A Sesquicentennial History

In the summer of 1845, according to official count, fewer than 4,000 people lived in Minnesota. The tally did not include members of the Indian tribes who had called Minnesota home for generations. Nor was it clear at the time just what and where Minnesota was. Minnesota was no longer part of the Wisconsin Territory, which had ceased to exist when Wisconsin became a state. The Stillwater Convention was Minnesota's first step on the road to statehood. Nobody sanctioned (approved) the meeting. Nobody voted its delegates into office. They just boldly asserted their claim and sent Henry Hastings Sibley off to Washington as the first congressional representative from Minnesota. Visitors to Minnesota who come with fishing rods and snowshoes are apt to be looking for nature, as Henry Sibley and Alexander Ramsey and Henry Schoolscraft saw it, at the very beginning, in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, in its unspoiled splendor. Minnesota is past and present in happy alignment.Marling, Karal Ann is the author of 'A Sesquicentennial History', published 2008 under ISBN 9781890434786 and ISBN 1890434787.