Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/106

 72 IIISTOKY OF GOODHUE COUNTY the Mississippi became the dividing line, and France ceded the entire tract west of the river to Spain. By the treaty follow- ing the American Revolution, practically all of what is now that portion of the United States lying east of the Mississippi, with the exception of Florida, which was later purchased from Spain, was virtually acknowledged as a part of the new American republic, Spain retaining her claim to the territory west of the Mississippi. In 1800, Spain restored the territory to France, and in 1803 Napoleon ceded it to the United States. This tenure of nearly forty years by Spain made no impress upon what is now Minnesota. The precarious grip of the French kings left no political or racial influence, but the brave and courageous French explorers have bequeathed their names, written in fearless char- acters in the cognomens applied to cities and rivers; and their deeds, set forth in manuscripts still preserved, will form a romantic page in the history of the state for all time to come. During these changes of possession, which were but moves in the game played on the checkerboards of European polities, the territory now known as Goodhue county remained in the prac- tical possession of the Indians, and untrod by white men, save as here and there an adventurer or trader landed upon the Mis- sissippi shore; or a band of hardy soldiers established for a time their stockades. The task of dividing the great Louisiana pur- chase, of which the present Goodhue county was a part, became an important one. In 1812, Louisiana was admitted as a state, and the rest of the purchase was reorganized as Missouri territory. In 181!). Missouri framed a slate constitution, and in 1834 the district north of Missouri and west of the Mississippi river was a pari of the land placed under the jurisdiction of Michigan territory. When "Wisconsin territory was organized, from the western part of Michigan, in 1836, the present states of Iowa and Minnesota were a part of it, and the seat of govern- ment was fixed at Burlington, dune 12, 1838, Congress passed 4n act separating Iowa from Wisconsin, what is now Minnesota, west of the Mississippi, being included in the territory of Iowa. In Iowa territorial days the greater part of southern and south- eastern Minnesota was within the jurisdiction of Clayton county. Henry II. Sibley was a justice of the peace in that county. The county seat was 250 miles distant, and his jurisdiction extended over a region of country, which, as he expressed it, was "as large as the empire of France." General Sibley lived in Men- dota, from 1835 to 1862, and in that time, without leaving home, he had lived in the territories of- Michigan, AVisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, and in the state of Minnesota. From 1846 until March 3, 1849, when Minnesota was admitted as a territory, the state was practically a no-man's land, being in a vague way