At the beginning of each school board meeting in Rochester, MN the chairman gives an opening invocation: “The board acknowledges this site and all RPS sites are situated on the ancestral land of the Dakota people, and we honor the Dakota Nations and the sacred lands of all indigenous peoples.” The same, or similar, invocations are given at many public meetings in Minnesota. No evidence is ever given of the verity of the statement. Olmsted County in particular, has scant historical evidence of any permanent habitation by the Dakota, or any other Indian tribe before them.
Not every piece of land that the native people passed through, camped on or temporarily occupied was considered “sacred”. Nor were the Dakota people “indigenous” to Olmsted County or Minnesota. They were quite late arrivals from areas to the north and far east. Many others had preceded them and been displaced and absorbed. The Dakota considered places “sacred” which were associated with burials and origin myths. In Minnesota, the Dakota origin site is located at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers. It is at this place of the waters meeting that the Dakota believe they arrived in human form. Seven tribes of Dakota are said to have descended from the seven stars of Orion’s belt, arriving at this convergence. Other sacred sites are particular landmarks, burial grounds, mounds, and bodies of water. In Olmsted County, the only site qualifying as one of these is located at the top of a bluff, called Indian Heights, where several Indians were buried ceremonially in 1861. The area of Olmsted County was not within any permanent habitation of the Dakota people. It was a transition zone between the permanent settlements on the Mississippi River and the hunting grounds of Southwest Minnesota and the Dakotas. The Dakota were the last of the native occupants who lived and hunted in this area since the end of the glacial period.
Human habitation in the Olmsted County area has a long history, dating back 12,000 years to the end of the Ice Age. The area occupied by Olmsted, Goodhue, Winona and Dodge Counties was not covered by the massive Laurentide ice sheet, which extended as far south as the present course of the Minnesota River. A large finger of the glacier, called the Des Moines Lobe, extended southward into Iowa to just north of present-day Des Moines. Only a small sliver of southwest Minnesota was not covered along with the southeast tip of Minnesota. This is the reason that Olmsted County has no natural lakes, as the glaciers were not present to gouge them out of the landscape and the Mississippi River drained the glacial meltwaters to the east, forming the “driftless area” in Wisconsin and the bluffs from Minnesota to Iowa and Illinois.
The glaciers did not fully retreat into Canada until about 8,000 years ago. During the melting, the Minnesota River valley and the Mississippi River valley were formed. The two rivers join near Ft. Snelling south of the Minneapolis/St. Paul International airport. The state name, Minnesota, is derived from the Dakota language, “bdote mini sota,” meaning “junction of the two waters.”
There was human habitation in Olmsted County from 12,000 years ago. These were people from the Clovis Culture, the descendants of the original migrants to North America from Northeast Siberia in Asia. The Clovis people spread over the entire unfrozen portion of the North American continent and slowly followed the retreating glaciers into southern Canada. They were nomadic and did not settle in any permanent sites. Genetic data show that the Clovis people are the direct ancestors of roughly 80% of all living Native American populations in North and South America, with the remainder descended from ancestors who entered in several later smaller waves of migration from Siberia and central Asia.
Minnesota remained mostly uninhabited until about 500 BCE. Starting in 3000 BCE, the Hopewell and Adena cultures arose in central Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. They had migrated to the Midwest from eastern tribes living along the Atlantic coast and the Delaware River. The Hopewell were farmers and hunters who lived in small villages of 60 to 80 people in permanent dwellings. They raised corn (maize) imported from Mexico along with other vegetables like beans and squash. They also hunted both small animals like rabbits and squirrels and larger game animals like bison and deer. By 500 BCE they had expanded up the Mississippi River valley into Wisconsin and southern Minnesota. They were the “mound builders,” who built ceremonial and burial mounds. Technically speaking, the Hopewell were the first permanent settlers in Olmsted County, although the majority of the population lived along the St. Croix and Mississippi river valleys. The Hopewell culture thrived until 1000 CE, when they began to decline.
