The Friends Blog

Degrees of Freedom: The Origins of Civil Rights in Minnesota, 1865-1912 Spanning the half-century after the Civil War, Degrees of Freedom draws a rare picture of black experience in a northern state and of the nature of black discontent and action within a predominantly white, ostensibly progressive society. Green reveals little-known historical characters among the black men…

Mni Sota Makoce, The Land of the Dakota Much of the focus on the Dakota people in Minnesota rests on the tragic events of the 1862 U.S.–Dakota War and the resulting exile that sent the majority of the Dakota to prisons and reservations beyond the state’s boundaries. But the true depth of the devastation of…

North Country: The Making of Minnesota The untold history of how the land of the Dakota and Ojibwe became the State of Minnesota North Country: The Making of Minnesota unlocks the complex origins of the state—origins that have often been ignored in favor of legend and a far more benign narrative of immigration, settlement, and cultural…