# Henry Hastings Sibley *Fur trader, first congressional delegate for Minnesota Territory, first governor of Minnesota, and commander in the Dakota War of 1862* Henry Hastings Sibley (February 20, 1811 – February 18, 1891) worked as a trader for the American Fur Company, represented [[Minnesota Territory]] as its first delegate in Congress, and served as the first [[governor]] of the state of [[Minnesota]].[^1] A claim row drawn from the [[Minnesota Historical Society]] describes him as Minnesota's first governor and as the militia commander "prosecuting the U.S.-Dakota War."[^2] He led U.S. forces in the Dakota War of 1862 and in an expedition into Dakota Territory in 1863.[^1] Sibley's record joins the fur trade, the treaty system and the war that followed. In 1841 Wisconsin Territory's governor testified that Sibley and his traders had given "indispensable aid" in obtaining [[Dakota]] agreement to a land-cession treaty, and Sibley promised the bands $10,000 in goods that the negotiator had agreed to give.[^1] In 1862 he was commissioned colonel of volunteers. Between September 28 and November 5 of that year, a military commission he created as commanding officer held 392 trials.[^1] His name is attached to many places, among them [[Sibley County, Minnesota]], the city of Hastings, Sibley in North Dakota and in Iowa, Sibley Memorial Highway, General Sibley Park and Sibley State Park.[^1] He was a member of the Minnesota Historical Society from 1849 and later its president.[^1] The society's finding aid for his gubernatorial records is cited below.[^3] ## Early life and education Sibley was born in Detroit, which was then in the Territory of Michigan.[^1] His father, Solomon Sibley (1769–1846), came to Detroit from Marietta, Ohio, in 1798. His mother, Sarah Whipple Sproat, was the daughter of Continental Army colonel Ebenezer Sproat and the granddaughter of Commodore Abraham Whipple of the Continental Navy.[^1] Of the couple's eight children, Henry was the fourth, and he was their second son.[^1] In the War of 1812, British forces under Major General Isaac Brock and Shawnee forces under Tecumseh surrounded Fort Detroit when Henry was eighteen months old.[^1] The family sheltered inside the fort. After General William Hull surrendered and the British occupied Detroit, Solomon Sibley obtained permission to leave with his family.[^1] ## Entry into fur trade Sibley left Detroit for Sault Ste. Marie on June 20, 1828, when he was seventeen.[^1] There he clerked for John Hulbert, whose sutler's store supplied four companies of the U.S. 5th Infantry Regiment. He then became an agent for Susan Johnston, widow of the fur trader John Johnston.[^1] He began an apprenticeship with the American Fur Company (AFC) at Mackinac in spring 1829 as a clerk and storekeeper. He signed a five-year contract with the company in 1830.[^1] In 1832 AFC manager Robert Stuart sent him by bark canoe to Detroit, where he obtained company licenses from Michigan Territorial Governor George Bryan Porter.[^1] ## Fur trade in Minnesota country Sibley left Mackinac in October 1834 and traveled by way of Green Bay and the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers to Prairie du Chien. He then rode about 300 miles on horseback.[^1] He reached St. Peters, now [[Mendota]], on October 28, 1834, according to his November 1 letter to AFC president Ramsay Crooks.[^1] Alexis Bailly traveled with him and warned him that "the American Fur Company squeezed its small traders dry then dropped them like useless rinds."[^1] In 1835, at 24, Sibley became head of the company's "Sioux Outfit," headquartered at St. Peters.[^1] Its main store served five nearby [[Mdewakanton]] Dakota villages, the "mixed-blood" community around [[Fort Snelling]], and Dakota groups from the Cannon and Cedar River valleys.[^1] Hired clerks staffed his outlying posts at Traverse des Sioux, Lake Traverse, and a post serving the Sisseton Dakota.[^1] ## Marriage and family Sibley engaged John Mueller in 1836 to begin construction at St. Peters, on what is now the Sibley House Historic Site. The first structure was a stone warehouse completed that year.[^1] Work on the residence probably started in 1837 or 1838 and may not have been finished until 1839.