FORT SNELLING ESTABLISHED
Readers of Irving’s “Astoria” know how a young German, coming to
America in the last year of the Revolution, by accident learned of the
possible profits to be won in the fur-trade, and how he presently
embarked in it. In the course of twenty-five years he made a million
dollars, a colossal private fortune for that day. In 1809 he obtained
from the New York legislature a charter, and organized the American Fur
Company. The war suspended the development of its plans. In 1816 Mr.
John Jacob Astor had little difficulty in securing an act of Congress
restricting Indian trade to American citizens. This patriotic statute
was intended to put the Northwest Company out of business on American
territory. It did, and that company sold out to Mr. Astor all its posts
and outfits south of the Canadian boundary at prices satisfactory to
the purchaser. In 1821 the Northwest Company was merged into the
Hudson’s Bay Company.
The American Fur Company adopted the policy of filling its leading
positions with young Americans of good education and enterprise, and
taking over the old engagés and voyageurs, inured to the service and
useless for any other. These old campaigners easily won over the
Indians to the new company and taught them to look to a Great Father at
Washington. The chief western stations for the trade of the upper
Mississippi were Mackinaw and Prairie du Chien. There was now an
“interest” which desired the development of the upper country; and it
lost no time in moving on the government. In the year last mentioned
(1816) four companies of United States infantry were sent to Prairie du
Chien, where they at once built Fort Crawford. In the next year, Pike’s
reports having apparently been forgotten, Major Stephen H. Long of the
Engineers traveled to Fort Snelling and in his report gave a
conditional approval to Pike’s selection of a site for a fort; but it
was not till the winter of 1819 that the government was moved to
establish a military post at the junction of the St. Peter’s with the
Mississippi. Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Leavenworth was ordered February
10 to proceed from Detroit, Michigan, to that point with a detachment
of the Fifth Infantry.
Taking the Fox-Wisconsin route, his party of eighty-two persons reached
Prairie du Chien July 1. “Scarcely an hour” after his arrival this
number was increased by the birth of Charlotte Ouisconsin (Clarke) Van
Cleve, long known to all Minnesotians, whose life was not ended till
1907.
The command arrived at Mendota August 24 and was at once put to
building the log houses of a cantonment. The site was near the present
ferry and the hamlet of Mendota, where a sharp eye may still note
traces of foundations. In September a reinforcement of one hundred and
twenty arrived. In the spring of 1820 the companies were put into camp
above the fort, near the great spring known to all early settlers. It
was named Camp Coldwater. In July the command passed to Colonel Joseph
Snelling, who held it till near the time of his death in 1828. A
daughter born in his family a short time after their arrival was the
first white child born in Minnesota.
Colonel Snelling at once began the erection of a fort, which, however,
was not ready for occupation till October, 1822. It was a wooden
construction, for which the logs were cut on the Rum River. In 1821 a
rude sawmill was built at “the Falls” which converted the logs into
lumber. This was of course the first sawmill in Minnesota. Two years
later a “run of buhrs” was put in, and a first flour mill established.
Colonel Snelling named his work “Fort Saint Anthony,” but in 1824, upon
recommendation of Major-General Winfield Scott, after a visit to the
place, that name was changed to “Fort Snelling,” in recognition of the
enterprise and efficiency of its builder.
The reader must not be allowed to fear that the government was
trespassing on Indian ground when building Fort Snelling. Pike had
bargained for the site in 1805, but the government for fourteen years
neither took possession nor tendered payment. The Senate on ratifying
the treaty filled the blank in article II by inserting $2000, and
Congress in 1819 made an appropriation of that amount. In anticipation
of the dispatch of a detachment of troops, Major Forsyth was ordered to
transport $2000 worth of goods to the Sioux country and deliver them in
payment for the lands ceded to Pike. It chanced that his boats arrived
at Prairie du Chien in time to make the further ascent of the river in
company with the command of Colonel Leavenworth. The payment was
happily managed. On his way up river Major Forsyth called at the
villages of Wabashaw, Red Wing, and Little Crow, and gave each of those
chiefs a present of blankets, tobacco, powder, or other goods. On
arrival at destination similar presents were made to five other chiefs,
whose villages were not distant. In each case the major records that he
had to give a little whiskey. The United States could afford such
generosity.
A period of thirty years intervened between the arrival of Colonel
Leavenworth’s battalion at Fort Snelling in 1819, and the establishment
of the Territory of Minnesota. The events of the period are too
slightly related to the subsequent history of the state to call for
minute narration in the way of annals, and may preferably be grouped
under a few heads for compendious treatment.
