In the spring he went down the Minnesota with a large party of Indians and at a cave near the present site of St. Paul, since known by his name, he held a council with the natives. Thence he travelled to Prairie du Chien, where he joined an expedition under Capt. Tute sent out by Rogers to find a route to the "west ern sea." Carver later published a lively account of his travels, which was widely read in Europe. After the Revolutionary War, the English relinquished their portion of the region (Treaty of Paris, 1783) to the newly formed United States. There was no force to expel the English from the north-west wilderness, how ever, and the British flag remained flying over the trading-posts of the Northwest Company in Minnesota until after the War of 1812. This company had been formed to organize systematically the fur trade of the north-west. Its headquarters for the region during the last two decades of the r8th century were at Grand Portage, at the east end of the famous portage between Lake Superior and the Pigeon river.
In 1803 the western part of Minnesota was acquired by the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase. In 1805-06, at the instance of President Thomas Jefferson, Lieut. Zebulon M.
Pike led an exploring expedition up the Mississippi as far as Leech lake and Upper Red Cedar or Cass lake. He visited the main posts of the North-west Company and took formal possession for the United States. He also negotiated with the Indians for a tract of land at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers upon which, in 1819, the post later known as Ft. Snelling was established. For many years this remained the most north-western military post in the United States, and it was also the centre of the fur trade in the region. In 1816 the Northwest Company's traders were forced out of Minnesota and their posts were taken over by the American Fur Company, which was soon doing busi ness throughout the upper valley of the Mississippi. In 1818 the jurisdiction of Michigan Territory was extended to the Mississippi river, and its governor, Lewis Cass, in 1820 conducted an expedi tion to search for the source of the Mississippi, which he was satisfied was in the large body of water named Cass lake in his honour. In 1823 extensive explorations of the Minnesota and Red river valleys were conducted by Major Stephen S. Long, and sub sequently knowledge of the Minnesota country was extended by investigations of the region by Henry R. Schoolcraft, who dis covered Lake Itasca, the source of the Mississippi, in 1832.
A settlement was attempted in 1812 by Lord Selkirk in Hud son's Bay Company territory in the Red river valley, but failed. A nucleus of settlement also grew up at Mendota, on the Minne sota river opposite, Ft. Snelling, the headquarters of the American Fur Company. In 1837 two treaties, one with the Chippewa and the other with the Sioux, were negotiated, extinguishing the Indian title to the wedge of land between the Mississippi and St. Croix
rivers and opening it to settlement. Following these treaties thriv ing settlements grew up at St. Paul and Stillwater. In 1849 the bill organizing the Territory of Minnesota was passed by Congress and Alexander Ramsey was appointed governor. The first terri torial legislature met at St. Paul on Sept. 3 of the same year. By the Federal census of 1850 the territory had 6,077 inhabitants, most of whom lived east of the Mississippi, or along the Red river in the extreme north-west. Treaties negotiated in 1851 with the Sioux opened to settlement the greater part of the land in the territory west of the Mississippi ; and treaties with the Chippewa in 1854 and 1855, negotiated largely in the interests of the lumber men, extinguished the Indian title to nearly two-thirds of the northern half of the State. Such an unparalleled rush to the new lands took place that a census in 1857 showed a population of 150,037. The lumbering business was booming and building up the towns of Stillwater and St. Anthony (Minneapolis). River steamers to the number of 119 in 1855 and 292 in 1857 landed at St. Paul with settlers and goods, making that city the commercial centre of the territory. Other river towns proved prosperous ports of entry from which settlers trekked to the interior, sometimes individually, sometimes by whole colonies transplanted from Eastern States. In July 1857, a convention met and drew up a State Constitution, which was adopted the following October by an almost unanimous popular vote. On May 11, 1858, the State was admitted to the Union with its present boundaries.
Minnesota furnished nearly 22,000 men for the Federal armies during the Civil War. Even more important to the State than the war in the South was the need for defending her frontier against the uprising of the Indians within her borders. The Sioux felt that they had been deceived and outdone in the treaty of 1851. In 1858 their small reservation was halved and most of the pay ment went to the traders. Many of the natives resented the Gov ernment's attempts to make them farmers. When in the summer of 1862 there was delay in the payment of annuities, bands of the Sioux suddenly began to massacre the settlers in the Minnesota valley. These attacks continued with increasing fury (more than 35o whites losing their lives) until forces under Col. Sibley de cisively defeated the Indians under Little Crow, their principal leader, at Wood lake. Three days later 269 white captives were released. Many of the Sioux fled into the Dakota country, but expeditions under Sibley in 1863 and Sully in 1863 and marched against them and drove them beyond the Missouri.