# Fort Snelling *Former U.S. Army post and National Historic Landmark at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, Hennepin County, Minnesota* Fort Snelling is a former United States Army post and National Historic Landmark. It stands on bluffs above the junction of the [[Minnesota River]] and the [[Mississippi River]] in Hennepin County, [[Minnesota]].[^1] The post was called Fort Saint Anthony until its construction was finished in 1825, when it became Fort Snelling.[^1] The river junction below is [[Bdote]]. Minnesota Historical Society material presents it as the place where [[Dakota]] tradition holds the people were created, and as a site inhabited for at least ten thousand years.[^2] The [[Minnesota Historical Society]] now operates the Historic Fort Snelling site.[^3] The Society's reference work, MNopedia, uses the term "concentration camp" for the stockade set up on the river bottom below the fort on November 7, 1862. That stockade held roughly 1,600 Dakota and mixed-race non-combatants, mostly women, children and the elderly, until their removal in May 1863.[^4] The Society's [[U.S.–Dakota War]] timeline states that the 1863 Dakota Expulsion Act "has never been repealed."[^5] Treaties ceding Dakota and Ojibwe land were signed at the confluence in 1805, 1837 and 1851.[^6] Hennepin County's own history page records that the county, created in 1852, was first to have been named Snelling County, after the fort.[^7] ## Where The fort lies in the unorganized territory of Fort Snelling in Hennepin County. It is also within the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, a unit of the [[National Park Service]].[^8] Several government agencies now hold parts of the former fort. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources runs Fort Snelling State Park at the foot of the bluff, on land the fort once included. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has named the site a National Treasure.[^9] English renderings of the confluence's name include "meeting of waters" and "where two rivers meet."[^10] Minnesota Historical Society material gives it as "where two waters come together."[^11] The place is held to be of spiritual importance by the Dakota, Ojibwe, Ioway, Otoe, Sauk, Fox and Cheyenne peoples.[^10] Stephen Return Riggs's *Dakota-English Dictionary* (1852) recorded the word as mdóte. Riggs noted it as "a name commonly applied to the country about Fort Snelling, or mouth of the Saint Peters," the river now called the Minnesota.[^10] Three treaties were concluded at the confluence: - the 1805 Treaty of St. Peters, signed by [[Mdewakanton]] Dakota; - the 1837 White Pine Treaty, signed by several Ojibwe bands; - the 1851 [[Treaty of Mendota]], signed by Mdewakanton and [[Wahpekute]] representatives.[^6] The November 1862 stockade stood on the river bottom below the fort.[^4] In 1840 the Army removed squatters from the Fort Snelling military reservation. They resettled downriver, at the landing where Saint Paul was then founded.[^12] ## When - **1805.** On September 23, 1805, Lieutenant [[Zebulon Pike]] concluded the treaty known as Pike's Purchase. Two of the seven Dakota leaders present signed it.[^13] Wikipedia's account states that Pike had no authority to make the treaty.[^14] The Senate wrote in a $2,000 figure years later, and the President never proclaimed the treaty. An 1856 Senate committee found no evidence that the Dakota considered it binding.[^13] - **1820.** The at-issue record, drawing on Minnesota Historical Society sources, dates the fort's construction to 1820.[^15] - **1830s–1858.** Before the Civil War, the Army let soldiers and fur traders bring enslaved people to the post. Among them were Dred Scott and Harriet Robinson Scott, who lived there in the 1830s. Their freedom suit of the 1840s argued that residence in free territory had made them free, and it led to *Dred Scott v. Sandford*. Slavery at the fort ended shortly before Minnesota's 1858 statehood.[^16] - **1851.** The [[Treaty of Traverse des Sioux]] was signed on July 23, 1851. After the two official copies were signed, trader Joseph R. Brown presented a third document directing annuity funds to traders' claimed debts. It was neither read aloud nor translated, and all but two signers signed it believing it was another copy of the treaty.