Pembina Region
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The Pembina Region (/ˈpɛmbɪnə/ PEM-bi-nə), also referred to as the Pembina District and Pembina Department,[1] is the historic name of an unorganized territory of land that was ceded to the United States in 1818. The area included the portions of what became the States of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota lying within the Hudson Bay drainage basin. The area included settlements in the Pembina River area. The region was formerly part of British Rupert's Land, granted by British royal charter to the Hudson's Bay Company. After the Selkirk Concession and establishment of the agricultural Red River Colony in 1812, the area was governed as the District of Assiniboia. The Treaty of 1818 de jure transferred the region south of the 49th parallel to the United States from the British. Settlements south of the boundary continued to be de facto administered as part of Assiniboia until at least 1823.
Pembina Region | |||||||||||||||||
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Unorganized territory of United States | |||||||||||||||||
1818–1889 | |||||||||||||||||
Capital | Washington DC (1818–1849) Bismarck (1883–1889) | ||||||||||||||||
• Type | Unorganized unincorporated Territory or Region | ||||||||||||||||
History | |||||||||||||||||
• Former British Territory | October 19, 1818 | ||||||||||||||||
• Created from Treaty of 1818 | 1818 | ||||||||||||||||
• US/British boundary change to US | 1818 | ||||||||||||||||
• To Territory of Missouri | October 20, 1818 | ||||||||||||||||
• unorganized Territory (after Missouri became a state) | August 10, 1821 | ||||||||||||||||
• Dakota Territotry | March 2, 1861 | ||||||||||||||||
2 November 1889 | |||||||||||||||||
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The area was referred to as the Pembina District after the U.S. Army Major Stephen Harriman Long made surveys during the 1823 expedition to the Red River of the North and placed an International boundary marker north of Pembina clearly defining the border between the United States and British North America. Prior to 1823, the Pembina settlement was believed by both countries to be within the boundary of British North America.
Several attempts at formal recognition and naming failed to pass Congress. In 1849 Father Georges-Antoine Belcourt described the area, referred to as Pembina district or department, as a country about 400 miles from north to south and more than five hundred miles from east to west.[2] The region was considered unorganized territory from 1818 until June 28, 1834, when Congress assigned it to the Michigan Territory. Subsequently, the region was successively a part of Iowa Territory, Wisconsin Territory, and finally Minnesota Territory. When Minnesota became a state on May 11, 1858, and its western boundary was set at the Red River, the western part of the Pembina region again became unorganized territory. Organization of Dakota Territory on March 2, 1861 marked the final establishment of organized territorial government.
The portion of the historic Pembina region not incorporated into the State of Minnesota was apportioned to the States of North and South Dakota on their admission to the Union of November 2, 1889.