Blue Earth County is a county in the State of Minnesota. As of the 2020 census, the population was 69,112. Its county seat is Mankato. The county is named for the Blue Earth River and for the deposits of blue-green clay once evident along the banks of the Blue Earth River.
Scouting in Minnesota has a long history, from the 1910s to the present day, serving thousands of youth in programs that suit the environment in which they live.
Mankato is a city in Blue Earth, Nicollet, and Le Sueur counties in the state of Minnesota. The population was 44,488 according to the 2020 census, making it the 21st-largest city in Minnesota, and the 5th-largest outside of the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area. It is along a large bend of the Minnesota River at its confluence with the Blue Earth River. Mankato is across the Minnesota River from North Mankato. Mankato and North Mankato have a combined population of 58,763 according to the 2020 census. It completely encompasses the town of Skyline. North of Mankato Regional Airport, a tiny non-contiguous part of the city lies within Le Sueur County. Most of the city is in Blue Earth County.
Henry Hastings Sibley was a fur trader with the American Fur Company, the first U.S. Congressional representative for Minnesota Territory, the first governor of the state of Minnesota, and a U.S. military leader in the Dakota War of 1862 and a subsequent expedition into Dakota Territory in 1863.
Henry Benjamin Whipple was the first Episcopal bishop of Minnesota, who gained a reputation as a humanitarian and an advocate for Native Americans.
The Battle of Fort Ridgely was an early battle in the Dakota War of 1862. Built between 1853–1855 in the southern part of what was then the territory of Minnesota, Fort Ridgely was the only military post between the Dakota Reservation and the settlers. As of August 18, 1862, the fort was garrisoned by 76 men and two officers of Company B of the 5th Minnesota Infantry Regiment, under the command of Captain John S. Marsh, who had fought in the Civil War in the First Battle of Bull Run.
The Sioux Wars were a series of conflicts between the United States and various subgroups of the Sioux people which occurred in the later half of the 19th century. The earliest conflict came in 1854 when a fight broke out at Fort Laramie in Wyoming, when Sioux warriors killed 31 American soldiers in the Grattan Massacre, and the final came in 1890 during the Ghost Dance War.
The Battle of Stony Lake was the third and last engagement of Henry Hastings Sibley's 1863 campaign against the Santee, Yankton, Yanktonai and Teton Sioux in Dakota Territory. Following the battle, the Indians fought delaying actions against Sibley until their women and children had successfully crossed the Missouri River. Sibley then gave up his chase of them.
The Battle of Whitestone Hill was the culmination of the 1863 operations against the Sioux or Dakota people in Dakota Territory. Brigadier General Alfred Sully attacked a village September 3–5, 1863. The Native Americans in the village included Yanktonai, Santee, and Teton (Lakota) Sioux. Sully killed, wounded, or captured 300 to 400 Sioux, including women and children, at a cost of about 60 casualties. Sully would continue the conflict with another campaign in 1864.
Big Eagle was the chief of a band of Mdewakanton Dakota in Minnesota. He played an important role as a military leader in the Dakota War of 1862. Big Eagle surrendered soon after the Battle of Wood Lake and was sentenced to death and imprisoned, but was pardoned by President Abraham Lincoln in 1864. Big Eagle's narrative, "A Sioux Story of the War," was first published in 1894, and is one of the most widely cited first-person accounts of the 1862 war in Minnesota from a Dakota point of view.
The Treaty of Traverse des Sioux was signed on July 23, 1851, at Traverse des Sioux in Minnesota Territory between the United States government and the Upper Dakota Sioux bands. In this land cession treaty, the Sisseton and Wahpeton Dakota bands sold 21 million acres of land in present-day Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota to the U.S. for $1,665,000.
