The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier

by Charles E. Flandrau

The Indian title to the military reservation does not seem to have been effectually acquired, notwithstanding the treaty of Lieutenant Pike, made with the Indians in 1805, until the treaty with the Dakotas, in 1837, by which the Indian claim to all the lands east of the Mississippi, including the reservation, ceased.

In 1836, before the Indian title was finally acquired, quite a number of settlers located on the reservation on the left bank of the Mississippi.

On Oct. 21, 1839, the president issued an order for their removal, and on the sixth day of May, 1840, some of the settlers were forcibly removed.

In 1837 Mr. Alexander Faribault presented a claim for Pike Island, which was based upon a treaty made by him with the Dakotas in 1820. Whether his claim was allowed the records do not disclose, and it is unimportant.

On May 25, 1853, a military reservation for the fort was set off, by the president, of seven thousand acres, which in the following November was reduced to six thousand.

In 1857 the secretary of war, pursuant to the authority vested in him by act of congress, of March 3, 1857, sold the Fort Snelling reservation, excepting two small tracts, to Mr. Franklin Steele, who had long been sutler of the post, for the sum of ninety thousand dollars, which was to be paid in three installments. The first one of thirty thousand dollars was paid by Steele on July 25, 1857, and he took possession, the troops being withdrawn.

The fort was sold at private sale, and the price paid was, in my opinion, vastly more than it was worth; but Mr. Steele had great hopes for the future of that locality as a site for a town, and was willing to risk the payment. The sale was made by private contract by Secretary Floyd, who adopted this manner because other reservations had been sold at public auction, after full publication of notice to the world, and had brought only a few cents per acre. The whole transaction was in perfect good faith, but it was attacked in congress, and an investigation ordered, which resulted in suspending its consummation, and Mr. Steele did not pay the balance due. In 1860 the Civil War broke out, and the fort was taken possession of by the government for use in fitting out Minnesota troops, and was held until the war ended. In 1868 Mr. Steele presented a claim against the government for rent of the fort and other matters relating to it, which amounted to more than the price he agreed to pay for it.

An act of congress was passed on May 7, 1870, authorizing the secretary of war to settle the whole matter on principles of equity, keeping such reservation as was necessary for the fort. In pursuance of this act, a military board was appointed, and the whole controversy was arranged to the satisfaction of Mr. Steele and the government. The reservation was reduced to a little more than fifteen hundred acres. A grant of ten acres was made to the little Catholic church at Mendota, for a cemetery, and other small tracts were reserved about the Falls of Minnehaha and elsewhere, and all the balance was conveyed to Mr. Steele, he releasing the government from all claims and demands. The action of the secretary of war in carrying out this settlement was approved by the president in 1871.

The fort was one of the best structures of the kind ever erected in the West. It was capable of accommodating five or six companies of infantry, was surrounded by a high stone wall, and protected at the only exposed approaches by stone bastions guarded by cannon and musketry. Its supply of water was obtained from a well in the parade ground, near the sutler's store, which was sunk below the surface of the river. It was perfectly impregnable to any savage enemy, and in consequence was never called upon to stand a siege.

Perched upon a prominent bluff at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, it has witnessed the changes that have gone on around it for three-quarters of a century, and seen the most extraordinary transformations that have occurred in any similar period in the history of our country. When its corner stone was laid it formed the extreme frontier of the Northwest, with nothing but wild animals and wilder men within hundreds of miles in any direction. The frontier has receded to the westward until it has lost itself in the corresponding one being pushed from the Pacific to the east. The Indians have lost their splendid freedom as lords of a continent, and are prisoners, cribbed upon narrow reservations. The magnificent herds of buffalo that ranged from the British possessions to Texas have disappeared from the face of the earth, and nothing remains but the white man bearing his burden, which is constantly being made more irksome. To those who have played both parts in the moving drama, there is much food for thought.