When Colonel Leavenworth was starting from Detroit, Michigan, he was
intrusted by the governor of the Territory of Michigan with blank
commissions for appointive county officers for Crawford County,
included in that territory. This duty was performed at Prairie du
Chien, and justice was established in Minnesota East. That region had
previously been successively within the jurisdiction of the Northwest,
Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois territories. Minnesota West at the same
time was part of Missouri Territory, and previous to 1812 had been in
the Territory of Louisiana. There was, however, slight occasion for the
exercise of civil or judicial functions in the upper Mississippi
country.
The American Fur Company had succeeded not merely to the business of
the “old Northwest Company,” but to its quasi-political control. The
chief factor at Mendota, and his subordinate traders at the more
important trading places, exercised a control over the Indians and
half-breeds which government officials, civil and military, vainly
endeavored to win from them. The few whites in the region, aside from
the garrison of the fort, were at the first traders’ employees; later a
handful of missionaries acceded, and still later an advance guard of
settlers, mostly lumbermen and Selkirk refugees. The dominance of the
fur company and its principal agents was in great part due, as already
suggested, to a policy inherited from the Northwest Company of
retaining in service the old French and half-breed voyageurs, and
filling the clerical and managing places with young Americans of
ability and enterprise. Such men would have been leaders anywhere. The
chief factor at Mendota was the great man of the Sioux country; his
colleague at Fond du Lac held a like relation in the country of the
Chippeways. They furnished their licensed traders with their outfits,
assigned them their respective districts, served as their bankers, and
exercised over them an interested supervision. The fidelity of these
subordinates was such as to form them into an effective combination,
which after a few futile attempts at competition gave the American Fur
Company a complete monopoly.
The one name to be brought forward as representative of the American
Fur Company, and what was good in it, is that of Henry Hastings Sibley,
who came to Mendota in November, 1834, as partner and chief factor. He
had been preceded by other traders of inferior rank and consideration.
Although but twenty-three years of age, he had already served an
apprenticeship of five years at Mackinaw, the western headquarters of
the Fur Company. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, where his parents,
having removed from Sutton, Massachusetts, had settled before the close
of the eighteenth century. The father, Judge Solomon Sibley, was a
notable character in Michigan for a long lifetime. The boy received a
good “academy” education, had two years of classical language study
under private tuition, and pursued the study of law. This early
training equipped him with a correct and graceful English style of
expression, which in later life he was fond of practicing in manuscript
of singular beauty. The boy’s heart was in the wilderness and on the
wave. Tall, handsome of face, and lithe of limb, he early became expert
with the rifle, the bridle, and the oar. So fleet and tireless was he
on foot that the Sioux named him Wa-zi-o-ma-ni, Walker-in-the-pines.
His grave and ceremonious manner was well calculated to gain the
respect of the Indians, fond as they were of etiquette. Within two
years after his arrival at his post he built and occupied a large stone
house at Mendota, in which, especially after his marriage a few years
later, he maintained a generous and elegant hospitality. The building
still stands in a dilapidated condition. For many years Mr. Sibley, as
justice of the peace, exercised jurisdiction over a territory of
imperial extent, and was believed by his simple-minded clients, the
voyageurs, to hold the power of life and death. As the trusted adviser
of the Indian agent and the military commander, he steered them past
many a difficult emergency.
With the extension of the Indian trade under the protection of a
military garrison, it was to be expected that an Indian agency would be
established at a point so prominent and convenient as Fort Snelling. As
the first agent, Lieutenant Lawrence Taliaferro, of the Third United
States Infantry, was personally selected by President Monroe. He was a
member of a well-known Virginia family of Italian extraction, and had
given evidence in the service of capacity and enterprise. His
appointment was dated March 27, 1819. His age was twenty-five. For
twenty years he held his position, at times against powerful
opposition, ever a true friend of the Indian, a terror to illicit
whiskey sellers, and never the tool of the American Fur Company.
It was the desire of the government to put an end to the ancient
warfare between the two great tribes of Minnesota Indians. Pike in 1806
had induced some of their chiefs to smoke the calumet. In 1820 Governor
Cass repeated the operation with the result of burning much good
tobacco. Agent Taliaferro conceived a plan for keeping the peace
between the Sioux and the Chippeways, which was to survey and stake out
a partition line between their countries. In 1824, by permission of
President Monroe, he took a delegation of Sioux, Chippeways, and
Menominees to Washington, where an arrangement was made for a “grand
convocation” of all the northwestern nations, to be held in the summer
of 1825 at Prairie du Chien. That convocation was held, with many
spectacular incidents, and a variety of adjustments were consummated.
