Minnesota, like most states - and particularly those in the Midwest - has a complicated, often dark, history surrounding its relationship with the Native peoples who occupied its landscape before settlement. One of the key sites in that history is Traverse des Sioux, near the present-day city of St. Peter. Now a park and historic site, Traverse des Sioux was home to a bustling village, first occupied by the Dakota people who were later joined by White fur traders, then settlers. It was also the site where a notorious 1851 treaty was signed. Walking these historical trails in Minnesota, along the river and over the lands where the long-gone settlement once lay is, likewise, complicated: simultaneously beautiful and haunting.

Traverse des Sioux is named for a shallow point on the Minnesota River that the Dakota and other Native peoples used as a traditional crossing point.

Today it is a St. Peter City Park, as well as a Minnesota historical site managed by the Nicollet County Historical Society.

It’s historically significant as the site where the U.S. government signed an 1851 treaty with the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands of Dakota people.

The 1851 Treaty of Traverse des Sioux resulted in most of what is now southwestern Minnesota, along with parts of Iowa and South Dakota, being ceded to the United States.

However, Congress essentially broke the treaty before it was even ratified, coercing the Dakota into what amounted to a unilateral land grab. Visit the ​​Minnesota Historical Society online to learn more about the 1851 Treaty of Traverse des Sioux.

At the time the treaty was signed, Traverse des Sioux had become a bustling village of more than 70 buildings, with taverns, a church, and even a hotel.

What had been a traditional river crossing and settlement for the Dakota had become a fur trading exchange, and later, as news of the impending treaty spread, a gathering place for eager White settlers.

But the county seat was moved to St. Peter, and by the 1860s, nothing was left of the village at Traverse des Sioux.

Today, the site is criss-crossed by a network of trails.

You can hike and explore this pivotal site in Dakota, United States, and Minnesota history.

Walk along the forested river bottoms, and imagine yourself crossing here.

Follow the trails across the prairie and try to imagine Native lodges commingled with the cabins and buildings of White fur traders and settlers.

The exact site where the treaty was signed is marked by a plaque on a stone.

Restored cabins dot the grounds, illustrating the types of structures that may have once stood here.

But the quiet landscape offers little else to evoke the village that once lay here or the thriving culture that had inhabited this site for centuries before.

If you follow the Minnesota River valley from St. Peter to Mankato, and on toward its headwaters at Big Stone Lake, you'll encounter several state, local, and tribal historical sites that interpret the Dakota people's history in and relationship to the land that is now the United States and southern Minnesota - and the effects of broken treaties and settlement on the Dakota. When I visit such sites, I usually take a weekend to road trip to a few of them. I find it helps me to gain greater context than I would from visiting a single place. Many sites, like Traverse des Sioux and the Treaty Site History Center, demand repeat visits, as the landscape is constantly changing, and there are always new insights and perspectives to be gained.

Have you hiked the ghostly trails of this abandoned village along the Minnesota River? Let us know in the comments.