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George Bonga
George Bonga (August 20, 1802 – 1880) was a fur trader, entrepreneur and interpreter for the U.S. government, who was of Ojibwe and Black descent, fluent in French, Ojibwemowin and English. At the age of eighteen, he served as an interpreter for Governor Lewis Cass of Michigan Territory during a treaty council with the Ojibwe at Fond du Lac near present-day Duluth, Minnesota. Bonga worked for the American Fur Company from 1820 to 1839, progressing to the role of clerk or sub-trader working under head trader William Alexander Aitken. In 1837, he was involved in the first criminal trial held in Minnesota when he tracked down and successfully apprehended Che-ga-wa-skung, an Ojibwe man who was wanted for murder, transporting him back to Fort Snelling. In the 1850s, Bonga worked for the United States Indian agent at Leech Lake, serving as interpreter and superintendent of the government farm. Later, he traded in dry goods and opened a lodge on Leech Lake with his wife. In 1 ...
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Northwest Territory
The Northwest Territory, also known as the Old Northwest and formally known as the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, was formed from unorganized western territory of the United States after the American Revolutionary War. Established in 1787 by the Congress of the Confederation through the Northwest Ordinance, it was the nation's first post-colonial organized incorporated territory. At the time of its creation, the territory included all the land west of Pennsylvania, northwest of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River below the Great Lakes, and what later became known as the Boundary Waters. The region was ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Paris of 1783. Throughout the Revolutionary War, the region was part of the British Province of Quebec. It spanned all or large parts of six eventual U.S. states (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the northeastern part of Minnesota). Reduced to present-day Ohio, eastern Michigan and a sliver of sout ...
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Wabanquot (Chippewa Chief)
Wabanquot, Wabonaquod, Wah-bon-ah-quot, Wau-bon-a-quat or Wa-bon-o-quot (ca. 1830-1898) was an Ojibwa chief. Wabanquot (from the Ojibwe ''Waabaanakwad'': White Cloud) was born at Gull Lake, Minnesota, around 1830. He succeeded to the office of chief of the Ojibwa at the death of his father, Waubojeeg, one of the principal chiefs for the Gull Lake Band of Mississippi Chippewa. After the Dakota War of 1862, the Gull Lake Band was removed to the Leech Lake area. There, Wabanquot was considered by many to be the principal chief of the removed Mississippi bands of Chippewa. He was a signatory to the Treaty of Washington (1867) (), in which on June 14, 1868, he led his band to the White Earth Indian Reservation, where he lived until his death 30 years later. Upon his supposed conversion to Christianity sometime in the 1870s, he adopted the name ''D.G. Wright'' after an Episcopalian benefactor, but he rarely used his English name; however, sometime in the 1890s before his death, he ...
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Voyageurs
The voyageurs (; ) were 18th and 19th century French Canadians who engaged in the transporting of furs via canoe during the peak of the North American fur trade. The emblematic meaning of the term applies to places (New France, including the ''Pays d'en Haut'' and the ''Illinois Country, Pays des Illinois'') and times where transportation of materials was mainly over long distances. The voyageurs were regarded as legendary. They were heroes celebrated in folklore and music. For reasons of promised celebrity status and wealth, this position was coveted. Despite the fame surrounding the voyageur, their life was one of toil and not nearly as glorious as folk tales make it out to be. For example, they had to be able to carry two bundles of fur over portages. Some carried up to four or five, and there is a report of a voyageur carrying seven bundles for half of a mile.Mike Hillman, "La Bonga: The Greatest Voyageur" Boundary Waters Journal Magazine, Summer 2010 Issue, pp 20–25 Her ...
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First White Child
The birth of the first white child is a concept that marks the establishment of a European colony in the New World, especially in the historiography of the United States. Americas Canada Snorri Thorfinnsson, born around 1010 in the Viking settlement of Vinland, was the first European child born in the Americas (excluding Greenland). Jonathan Guy, the son of Newfoundland settler Nicholas Guy, was the first child born to English parents in Canada, and one of the first born in any part of North America within a permanent settlement. He was born on 27 March 1613 in Cuper's Cove, a settlement that has been continuously occupied since 1610 and where his family remained long after his birth. Hélène Desportes is often cited as the first white child born in New France. She was probably born in 1620, to Pierre Desportes and Françoise Langlois, although there is some disagreement about whether she had actually been born in France before her family's arrival in the colony in 1614. Hélà ...
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Afton, Minnesota
Afton is a city in Washington County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 2,886 at the 2010 United States Census. It lies on a small bay where Valley Creek empties into the St. Croix River, several miles north of its confluence with the Mississippi River. Afton is well known for Afton Alps, the largest ski and snowboard area in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. It is home to Afton State Park on the St. Croix River. Due to these two destinations and its quaint small-town appearance in a major metropolitan area, Afton receives a fair amount of local tourism in the form of day trips. The 2018 US Winter Olympic Gold Medalist cross-country skier Jessie Diggins is from Afton. History The first settlers in the area arrived in 1837. The settlement of Afton was platted in 1855, with the name chosen from a poem (Sweet Afton) by Robert Burns. A post office has been in operation at Afton since 1857. The city contains three properties listed on the National Register of Historic ...