In particular it was agreed between the Sioux and Chippeway nations
that their lands should be separated by a line to be drawn and marked
by the white man’s science. That line, when tardily staked out ten
years later, started from a point in the Red River of the North near
Georgetown, passed east of Fergus Falls and west of Alexandria, crossed
the Mississippi between St. Cloud and Sauk Rapids, and went on in a
general southeast direction to the St. Croix, which it struck not far
from Marine. The savages paid little respect to this air line, but went
on with their accustomed raids. Within a year there was a bloody
encounter in sight of the agent’s office. A single example of these
savage frays may be given to illustrate their recurrence in series.
In April, 1838, a party of Sioux hunting in the valley of the Chippeway
River (of Minnesota) left a party of three lodges in camp near Benson,
Swift County. Hole-in-the-day, the Chippeway chief from Gull River,
with nine followers, came upon this camp, and professing himself
peaceable was hospitably treated. In the night following he and his men
rose silently, and upon a given signal shot eleven of the Sioux to
death. One woman and a wounded boy escaped.
In August of the same year Hole-in-the-day, with a small party, was at
Fort Snelling. His arrival becoming known to neighboring Sioux, two or
three relatives of the victims of the April slaughter waylaid him near
the Baker trading-house, and opened fire. Hole-in-the-day escaped, but
the warrior with whom he had changed clothes was killed.
In June of the following year a large party of Chippeways from the
upper Mississippi, from Mille Lacs and the St. Croix valley, assembled
at Fort Snelling. For some days they were feasted and entertained by
the resident Sioux, and agent Taliaferro got them started homewards.
Two Chippeway warriors, related to the tribesmen killed by the Sioux
the previous summer, remained behind, and went into hiding near the
large Sioux village on Lake Calhoun. At daybreak, Nika (the badger), a
warrior much respected, was shot in his tracks as he was going out to
hunt, and the assassins made their escape. As the Sioux could easily
surmise that they belonged to Hole-in-the-day’s band, they decided not
to retaliate on it, because they would be watched for. Two war-parties
were immediately formed, the one to follow the Mille Lacs band, the
other that from the St. Croix. It was lawful to retaliate on any
Chippeways. The Mille Lacs Indians were overtaken in their bivouacs on
the Rum River at daylight on July 4. Waiting until the hunters had gone
forward, the Sioux fired on the women, children, and old men, and
harvested some seventy scalps, but they lost more warriors in the
action than the Chippeways. The war-dance of the exulting Sioux went on
for a month on the site of Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis. Little
Crow and his Kaposia band gave their attention to the St. Croix
Chippeways, who returned, as they had come, by canoe down the
Mississippi and up the St. Croix. Little Crow marched overland and got
into position at Stillwater, where he lay in ambush for the retreating
foe, who he knew would bivouac on the low ground near the site of the
Minnesota state prison. A daybreak assault killed twenty-five of the
Chippeways, but they made so good a defense that the Sioux were glad to
retire. The mortality in the so-called “battles” of Rum River and
Stillwater was exceptionally great.
In the middle of the period now in view, a new influence, not heartily
welcomed by the traders, came over the Minnesota Indians,—that of the
missionaries, mostly Protestant. The first efforts at evangelization
were made for the Chippeways and probably at the instance of Robert
Stuart, the principal agent of the American Fur Company at Mackinaw, an
ardent Scotch Presbyterian. In 1823 a boarding-school was opened at
that place and flourished for some years. In 1830 a mission was opened
at La Pointe, Wisconsin, on the spot occupied by the Jesuit fathers one
hundred and fifty years before. From this place as a centre mission
work was extended into Minnesota. In 1833 the Rev. W. T. Boutwell
proceeded to Leech Lake, built a log cabin, and began work. The Rev.
Frederick Ayer opened a school at Yellow Lake, on the Wisconsin side of
the St. Croix, and the Rev. E. E. Ely began teaching at Sandy Lake.
Three years later all of these were removed for more concentrated,
coöperative effort to Lake Pokegama in Pine County. This mission was
carried on with much promise for five years, when it was interrupted by
a descent of a large war-party of Sioux led by Little Crow. Among the
killed were two young girls, pupils of the mission school. The
Chippeways abandoned the place for homes farther from the danger line,
and this mission came to an end. The Chippeways had their revenge a
year later (1842), when they came down to the near neighborhood of St.
Paul and got in the so-called battle of Kaposia the scalps of thirteen
Sioux warriors, two women, and a child.
