Bidne Family Land History
Map of Minnesota Territory, J. H. Young (1856)
Treaty and parcel research for the Century Farm
Tax ID 110300400 (Uncle Steve’s land)
Tax ID 110300500 (The Century Farm land)
Tax ID 110300501 (The Century Farm home)
The Treaty Period
Settler Colonialism
Beneficial.
“Several days elapsed before they would consent to any but terms of the most extravagant character . . . . Finally, on the 23rd of July, they were induced to sign a treaty, which, while it secures to the Government a large territory, second to none in value in the northwest, embodies provisions of a simple, but most beneficial character for the poor savages themselves, and well calculated, we think, if judiciously carried out, the same and elevate them from their present degraded condition.
Control.
“In the application of this policy to our wilder tribes, it is indispensably necessary that they be placed in positions where they can be controlled, and finally compelled, by stern necessity, to resort to agricultural labor or starve…. [I]t is only under such circumstances that his haughty pride can be subdued, and his wild energies trained to the more ennobling pursuits of civilized life.”
Alexander Ramsey, 1850 daguerrotype
Abrogated.
“Be it enacted . . . [t]hat all treaties heretofore made and entered into by the Sisseton, Wahpaton, Medawakanton, and Wahpakoota bands of Sioux or Dakota Indians . . . with the United States, are hereby declared to be abrogated and allulled, so far as said treaties or any of them purport to impose any future obligation on the United States, and all lands and rights of occupancy within the State of Minnesota, and all annuities and claims heretofore accorded to said Indians… [are declared] to be forfeited to the United States.
Primary Sources
& Markups
Current Law
Land Becomes Property
Primary Sources
& Markups
Aerial photograph of Century Farm by unknown artist (1938)
"Mendota from Fort Snelling" 1848 watercolor by Seth Eastman
There’s more
Curated Resource List for the Bidne Family
For a Dakota perspective on the history of the region:
Read Gwen Westerman and Bruce White, Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2012)
For Indigenous perspectives on U.S. history:
Read Ned Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History (Yale University Press, 2023)
Read Anton Treuer, Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians But Were Afraid to Ask: Revised and Expanded (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2023)
Share Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People (Beacon Press, 2019)
For a Dakota novel exploring identity and generational relationship:
Read Diane Wilson, The Seed Keeper (Milkweed, 2012)
“American homestead spring,” by Currier & Ives (1869)