Half-Breed Tract

[2] Historically, the mixed-blood population in the Pays d'en Haut region surrounding the Great Lakes were typically the descendants of Native American women and White men, often men of French-Canadian or Scots (including Orcadian) origin, who dominated early fur trapping and trade.

In 1830 the federal government acknowledged this problem by the Fourth Treaty of Prairie du Chien, which effectively set aside a tract of land for mixed-blood people related to the Oto, Ioway, Omaha, Sac and Fox and Santee Sioux tribes.

Lying between the Mississippi, and Des Moines rivers and below an eastward extension of the Sullivan Line, the Tract occupied an area of approximately 119,000 acres (480 km2).

[citation needed] Under the original treaty, the half-breed people had the right to occupy the soil, but individuals could not buy or sell the land.

The government gave away mixed-blood peoples' claims to the land, effectively ending the provisions of the Half-Breed Tract by 1841.

[5][6] Mormon leader Joseph Smith, Jr. purchased parts of the Half-Breed Tract, probably in 1837, from a land speculation company.

Forty-two tracts of one-square mile each were reserved for the mixed blood children of French traders and Osage women.

[16] The 1830 Treaty of Prairie du Chien specified the following boundaries of a Half-Breed Tract centered around Lake Pepin, as follows: The Sioux bands in council have earnestly solicited that they might have permission to bestow upon the half-breeds of their nation the tract of land within the following limits, to wit: Beginning at the place called the Barn, below and near the village of the Red Wing chief, and running back fifteen miles; thence, in a parallel line with Lake Pepin and the Mississippi, about 32 miles, to a point opposite the river aforesaid; the United States agree to suffer said half-breeds to occupy said tract of country; they holding by the same title, and in the same manner that other Indian titles are held.This description includes a large part of what is now Wabasha County, Minnesota, and some part of Goodhue County, Minnesota.

[17] Despite the petitions of several "half-breed" landowners, who had by then lived there for more than twelve years, the U.S. government took the land in 1852 under the premise of serving as restitution against the Sioux for having violated the terms of an earlier treaty.

The land reclamation followed explorers' identification of the area as a "mineral region" with the prospect that, "lead will be found there, and probably copper also.