Indigenous History

Indigenous people have lived in the southwestern part of Minnesota since the melting of the Laurentide Ice Sheet around 8,000 BCE. These included the Dakhóta (Dakota) and the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) peoples. These groups may also be known as the Sioux and Chippewa respectively.

The Dakota people consider Minnesota their birthplace, while the Ojibwe people saw a slow migration westward from the east coast after the arrival of European settlers around the 1600s.

In what would later become Plymouth, both the Dakota and Ojibwe people held Medicine Lake as an important place. The name Medicine Lake is believed to come from an anglicization of the name Mdewakanton (Med-ah-wah-kah-ton), which means “dwellers of the spirit lake,” and comes from the name of the Dakota Peoples that lived there. The Dakota called Medicine Lake ‘I Capa Cagastaka Mde’ (E SA-pa CHA-ha-SHTA-ka Bid) which can be translated as “Where the Beavers Strike Their Mouths in the Manner of an Indian Warcry.”

The lake was important in many ways to both the Ojibwe and the Dakota peoples. The lake shore and surrounding forests provided opportunities to hunt, fish, trap, and farm. As well as a place to harvest maple sugar, acorns, and wild rice. The lake and the connected Bassett Creek (Dakota: Ȟaȟá Wakpádaŋ) provided a continuous waterway for easy transportation to the Mississippi River (Dakota: Ȟaȟá Wakpá; Objibwe: Gichi-ziibi).

Prior to the 1900s, Plymouth was the location of 7 burial mounds. These mounds, sometimes called Indian Mounds, were used for burial to honor esteemed members of their community.

Due to the early destruction of the mounds, we know very little about them. Within the United States thousands of mounds have been destroyed as a result of farming, amateur and professional archaeology, as well as roadbuilding and construction.