After the American Revolution and the departure of the North West Company (which eventually merged with the Hudson’s Bay Company) in the early years of the 19th century, many of the company’s employees became independent fur traders or joined up with the American Fur Company, which had formed in 1808 and soon was by far the dominant power in the trade throughout Minnesota and the Great Lakes region.
Many French-speaking traders and their children, often of mixed background (Native and European), stayed in Minnesota and played important roles in Minnesota’s early statehood. Examples are Jean-Baptiste Faribault, a trader born in Quebec, who became a U.S. citizen after the War of 1812; Hypolite Dupuis, who was born near Montreal and lived at Mendota where he clerked for American Fur Company trader Henry Hastings Sibley; Joseph LaFramboise Jr., born to French-Canadian father Louis Joseph LaFramboise and Odawa mother Magdelaine LaFramboise near Grand Rapids, Michigan, who was a trader and interpreter in southwest Minnesota; and Alexis Bailly, son of French-Canadian trader Joseph Bailly and his wife Marie (French-Odawa background): Alexis came to Minnesota and worked with the American Fur Company, marrying a daughter of Jean-Baptiste Faribault and serving in the first Minnesota Territorial Legislature.
French speakers, both those of European origin and mixed origin, were among those who came to settle in the northwest part of Minnesota as part of the Red River Settlement, also known as the Selkirk Settlement, in the early decades of the 19th century. Another group of French speakers came into Minnesota in the late 19th century. When the province of Manitoba was created, it was intended that it would be officially bilingual, and Catholic leaders from the eastern part of Canada encouraged Quebec families to move to the new province. Since the most direct route to Winnipeg passed through Duluth, immigration agents for the Americans recruited a fair number of French-speaking families to stop their trip there and settle in Minnesota instead of Manitoba. Francophone communities were established in a number of places in current Polk and Red Lake counties including Terrebonne, Lafontaine, and Lac aux Erables. And the city of St. Paul is named after a chapel constructed in 1841. The chapel was named by Lucien Galter, a French priest assigned to Minnesota who had been recruited by Dubuque’s Bishop Mathias Loras, in honor of his patron saint.
Red River Trails and Oxcarts
A unique aspect of the French heritage of Minnesota is the important economic role played by the Red River Trails, which meandered through the state. The system was a crucial route for both commerce and immigration in the first half of the 19th century. This system linked the Red River Settlement near present-day Winnipeg, Manitoba, to St. Paul, Minnesota and the Mississippi River valley. Buffalo hides and robes worth millions of dollars annually were collected by Métis hunters on the plains and transported down the trails in the famous Red River oxcarts to markets in St. Paul.
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