# The 1851 Dakota Land Cession Treaties ## Treaty of Traverse des Sioux (July 23, 1851) + Treaty of Mendota (August 5, 1851) **Status**: Primary source documented **Decade**: 2 — Territorial Minnesota 1849–1859 **Category**: Antecedents and Acts (What) **[WTFism]**: The founding dispossession event. $1.7M+ in treaty payments was pre-committed to fur traders as "debt repayment" before a single dollar reached the Dakota people — a mechanism engineered at the treaty grounds, with incomplete translation, under the coordination of territorial officials later implicated in the fraud. --- ## The Basic Structure Two treaties, negotiated thirteen days apart, extinguished Dakota title to approximately **24 million acres** — nearly the entirety of what is now southern Minnesota, plus portions of Iowa and the Dakotas. | Treaty | Date | Bands | Land Ceded | Stated Payment | |--------|------|-------|------------|----------------| | Traverse des Sioux | July 23, 1851 | Sisseton, Wahpeton | ~19M acres (upper Minnesota River valley) | $1,665,000 ($1.5M annuity over 50 yrs + $165K cash) | | Mendota | August 5, 1851 | Mdewakanton, Wahpekute | ~5M acres (lower Minnesota River + Mississippi) | ~$1.4M ($1.25M annuity over 50 yrs + other provisions) | Negotiated by U.S. Commissioner Luke Lea and Territorial Governor **Alexander Ramsey**. Signed at Traverse des Sioux (a fur-trade post on the Minnesota River, present-day St. Peter) and at Mendota. **Primary source**: Treaty of Traverse des Sioux, 10 Stat. 949 (1851); Treaty of Mendota, 10 Stat. 954 (1851). → https://www.mnhs.org/fortsnelling/learn/native-americans/1851-treaties → https://www.loc.gov/law/help/us-treaties/bevans.php (Vol. 12) --- ## The WTFism: The Traders' Paper Immediately after Dakota leaders signed the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux, U.S. officials and fur traders produced a second document — the **"Traders' Paper"** — which Dakota leaders were asked to sign as part of the same proceedings. Through incomplete or misleading translation, the signatories were not clearly informed that this paper: 1. **Assigned the cash payment portion of the treaty directly to fur traders** as repayment of alleged debts accumulated through the credit/goods system of the American Fur Company and its successors 2. **Bypassed Dakota hands entirely** — the money was to flow from the U.S. Treasury to traders, not to Dakota communities 3. **Was coordinated by the same men negotiating the treaty** — Ramsey and the traders had interlocking financial interests in the territory **Approximate amount pre-committed to traders**: $400,000–$500,000 at Traverse des Sioux alone. The total trader claim absorption across both treaties consumed the majority of the available cash disbursements. When Congress ratified the treaties in 1852, it **struck the reservation provisions** — removing the clause that would have established a permanent 10-mile-wide Dakota homeland along the Minnesota River. The Dakota were left with treaty payments already looted by the Traders' Paper and no guaranteed land to live on. **Governor Ramsey's role**: Ramsey was subsequently investigated by Congress for his handling of treaty funds. A House Select Committee (1853) documented that Ramsey had approved the disbursement of treaty funds to traders whose claims had not been independently verified. Ramsey was not prosecuted. He went on to become Minnesota's first U.S. Senator and later Secretary of War under President Hayes. --- ## Institutional Consequence Chain | Step | What happened | Who benefited | |------|---------------|---------------| | 1851 treaties signed | 24M acres extinguished; payments promised | U.S. territorial expansion | | Traders' Paper signed same day | Cash pre-routed to traders | Fur traders (Dousman, Sibley, others) | | 1852 Senate ratification | Reservation stripped from treaty | White settlement unencumbered | | 1853 Congressional investigation | Ramsey investigated, not prosecuted | Ramsey political career intact | | 1853–1858 | Settlement floods former Dakota land | Railroad, milling, agricultural capital | | 1858 statehood | Treaty obligations become state-era legacy debt | Ignored for 110+ years | | 1862 U.S.-Dakota War | Broken payments trigger armed resistance | See Decade 3 | | 2021 | MN TRUTH Commission convened | Still unresolved | --- ## The $1.7M Figure — Sourcing Note The "approximately $1.7M" figure in the task brief is a commonly cited aggregate for the cash portions of both treaties (as opposed to the annuity streams, which were paid over decades). The Traders' Paper mechanism means that even this $1.7M in cash was largely captured by creditors before distribution. The annuity streams were also subject to trader garnishment under subsequent legislation. **Primary documentation**: - Minnesota Historical Society: https://www.mnhs.org/fortsnelling/learn/native-americans/1851-treaties - National Archives, RG 75 (Bureau of Indian Affairs treaty records) - House Report No. 29, 33rd Congress, 1st Session (1853) — Ramsey investigation - Gary Clayton Anderson, *Kinsmen of Another Kind: Dakota-White Relations in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1650–1862* (1984) — academic synthesis - Waziyatawin (Angela Wilson), *What Does Justice Look Like?* (2008) — Dakota perspective --- ## Morrill Land Grant Anticipation Note The same territorial legislature that ratified the 1851 treaty framework also chartered the **University of Minnesota** (February 26, 1851) — three months *before* the treaties were signed. Congress had already reserved two townships (46,080 acres) for UMN's use. The land that would capitalize the University was the same land being cleared of Dakota title at the treaty tables. The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 completed this capitalization by granting additional federal land scrip. The University received its Morrill Act allocation in 1864. **Thread to endpoint**: The credentialing engine (*How Minnesota Got Here*) was founded on the dispossession event (*The Instrument No One Will Name*) in the same legislative session. --- ## Cross-References - `Architects/Ramsey_Alexander.md` — Ramsey's role as treaty negotiator and first U.S. Senator - `Architects/Sibley_Henry.md` — Sibley's dual role as American Fur Company partner and first governor - `Agendas/Trader_Debt_Repayment_1851.md` — follow the money: the Traders' Paper mechanism in detail - `Arena/Traverse_des_Sioux.md` — the fur-trade post as treaty site - `Antecedents/MN_Organic_Act_1849.md` (Decade 1) — the territorial framework within which the treaties were negotiated - Decade 3: `Antecedents/Dakota_Removal_Act_1863.md` — the expulsion that followed when annuity payments collapsed - Toll-and-Immunity Architecture: `01_1849-1899_Founding_Toll_Positions.md` #Acts_Amendments_and_Antecedents