Chapter IX
For an account of the attack on the trading house system see Quaife’s Chicago and the Old Northwest, 1673–1835, pp. 301–309; also Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XX, pp. xiii-xviii. 363
This account of the fur trade is based upon the reminiscences of Mr. H. H. Sibley in the Minnesota Historical Collections, Vol. III, pp. 245–247; and Turner’s The Character and Influence of the Indian Trade in Wisconsin in the Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, Vol. IX, pp. 601–607. 364
If an Indian failed continually in paying up his credits, the trader would refuse him any more goods. This would bring on the enmity of the hunter and his whole family. Such was the case of Joseph R. Brown mentioned in the Minnesota Historical Collections, Vol. III, p. 247. 365
United States Statutes at Large, Vol. II, pp. 139–146, Vol. III, pp. 332, 333, Vol. IV, pp. 729–735. 366
A copy of an American trading license is published in the Report from the Select Committee on the Hudson’s Bay Company, p. 282. 367
Indian Office Files, 1831, No. 70. 368
Indian Office Files, 1831, No. 82. 369
Auto-biography of Maj. Lawrence Taliaferro in the Minnesota Historical Collections, Vol. VI, p. 200. 370
Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XX, p. 43 371
Sibley to Featherstonhaugh.—Sibley Papers. This letter is printed in Holcombe’s Minnesota in Three Centuries, Vol. II, p. 57. 372
Chittenden’s The History of the American Fur Trade of the Far West, Vol. I, p. 323. 373
A list of the posts in the agency in 1826 is given in the Minnesota Historical Collections, Vol. II, pp. 113, 114. “The Secretary of War directs that the traders in the St Peters Agency, who have been directed by you to build their houses in a particular form, as designated by you, be informed that they are at liberty to adapt the shape of their building to their own convenience. He moreover directs that the term of Forts, by which they are designated, be changed into Posts.”—William Clark to Taliaferro, March 26, 1827, in Taliaferro Letters, Vol. I, No. 72. 374
Taliaferro to Herring, September 15, 1834, in Indian Office Files, 1834, No. 210; Taliaferro Letters, Vol. I, No. 74. 375
See Sibley’s story of a tea party given to a number of traders at Fort Snelling.—Minnesota Historical Collections, Vol. III, pp. 248, 249. 376
Coues’s The Expeditions of Zebulon M. Pike, Vol. I, p. 230. 377
Taliaferro’s Diary, February 22, 1831. 378
Schoolcraft’s Narrative of an Expedition through the Upper Mississippi to Itasca Lake, p. 44. 379
Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XX, pp. 306, 307. 380
United States Statutes at Large, Vol. IV, p. 564. 381
Norman W. Kittson to Sibley, March 2, 1846.—Sibley Papers, 1840–1850. Mr. Kittson was the manager of the American Fur Company’s business along the international boundary, with his headquarters at Pembina. He, with the late James J. Hill, was one of the promoters of the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railroad Company. 382
Report from the Select Committee on the Hudson’s Bay Company, p. 370. 383
Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XX, p. 383. 384
Taliaferro’s Diary, January 30, 1831. 385
Kittson to Sibley, August 7, 1846.—Sibley Papers, 1840–1850. Mr. Kittson was the organizer of the picturesque caravans of Red River carts (at one time called “Kittson’s carts”) which carried on the extensive commerce between the Canadian and American settlements. At an early date this trade assumed large proportions. “The van of the Red River train numbering from an hundred to two hundred carts made entirely of wood and green hides and drawn by oxen and ponies in harness, reached St. Paul on Sunday with furs, hides, buffalo robes, dried buffalo tongues, pemmican, etc. They have been forty days on the route.”—The Minnesota Pioneer, July 26, 1849. 386
Missionary Herald, Vol. 38, p. 58, February, 1842. 387
Indian Office Files, 1839, No. 62. 388
Missionary Herald, Vol. 40, p. 281, August, 1844. 389
Executive Documents, 2nd Session, 30th Congress, Vol. I, Document No. 1, p. 563. 390
Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XX, p. 383. 391
Taliaferro’s Diary, July 23, 1834. 392
Taliaferro Letters, Vol. I, No. 74. 393
Marsh to Street, April 28, 1832.—Street Papers, No. 20. 394
Indian Office Files, 1835, No. 326. 395
Bailly to Street, August 3, 1832.—Street Papers, No. 28. 396
Street to Cass, October 3, 1832.—Street Papers, No. 69. 397
“Several persons have been arrested near Crow Wing for selling whiskey to the Winnebago Indians; and twelve or fifteen barrels of whiskey have been overtaken and knocked in the head, by Capt. Monroe’s troops.”—The Minnesota Pioneer, August 9, 1849. 398
Senate Documents, 1st Session, 30th Congress, Vol. I, Document No. 1, p. 922. 399
Taliaferro to Clark, August 17, 1830.—Indian Office Files, 1830, No. 143. 400
Indian Office Files, 1830, No. 140. 401
Taliaferro to Clark, August 2, 1829.—Indian Office Files, 1829, No. 65. 402
Executive Documents, 2nd Session, 30th Congress, Vol. I, Document No. 1, p. 444. 403
Senate Documents, 1st Session, 30th Congress, Vol. I, Document No. 1, p. 919. 404
The Minnesota Pioneer, May 12, 1849. 405