Southern Minnesota as a Borderland

The St. Olaf community is welcome to attend a talk on Southern Minnesota as a Boarderland. Homesteading, war, and immigration all intersected in the southern plains of Minnesota in 1862. Just as immigrants flooded into Minnesota with the hopes of claiming up to 160 acres of land, the US-Dakota War broke out.

This presentation will explore these three transformative, intersecting moments in Minnesota history and how opportunity for immigrants like Norwegians was tied to forceful dispossession.