Making Minnesota Territory 1849-1858

In this lively collection of essays, historians reassess the events and meaning of Minnesota Territory 150 years after its creation. They describe how its birth in 1849 during the growing national conflict over slavery forever changed the lives of Minnesota’s native and mixed-blood residents. Reinterpreting the rush to statehood in 1858, these writers offer fresh insights into the roles played by wildly optimistic territorial promoters and the no-holds-barred newspapers of the time. This book originated as a special issues of Minnesota History, the quarterly of the Minnesota historical Society, and was published to mark the sesquicentenial anniversary of the territory.