These educational materials are a resource for students, faculty, instructors, and staff to learn about and engage with the Morrill Act of 1862 in Wisconsin. The University of Wisconsin, established in 1848 and designated a land grant university, continues to benefit from the Morrill Act of 1862. Our materials integrate the Morrill Act of 1862 into a wider context, allowing users to better understand the history of UW as a land grant institution, the impact of the land grant system and dispossession on tribal nations across the state, and the ways the Morrill Act was part of a larger policy initiative aimed at shifting lands across the US from tribal hands to settler control. To do so, we use an interdisciplinary approach to incorporate historical texts, treaties, policies, land records, mapping, and oral histories into our materials to foster learning and discussion about the legacy of the Morrill Act.
The development of these materials was supported through a Humanities Initiatives at Colleges and Universities grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
To cite these materials please use the following:
Ruth Goldstein, Caroline Gottschalk, Ryan Hellenbrand, Hilary Habeck Hunt, Kasey Keeler, and Joeseph Mason [listed alphabetically], “Indigenous Lands Dispossession in Wisconsin and Beyond,” a project funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Author Bios:
Ruth Goldstein is an Assistant Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Caroline Gottschalk, Ph.D., is a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor in the Department of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Ryan Hellenbrand, PhD in Environment and Resources from UW-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, teaches at the Center for Agricultural Education and Research in Austria.
Hilary Habeck Hunt is a PhD candidate in the Nelson Institute’s Environment and Resources Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Kasey Keeler (Tuolumne Me-Wuk & Citizen Potawatomi) is an Associate Professor of American Indian & Indigenous Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Joe Mason is a Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Learning Materials
1862 Moment
The Morrill Act of 1862 was passed at a particular political moment in time. In order to fully grasp the extent of the Morrill Act, and Indigenous dispossession, it must be examined alongside other policies, land redistribution programs, and military engagements, of the same era.
Key Concepts for Understanding Indigenous Lands Dispossession In Wisconsin and Beyond
Key historical moments behind land grant universities, including the impacts of settler colonialism, federal government acts, the Wisconsin Idea, and more.
Land Grab Universities
This module explores the “powerful and painful strains of myth and money behind the land-grant university system, which broadened access to higher education in the United States.”
Land Tenure and Land Privatization
This module addresses how private ownership became the dominant U.S. land tenure system through the processes of enclosure in England and U.S. settler colonialism, and then explores land tenure systems that offer an alternative to private ownership systems.
Dams as Dispossession
As the Morrill Act and related 1860s legislation worked to “open” the Midwest to resource extraction, the pine tree trade depended on harnessing water power to transport and process lumber. This module examines the historic and contemporary impacts of dam building on white settlement, Treaty rights, and Native sovereignty, and introduces forms of Native resistance to dams and dispossession.
Mapping Indigenous Land Dispossession
This module allows students to use maps and documents to explore how the Public Land Survey System and public land laws were imposed on the landscape of what is now Wisconsin, as instruments of Indigenous land dispossession and to distribute that land to settlers as private property
Additional Resources
This module has additional resources such as maps and readings, to further explore Indigenous lands dispossession.