he M'day-wa-kon-tons and
Wak-pay-koo-tays. By this treaty these bands ceded to the United States
all their lands in the Territory of Minnesota or State of Iowa, for
which they were to be paid $1,410,000, very much in the same way that
was provided in the last-named treaty with the Si-si-tons and
Wak-pay-tons. This treaty, also, was amended by the senate, and not
fully perfected until Feb. 24, 1853.

Both of these treaties contained the provision that "The laws of the
United States, prohibiting the introduction and sale of spirituous
liquors in the Indian country, shall be in full force and effect
throughout the territory hereby ceded and lying in Minnesota until
otherwise directed by congress or the president of the United States." I
mention this feature of the treaty because it gave rise to much
litigation as to whether the treaty making power had authority to
legislate for settlers on the ceded lands of the United States. The
power was sustained. These treaties practically obliterated the Indian
title from the lands composing Minnesota, and its extinction brings us
to the

TERRITORIAL PERIOD.

It must be kept in mind that, during the period which we have been
attempting to review, the people who inhabited what is now Minnesota
were subject to a great many different governmental jurisdictions. This,
however, did not in any way concern them, as they did not, as a general
thing, know or care anything about such matters; but as it may be
interesting to the retrospective explorer to be informed on the subject,
I will briefly present it. Minnesota has two sources of parentage. The
part of it lying west of the Mississippi was part of the Louisiana
purchase, made by President Jefferson from Napoleon Bonaparte in 1803,
and the part east of that river was part of the Northwest Territory,
ceded by Virginia, in 1784, to the United States. I will give the
successive changes of political jurisdiction, beginning on the west side
of the river.

First, it was part of New Spain, and Spanish. It was then purchased from
Spain by France, and became French. On June 30, 1803, it became
American, by purchase from France, and was part of the Province of
Louisiana, and so remained until March 26, 1804, when an act was passed
by congress, creating the Territory of Orleans, which included all of
the Louisiana purchase south of the thirty-third degree of north
latitude. This act gave the Territory of Louisiana a government, and
call