The Battle of Wood Lake occurred on September 23, 1862, and was the final battle in the Dakota War of 1862. The two-hour battle, which actually took place at nearby Lone Tree Lake, was a decisive victory for the U.S. forces led by Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley. With heavy casualties inflicted on the Dakota forces led by Chief Little Crow, the "hostile" Dakota warriors dispersed. Little Crow and 150 followers fled for the northern plains, while other Mdewakantons quietly joined the "friendly" Dakota camp started by the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands, which would soon become known as Camp Release.
The Battle of Birch Coulee occurred September 2–3, 1862 and resulted in the heaviest casualties suffered by U.S. forces during the Dakota War of 1862. The battle occurred after a group of Dakota warriors followed a U.S. burial expedition, including volunteer infantry, mounted guards and civilians, to an exposed plain where they were setting up camp. That night, 200 Dakota soldiers surrounded the camp and ambushed the Birch Coulee campsite in the early morning, commencing a siege that lasted for over 30 hours, until the arrival of reinforcements and artillery led by Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley.
The Dakota War of 1862, also known as the Sioux Uprising, the Dakota Uprising, the Sioux Outbreak of 1862, the Dakota Conflict, the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, or Little Crow's War, was an armed conflict between the United States and several bands of eastern Dakota also known as the Santee Sioux. It began on August 18, 1862, at the Lower Sioux Agency along the Minnesota River in southwest Minnesota.
Shakopee or Chief Shakopee may refer to one of at least three Mdewakanton Dakota leaders who lived in the area that became Minnesota from the late 18th century through 1865. The name comes from the Dakota Śakpe meaning "Six." According to tribal histories, the very first "Shakpe" was called that because he was the sixth child of a set of sextuplets.
Wabasha III (Wapahaśa) was a prominent Dakota Sioux chief, also known as Joseph Wabasha. He succeeded his father as head chief of the Mdewakanton Dakota in 1836. Following the Dakota War of 1862 and the forced removal of the Dakota to Crow Creek Reservation, Wabasha became known as head chief of the Santee Sioux. In the final years of his life, Chief Wabasha helped his people rebuild their lives at the Santee Reservation in Nebraska.
We-Chank-Wash-ta-don-pee, or Chaska was a Native American of the Dakota who was executed in a mass hanging near Mankato, Minnesota, in the wake of the Dakota War of 1862, despite the fact that President Abraham Lincoln had commuted his death sentence days earlier.
The Department of the Northwest was an U.S. Army Department created September 6, 1862 to put down the Sioux uprising in Minnesota. Major General John Pope was made commander of the Department. At the end of the Civil War the Department was redesignated the Department of Dakota. Immediately upon arriving in St. Paul General Pope sent letters to the Governors of Iowa and Wisconsin for additional troops to assist the 5th Minnesota Infantry Regiment. From Iowa he got the 27th Iowa Infantry Regiment and from Wisconsin he received the 25th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment. Both quickly crossed the border to assist with the uprising. The 25th Wisconsin was in Minnesota three months and the 27th Iowa was there a month before both headed south. After they departed, the Minnesota District would be garrisoned by Minnesota units: 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th Infantry Regiments, 1st and 2nd Minnesota Cavalry Regiments plus Minnesota Independent Cavalry Battalion as well as the 3rd Minnesota Light Artillery Battery. In 1864 companies of the 30th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment would see service in the Minnesota and Dakota Districts too.
Joseph Godfrey was an African American who escaped from slavery into a Dakota community in Minnesota, United States, and fought on their side during the Dakota War of 1862. He was the only African-American combatant of the war.
The Knights of the Forest was a secret organization formed in Mankato, Minnesota, in 1862 or early 1863, with the stated purpose of eliminating all Indians from Minnesota. Tribes with reservations in Minnesota at the time included the Anishinaabe or Ojibwe, the Sioux, and the Winnebago. The Winnebagoes had been removed to Minnesota from Wisconsin where they had displaced a few white settlers. Apparently the Knights of the Forest lasted for several years, but because of the high level of secrecy, no official accounts were published at the time. Years later, accounts began to appear in local publications such as the Mankato Review.