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Jacob Fahlström
Jacob Fahlström (c.1794–1859), also known as Father Jacob, was the very first Swede to settle in Minnesota. He was known as ''Ozaawindib'' or "Yellow Head" to the Ojibwe, and to other white settlers as the "Swede Indian." After working in the fur trade for the Hudson's Bay Company in Manitoba, he joined the American Fur Company at Fond du Lac (in present-day Duluth) as a boatman. In 1823, he married Margaret Bonga, the part-Ojibwe daughter of Pierre Bonga, a French African interpreter in the fur trade. Around 1825, he started working for the U.S. government as a woodsman, mail carrier, and blacksmith's striker at the St. Peter's Indian Agency next to Fort Snelling. In 1838, Fahlström became the first Methodist convert in Minnesota. In 1840, he became a lay preacher for the Methodist Episcopal Church and was considered one of their most successful missionaries to Native Americans in the region. Fluent in Ojibwe and English, he also spoke French, Dakota and Iroquois ...
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Minnesota Historical Society
The Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) is a nonprofit educational and cultural institution dedicated to preserving the history of the U.S. state of Minnesota. It was founded by the territorial legislature in 1849, almost a decade before statehood. The Society is named in the Minnesota Constitution. It is headquartered in the Minnesota History Center in downtown Saint Paul. Although its focus is on Minnesota history it is not constrained by it. Its work on the North American fur trade has been recognized in Canada as well. MNHS holds a collection of nearly 550,000 books, 37,000 maps, 250,000 photographs, 225,000 historical artifacts, 950,000 archaeological items, of manuscripts, of government records, 5,500 paintings, prints and drawings; and 1,300 moving image items. ''MNopedia: The Minnesota Encyclopedia'', is since 2011 an online "resource for reliable information about significant people, places, events, and things in Minnesota history", that is funded through a Legacy A ...
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MNopedia
''MNopedia: The Minnesota Encyclopedia'' is a free English-language encyclopedia project from the Minnesota Historical Society. Funded through a Legacy Amendment Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund grant, it is the first online encyclopedia about Minnesota, a "resource for reliable information about significant people, places, events, and things in Minnesota history". Approved by Minnesotans on November 4, 2008, planning took place in 2010, the site was built in 2011 and was online on August 15; initial funding for 2010 and 2011 was $215,000. Many of the articles produced by the encyclopedia are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License as are some of its multimedia files. The Minnesota Historical Society had previously planned to produce a print encyclopedia, but opted for an online site for the sake of affordability and interactivity. MNHS paid history scholars including Rhoda Gilman and Annette Atkins to compose essays for the site and the ...
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Daniel Robertson (British Army Officer)
Colonel Daniel Robertson (''c.'' 1733 – 5 April 1810) was an officer in the British Army in North America, commandant of the British post at Michilimackinac, and a landowner in Chatham Township, Canada. Born in Scotland, he first joined the 42nd Regiment of Foot, also known as the "Black Watch," and was present at the British capture of Montreal in 1760, as well as the invasion of Martinique in 1762. During the American Revolutionary War, he was an officer in the 84th Regiment of Foot, another regiment of Scots known as the Royal Highland Emigrants. In 1779, he was appointed commandant of Fort Osgewatchie and oversaw Native American raids on American settlements on the Mohawk River. From 1782, Robertson served as commandant of Fort Michilimackinac (later known as Fort Mackinac). He freed his black slaves, Jean Bonga and Marie-Jeanne Bonga, before leaving Mackinac Island for Montreal in 1787. "Robinson's Folly" at Mission Point on Mackinac Island was originally called "Robertso ...
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Mackinac Island
Mackinac Island ( ; french: Île Mackinac; oj, Mishimikinaak ᒥᔑᒥᑭᓈᒃ; otw, Michilimackinac) is an island and resort area, covering in land area, in the U.S. state of Michigan. The name of the island in Odawa is Michilimackinac and "Mitchimakinak" in Ojibwemowin meaning "Big Turtle". It is located in Lake Huron, at the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac, between the state's Upper and Lower Peninsulas. The island was long home to an Odawa settlement and previous indigenous cultures before European colonization began in the 17th century. It was a strategic center of the fur trade around the Great Lakes. Based on a former trading post, Fort Mackinac was constructed on the island by the British during the American Revolutionary War. It was the site of two battles during the War of 1812 before the northern border was settled and the US gained this island in its territory. In the late 19th century, Mackinac Island became a popular tourist attraction and summer ...
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Slaves
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perform some form of work while also having their location or residence dictated by the enslaver. Many historical cases of enslavement occurred as a result of breaking the law, becoming indebted, or suffering a military defeat; other forms of slavery were instituted along demographic lines such as race. Slaves may be kept in bondage for life or for a fixed period of time, after which they would be granted freedom. Although slavery is usually involuntary and involves coercion, there are also cases where people voluntarily enter into slavery to pay a debt or earn money due to poverty. In the course of human history, slavery was a typical feature of civilization, and was legal in most societies, but it is now outlawed in most countries of the wo ...
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Congressional Record
The ''Congressional Record'' is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, published by the United States Government Publishing Office and issued when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record Index is updated daily online and published monthly. At the end of a session of Congress, the daily editions are compiled in bound volumes constituting the permanent editionChapter 9 of Title 44 of the United States Codeauthorizes publication of the ''Congressional Record''. The ''Congressional Record'' consists of four sections: the House section, the Senate section, the Extensions of Remarks, and, since the 1940s, the Daily Digest. At the back of each daily issue is the Daily Digest, which summarizes the day's floor and committee activities and serves as a table of contents for each issue. The House and Senate sections contain proceedings for the separate chambers of Congress. A section of the ''Congressional Record'' titled ''Extensions of ...
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