he
contribution of the army to the transformation of the Mississippi
Valley.

In many ways Fort Snelling is unique in the list of American forts. The
British flag was borne in triumph to wave from the flagstaff of Fort
Ticonderoga after it had been evacuated by the colonial patriots during
the dark days of 1777; but never was a foreign flag borne into Fort
Snelling except to be burned in the sight of awestruck Indians. The guns
of Fort Sumter announced the opening of the Civil War; never were the
cannon at Fort Snelling fired at a foe. Mackinac was successively
garrisoned by French, English, and American soldiers; whenever occupied
by troops Fort Snelling flew the stars and stripes. The stockades at
Boonesborough and Harrodstown were besieged by hundreds of savages who
fought to gain entrance and obtain the scalps of the pioneer men and
women there gathered for safety; no hostile demonstration was ever
staged near Fort Snelling. Its history was not made by the rifles and
sabers of the soldiers; the axe and the plow of the pioneer who worked
in safety beneath its potential protection have left their history upon
the landscape of the great Northwest.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

CHAPTER I

[1] Carver's _Travels through the Interior Parts of North-America_, pp.
vii, viii.

[2] To the region lying on the upper waters of three great river
systems--the Mississippi, the St. Lawrence, and the Red River of the
North--the writer has applied the name "Upper Northwest" to distinguish
it from the "Old Northwest" and the "Pacific Northwest".

[3] For a summary of the French explorations see Folwell's _Minnesota_,
pp. 1-29. Thwaites's _France in America_, p. 74, contains an excellent
map of the French operations in the West.

[4] The report of Louis Antoine Bougainville, written in 1757 and based
on the reports of Canadian officials, shows the extent of French
commerce at the close of the period of French control. At Green Bay (La
Baye) trade was carried on with the Folles-Avoines, Sacs, Foxes, Sioux,
and other tribes, the annual output being from five to six hundred
packages of furs. In the North, extending westward along what is now the
international boundary to the Lake of the Woods and then along the lakes
and rivers of the Lake Winnipeg system, was the territory of the post
known as "The Sea of the West". This included seven forts and produced a
yearly supply of from three to four hundred packages. "These regions are