History of slavery in Minnesota
Aspect of American history
Slavery has been forbidden in the state of Minnesota since that state's admission to the Union in 1858. The second section of the first Article of the state's constitution, drafted in 1857, provides that:
There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude from the State otherwise there is the punishment of crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.
Colonial period
During early European exploration, the area of present-day Minnesota was part of New France and, as such, was governed by its slavery laws.
United States territory
The first legislation against slavery was the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which forbade slavery in the Northwest Territory, which included those parts of Minnesota that are east of the Mississippi. However, territorial laws and practices allowed human bondage to continue in various forms. Territorial governors Arthur St. Clair and Charles Willing Byrd supported slavery and did not enforce the ordinance.
Slavery at Fort Snelling
When Fort Snelling was built in 1820, fur traders and officers at the post, including Colonel Josiah Snelling, used enslaved labor for cooking, cleaning, and other household chores. Although enslavers were in violation of both the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and the Missouri Compromise of 1820, an estimated 15–30 enslaved African Americans worked at Fort Snelling at one time. US Army officers submitted pay vouchers and received extra income for retaining an enslaved African-American.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “History of slavery in Minnesota” is aspect of American history. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through History, slavery and Minnesota, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “History of slavery in Minnesota” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.