[^17] The Treaty of Mendota followed on August 5, 1851.[^18] - **1852.** On March 6, 1852, the Territorial [[Legislature]] established Hennepin County, with [[Minneapolis]] as county seat.[^19] - **1862.** The fort served as the main base of U.S. government forces in the Dakota War of 1862.[^20] Of 303 Dakota men tried, President Lincoln commuted 264 sentences, and 38 were hanged at [[Mankato]] on December 26, 1862.[^21] Between November 7 and 13, about 1,600 Dakota were marched to Fort Snelling.[^22] The stockade below the fort was established on November 7.[^4] - **1863.** Survivors were removed to [[Crow Creek]] in May 1863.[^4] The at-issue record describes the removal as going by steamboat down the Mississippi and up the Missouri. It describes Crow Creek, citing the historical record, as "a dry, barren place that was unsuitable for farming."[^23] Wikipedia's account adds that eastern Dakota and Ho-Chunk non-combatants were held at the camp to await riverboat transport out of Minnesota.[^24] - **1946–1965.** The fort served as a recruiting station in the Civil War, the Spanish–American War and both World Wars, and was decommissioned in 1946. It then deteriorated. The lower post was restored in 1965, when only its round and hexagonal towers survived from the original.[^25] ## How much - **1805 treaty.** Treaties Matter records that roughly $200 in gifts and whiskey changed hands. Pike's own journal valued the land at $200,000. The document named no consideration, and the Senate later inserted $2,000.[^26] Wikipedia gives the cession as 155,320 acres.[^14] - **1851 treaties.** Together, the Traverse des Sioux and Mendota treaties transferred twenty-four million acres at roughly seven and a half cents an acre.[^27] ## How many - **Held.** The stockade held roughly 1,600 Dakota and mixed-race non-combatants.[^4] - **Definition of the term.** MNopedia defines its term as "a place where people are confined, often in poor conditions, without regard to legal norms of arrest."[^28] - **Deaths.** MNopedia estimates that 130 to 300 people died of mumps, measles and pneumonia, and of assaults by soldiers and civilians.[^28] The Society's U.S.–Dakota War timeline instead states that "nearly 300 Dakota prisoners die over the winter."[^29] ## Omissions in official accounts Hennepin County's history page states that the county was to have been named Snelling County, and that "the final choice was designed to honor Father Hennepin."[^30] The Minnesota Historical Society's MNopedia entry on [[Louis Hennepin]] records the following: - a Dakota party captured him in April 1680 and held him near Mille Lacs into that summer; - he renamed the falls for St. Anthony of Padua (the [[Falls of St. Anthony]]); - his later books claimed a journey to the Gulf of Mexico and back before his capture, some three thousand miles in a single month; - those books falsely presented him as La Salle's most trusted associate.[^31] The 1913 *[[Catholic Encyclopedia]]* recorded that many historians had denounced him as "an arrant falsifier."[^32] The county page does not mention this record of its namesake.[^30] The same county page describes Pike as having "purchased land from the Dakota Indians."[^33] The treaty record compiled by Treaties Matter shows three things: two of seven Dakota leaders signed, the document named no consideration, and the President never proclaimed it.[^26] ## In the at-issue record - **[[At issue 062 - The Minnesota Historical Society's own reference work uses]]** (AI-Hennepin-062 / AI-062). This pair concerns MNHS's own use of "concentration camp" for the stockade established November 7, 1862. The figures are roughly 1,600 held and an estimated 130 to 300 dead before removal in May 1863.[^4] - **[[At issue 066 - Bdote where two waters come together is where]]** (AI-Hennepin-066 / AI-066). This pair concerns Bdote as a place of Dakota origin, inhabited for at least ten thousand years. It sets that record against the fort's 1820 date and the county's 1852 charter.