The Meaning of Minnesota  

The name Minnesota comes from the Dakota (Sioux) words mnisota, meaning "sky-tinted waters" or "sky-blue waters." There are numerous Indian origin place names throughout the state, many beginning with mni or minne, meaning water. For example, Minneapolis is a hybrid of "minne" and "polis," the Greek word for city, which together form "city of water" or "City of Lakes."

Dakota and Ojibwe languages, family, political structure and spirituality arose from and were shaped by the landscape. In Minnesota, there are seven Anishinaabe (Chippewa or Ojibwe) reservations and four Dakota (Sioux) communities.

A reservation or community is a segment of land that belongs to one or more groups of American Indians. It is not land that was given to Native Americans by the federal government. It is land that was retained by Native American tribes after ceding large portions of the original homelands to the United States through treaty agreements.

Pipestone National Monument, Pipestone

Minnesota's recorded history begins at Jeffers Petroglyphs Historic Site in the southwest corner of the state where for thousands of years Native Americans have traced life stories in rock carvings. Near Jeffers Petroglyphs is the "Crossroads of the Indian World," at The Great Pipestone Quarries, now the Pipestone National Monument.

The Pipestone quarries of Minnesota have been a sacred site for Native American tribal people for over 1,000 years. Many nations of Indian people came to these quarries as the pipestone was a very precious trade item throughout the Tribal Nations—from Hudson Bay, Canada to the Anazazi and Aztec of Mexico. As a result, the Pipestone region became the major crossroads for trade in the Americas. Today, pipestone articles are sold by the Pipestone Indian Shrine Association, which runs the gift shop at the Monument, and The Keepers of the Sacred Tradition of Pipemakers at a gift shop and gallery in the town of Pipestone. Both shops are owned and operated by Native Americans.

Tucked among the rolling prairie landscape, reddish pink pipestone (or catlinite) can still be found and hand-quarried following Plains Indian traditions for more than 2,000 years. Soft enough to skillfully carve into animals and people, the prized pipestone became one of the most cherished and sacred possessions of the Plains Indians.

Carvers may still be seen carefully sculpting and sanding the rock at the Pipestone National Monument visitor center, which includes exhibits on pipestone history and the efforts to protect this sacred site. A scenic walking trail includes a look at prairie, small quarries and the beautiful Winnewissa Falls.

Grand Portage National Monument, Grand Portage

The Grand Portage National Monument along Lake Superior focuses on the North West Fur Company, which relied in part on Ojibwe Indians to help keep the early 1800s North American fur trade booming. European traders offered everything from cast iron cookware, knives, beads and blankets in exchange for furs, maple sugar and wild rice from Native Americans.

The large complex of buildings originally built by the British Northwest Company in the late 1700s was reconstructed to allow celebration of the fur trade and Ojibwe way of life. The portage trail itself has also been separately designated a Minnesota State Historic Site. As early as 2,000 years ago, Native Americans used Gichi-onigaming, or "the great carrying place," to travel from summer homes on Lake Superior to winter hunting grounds in the interior of Minnesota and Ontario. The Grand Portage trail is an 8.5-mile (13.7 km) portage around the High Falls on the Pigeon River which forms the border between Minnesota and Ontario, Canada. Voyageurs from the interior of Canada would carry their furs by canoe down river to Grand Portage.

The visitor center uses new technology such as projecting digital images into a tipi and participatory virtual trading that captures how families could survive the winter. Costumed interpreters at the historic fort explain life in the fur era, which was always liveliest during the annual North West Company Rendezvous. Re-enactors continue this event the second full weekend in August in conjunction with the Rendezvous Days Powwow, sponsored by the Grand Portage Reservation.

Nearby, petroglyphs can be found in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness of northern Minnesota. Within the Boundary Waters are hundreds of these petroglyphs and pictographs on rock ledges and cliffs. The area is part of the historic homeland of the Ojibwe people who traveled the waterways in birch bark canoes. Prior to Ojibwe settlement, the area was sparsely populated by the Dakota who dispersed westward and southward following the arrival of the Ojibwe.

Minnesota River Valley

The 1851 Traverse des Sioux Treaty opened up close to 24 million acres of the Minnesota territory to European settlement and marked the end of an era for Minnesota’s Dakota tribes that had followed bison across the Great Plains. Restricted to reservation lands but guaranteed payments, the Dakota were starving a decade later when Civil War gripped America and payments weren’t delivered as promised. Frustrations exploded into violence and the short, but deadly, U.S. Dakota War in 1862.

The Treaty Site History Center near St. Peter is a good place to start learning about this historical turning point. Other parts of the story are told at historic sites all along the Minnesota River Valley. Other notable stops include the Lower Sioux Agency historic site near Morton, New Ulm’s Brown County Historical Society, Fort Ridgely State Park near Fairfax and Historic Fort Snelling in the Twin Cities. Visitors at the Upper Sioux Agency State Park near Granite Falls can reserve a tipi, fall asleep looking up at the stars and imagine the Dakotas’ long-ago life on the prairie.