Choice Review

Green (Augsburg College) presents a concise, well-written account of changing racial consciousness during an approximately 40-year stretch of Minnesota history (c.1830-c.1870). In preterritorial Minnesota, black, white, Native, and mixed-blood people interacted without institutionalized race-based distinctions or limitations. When Minnesota became a territory, the new legislature barred black males from voting, but enfranchised mixed-blood trappers in order to satisfy the 5,000 population requirement. Political disfranchisement of blacks continued though early statehood, notwithstanding a growing, vigorous anti-slavery sentiment and the perception on the part of some Minnesotans that the state could override the Dred Scott decision. In the absence of voting rights, blacks (males) still enjoyed modest access to economic opportunity, while Irish Catholic immigrants and Natives, to whom suffrage had been extended (even after Indian removal in 1863), faced increasing economic discrimination--the "peculiarity" in Green's title. The tide began to turn in 1865. Minnesota, on the third attempt, adopted black suffrage two years before the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. The author's discussion of partisan politics and race suggests that legalized discrimination may, indeed, have been "foolish," but it was also a matter of political expediency. A separate bibliography would have been a nice addition. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. R. B. Way Monroe County Community College