Valuable People: The Rise and Fall of the Lake Pepin "Half-Breed Tract"

Abstract

This paper focuses on the Dakota nation during the early nineteenth century while discussing the various tribes within the Midwest during that time. These tribes include the Ojibwe, confederated Sacs and Foxes, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Ioway, Ottowa, and Potawatomi. As intertribal warfare disrupted the peace between these tribes, it also disrupted the plans of many European settlers who had wanted to live, farm, hunt, mineral mine, and trade in the Midwest. One can see evidence of this disruption by visiting treaties from the early nineteenth century as well as accounts from various Indian Agents from this time. Several treaties attempted to halt intertribal warfare and open up the Midwest for the settlement of its land. This paper will focus on the 1825 and 1830 treaties of Prairie du Chien to show how eager the US government was to stop the warfare and settle on Midwestern land. One may notice in the 1830 Treaty of Prairie du Chien that the Dakota tribal representatives set aside a tract of land for the “Half-Breeds,” or the mixed-race population. This paper will attempt to discuss the rise and fall of the tract of land, why the Dakota people requested this separate tract, and whether or not it was successful.