The last remnants of the Hopewell had disappeared completely by the 1500s. Around 1000 CE new tribes began to arrive in Minnesota. Two of these were the Ojibwe (also known as Chippewa) and the Dakota. The Ojibwe arrived in northern Minnesota, west of Lake Superior and south to the Minnesota River, after a long centuries-long migration from Quebec following the Great Lakes. The Dakota also arrived around this time, coming from the eastern coast of North Carolina and Virginia in another slow migration. The Ojibwe speak an Algonquin language dialect and the Dakota a different set of Siouan language dialects. They are also separated genetically, with the Ojibwe having migrated from Asia in a later smaller migration than the Dakota who are descended from the Clovis paleo hunters.
Around 1000 CE new tribes began to arrive in Minnesota. Two of these were the Ojibwe (also known as Chippewa) and the Dakota. The Ojibwe arrived in northern Minnesota, west of Lake Superior and south to the Minnesota River, after a long centuries-long migration from Quebec following the Great Lakes. The Dakota also arrived around this time, coming from the eastern coast of North Carolina and Virginia in another slow migration. The Ojibwe speak an Algonquin language dialect and the Dakota a different set of Siouan language dialects. They are also separated genetically, with the Ojibwe having migrated from Asia in a later smaller migration than the Dakota who are descended from the Clovis paleo hunters.
The Dakota are a subgroup of a larger group denoted by their language group – the Siouan (Sioux is a word derived from the Chippewa language (ancient Algonquin) word “na·towe·ssiw” meaning “to speak a foreign language.” The speakers of the Siouan language are the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota. There are two main groups of Dakota, the Eastern Dakota and the Western Dakota. The Western Dakota were the Yankton and Yanktonai tribes, which were the plains Indians residing in the Missouri River basin in North and South Dakota.
Of the Eastern Dakota, the Mdewakanton Sioux lived on the eastern side of the Mississippi River and along the St. Croix valley, stretching into southern Wisconsin. The Santee and Wahpeton occupied the central part of Minnesota, the Wahpekute lived in northern Iowa.
Initially, the Dakota and the Ojibwe competed fiercely for occupation of the same territory. The Ojibwe had arrived first and controlled the territory from the Minnesota River northward to Lake Superior and westward into northeastern North Dakota. They were woodland Indians preferring hunting to agriculture. The Dakota fought to occupy the same territory but were defeated and pushed south into Wisconsin and westward into central Minnesota and the eastern Dakotas, eventually settling into a mostly peaceful coexistence by the 1500s.
After the ice age glaciers retreated, the climate in Minnesota became drier and warmer. The southwest and central part of the state became a long grass prairie and home to the great bison herds. From the Mississippi Valley into northeastern Minnesota, a vast northern pine forest with stretches of marsh and numerous lakes and rivers. South Central Minnesota transitioned to a dense hardwood forest and broken prairie. In the west, the plains were mostly nomadic hunters following the migrations of the great bison herds. In the east, the Mdewakanton lived mostly in Wisconsin along the St. Croix and Mississippi river valleys, relying on agriculture, fishing, and small game hunting. The tangled hardwood forest covering Olmsted County and the surroundings was difficult to hunt with no natural lakes to fish. Thus Olmsted County was rarely permanently occupied by anyone. There were trails through the area to get from the river country to the plains and back but no permanent settlements. Winter settlements were in the river valleys. Any remaining people from the Hopewell culture were either displaced, killed or assimilated into the tribes. Probably a combination of all three. However, no permanent settlements were built or remained at that time.
The first white people in the area were French fur traders and hunters. The first explorers arrived in 1650. The earliest European explorers came to this area seeking a Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean. The French explorers, Father Louis Hennepin and Pierre Le Sueur, arrived in 1660. Later Jonathan Carver and other English explorers paddled their birch bark canoes to Minnesota – either up the Mississippi River or across Lake Superior. For almost two centuries, following this, a few non-natives came to the rolling plains and deep valleys of what is now southeastern Minnesota. In 1826 Fort. Snelling was built on the frontier at the junction of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers. In 1849 Minnesota was declared a territory of the United States. Under a treaty with the U.S. government concluded in 1853, the Dakota Santee relinquished the area, that would include Rochester, to the Territory of Minnesota.
