aders, the supremacy of the English companies, the
establishment of military posts of the United States, and the building
of American communities.

Although at the opening of the second decade of the nineteenth century
the American troops quartered on the west banks of the Mississippi River
were on soil that, in name, had been American for sixteen years, and
although they looked over the river to land that had since 1783 belonged
to their country, yet they had in fact taken possession of a foreign
land. English, French, and Spanish flags had at various times waved over
certain parts of it. Foreign influence, during a century and a
half, had become widespread and deeply rooted.

When in 1634 Jean Nicollet visited the Wisconsin country the French
advance into the upper Northwest had begun.[2] From 1658 to 1660
Radisson and Groseilliers wandered among the tribes and brought the
first canoe loads of furs to Canada from the far West. Then along with
the missionaries, Hennepin and Marquette, came the _coureurs des bois_,
Nicholas Perrot and Daniel Greyloson Duluth. It is unnecessary to recite
in detail the exploits of these Frenchmen and their successors.[3] For a
century the songs of unknown boatmen rose from the waters of the western
rivers; unknown traders smoked in the lodges of Sioux and Chippewas; and
hardy wanderers whose feats of discovery are unrecorded, leaving behind
the Missouri River, saw from afar the wonders of the "Shining
Mountains".[4] But if no record of them remains, their influence was
lasting. Living with the natives, supplying their needs by barter, and
marrying the Indian girls, the French gained a remarkable power over the
northwestern tribes, which caused them to consider whoever came from
Canada their friend, even after the English government had supplanted
the French in power.

West of the lakes the transition from the French to the English rule
created no disturbances, such as Pontiac's conspiracy which so
completely disrupted the trade in the East.[5] Continuing the French
policy and also their posts and voyageurs, the Scottish merchants
of Montreal, organized in 1784 as the North West Company, pushed
westward from Green Bay and southward from Lake Winnipeg. This advance
was continued until the opening years of the next century. Although on
nominally Spanish territory, the tribes on the upper Missouri were won
from the Spanish traders at St. Louis by such severe cutting in prices
that the lat