Before Euro-American Settlement:  Native Americans in Rice County

    Before Alexander Faribault became the first Euro-American to settle in the area now known as Rice County, the only ethnic group living there was a tribe of Dakota (or Sioux) Indians known as the Wapakoota.  In the Dakota language, Wapakoota means “the shooters in the leaves of indigenous pines” (Larson, 37).  The Wapakoota were the smallest of all the Dakota tribes living in Minnesota at this time. The Wapakoota lived off the land, using sustainable living methods like other Dakota tribes.  Their largest settlement in Rice County was concentrated around present day Cannon Lake.  When the Traverse-des-Sioux treaty was enacted in 1851, most of the Wapakoota were removed from the county, although several stayed and lived on land provided for them by Alexander Faribault. The rapid change in cultures in Rice County at this time resulted in a marked change in the physical landscape of the area, from prairie and forest to agricultural land.  The Wapakoota chief at the time of the Traverse-des-Sioux treaty was Chief Visiting Eagle (Larson, 36). The last person from the Wapakoota tribe left Rice County in 1859.
 
 

 Chief Visiting Eagle            Alexander Faribault             Map of Land Ceded in Minnesota by Indian Treaties

-pictures taken from Rice County Families: Their History, Our Heritage, Portraits and Memories of Rice County, Minnesota, and They Chose Minnesota:  A Survey of the States Ethnic Groups.
 
 

Predominant Ethnicities in Rice County from 1850-1885

    When Rice County began to be settled by Euro-Americans in the 1850’s, following the Traverse-de-Sioux treaty, there were several main areas that they came from.  The primary ethnic groups that concentrated in Rice County were from Britain, Canada (both British and French influenced areas), Czechoslovakia, Germany, Ireland, New England, Norway, and Sweden.  Numbers of immigrants from these areas stayed at about the same proportion from 1860  up until 1880  as the population began to swell (Holmquist, 137).  The largest amount of settlers came from Ireland, Canada, Germany, and Norway, but by the 1880’s, the Czechoslovakians made up a large number of Rice County residents.  After Alexander Faribault, the next settler in Rice County was Luke Hewlett, a New Englander who moved here in order to homestead a large farm in 1852 (Berg, 69).

Click above to see the amount of people living in Rice             Click above to see the amount of people living in Rice
County from various countries in 1860                                    County from various countries in 1880

A Closer Look at the Ethnicities of Bridgewater, Richland, and Wheatland Townships

    Bridgewater Township, in the northeastern part of Rice County, began to be settled by people primarily from New England.  This can in large part be attributed to John North, the founder of Northfield, because he made this area look like it was from New England.  Before long though, a large influx of German and Norwegian settlers began to populate this township as well.

    Richland Township, in southeastern Rice County, began with a large Norwegian settlement.  In fact, the prominence of the Norwegian immigrants was so great that many areas were named after them in this township.  The other two groups that contributed largely to the population of this township from 1860-1885 were the Irish and the Germans.

    Wheatland Township, in northwestern Rice County, began with a very large French-Canadian settlement.  By the year 1878 though, the dominant ethnicity in Wheatland Township was Czechoslovakian.  Most of the churches and the two towns that survive their today are very influenced by this ethnic group.
 
 

Typical Emigration Poster Used to Get People To Immigrate to Minnesota - picture taken from Rice County Nuggets

Click above to see the distribution of New Englanders, Brits, and Canadians  in Rice County in 1880

Click above to see the distribution of the Irish in Rice County in 1880

Click above to see the distribution of the Germans in Rice County in 1880

Click above to see the distribution of the Norwegians in Rice County in 1880

Click above to see the distribution of the Swedes in Rice County in 1880

Relationship of Ethnicity to Settlement Patterns in Rice County

    What was it about Rice County that attracted so many different ethnicities to settle within its boundaries?  There have been many differing views on this subject, but there has been no solid correlation between actual settlement patterns and these theories.  In the book Rice County Families:  Their History, Our Heritage, it states that "Norwegian settlers chose wooded areas, Germans chose the most fertile fields available, Irish chose peaty land areas, New Englanders were shrewd in choosing good farming land, and Czechs moved into previously cleared areas" (34).  These theories may be correct in some instances, but as we have seen from studying the three townships of Bridgewater, Richland, and Wheatland, these don't always hold true.  Richland Township is located in the section of Rice County that used to be a prairie biome, and yet the strongest ethnic influence in the area was Norwegian.  According to the above theory, this doesn't make sense since the Norwegians were supposed to prefer wooded lots to settle on.
    We can however determine a few things that most of the immigrants who settled in Rice County had in common.  First, most of the settlers left their homelands and traveled to America because of the promise of a better economic future (Holmquist, 25).  Almost all of these immigrants, whether from England, Germany, or Czechoslovakia, were from agricultural backgrounds, and the amount of usable land in their countries was becoming smaller and smaller.  With America came an unending supply of rich, inexpensive agricultural land for them to build their homes and livelihoods on.  To stay in their homelands meant they would not be able to support themselves or their families, but to come to America meant unending possibilities.  When the Minnesota Territory was opened up following the Traverse-des-Sioux treaty, people flocked to it because the land was available and cheap, and Rice County contains some of the most fertile soil in the state.  Second, once people had decided to immigrate to America, or more specifically Minnesota, they generally sought out areas where other people from their ethnic backgrounds had settled.  In fact, Wheatland Township, which houses the towns of Veseli and Lonsdale, is part of the largest Czech community in the state, mostly because when people from Czechoslovakia moved here, they wanted to be near other Czechoslovakian settlers (Holmquist, 339).  French-Canadians were said to have moved here because of Alexander Faribault, a French-Canadian fur trader who was the first settler in Rice County (Larsen, 1).  In the book Portraits and Memories of Rice County, Minnesota, Irish settlers were said to move here because of speeches made by General Shields, who also founded the town of Shieldsville for Irish settlers (6) .  People liked to settle in areas where they would feel a common bond with their neighbors, and the shared cultural bond was the strongest they could have.
    While we can't see a strong environmental correlation between the settlement patterns of the various ethnic groups that chose to live in Rice County, there were definite economic and social reasons why they chose to settle here.

