Treaty of Traverse des Sioux, 1851

The Treaty of Traverse des Sioux (1851) between the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands of Dakota and the US government transferred ownership of much of southeastern Minnesota Territory to the United States. Along with the Treaty of Mendota, signed that same year, it opened twenty-four million acres of land to settler-colonists. For the Dakota, these treaties marked another step in a process that increasingly marginalized them and dismissed them from the land that had been—and remains—their home.

During the early decades of the 1800s, white immigrants began moving west of the St. Croix River into the territory of the Dakota and the Ojibwe. Though the newcomers' numbers were relatively small at first, they were eager to use the land for farming and industry. They wanted to move further west, deeper into Native homelands. Influential men, including Alexander Ramsey and Henry Sibley, convinced the US government to negotiate the purchase of land from Native people. Through this transaction, Ramsey and Sibley also hoped to recoup debts that fur traders claimed various bands owed to them.

By 1850, both the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands of Dakota were in a dire situation. Overhunting had depleted the animals—particularly bison—that they relied on for food and trade. Some groups saw selling their land as a way to gain resources they needed to survive. A land cession treaty, with guaranteed annuity payments, could help them through these tough times and, for some Dakota, offered a way to rebuild their communities.

In July 1851, Sibley, Ramsey, and federal commissioner Luke Lea chose Traverse des Sioux as the site for treaty negotiations. It took several weeks for enough representatives of the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands to arrive. Once they had arrived, however, it did not take long to come to an agreement. The Dakota were in a very weak bargaining position because they believed that if they did not sell their land, the United States would take it. Negotiations took several days, and some Dakota leaders initially resisted the demands made by the commissioners because they asked for so much. Ultimately, however, the Dakota agreed to the treaty.

On July 23, the Dakota signed the treaty with the government commissioners. It had three primary results. First, it ceded much of the southern and western portion of Minnesota to the US for about seven and a half cents an acre. Second, Dakota people retained a reservation of land ten miles wide on each side of the Minnesota River. Finally, the treaty arranged for payment to the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands for the land they had ceded. They were to receive a portion of the money immediately. Some funds were set aside for the construction of schools and other services. The rest was to be placed in an account managed by the federal government. From that account, the bands were to receive an annual interest payment in both cash and goods.

After the Dakota leaders had signed two copies of the treaty, they were directed to a third piece of paper held by Joseph R. Brown, a prominent fur trader. All but two of them also signed this agreement. The document, known as the traders' paper, directed the government to pay off various debts claimed by white and métis fur traders using the money owed to the bands from the treaty. This repayment method was common at the time, and the Dakota, given the chance, would perhaps have agreed to it. However, the deceptive methods that Brown and other traders used to get the leaders to sign angered the Dakota. No one read the paper aloud or translated it for the Dakota, many of whom believed it to be another copy of the treaty. Deception was not an uncommon tactic for government officials during treaty signings, so the traders’ paper gave Dakota people, already distrustful of the federal government, yet another reason to be wary of future negotiations.

Following the treaty, Sibley, Ramsey, and Lea negotiated a similar treaty at Mendota with other Dakota bands, which was signed on August 5. In the decade after the signing of these treaties, over 100,000 white immigrants moved to Minnesota to live on the land that Indigenous peoples had ceded.