Why was fort snelling built

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Anthony Falls. Of the seven Dakota leaders present, only two signed the document. There were several problems with the agreement.

The US Senate did not discuss the agreement until The Senate unilaterally set the amount of land granted by the treaty at over 51, acres at the St. Croix River and over , at Bdote, extending north up the Mississippi. No Dakota were present to agree to these terms. After the Senate ratified the treaty, President Thomas Jefferson did not proclaim it, which was standard procedure at the time.

Even so, the US government continued to act as though it was a legally binding document. The first troops arrived in under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Leavenworth and began construction on the stone fort the following year. Colonel Josiah Snelling arrived in to supervise construction, and by the fort was completed. Initially called Fort St. Bdote, which was important as a spiritual place and a meeting ground for Dakota people, was also the perfect strategic location for the US to fulfill its colonial aims.

Fort Snelling was intended to dissuade the British from any further incursions into the Northwest and to stamp out British influence in the booming fur trade. Rather than protecting immigrants, the soldiers at Fort Snelling were tasked with keeping unauthorized people off Dakota and Ojibwe land so the fur trade could continue—until the land could be acquired through treaties. Finally, the United States sought to mediate the complex relationship between the sometimes clashing Dakota and Ojibwe.

Peace between the two peoples would mean an uninterrupted flow of furs and tax revenue for the US government. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at Copyright and Use Information.

Because their usefulness is no longer beneficial to us today. And so I think we've outgrown those structures of colonial dominance over Native American people. If we expect Native American people to be a part of and proud of who they are and a part of American society, we need to start to make concessions, historical concessions of reconciliation. Clifford Canku , Sisseton Wahpeton community of Dakota, The junction of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers is a place of major social, cultural, and historical significance to all people inhabiting the region, a place whose history evokes both pride and pain.

For Dakota people it is a historical gathering place, the site of the Bdote creation story, and a place of internment and exile after the U.

The site was the crossroads of two major river highways of the fur trade, one of the most lucrative businesses of the 19th century. After the War of , the U. The fort and its Indian Agency became a foothold of U. Hall, Steve. Colossus of the Wilderness. The Park Service must leave Coldwater Spring.

Fort Snelling in , Heckle's map breakdown. Minnesota Historical Society Collections. Henry H. Date, Steve.