Minnesota’s Newcomers
Chapter 7
Minnesota
• Until about 1850, most people living in Minnesota were Indians
• By the 1860s, white settlers were the majority
• 1851: 6,000 whites
• 1854: 30,000
• 1857: 150,000
It was a popular
destination for people
migrating
Population Growth
• Prospect of land drew more people to
Minnesota than California during the gold
rush
• Minnesota’s white population grew a
whopping 3,545 percent from 1849 – 1860
• Ojibwe population grew from 4,800 – 7,500
• Dakota population fell from 6,292 - 374
Population Growth
200000
180000
160000
140000
120000
100000
Series 1
80000
Series 2
60000
40000
20000
0
whites
Ojibwe
Dakota
Transportation
• 1847: steamboats
started making
stops at the village
of St. Paul
• Carried people and
supplies
• Boats ran from
April – November
• Oxcarts were also
popular ways to
travel
Transportation: Then
Before 1847:
• People came by foot or canoe
After 1850:
• Steamboats made regular
stops at the village of St. Paul
• Carried people and supplies
• Immigrants traveled by train
to Galena, Illinois
• Then boarded the steamboats
Four steamboats arrive at
the port of St. Paul
The boats could run only from April to November, when the
river was clear of ice.
Transportation Then and Now
If you were traveling in
1850. . .
A trip from
Galena, Illinois
to
St. Paul, Minnesota
would take you:
2
St.
Paul
days by steamboat
 6 days by stagecoach
Traveling by car today, this
trip would take only 5
hours and 15 minutes!
An Example of Travel Conditions
What a horrible morning! The wind is strong and the waves
are high.The ship is rolling from side to side so much that it
is impossible to stand up without getting dizzy. We are all
terribly seasick. I would never have believed that a person
could vomit as much as I have this morning.
Conditions on the lower levels are beyond description. Since
the toilets are so far away from these parts of the ship the
passengers use chamber pots, which they leave on the floor.
The rocking of the ship, however, has capsized many of these
vessels, spreading filth in every direction. To make matters
worse, people in the upper beds cannot help vomiting on their
fellow suffers in the lower beds.
--A German immigrant named Franz Joseph Ennemoser
Excerpt from Three Immigrant Stories, Jeffrey A. Hess. A component of The Immigrant Experience: A Minnesota
History Resource Unit. Copyright 1977 by the Minnesota Historical Society.
A Long Journey
St. Paul
People traveled far to get to their new home in Minnesota. Notice the
section from Galena to St. Paul. That part alone took anywhere from 2 to 6
days. Now, think about how long it would have taken to get there from New
York or Boston. Look at the water and land routes. For many, this was AFTER
they’d already traveled from another country across the Atlantic Ocean.
Sometimes, these trips took months to complete.
Immigrants
• An immigrants story handout and activity
A person who
emigrates also
immigrates.
Harriet Bishop
• First school teacher in Minnesota
• Grew up in Vermont
• Few careers open to women at
that time
• http://youtu.be/eJF985ArVEQ
Harriet Bishop
•
•
•
•
•
In Harriet’s day, St. Paul was mostly log huts
Streets were rutted and muddy
Only a few hundred people lived there
Read page 93: Start at Harriet Bishop …
Today, many schools are named after Harriet
Bishop
• http://www.isd191.org/schools/harrietbishop-elementary
Harriet Bishop’s Achievements
• Goal: To help “civilize” the
frontier
• Established St. Paul’s first
Sunday school
• Helped organize a temperance
group
• Raised money for community
projects
• Read quote page 93
Becoming a Territory
• Must have 5000 adults
living in it
• A convention has to elect
a legislature and a nonvoting representative to
the U.S. Congress
• U.S. Congress passes a
law creating the territory
and authorizing its
legislature to make laws
• Minnesota had 4,535
adults
• Sixty-one men met in
Stillwater in 1848 to elect
Henry Sibley to represent
them in Congress
• Congress created
Minnesota Territory on
March 3, 1849.
• Alexander Ramsey
became first governor of
the territory
Whites Trespass
• 1852: White settlers were pouring into MN
• They were supposed to stay away until 1854
• They claimed land they hoped to buy from the
gov’t when it became legal to do so
• Showed little concern for Indians who were
living there
New Arrivals
• Whites came with hopes of owning
land and being their own boss
• Many came from Europe and New
England
• Land ownership was a source of
wealth and status
• To many, the landscape was familiar
to home
• Swede’s, German’s, Norwegian’s, Irish
• Read story of The Swedish Immigrant,
– pages 96-97
Hans Mattson
A Community Grows
• Mattson wrote letters that were published in a
Swedish newspaper in Chicago
• He described life in Minnesota and urged
others to come
• Read quote page 98
• Who else was coming to Minnesota?
Newcomers
• Norwegians: left because jobs
were scarce
• Irish: escape famine
• Germans: fleeing wars
• New England and the East
• Whole communities that did
not speak English sprung up
– New Ulm, New Prague, Scandia
to name a few
Minnesota Statehood
32nd State: May 11, 1858
• Congress must pass a law
allowing a territory to
become a state
• A group of residents must
convene to write the
state constitution
• Voters must approve the
constitution and elect
officials and legislators
• Congress must pass a law
admitting the state into
the Union
• 1857: Congress passed
the law allowing
Minnesota to begin the
process toward statehood
• Minnesota’s constitution
was written at a
convention in Stillwater
• Minnesotans approved
the constitution and
Henry Sibley was elected
governor
• Congress admitted
Minnesota into the Union