The missions to the Sioux were begun in the spring of 1834 by two young
laymen from Connecticut, who appeared at Fort Snelling without
credentials from any synod or conference, but with abundant faith and
zeal. They were brothers, Samuel William and Godwin Hollister Pond,
then twenty-six and twenty-four years of age respectively. Although
they had entered the Indian country without leave or license, they
secured at once the confidence of Agent Taliaferro and Major Bliss,
commander of Fort Snelling. With their own hands they built a log cabin
on the east shore of Lake Calhoun, on the edge of Cloudman’s village.
That chief selected the site. Established in this “comfortable home,”
they devoted themselves to learning the Dakota language. Within a few
weeks they adapted the Roman letters to that language with such skill
that the “Pond alphabet” has with slight modification been ever since
used in writing and printing it. A Dakota child can begin to read as
soon as it has “learned its letters.” The zealous brothers made the
first collections for the dictionary, later enlarged by others,
prepared a spelling-book, and formulated a rude grammar. Mr. Sibley,
who came in the fall of the same year, became a warm friend of the
Ponds.
The next missionary effort was by appointees of the American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions, best known by the short title
“American Board.” These were the Rev. Thomas S. Williamson, missionary
and physician; the Rev. Jedediah D. Stevens, missionary; Alexander
Huggins, farmer; their wives, and two lady teachers. These arrived at
Fort Snelling in May, 1835. Mr. Stevens, who had made a tour of
exploration in the country six years before, at once established
himself on the northwest margin of Lake Harriet, now in the city of
Minneapolis. He built two considerable log houses near the site of the
street railroad station, in one of which he opened a school. The
nucleus was a number of half-breed daughters of traders and military
men, some of whom became highly respected Minnesota women. This school,
however, was not the first in Minnesota, if the collection of Indian
boys and men gathered by Major Taliaferro on the east bank of Lake
Calhoun in 1829, and put to learning the art and mystery of
agriculture, may be called a school. Philander Prescott was the
teacher, and his pupils numbered twelve; the next year he had one
hundred and twenty-five “different scholars.” Within a few days after
the arrival of these missionaries a Presbyterian church was organized
at Fort Snelling, June 11, the first in Minnesota, with the Rev. Mr.
Stevens in charge.
The American Fur Company had an important stockaded post on Lac qui
Parle in Chippeway County. The trader there was Joseph Renville, who
had been captain in the British frontier service in the War of 1812. He
had married a woman of the Sioux by Christian rite, and had a large
family growing up. Although Catholic by birth and education, he invited
Dr. Williamson to come and establish his mission near him, so that his
children might be taught. The mission at Lac qui Parle was thus
promptly opened. Dr. Williamson has recorded that this school, begun in
his house in July, was the first in Minnesota outside of Fort Snelling.
It was continued for many years by his sister, Miss Jane Williamson,
who perhaps rendered more lasting service than any of the noble band to
which she belonged. After some two years’ study of the Dakota language
Dr. Williamson set about what became his life work, the translation of
the Holy Scriptures into that tongue. The Rev. Stephen Return Riggs
joined the Lac qui Parle mission in 1837, after having studied the
Dakota under Samuel Pond. He soon became expert, prepared text-books
for the schools, and later edited the Dakota dictionary and grammar, to
which all the Sioux missionaries contributed. Mission work begun in
1837 at Kaposia (now South St. Paul) by Methodist preachers, and at Red
Wing in 1839 by Swiss Presbyterian evangelists, however praiseworthy
for intention, was too early abandoned to have permanent results.
Equally transient was the ministration of the Catholic father Ravoux,
at Lac qui Parle and Chaska, in 1842. The missions of the American
Board to the Minnesota Sioux were maintained until that nation was
removed to the Missouri in 1863. The results were sufficient to
encourage persistence, in hope of future success, but the great body of
the Indians was not affected. For a time this was due to suspicion on
the part of the Indians of the sincerity of the missionaries. They
could understand the soldier and the trader, but the missionary was a
puzzle. He had nothing to sell, he asked no pay for teaching the
children, caring for the sick, or preaching the word. Why he should
teach a religion of brotherhood, and still keep to himself his
household stuff, his little store of food, and his domestic animals,
was beyond the comprehension of savages accustomed to communistic life.
A greater obstacle lay in the fact that the missionary had first to
break down faith in an ancient religion, and the dominance of a body of
medicine-men who maintained their cult by a ceremonial interwoven with
the whole life and habits of the people. Not less obstructive was the
example of most white men known to the Indians,—greedy, dissolute, and
licentious.