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| George Bonga, as painted by artist Kit Leffler |
MN Black History: George Bonga - I'm pleased to find this on Ampers, a website consortium formed by MPR and MHS made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota, aka Legacy Grant Funding voted in by Minnesotans!
Someone is finally paying attention to people like the Bonga family, a branch of that family being from Pembina.
Two amazing historical facts come out in the audio link above:
1. One of the Bonga family met with Dred Scott when Scott was in Minnesota, and it's quite probably Scott was impressed with what he saw Bonga accomplishing as a free black man, and it could very well have further inspired him to take his case to the Supreme Court - he sued for his freedom as a slave - and
2. Bonga wrote Bishop Whipple to intercede for the Dakota who were arrested and sentenced to hang, with President Lincoln. Lincoln eventually commuted many of the over 300 (eventually 38 were hung in biggest mass execution in our history to this day...)
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