Wing's and Wabasha's villages would leave their homes for the fort. In
the agency building the United States officers, with the roll of the
Sioux nation before them, called the names of the individuals, who one
by one stepped up, touched the pen of the secretary, received the money,
and deposited it in the box of his band. Outside was the typical Indian
group--squaws, children, dogs, and braves smoking their pipes and
talking of past achievements. And in order that the Indians might always
be conscious of the presence of the soldiers of the "Great Father", the
band of the fort played patriotic and thrilling airs.[497]

With the transfer of the Indians to reservations higher up on the
Minnesota River the payment of these annuities became a task which could
no longer be performed at the fort. But the guarding of the funds
was a necessity. Captain James Monroe spent the latter half of the month
of November, 1852, at Traverse des Sioux with one subaltern and
forty-seven men of the dragoons and infantry, protecting the money from
bandits and Indians. William T. Magruder was ordered on October 23,
1853, to proceed in command of a detachment of troops to escort the
money being sent to Fort Ridgely; and exactly a year later, an officer
and thirteen men were detailed to perform a similar task.[498]

XIII

CITIZENS AND SOLDIERS

"The frontier army post," writes Professor F. J. Turner, "serving to
protect the settlers from the Indians, has also acted as a wedge to open
the Indian country, and has been a nucleus for settlement."[499] When
the Fifth Infantry built its cantonment on the Minnesota River there
were no other habitations in the neighborhood. Traders yearly frequented
the region and wintered on the banks of the Mississippi and Minnesota
rivers, but their headquarters were located at Prairie du Chien.
Immediately after the beginning of the military establishment, however,
the movement mentioned by Professor Turner was initiated.

In the spring of 1820 J. B. Faribault came up with cattle for the
garrison and decided to locate in the vicinity as a fur trader. On
August 9th the Indians granted Pike's Island to his wife, Pelagi
Faribault, who was the daughter of a Frenchman and a Sioux woman.
Faribault immediately built houses upon the island, but high water
washed them away. Thereupon he removed to the east side of the
Mississippi. It is probably to this establishment that Beltrami referred
in 1823 when he wrote