Old Fort Snelling | Page 7

bound to result. Various plans were proposed to deal with
the problem. It was reported that General Jackson would take charge of
active military operations against the Indians of the upper
Mississippi.[42] One agent suggested that "three or four months' full
feeding on meat and bread, even without ardent spirit, will bring on

disease, and, in six or eight months, great mortality.... I believe more
Indians might be killed with the expense of $100,000 in this way, than
$1,000,000 expended in the support of armies to go against them."[43]
Fortunately, wiser counsels than either of these prevailed to control the
Indians: the control of the fur trade was necessary. It was felt, and
rightly, that much of the trouble in the West was due to the power of
the British traders. Accordingly, by an act of Congress of April 29,
1816, it was provided that "licenses to trade with the Indians within the
territorial limits of the United States shall not be granted to any but
citizens of the United States, unless by the express direction of the
President of the United States, and upon such terms and conditions as
the public interest may, in his opinion, require." To carry this act into
effect the president was authorized to call upon the military force.[44]
This legislation was most opportune, since by the commercial
convention of October 20, 1818, the northern boundary was definitely
agreed upon as the forty-ninth parallel westward from the Lake of the
Woods to the Rocky Mountains.[45] Ever since the negotiators of the
Treaty of Paris of 1783 had inserted a geographical impossibility by
declaring that the boundary should extend due west from the Lake of
the Woods to the Mississippi, there had existed a vagueness as to where
the actual line should be drawn.[46] In 1806 the British traders thought
it would be run from the lake to the source of the river;[47] and as late
as 1818 Benjamin O'Fallon wrote from Prairie du Chien that Robert
Dickson "is directed to build a fort on the highest land between Lac du
Travers and Red river, which he supposes will be the established line
between the two countries."[48] But with the boundary now defined,
the area where the trade laws were to be enforced was evident.
The method of Indian trade by foreigners was to be supplanted by an
extension of the United States trading house system. This was a group
of trading houses, conducted by the government, where the Indians
could exchange their furs for goods at cost price and thus avoid both
the deceit and whiskey of the private merchant, although they were
often willing to submit to the one for the sake of the other.[49] As early
as 1805 Pike had promised the Indians, in council assembled, that the

government intended to build a trading house at the mouth of the
Minnesota River.[50] The commissioners at Portage des Sioux, in 1815,
had been instructed to inform the tribes that "it is intended to establish
strong posts very high up the Mississippi, and from the Mississippi to
Lake Michigan, and to open trading-houses at those posts, or other
suitable places for their accommodation."[51] In 1818 T. L. McKenny,
Superintendent of Indian Trade, recommended the building of seven
additional trading houses, one of which was to be located on the "River
St. Peters, at or about its junction with the Mississippi."[52]
Thus, through the Indian department steps were being taken to
inaugurate a new régime in the upper Northwest. But Indian agents and
trading houses needed the protection and administrative arm of the
military department in order to be effective. The forward movement of
the military frontier during the years succeeding the war is significant
as marking a trend towards the Americanization of a great region.

II
THE EVOLUTION OF FORT SNELLING
When the War of 1812 broke out in the Northwest, the Americans had
only two advanced posts--Mackinac and Fort Dearborn. Of these, one
was captured during the hostilities, and the other was evacuated. An
attempt was made to build a post at Prairie du Chien, but it quickly
passed into English hands and remained in their possession until the
news of peace had reached that frontier station. But after the Treaty of
Ghent was signed the line of the military frontier was quickly advanced
in order to safeguard the Indian agents, the trading houses, and the
advancing settlements.
Fort Dearborn was re-occupied on July 4, 1815. Mackinac was
transferred to American hands on July 18, 1815. In the fall of the same
year Colonel R. C. Nichols of the Eighth United States Infantry
attempted to ascend the Mississippi to Rock Island, but was compelled
to pass the winter in the vicinity of the mouth of the Des Moines River.

On May 10, 1816, however, he reached