Before we explore the stories of people who immigrated to Minnesota, we need to acknowledge the fact that people have lived in this area for generations. The land that became Minnesota was not empty, just waiting for new people to settle here.

It was, and still is, the traditional and ancestral homeland of the Dakota and Ojibwe people.

According to Dakota creation stories, Dakota life began in Minnesota. They have lived in this area for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

There are seven bands of Dakota people. Sometimes referred to as Sioux, Dakota is the name they use themselves. The eastern bands of Dakota have their homelands in Minnesota. These bands moved throughout the area following the seasons and availability of food and supplies, and established villages along Minnesota's waterways. The arrival of explorers, missionaries, soldiers, and settlers in the 1800s disrupted the Dakota way of life and forced them off their land.

(Many of our records and images of early Dakota people were made by white settlers themselves, like military officer Seth Eastman. As such, they may not be the most historically accurate or reliable source of information, but they do show how a white person viewed the original inhabitants of Minnesota.)

The ancestors of the Anishinaabe people (also known as the Ojibwe) began migrating to Minnesota around 900 CE. Traveling west through the Great Lakes, they followed a series of prophecies to reach their chosen land—a place where food grew on water. That food was wild rice, and once they found it in Minnesota, they were home.

However, the Dakota people were already here. Although the relations between the Dakota and Anishinaabe were marked with both friendship and conflict, over time the Anishinaabe pushed the Dakota further south. In 1825, the treaty of Prairie du Chien set the boundaries between the tribes so that the Ojibwe's tribal land was in the north, and the Dakota were in the south.

Learn about the first white people to arrive in Minnesota by exploring the pages below.