Fort Snelling is a former military fortification and National Historic Landmark in the U.S. state of Minnesota on the bluffs overlooking the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers. The site was initially named Fort Saint Anthony but was renamed Fort Snelling when its construction ended in 1825.
Before the American Civil War, the U.S. Army allowed its soldiers and fur traders to bring their personal enslaved people to the fort. These included African Americans Dred Scott and Harriet Robinson Scott, who lived at the fort in the 1830s. In the 1840s, the Scotts sued for their freedom, arguing that having lived in "free territory" made them free, leading to the landmark United States Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Sandford. Slavery ended at the fort just before Minnesota became a state in 1858.
The fort served as the primary center for U.S. government forces during the Dakota War of 1862. It also was the site of the concentration camp where eastern Dakota and Ho-Chunk non-combatants awaited riverboat transport in their forced removal from Minnesota when hostilities ceased. The fort served as a recruiting station during the Civil War, the Spanish–American War, and both World Wars before being decommissioned again in 1946. It then fell into disrepair until the lower post was restored to its original appearance in 1965. At that time, all that remained of the original lower post were the round and hexagonal towers. Many of the upper post's important buildings remain today, with some still in disrepair.
Multiple government agencies now own parts of the former fort, with the Minnesota Historical Society administering the Historic Fort Snelling site. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources administers Fort Snelling State Park at the bottom of the bluff. Fort Snelling once encompassed the park's land. It has been cited as a "National Treasure" by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The historic fort is in the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, a National Park Service unit. It is in the unorganized territory of Fort Snelling in Hennepin County.
History
Bdóte
Bdóte ("meeting of waters" or "where two rivers meet") is considered a place of spiritual importance to the Dakota, Ojibwe, Ioway, Otoe, Sauk, Fox, and Cheyenne peoples. A Dakota-English Dictionary (1852), edited by missionary Stephen Return Riggs, originally recorded the word as mdóte, noting that it was also "a name commonly applied to the country about Fort Snelling, or mouth of the Saint Peters",Riggs, Stephen Return (1852). A Dakota–English Dictionary.Originally published by the Smithsonian Institution. Expanded versions published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press (1890, 1992), and by Ross & Haines (1968), p. 313. now known as the Minnesota River. According to Riggs, "The Mdewakantonwan think that the mouth of the Minnesota River is precisely over the center of the Earth and that they occupy the gate that opens into the western world.".
The confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers also became a place where Native Americans signed treaties with the United States: the 1805 Treaty of St. Peters signed by the Mdewakanton Dakota, the 1837 White Pine Treaty signed by several Ojibwe bands, and the 1851 Treaty of Mendota signed by representatives of the Mdewakanton and Wahpekute Dakota.
Land cession treaty
In 1805, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike signed a treaty he was unauthorized to create, known as Pike's Purchase (1805 Treaty of St. Peters). Seven Dakota men were present, of whom two signed the treaty: Cetan Wakuwa Mani (Petit Corbeau) and Way Aga Enogee (Waynyaga Inaźin). It ceded 155,320 acres of land in the area (400 km2). The document offered an unspecified amount of money, later valued at $2,000, for the land. The treaty states:Article One — That the Sioux nation grants unto the United States for the purpose of establishment of military posts, nine miles square at the mouth of river St. Croix, also from below the confluence of the Mississippi and St. Peters, up the Mississippi to Include the falls of St. Anthony, extending nine miles on each side of the river.Government relations with the Dakota Sioux (1851–1876), University of Montana Dissertation, Kenneth Burton Moore, 1937 Legal scholars, historians, and the Dakota have long raised questions about the treaty's validity. Although Pike was an army officer, he was not authorized to sign a treaty on behalf of the United States, nor were there any formal witnesses. Pike represented the treaty as having been agreed to by the entire Sioux nation, but in reality it was signed only by representatives of two Mdewakanton villages.
From a legal point of view, the land the signers intended to convey was inadequately described. No consideration, or payment terms, were in the treaty. Pike wrote in his journal he thought the land was worth $200,000, but in the treaty he left the payment amount blank, letting Congress determine the final amount. On April 16, 1808, when the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty, it approved payment to the Dakota of only $2,000.
In 1819, payment for the ceded lands arrived when the United States Department of War sent Major Thomas Forsyth to distribute goods worth approximately $2,000. In 1838, Indian agent Lawrence Taliaferro paid a further $4,000 to try to settle the matter with the other Dakota band. The issue was raised in treaty negotiations in the 1850s. In 1863, Congress passed an act that "abrogated and annulled" all treaties with the Dakota people. The moral legitimacy of the land title is still disputed.
Pike Island, at the mouth of the Minnesota River, was later named after Zebulon Pike.
Frontier post After the War of 1812, the United States Department of War built a chain of forts and installed Indian agents from Lake Michigan to the Missouri River in South Dakota. These forts were intended to extend US presence into the northwest territories after the Treaty of Ghent and the demarcation of the 49th parallel. The treaty restricted British-Canadian traders from operating in the US. The forts were intended to enforce that and to keep Indian lands free of white settlement until permitted by treaty.
