Created by the federal government in 1849, Minnesota Territory extended into the Dakotas as far as the Missouri River, but white emigrants could not legally settle there or use its resources until the land was bought from the Dakota Indians. At the same time, the Dakota faced disappearing game, American encroachment onto native lands, and the disruption of traditional subsistence patterns that brought widespread hunger and starvation, so they hoped a treaty could help them survive in a changing environment. During the last week of June 1851, thirty-five Dakota leaders assembled at Traverse des Sioux, including Sisseton chiefs Ish-Tak-Ha-Ba (Sleepy Eye) and Mazasha (Red Iron), and in all about 1,000 Dakota gathered there. On June 30, the steamboat Excelsior arrived carrying territorial governor Alexander Ramsey, Henry H. Sibley, Luke Lea, and artist Frank B. Mayer, whose drawings became the only visual depictions of the treaty events. Over three weeks, negotiations were accompanied by speeches, feasting, singing, ball playing, dancing, and a wedding, despite frequent storms. On July 23, leaders of the Wahpeton and Sisseton Dakota bands signed the treaty, after which Ramsey, Lea, Sibley, and others left for Mendota near St. Paul, where members of the Wahpekute and Mdewakanton bands were gathering to negotiate another treaty. Among the scandalous features of the agreement was the illegal side document known as the Traders' Paper, which authorized $210,000 in treaty money for traders to settle Dakota debts, even though it is unclear whether the Dakota understood what they were signing. Under intense pressure from the U.S. government and rising white settlement, the Dakota were forced to sell all their land in Minnesota in an effort to secure survival for themselves and future generations. More than a year later, after annuity payments still had not arrived, Mazasha confronted Ramsey and declared that traders had covered Dakota eyes and induced them to sign papers they did not understand, and he said that if the money was withheld the Dakota would gladly have their land back. Before ratifying the treaty in 1852, the U.S. Senate removed the clause providing for a reservation, leaving the Dakota without a permanent place to live. President Millard Fillmore then arranged for them to occupy land along the Minnesota River previously set aside for reservations until needed for white settlement, while they were allotted food and assigned a government agent to teach Euro-American farming. By the summer of 1862, late annuity payments and traders' refusal to extend credit deepened Dakota anger, and after four Dakota men killed five settlers in Meeker County on August 17, six weeks of fighting left hundreds of white settlers and Dakota dead. Governor Alexander Ramsey called for the Dakota to be exterminated or driven beyond Minnesota, more than 300 Dakota were sentenced to hang, 38 men were hanged at Mankato in the largest mass execution in U.S. history, the rest were sent to prison, the U.S.-Dakota treaties were canceled, and remaining annuity money was used to reimburse white settlers for destroyed property. In 1856, missionary Stephen Riggs formed the Hazelwood Republic near the reservation, where sixteen Dakota men swore allegiance to the United States and agreed to abandon tribal customs and dress, but in 1858 the new state of Minnesota refused to grant citizenship rights to the Hazelwood Indians.