2/20/2012:
He is one of Minnesota’s most famous and influential citizens, participating in some of its most turbulent history. Henry H. Sibley, Minnesota’s first governor, was born this date in Detroit, Michigan in 1811.
Sibley played a vital role on the wild and bloody frontier of both Minnesota and Dakota Territories. Responding to an 18-year-old’s wanderlust, Sibley headed west seeking an “active and stirring life.”
He entered the influential fur trade as a young man and by the time he reached his early twenties, was responsible for the “Sioux Outfit” of the American Fur Company headquartered at Minnesota’s Fort Snelling.
Sibley gravitated to politics and eventually into the Territorial House of Representatives. Minnesota elected him chief executive in the state’s first election in 1858 where he served for two years.
When the Civil War erupted, Sibley was named colonel of the Minnesota militia and assigned to protect white settlements from the Dakota Sioux during the U.S. / Dakota War of 1862. Mistreated Dakota Sioux had revolted against horrific degradation and conditions by killing settlers and terrifying the white citizenry. The military responded in kind.
Sibley led a series of major engagements against the Dakota in bloody conflicts. His troops followed the trails of fleeing Sioux into Dakota Territory. The general’s last battle claimed a victory with the release of 250 white captives and the capture of 2,000 Sioux. In one of Minnesota’s most painful historic incidents, thirty-eight Indians were hanged from a giant gallows on a December day in 1862 in Mankato, Minnesota-the largest mass hanging in US history.
Sibley was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers and accepted the post of a new military department in St. Paul that oversaw Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Dakota Territory.
After Sibley left the military, the former Indian fighter helped negotiate several Indian treaties. He contributed greatly to St. Paul’s burgeoning business climate, the University of Minnesota, and was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt to the federal Board of Indian Commissioners.
A county, state park, and high school bear his name in his adopted state of Minnesota. In North Dakota there’s Bismarck’s General Sibley Park. And, one of the state’s smallest communities in Barnes County- the town of Sibley -was named for their former neighbor from Minnesota.
Dakota Datebook written by Steve Stark
Sources
www.mnhs.org
www.leg.state.mn.us
ww.historicfortsnelling.org
www.cr.nps.gov