Red River Valley

The population centers of Moorhead, Minnesota; Fargo and Grand Forks, North Dakota; and Winnipeg, Manitoba, developed in the valley as settlement by ethnic Europeans increased in the late nineteenth century.

The valley was long an area of habitation by various indigenous cultures, including the historic Ojibwe and Métis peoples.

In the early 19th century, the lucrative fur trade attracted continuing interest, and Lord Selkirk established the Red River Colony.

[2] In 1803 the United States acquired former French territory west of the Mississippi River in the Louisiana Purchase from France.

The U.S. government uses the term Red River Valley generally to describe the sections of northwestern Minnesota and eastern North Dakota to which it secured title following the Anglo-American Convention of 1818 that settled the northern boundary of the US and Canada.

[3] This land became part as the second article of the 1818 treaty declared the 49th parallel to be the official border between the U.S. and Canada up to the Rocky Mountains.

[4] West of the Red River Valley, the territory of the Louisiana Purchase, which the US acquired from France, extends north of the 49th parallel.

These northernmost parts of the Louisiana Purchase are one of the few North American territories ever ceded by the United States to a foreign power.

As a result, runoff from the southern portion of the valley gradually joins the fresh melt-off waters from northerly areas along the Red River.