[^1] After his marriage to Sarah Jane Steele, and into the 1850s, Sibley altered the house for a growing family.[^1] The French geographer Joseph Nicollet spent the winter of 1836–37 as Sibley's guest.[^1] Wikipedia records that questions have been raised about whether Sibley's cook, Joe Robinson, was enslaved or free. It also states that if Robinson was enslaved, the evidence suggests he belonged to Hercules L. Dousman.[^1] ## Other business ventures After the 1837 treaties, the trade in the region came to depend more and more on U.S. government annuities paid to tribes or on their behalf. Locally it became known as the "Indian trade."[^1] Sibley tried to diversify his business. He did not achieve great commercial success, and he later wrote of his "want of success in business".[^1] By 1837 Sibley, William Aitken and Lyman Warren held an exclusive contract with the Ojibwe of the St. Croix valley to cut timber on the Upper St. Croix and Snake Rivers.[^1] Under the contract, 47 Ojibwe signatories agreed not to harass the traders' lumbermen. In return, the traders were to supply goods each year for ten years, including gunpowder, lead, scalping knives and tobacco.[^1] The White Pine Treaty of 1837 superseded the contract. Sibley and Warren then built a sawmill at Chippewa Falls with Dousman. The mill opened in 1840 and was sold in 1845.[^1] ## Early experience in public office Sibley's first commission came from Governor Porter, who made him a justice of the peace of Mackinac County in Michigan Territory.[^1] Governor John Chambers of the newly organized Iowa Territory appointed him a justice of the peace of Clayton County in 1838, with extensions through 1842. The county extended from below Prairie du Chien to Pembina and west to the Missouri River.[^1] Sibley later said that, as the only magistrate in the region, "I had matters pretty much under my own control, there being little chance of an appeal from my decisions."[^1] In 1838 he investigated the death of John Hays, a former Fort Snelling sergeant, and Hays's business partner Edward Phalen was arrested. Sibley passed the case to Joseph R. Brown for jurisdictional reasons, and Phalen was found not guilty.[^1] ## Lobbying in Washington Martin Van Buren, a Jacksonian Democrat, lost the 1840 presidential election. Afterward, Secretary of War John Bell sought to buy land from the Dakota. Bell's stated intention was to remove all Indians from the northeastern United States to the Minnesota valley.[^1] Bell named Governor James Duane Doty of Wisconsin Territory to negotiate for 30 million acres.[^1] Doty concluded a treaty with the Sisseton, Wahpeton and [[Wahpekute]] at Traverse des Sioux on July 31, 1841. Several major chiefs, including Sleepy Eyes and Burning Earth, did not take part.[^1] Doty concluded a similar treaty with the Mdewakanton at Mendota on August 4, 1841. He left Sibley and Dousman to obtain the signatures of Wacouta and Wabasha III, who had refused to attend.[^1] The Doty Treaty included up to $150,000 to compensate traders for debts.[^1] ## Political career Wisconsin's second constitutional convention voted in December 1847 to set the state's northwestern border at the Rum and [[Mississippi River]]s. In January 1848, citizens of St. Paul petitioned Congress against the Rum River line.[^1] Sibley backed the effort to keep St. Paul and the St. Croix valley out of Wisconsin, which put him at odds with Dousman.[^1] Wisconsin entered the Union on May 29, 1848, with its border at the St. Croix River. Residents of St. Paul, the St. Croix valley and St. Anthony Falls were left without a functioning territorial government.[^1] On August 26, 1848, Sibley attended a convention at [[Stillwater]], the [[Stillwater Convention]]. During the convention, a committee chaired by Joseph R. Brown drafted memorials.[^1] ## Role in Dakota War of 1862 Wikipedia states that treaties Sibley negotiated sharply reduced Native land and resource rights. By 1858 the Dakota, Ojibwe and Winnebago had been confined to reservations, the Dakota to a narrow strip along the [[Minnesota River]].[^1] By 1862 the Dakota faced starvation and missed federal annuity payments, delays the article attributes largely to the Civil War.