The forts were seen as the embodiment of federal authority, representing law and order, and protected pioneers and traders. The Fort Snelling garrison also attempted to keep the peace among the Dakota and other tribes. Also built on army land was the St. Peter's Indian Agency at Mendota.St. Peters Indian Agency (Minnesota), Family Search, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, March 2015 The Anglo-Europeans called the Minnesota River the St. Peter's, and the Indian Agency was part of Fort Snelling from 1820 to 1853.
Lieutenant Colonel Henry Leavenworth commanded the expedition of 5th Infantry that built the initial outpost in 1819. That cantonment was called "New Hope" and was on the river flats along the Minnesota River. Leavenworth lost 40 men to scurvy that winter and moved his encampment to Camp Coldwater because he felt the riverside location contributed to the outbreak.Old Fort Snelling 1819–1858, The Project Gutenberg Ebook, Marcus L. Hansen, September 2007, pp. 21–28 The new camp was near a spring closer to the fortification he was constructing. That spring was the fort's source of drinking water throughout the 19th century. It held spiritual significance for the Sioux.
The post surgeon began recording meteorological observations at the fort in January 1820. The U.S. Army Surgeon General made recording four weather readings daily a duty of the surgeon at every Army post.History of Weather Observations, Fort Ripley Minnesota, 1849–1990, Minnesota State Climatology Office DNR-Division of Waters, St Paul, Mn, Peter Boulay, 2006, pp. 9–10 Fort Snelling has one of the nation's longest near-continuous weather records.Annual Climatolocial Summary, Fort Snelling MN, Year 1820, MN DNR webpage, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, 500 Lafayette Road, Saint Paul, MN
In 1820, Colonel Josiah Snelling took command of the outpost and the fort's construction. Upon completion in 1824, he christened his work "Fort St. Anthony" for the waterfalls just upriver. General Winfield Scott changed the name to Fort Snelling in recognition of the fort's architect commander.
From construction in 1820 to closure in 1858, four army units garrisoned the fort—the 1st,The First Regiment of Infantry, The Army of the US Historical Sketches of the Line and Staff with Portraits of the Generals in Chief, Lt. Charles Byrne, New York Maynard, Merrill and Company, 1896, p. 401, U.S Army Center of Military History website 5th,The Fifth Regiment of Infantry, The Army of the US Historical Sketches of the Line and Staff with Portraits of the Generals in Chief, Lt. Charles Byrne, New York Maynard, Merrill and Company, 1896, p. 480, U.S Army Center of Military History website 6th, and 10th Regiments— as did a company from the 1st Dragoons. In 1827 the 5th Infantry was replaced by the 1st Infantry for ten years, with the 5th returning in 1837. The 5th garrisoned the fort until the 1st relieved it again in 1840. In 1848 the 6th Infantry became the garrison. The garrison changed again in November 1855. The 10th, commanded by Colonel Charles Ferguson Smith, assumed duty. Smith went on to become a major general.
Colonel Snelling was recalled to Washington, leaving Fort Snelling in September 1827. He died the next summer from complications of dysentery and a "brain fever".
In 1827, Minnesota's first post office opened at Fort Snelling, with most mail forwarded from Prairie du Chien.The Post Office in Early Minnesota, Minnesota History Vol. 40 No.2, Summer 1966, J. W. Patterson, p. 78, MHS website
Colonel Zachary Taylor assumed command in 1828. He observed that the "buffalo are entirely gone and bear and deer are scarcely seen." He also wrote that the "Indians subsist principally on fish, water fowl and wild rice".Zachary Taylor and Minnesota, Minnesota History Vol. 30, June 1949, Holman Hamilton p. 101, MHS website While Taylor was posted to Fort Snelling, eight adult enslaved people with him died, as did several minors.
Along with the construction of the fort, an Indian Agency was constructed on the military reservation opposite the fort at Mendota. It was administered by Major Lawrence Taliaferro. In 1834 Taliaferro and the fort commandant, Major Bliss, assisted missionaries Gideon and Samuel W. Pond in developing the Dakota alphabet and compiling a Dakota dictionary.1834, A Fort Snelling Calendar, Minnesota History, Fall 1970, Marilyn Ziebarth, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Mn Taliaferro also served as the Territorial Justice of Peace until 1838, when the governor of Iowa named Henry Sibley as his replacement.
The Agency was used to hold court, and those incarcerated were sent to Fort Snelling's round tower. The town of St. Paul also sent its criminals to the tower until it built its first jail in 1851. Both Fort Snelling and Fort Ripley provided this civil service for internment of criminals until the territory developed the necessary civil infrastructure.The Original Saint Paul Jail, Saint Paul Police Historical Society webpage, Edward J. Steenberg, 2020 Taliaferro had 21 enslaved people with him, including Harriet Robinson. She married Dred Scott, with Taliaferro officiating, at Mendota.
John Marsh arrived at the fort during the early 1820s. He started the first school in the Territory for the officers' children. Marsh developed a relationship with the Dakota, and compiled a dictionary of the Mendota tribe's dialect. He had studied medicine at Harvard without earning a degree. He continued his studies under the tutelage of the fort's physician, Dr. Purcell, but Purcell died before he completed the coursework, and Marsh moved west.Colbruno, Michael "Lives of the Dead: Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland." December 12, 2009. Retrieved March 5, 2015.