Law provides for free public schools to be open to all people between four and twenty-one years of age. Minnesota Historical Society formed to collect, publish, and educate people about Minnesota history. James Madison Goodhue begins publishing Minnesota's first newspaper, the Minnesota Pioneer. Treaties concluded at Traverse des Sioux and Mendota with the Dakota Indians whereby the Dakota ceded their lands east of the Red River, Lake Traverse, and the Big Dakota River and south of a boundary line between the Dakota and Chippewa in 1825. The vast majority ended up being used to pay off Indian debts to white traders.
Wheat becomes a major crop in Minnesota.
1851 Charter granted to the University of Minnesota, the first collegiate institution in the territory. 1853-1857 Population explosion occurs in Minnesota from 40,000 people in 1853 to approximately 150,000 people in 1857. St. Paul becomes a city with a total area of four square miles. The Dred Scott Decision is rendered by the United States Supreme Court, where a Missouri slave, Dred Scott, sued for his freedom based in part upon his residence in Minnesota. Amidst the sectional and racial animosity sweeping the nation, the court ruled Scott remained a slave.