[^1] The same account reports that the Dakota now say they were "coerced and manipulated" and were misled and cheated by Sibley and others.[^1] ### Commanding Officer On August 19, 1862, Governor [[Alexander Ramsey]] commissioned the former governor as colonel of volunteers. Ramsey sent him up the Minnesota River to relieve Fort Ridgely, which Dakota warriors led by [[Little Crow]] had attacked.[^1] Sibley's troops reached the fort on August 29 and rescued the 250 settlers who remained there. The Dakota had abandoned the fort four days earlier.[^1] Sibley then took part in the engagements at Birch Coulee and [[Wood Lake]]. Wood Lake was decisive, and afterward the Dakota released 269 captives.[^1] ### Military commission and trials From September 28 to November 5, 1862, a military commission that Sibley established as commanding officer held 392 trials. The charges were murder, participation in murder, participation in combat, and rape.[^1] Wikipedia describes the commission as a court with no lawyers.[^1] ## Involvement in Indian affairs After the war, Sibley took part in settling several treaties with Native nations.[^1] ## Ongoing business interests Sibley was president of several railroads, banks and other corporations. He spent considerable effort trying to resolve Minnesota's railroad bond issue.[^1] ## Civic responsibilities Sibley joined the Minnesota Historical Society in 1849 and eventually became its president. He joined the Old Settlers' association in 1858.[^1] The society's finding aid for his gubernatorial records lists a folder titled "Letters Received, 1859: Wright County Affair" (box 154.J.14.1B). The project has registered its contents as not retrieved.[^3] In December 1866 Sibley led the reestablishment of the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce and was its president for numerous terms.[^1] In July 1872 he raised $63.60 from board members for the care of Old Bets, an elderly Mdewakanton woman who lived on his Mendota property.[^1] In December 1873, after a grasshopper infestation, he and the Chamber raised $6,000 for families in Cottonwood County.[^1] In 1874 Governor Cushman Kellogg Davis asked him to distribute $19,000 in relief funds, together with [[John S. Pillsbury]] of [[Minneapolis]].[^1] ## Death and legacy Sibley died in St. Paul on February 18, 1891, two days short of his 80th birthday. He was buried in the city's Oakland Cemetery.[^1] Historian Wilson P. Shortridge wrote that when Sibley arrived in 1834 the region "was a typical fur-traders' frontier; when he died, Minnesota was a state with a population of almost one and one-half millions."[^1] ## In the Minnesota record ### Who - A Minnesota Historical Society claim row identifies Henry H. Sibley as Minnesota's first governor and as the militia commander prosecuting the U.S.-Dakota War.[^2] ### What - A claim row cites Sibley family land patents in the Minnesota Historical Society land-records archive.[^4] - The society's finding aid for Governor Sibley's records lists the 1859 "Wright County Affair" correspondence folder. Its contents have not been retrieved.[^3] ## Notes [^1]: Wikipedia contributors, *Henry Hastings Sibley* (revision 1378518782, retrieved 2026-10-25) — biographical narrative: fur trade, 1841 treaties, public offices, Dakota War command and 1862 military commission, civic roles, death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Hastings_Sibley [^2]: Minnesota Historical Society, *Minnesota Historical Society* (claim row CL-Theory13InstitutionalCap-20) — identifies Sibley as first governor and militia commander in the U.S.-Dakota War. https://www.mnhs.org/ [^3]: Minnesota Historical Society, *Governor Henry Hastings Sibley records* (finding aid) — lists folder "Letters Received, 1859: Wright County Affair," box 154.J.14.1B; contents not retrieved (project gap G-6). https://storage.googleapis.com/mnhs-finding-aids-public/library/findaids/gov015.html [^4]: Minnesota Historical Society, *Minnesota Historical Society* (claim row CL-Theory13InstitutionalCap-25) — cites Sibley family land patents in the MNHS land-records archive. https://www.mnhs.org/