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The Rise And Fall Of The Minnesota Middle Ground: Henry Hastings Sibley And The Ethnic Cleansing Of Minnesota, Jordan Scott Bergstrom

All Master's Theses

Henry Hastings Sibley (1811-1891), fur trader and eventual first governor of Minnesota, worked closely among the sub-division of “Sioux” Indians known as the Dakota. Sibley first aided in the development of what historian Richard White called a “Middle Ground,” a racially mixed and symbiotic society. Later in his life, however, he assisted in negotiating treaties that transformed that frontier society into a racially divided and oppressive one. The result was the outbreak of hostilities between Indians, Whites, and mixed-race people in the Great Sioux Uprising, and ultimately the ethnic cleansing of Minnesota. This study approaches Sibley’s involvement on a microhistorical …