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.

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.

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.

United States Statutes at Large, Vol. II, pp. 139-146, Vol. III, pp. 332, 333, Vol. IV, pp. 729-735.

A copy of an American trading license is published in the Report from the Select Committee on the Hudson's Bay Company, p. 282.

Indian Office Files, 1831, No. 70.

Indian Office Files, 1831, No. 82.

Auto-biography of Maj. Lawrence Taliaferro in the Minnesota Historical Collections, Vol. VI, p. 200.

Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XX, p. 43

Sibley to Featherstonhaugh.--Sibley Papers. This letter is printed in Holcombe's Minnesota in Three Centuries, Vol. II, p. 57.

Chittenden's The History of the American Fur Trade of the Far West, Vol. I, p. 323.

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.

Taliaferro to Herring, September 15, 1834, in Indian Office Files, 1834, No. 210; Taliaferro Letters, Vol. I, No. 74.

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.

Coues's The Expeditions of Zebulon M. Pike, Vol. I, p. 230.

Taliaferro's Diary, February 22, 1831.

Schoolcraft's Narrative of an Expedition through the Upper Mississippi to Itasca Lake, p. 44.

Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XX, pp. 306, 307.

United States Statutes at Large, Vol. IV, p. 564.

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.

Report from the Select Committee on the Hudson's Bay Company, p. 370.

Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XX, p. 383.

Taliaferro's Diary, January 30, 1831.

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.

Missionary Herald, Vol. 38, p. 58, February, 1842.

Indian Office Files, 1839, No. 62.

Missionary Herald, Vol. 40, p. 281, August, 1844.

Executive Documents, 2nd Session, 30th Congress, Vol. I, Document No. 1, p. 563.

Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XX, p. 383.

Taliaferro's Diary, July 23, 1834.

Taliaferro Letters, Vol. I, No. 74.

Marsh to Street, April 28, 1832.--Street Papers, No. 20.

Indian Office Files, 1835, No. 326.

Bailly to Street, August 3, 1832.--Street Papers, No. 28.

Street to Cass, October 3, 1832.--Street Papers, No. 69.

"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.

Senate Documents, 1st Session, 30th Congress, Vol. I, Document No. 1, p. 922.

Taliaferro to Clark, August 17, 1830.--Indian Office Files, 1830, No. 143.

Indian Office Files, 1830, No. 140.

Taliaferro to Clark, August 2, 1829.--Indian Office Files, 1829, No. 65.

Executive Documents, 2nd Session, 30th Congress, Vol. I, Document No. 1, p. 444.

Senate Documents, 1st Session, 30th Congress, Vol. I, Document No. 1, p. 919.

The Minnesota Pioneer, May 12, 1849.