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TIM POST: Jane Gray Swisshelm came to St. Cloud in the late 1850s from Pennsylvania. Swisshelm became editor of the St. Cloud Visiter. Her office was on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. It's a piece of land now surrounded by dorms and parking lots on the campus of St. Cloud State University.

BILL MORGAN: We're standing in what I would assume to be the location of this office, which goes back to 1858, stood here through the Civil War, at least, and probably beyond.

TIM POST: Bill Morgan is a retired history professor from St. Cloud State. Morgan says Swisshelm was a strong woman. She was a single working mother on Minnesota's frontier. Swisshelm wasn't afraid to print editorials that angered locals. She made some prominent citizens so angry, a group of them attacked her office one March night in 1858.

BILL MORGAN: And the three of them broke into her shop, destroyed her press, took her type boxes and the type, and dumped them in the street right out here and into the river.

TIM POST: A group of people from St. Cloud raised money to buy Swisshelm a new press. And she was back in business. Swisshelm used her newspaper to promote the causes she believed in. She was an abolitionist and let her readers know that her newspaper was an anti-slavery publication. This passage is from an article Swisshelm wrote in November of 1862.

"We hold that American slavery is a combination of all crimes against God and man, the sum of all villainies, that it is contrary to the revealed will of God and the Constitution of the United States. And as Christians and patriots, all men are in duty bound to labor for its immediate and utter extinction."

Swisshelm was also one of the nation's early feminists. She took up the fight for women's rights and demanded women have a voice in how the country was run. But while Swisshelm fought for the freedom of slaves and the rights of women, her feelings toward the state's Dakota Indian population were much different.

When she came to Minnesota, she thought settlers and American Indians would make peaceful neighbors. But she changed her mind in late summer of 1862. That's when a group of Dakota Indians attacked white settlers. Tensions were high because government payments and food for the Indians were late. The Dakota were starving. Historian Bill Morgan--

BILL MORGAN: Her view has changed at the time of the Dakota conflict. When white settlers were killed by renegades, she switched her views entirely and became-- just really went overboard.

TIM POST: Swisshelm spouted a stream of editorials against American Indians during the bloody five-week US-Dakota War. She called for the punishment of all Dakota Indians, whether or not they were involved in the attacks.

"Exterminate the wild beasts and make peace with the devil and all his hosts sooner than these red-jawed tigers whose fangs are dripping with the blood of the innocents. Get ready. And as soon as these convicted murderers are turned loose, shoot them. And be sure they are shot dead, dead, dead, dead. If they have any souls, the Lord can have mercy on them if He pleases. But that is His business. Ours is to kill the lazy vermin and make sure of killing them."

Swisshelm demonized the Indians in an effort to help settle the state of Minnesota. That's according to Sylvia Hoffert. Hoffert is a professor of history and women's studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is working on a biography of Swisshelm. She says Swisshelm supporters were land speculators.

SYLVIA HOFFERT: What she wants to do is to say, this is a safe place for you to come and bring your family and to farm. So trying to solve in her particular way the so-called, quote unquote, "Indian problem" would have been a part of that goal to say, OK, the Indians have rebelled. And this is what we're doing about it. And it's now OK to come to Minnesota.

TIM POST: Some people in St. Cloud are appalled that Swisshelm is honored in a public place. There's a plaque that tells the story of Jane Gray Swisshelm, near the spot where her office stood. It mentions her opposition to slavery, her fight for women's rights, and her time as a Civil War nurse. But the plaque doesn't mention her racist anti-Indian writings. That's a part of Swisshelm's life that some say should be told.

DON DAY: The more history that people know, the more accurate it is. I'm not saying that we need to rewrite history or change history. We seem to-- we just need to have a more complete history.

TIM POST: Don Day is director of the American Indian Center at St. Cloud State University. Day is a member of the Pillager Band of Ojibwe from Leech Lake. He wants people to know about Swisshelm's views on American Indians. But he doesn't think Swisshelm's should be vilified.

DON DAY: You know, we can't deny any of the things that she did. I mean, she was great. I mean, she was an abolitionist. She moved women's rights to points where people never even thought of before. I mean, she was actually hated in her time for the progressive thoughts that she had. So we can't deny any of that, that she did a lot of great stuff. But we also can't deny the fact that she was a racist.

TIM POST: Day thinks the best way to do that is to add more information to the plaque. He's not sure what it should say. But he thinks that extra history would be a great teaching tool. It could teach students about the noble causes Swisshelm fought for and about the violent racism American Indians faced in Minnesota's early days. Historian Bill Morgan knows exactly what he would add to the Swisshelm plaque.

BILL MORGAN: As broad-minded as she was, a Renaissance woman, she was blind in one area, but blinded again by historical events that were going on around her.

TIM POST: Morgan says removing the plaque would be a bad idea. But that's something endorsed by the campus newspaper. In a recent editorial, the University Chronicle said the plaque should come down. Officials at St. Cloud State University are pushing for the end of offensive Indian nicknames in the NCAA. The student newspaper says tearing down the plaque would fit well with that effort.

Leslie Andres is the editor of the University Chronicle. Andres wavers a bit when it comes to what should happen to the plaque.

LESLIE ANDRES: Tearing it down to me would be probably the best way to go, personally. But if it were just to add that she was a racist, that she was anti-American Indian, that would be a good step. Personally, that's what I think.

TIM POST: Andres admits the issue isn't on the minds of most students at St. Cloud State. But he says any discussion of race issues is positive. St. Cloud State officials say they have no plans yet to change the Jane Gray Swisshelm plaque on campus. They say they'll meet with people on all sides of the issue before they decide what to do.

The question they face is a tough one. Should Jane Gray Swisshelm be remembered as a hero, as a racist, or for what historians say she was-- a woman of contradiction? Tim Post, Minnesota Public Radio, St. Cloud.