-For an overview on the environmental context of Rice County when the settlers came, click here.

Quotes on why settlers chose specific areas of Rice County:

- In 1869 there were few Norwegian settlers in the city of Northfield, but because of three influential men, Pastor Bernt J. Muus, Pastor Quammen and Harold Thoreson, plus the establishment of St. John's Lutheran Church and St. Olaf College, Norwegians began to come to Northfield and eventually became a strong cultural influence there (Hong, 16).

- Ernst Fleckenstein from Bavaria, Germany, said she "came for scenic beauty, wooded hills, winding paths/narrow roads, reminder of old world charm, abundance of choice grain, good well water, and sand rock caves to help his brewery" (Swanberg 1976)

- Veseli-Wheatland Township was heavily wooded, and perhaps settlers chose to live here because in the old world only the rich had wooded land, so it appealed to them because it  represented higher importance (Swanberg 1976)

- According to Ludvig Broten, Webster was chosen because "the wooded area did not have winter storms, grasshoppers, fires of prairies" (Swanberg 1976)

- La Vern Rippley wrote an article called "Clearing timber was a big job for pioneers", and it outlines a reason why German immigrants may have chosen to live in wooded areas.  "A myth circulates that Germans believed that wooded land was more productive than grassland, and hence they tended to choose forested areas for homesteads.  However it is more likely the case that Germans were well informed about American agriculture and techniques back home.  Thus, they knew what they were getting into.  Manuals about American agriculture circulated throughout Germany, such as C.L. Fleischmann, Der Nordamerikanisch Landwirth: Ein Handbuch fur Ansiedler in den Vereinigten Staaten (Frankfurt am Main, 1852).  Fleischmann advocated selecting forested land along major river traffic ways or factories.  This way wood could be cut and sold for the first few years of settlement, ensuring a source of income.  He also advised farmers how to clear their land, preferring chopping or girdling.  The ash from burning the unused wood was to be used as fertilizer, according to Fleishmann.  An acre of forest yielded 75 to 150 bushels of ashes.  Fleishmann also advised how to remove stumps from the land, something that many immigrants were not familiar with doing".

- John North supposedly attracted New Englanders/Yankees to Northfield because he designed to town to be in the style of New England towns (Weicht, CL, "Residents, Citizens, Neighbors" in Carlin, 23)

- John North also promoted Minnesota to people back east and to newspapers.  He shaped Northfield into a New England community, ignored the contours of the land and laid it out in a grid pattern (Jeffery, Kirk, "Bread and Butter" in Carlin, 41).
 
 

Relationship of Ethnicity to Agriculture

    As with settlement patterns and ethnicity, there does not appear to be any strong correlation between agriculture and ethnicity.  No literature was found in any of the county histories, and comparisons between the census data for Bridgewater, Richland, and Wheatland Townships shows rather small differences between the types of crops and livestock raised in each township.  Since we know what ethnicities were predominant in each of the three townships, and that they differ from each other,  we could determine what farming differences there were between the different ethnicities, if any.  When exploring the census data though, not very many differences were found, and some of the larger differences are thought to be attributed to the landscape more than cultural differences.  For example, in 1860 Richland Township did produce wheat in larger amounts than Bridgewater and Wheatland, but this is thought to be due to the fact that this township was located in the prairie, so the clearing of forests was not required, as it was for the other two townships.  For the most part though, everything appears to have been raised or grown in similar proportions within the three townships.  By 1880, wheat was by far the most widely grown crop in the three townships, followed by oats and Indian corn.  As for livestock, the numbers were fairly similar across the board, but showed a decrease in oxen as the use of horses began to rise, and an increase in sheep production around 1870, possibly due to the fact that the Faribault Woolen Mill opened in 1865 (Swanberg, 1976).  Dairy cattle also seems to have become more popular in all three townships, as Rice County became an important center for dairy production.  The only significant difference that could possibly be attributed to ethnicity appears to be the use of work animals.  Wheatland Township did have a larger amount of oxen in 1880 while Bridgewater and Richland Townships had more horses, so perhaps the Czechoslovakian culture preferred using oxen while Germans, Norwegians, and Irish liked using horses better.  On the other hand, it is possible that since horses were more expensive, maybe people living in Wheatland did not do as well economically as the people living in Richland and Bridgewater and could not afford them, which has nothing to do with cultural differences. Despite these small differences, it appears that overall the same agricultural trends seemed to be echoed across township and ethnic lines.  Whatever crop or animal was the most lucrative at the time seemed to rule the amount that was raised, not what cultural differences there were between the farmers.

- For an overview on agricultural practices in Rice County from 1850-1885, click here.
- To look at the census data for Rice County from 1860-1880, click here.
 
 

Haying in Early Rice County                           Harvesting with a Grain Binder and Horses        A Typical Farm Yard in Early Days
- pictures taken from Rice County Families:  Their History, Our Heritage

Click here for quotes made by the early Rice County settlers.