[Footnote 205: Wis. Hist. Colls., I., 103; Minn. Hist. Colls., V., 9.
The Warren brothers, who came to Wisconsin in 1818, were descendants of
the Pilgrims and related to Joseph Warren who fell at Bunker Hill; they
came from Berkshire, Mass., and marrying the half-breed daughters of
Michael Cadotte, of La Pointe, succeeded to his trade.]

[Footnote 206: See the objections of British traders, Mich. Pioneer
Colls., XVI., 76 ff. The Northwest Company tried to induce the British
government to construe the treaty so as to prevent the United States
from erecting the forts, urging that a fort at Prairie du Chien would
"deprive the Indians of their 'rights and privileges'", guaranteed by
the treaty.]

GOVERNMENT TRADING HOUSES.

The system of public trading houses goes back to colonial days. At first
in Plymouth and Jamestown all industry was controlled by the
commonwealth, and in Massachusetts Bay the stock company had reserved
the trade in furs for themselves before leaving England.[207] The trade
was frequently farmed out, but public "truck houses" were established by
the latter colony as early as 1694-5.[208] Franklin, in his public
dealings with the Ohio Indians, saw the importance of regulation of the
trade, and in 1753 he wrote asking James Bowdoin of Massachusetts to
procure him a copy of the truckhouse law of that colony, saying that if
it had proved to work well he thought of proposing it for
Pennsylvania.[209] The reply of Bowdoin showed that Massachusetts
furnished goods to the Indians at wholesale prices and so drove out the
French and the private traders. In 1757 Virginia adopted the system for
a time,[210] and in 1776 the Continental Congress accepted a plan
presented by a committee of which Franklin was a member,[211] whereby
L140,000 sterling was expended at the charge of the United Colonies for
Indian goods to be sold at moderate prices by factors of the
congressional commissioners.[212] The bearing of this act upon the
governmental powers of the Congress is worth noting.

In his messages of 1791 and 1792 President Washington urged the need of
promoting and regulating commerce with the Indians, and in 1793 he
advocated government trading houses. Pickering, of Massachusetts, who
was his Secretary of War with the management of Indian affairs, may have
strengthened Washington in this design, for he was much interested in
Indian improvement, but Washington's own experience had shown him the
desirabilit