the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux.
Letters to Sibley from Alexander Ramsey discuss Minnesota territorial politics and intrigue, Ramsey’s political enemies and their accusations against him, territorial politicians and judges, and Indian affairs and the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux. Two letters from explorer Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (1852, 1853) discuss Indian burial mounds in Minnesota and an article to be prepared by Sibley about buffalo hunting. There are letters of introduction (1902, 1908) for Mrs. E. A. Young (a daughter of Henry Sibley) and for Elbert A. Young, Jr.
Miscellaneous items include a speech in Sibley’s hand concerning an “apportionment bill”; a letter (1852) from publisher Charles Scribner regarding an article entitled “Sarah Sibley”; a letter from Isaac Ingalls Stevens (1853), director of an expedition to locate a northern route for construction of a railroad line to the West Coast; and an 1853 letter (evidently written to Sibley) from Frances Lee, commandant at Fort Snelling, discussing personal matters, Sibley and Ramsey’s political problems, and other subjects.
Concerning Seth Eastman's sketches of buffalo hunting on the plains intended for Schoolcraft's 4th volume on Indian tribes of the United States.
Digital version
Describes activities in the fur trade and gives news of other traders (George and Talbot Dousman, Ramsay Crooks, John C. Halsey, Edward Biddle and Hercules Dousman).
Digital version
Letter written at Saint Paul and addressed to Sibley as chair of the Democratic Meeting and to M.E. Ames, J.B. Brisbin, Chas. E. Flandrau, and W.W. Kingsbury, members of the Committee of Arrangements, respectfully declining their invitation to speak at a public dinner during his visit to the city.
Digital version
File includes a typed transcript.
Describes matters connected with the Indian War on the frontiers of Minnesota, Iowa, and the Territory of Dakota.
Digital version
Maps, plats, appointments, fur traders' licenses, post office returns, military returns, and similar items.
Red and white ink inscription reads: "A true copy: / R. C. Drum / Adjutant General / A. G. Office, / April 26, 1884."
Red and white ink inscription reads: "A true copy: / R. C. Drum / Adjutant General / A. G. Office, / April 26, 1884."
These cards were created during the production of the microfilm. This box includes similar cards from three other microfilmed manuscript collections held by the Minnesota Historical Society.