By the time Minnesota had achieved statehood, however, blacks had been disenfranchised and schools were segregated. Despite this, from the start of the Minnesota Territory in 1848 the leadership was predominantly antislavery thus ending the practice in this era. One of the most famous of the early African Americans in the territory was George Bonga. He was born in Minnesota in 1802, his father Pierre Bonga the son of a freed slave and his mother a member of the Ojibwe tribe. Bonga was schooled in Montreal and eventually became a fur trader in the Northwest territories. He went on to serve as an interpreter in negotiations with the Ojibwe (particularly as a representative of Michigan Governor Lewis Cass). His brother Stephen served as the Ojibwe interpreter at Fort Snelling for the 1837 treaty. In the 1850s, Fort Snelling played a key role in the infamous Dred Scott court case. Slaves Dred Scott and his wife were taken to the fort by their master, John Emerson. They lived at the fort and elsewhere in territories where slavery was prohibited. After Emerson's death, the Scotts argued that since they had lived in free territory, they were no longer slaves. Ultimately in 1857 the U.S. Supreme Court sided against the Scotts. This decision helped to fuel rancor over slavery leading to the Bleeding Kansas conflicts, the Panic of 1857, and eventually the American Civil War. In the earlier part of the 19th century the area which is today Minnesota was not recognized as a single entity. The Mississippi River had divided the eastern British/French lands of North America from the western Spanish lands and even after the Louisiana Purchase this was for a time seen as a separation between territories. The division between the U.S. territories in the region and the British territories remained ambiguous until the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, which set the border with British North America at the 49th parallel west of the Lake of the Woods (except for a small chunk of land now dubbed the Northwest Angle). Border disputes east of the Lake of the Woods continued until the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842. Throughout the first half of the 19th century, the northeastern portion of the state was a part of the Northwest Territory, formed in 1787. After Ohio's statehood the area became part of the new Illinois Territory in 1809. After Illinois' statehood the area was incorporated into the Michigan Territory in 1818 and later became part of the Wisconsin Territory in 1836. The western and southern areas of the state were not formally organized until 1838, when they became part of the Iowa Territory.