In 1858 Minnesota Territory was admitted as the 32nd state of the Union. Rochester developed as a stop along the Dubuque trail, a stagecoach line between St. Paul and Dubuque, Iowa. Located at a crossroads near the Zumbro River, travelers would stop in this area to camp and water their animals. On July 12, 1854, George Head and his family laid claim to land that now forms part of Rochester’s central business district. It was there that they built a log cabin known as Head’s Tavern. Head named the city after his hometown of Rochester, NY. In 1855, the territorial legislature created Olmsted County, named after David Olmsted who was the first mayor of St. Paul but never a resident of the county named for him. Rochester was declared the county seat and was incorporated as a city on August 5, 1858. Drawn to the region by its cheap and fertile farm land, other settlers soon followed in Head’s footsteps, and within six years of his arrival, the town’s population had grown to 1,424 residents.
The following is taken from the Olmsted County Historical Society.
Before the white occupancy, the Indian title to this portion of the new land … was in the Wapasha or Red Wing band of Dakota. Their principal villages were on the Mississippi, at or near the present sites of Red Wing, Wabasha, Winona and La Crosse, and this far west (Olmsted County) would seem to have been only a hunting ground.
For the first few years after the arrival of white settlers, occasional small parties of Indians would camp for a few days in this vicinity on their way to or from the Mississippi, and as late as 1862 a party stayed a couple of days near the court house in Rochester. They were always peaceable, never disturbing the settlers except by their demands for something to satisfy their appetites. It is narrated in Eaton’s History as told by Esquire Bucklen, that about two hundred camped about six weeks in the early winter of 1854, on the river bottom near the mill in North Rochester, (this is now a foundation in Cascade Park) and lost four of their number by sickness, in consequence of which they changed their camp. These people were buried on the top of a hill in what is now Indian Hills Park in northeast Rochester. This burial spot (now unknown) would be considered a sacred site by the Dakota as are all known burial sites.
There is no reason to believe that the buffalo roamed over the Olmsted prairies; the bones or horns of the awkward beasts were not found by the first settlers, but elk were frequently seen and shot and their horns were often found. The last elk was taken on the Bamber farm by Asahel Smith, of Rochester, in 1859. It had been seen by a party consisting of Mr. Smith, George W. Baker and Horace Loomis, but Smith got the last shot. It was a beautiful young creature, as it lay displayed to public admiration on the sidewalk in front of Smith & Daniels’ office, on Broadway.
Also this: At an unknown date, human remains representing, at minimum, eight individuals were removed from an undesignated site in Olmsted County, MN, by unknown person(s) and donated to the Olmsted County Historical Society. In 1991, the human remains were transferred to the MIAC (H190). No known individuals are identified. No associated funerary objects are present.
The condition of the human remains, femora morphology and dental attrition pattern identify these remains as pre-contact American Indian. These human remains have no archeological classification and cannot be associated with any present-day Indian tribe. During the late 19th century, human remains representing, at minimum, one individual were removed from an unknown site in Olmsted County, MN, by unknown persons and donated to the Olmsted County Historical Society (Acc. 75.162.96). In 1994, the human remains were transferred to the MIAC (H273). No known individual was identified. No associated funerary objects are present.
So, the answer to “which people last lived, in a permanent fashion, in the area now known as Olmsted County” is the Hopewell, who lived here over 1,000 years ago. The Dakota were never permanent residents and many other tribes (the Fox, the Iowa, and the Winnebago) were transient visitors to the area as well. The Ojibwe came close to here (Ft. Snelling) but never made it this far south. Very little is known about the Hopewell, but a lot of their mounds and sites have been found. Some of these are very close to Olmsted County, but to date no site in the county has been found. There has been an archeological find of 12,000-year-old stone tools that were cached on a hilltop overlooking a tributary of the Whitewater River near Eyota that was found in 1930. Also an 11,000-year-old body exhumed in Browns Valley, MN, along with Clovis stone tools. That is about it.