[^2][^19] - **[[At issue 067 - Hennepin County was established by the Territorial Legislature]]** (AI-067). This pair concerns the county's establishment on March 6, 1852, and the original Snelling County name.[^19] - **AI-Dakota-093.** This pair concerns the march of about 1,600 Dakota women, children and elders to Fort Snelling beginning November 7–13, 1862, and the deaths that followed over the winter.[^22][^29] - **AI-Dakota-095.** This pair concerns the removal of the survivors in spring 1863 to reservations including Crow Creek, under the 1863 act the Society's timeline describes as never repealed.[^23][^5] ## Notes [^1]: Wikipedia contributors, *Fort Snelling* (rev. 1379884517, retrieved 2026-10-27) — location on the bluffs at the confluence in Hennepin County; renamed from Fort Saint Anthony when construction ended in 1825. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Snelling [^2]: Minnesota Historical Society, *Bdote* (Historic Fort Snelling, n.d.) — Bdote as the place of Dakota origin, inhabited for at least ten thousand years. https://www.mnhs.org/fortsnelling/learn/bdote [^3]: Minnesota Historical Society, *Historic Fort Snelling at Bdote* (n.d.) — the Society's operation of the Historic Fort Snelling site. https://www.mnhs.org/historiccenter/sites/historic-fort-snelling/historic-fort-snelling-bdote [^4]: Minnesota Historical Society, *Fort Snelling at Bdote: Civil and U.S.-Dakota Wars, 1861–1866* (MNopedia, n.d.) — the term "concentration camp"; the stockade established November 7, 1862 on the river bottom below the fort; roughly 1,600 non-combatants, mostly women, children and the elderly; removal to Crow Creek in May 1863. https://www.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/place/fort-snelling-civil-and-us-dakota-wars-1861-1866 [^5]: Minnesota Historical Society, *U.S.–Dakota War Timeline* (n.d.) — the 1863 Dakota Expulsion Act "has never been repealed." https://www.mnhs.org/usdakotawar/timeline [^6]: Wikipedia contributors, *Fort Snelling*, "History" section (rev. 1379884517, retrieved 2026-10-27) — the 1805, 1837 and 1851 treaties signed at the confluence and their signatories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Snelling [^7]: Hennepin County, *History of the County* (n.d.) — the original plan to name the county Snelling County. https://www.hennepincounty.gov/government/about/county-overview/history-county [^8]: Wikipedia contributors, *Fort Snelling* (rev. 1379884517, retrieved 2026-10-27) — the unorganized territory of Fort Snelling; the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area as a National Park Service unit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Snelling [^9]: Wikipedia contributors, *Fort Snelling* (rev. 1379884517, retrieved 2026-10-27) — divided agency ownership; DNR administration of Fort Snelling State Park; National Trust "National Treasure" listing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Snelling [^10]: Wikipedia contributors, *Fort Snelling*, "Bdóte" subsection (rev. 1379884517, retrieved 2026-10-27) — glosses of the name; peoples for whom the site is of spiritual importance; Riggs's 1852 dictionary entry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Snelling [^11]: Minnesota Historical Society, *Bdote* (Historic Fort Snelling, n.d.) — Bdote as "where two waters come together." https://www.mnhs.org/fortsnelling/learn/bdote [^12]: Wikipedia contributors, *History of Saint Paul, Minnesota* (n.d.) — the 1840 eviction of squatters from the Fort Snelling military reservation as the founding event of Saint Paul. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Saint_Paul,_Minnesota [^13]: Treaties Matter, *1805 Dakota Treaty* (n.d.) — September 23, 1805; two of seven Dakota leaders signed; Senate insertion of $2,000; never proclaimed by the President; the 1856 Senate committee finding. https://treatiesmatter.org/treaties/land/1805-dakota [^14]: Wikipedia contributors, *Fort Snelling*, "Land cession treaty" subsection (rev. 1379884517, retrieved 2026-10-27) — Pike's lack of authority; cession of 155,320 acres. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Snelling [^15]: Minnesota Historical Society, *Historic Fort Snelling at Bdote* (n.d.) — cited