Frontier Forts of Iowa

Frontier Forts of Iowa PDF

Author: William E. Whittaker

Publisher: University of Iowa Press

Published: 2009-09

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1587298821

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

At least fifty-six frontier forts once stood in, or within view of, what is now the state of Iowa. The earliest date to the 1680s, while the latest date to the Dakota uprising of 1862. Some were vast compounds housing hundreds of soldiers; others consisted of a few sheds built by a trader along a riverbank. Regardless of their size and function—William Whittaker and his contributors include any compound that was historically called a fort, whether stockaded or not, as well as all military installations—all sought to control and manipulate Indians to the advantage of European and American traders, governments, and settlers. Frontier Forts of Iowa draws extensively upon the archaeological and historical records to document this era of transformation from the seventeenth-century fur trade until almost all Indians had been removed from the region. The earliest European-constructed forts along the Mississippi, Des Moines, and Missouri rivers fostered a complex relationship between Indians and early traders. After the Louisiana Purchase of 1804, American military forts emerged in the Upper Midwest, defending the newly claimed territories from foreign armies, foreign traders, and foreign-supported Indians. After the War of 1812, new forts were built to control Indians until they could be moved out of the way of American settlers; forts of this period, which made extensive use of roads and trails, teamed a military presence with an Indian agent who negotiated treaties and regulated trade. The final phase of fort construction in Iowa occurred in response to the Spirit Lake massacre and the Dakota uprising; the complete removal of the Dakota in 1863 marked the end of frontier forts in a state now almost completely settled by Euro-Americans. By focusing on the archaeological evidence produced by many years of excavations and by supporting their words with a wealth of maps and illustrations, the authors uncover the past and connect it with the real history of real places. In so doing they illuminate the complicated and dramatic history of the Upper Midwest in a time of enormous change. Past is linked to present in the form of a section on visiting original and reconstructed forts today. Contributors: Gayle F. Carlson Jeffrey T. Carr Lance M. Foster Kathryn E. M. Gourley Marshall B. McKusick Cindy L. Nagel David J. Nolan Cynthia L. Peterson Leah D. Rogers Regena Jo Schantz Christopher M. Schoen Vicki L. Twinde-Javner William E. Whittaker

Grand Portage As a Trading Post: Patterns of Trade at the Great Carrying Place

Grand Portage As a Trading Post: Patterns of Trade at the Great Carrying Place PDF

Author: Bruce White

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2013-05-09

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 9781484920961

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The purpose of this report is to describe the fur trade that took place at Grand Portage between Europeans and Native Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries. During this period Grand Portage was important for many reasons. A strategic geographical point in the trade route between the Great Lakes and the Canadian Northwest, it was best known as a trade depot and company headquarters in the period between 1765 and 1804.

Otter Skins, Boston Ships and China Goods

Otter Skins, Boston Ships and China Goods PDF

Author: James R. Gibson

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 454

ISBN-13: 9780773520288

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

James Gibson's thoroughly researched and highly detailed study is the first comprehensive account of the maritime fur trade on the Northwest Coast of North America.

Astoria and Empire

Astoria and Empire PDF

Author: James P. Ronda

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 1993-02-01

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 9780803289420

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In late December 1788 a worried Spanish official in Mexico City set down his fears about a new and aggressive northern neighbor. Viceroy Manuel Antonio Florez offered a gloomy prediction about the future of Spanish-United States relations in the West. He already knew about the steady march of frontiersmen toward St. Louis and now came troubling word of Robert Gray's ship Columbia on the Northwest coast. All this seemed to fit a pattern, a design for Yankee expansion. "We ought not to be surprised," warned the viceroy, "that the English colonies of America, now being an independent Republic, should carry out the design of finding a safe port on the Pacific and of attempting to sustain it by crossing the immense country of the continent above our possessions of Texas, New Mexico, and California." Canadian fur merchants and Russian bureaucrats also viewed the young republic as a potential rival in the struggle for western dominion. The viceroy's vision of the future proved startlingly accurate. Within the next two decades an American president would authorize a federally funded expedition to find just the sort of transcontinental route Florez imagined. Equally important, a New York entrepreneur would propose and put into motion an ambitious plan to make the Northwest an American political and commercial empire. John Astor's Pacific Fur Company, with Astoria as its central post on the Columbia River, was Florez's nightmare come true. Astoria had long represented either a daring overland adventure or simply a failed trading venture. The Astorians surely had their share of adventure. And the Pacific Fur Company never brought its founder the profits he expected. But all those involved in the extensive enterprise knew it meant more. Thomas Jefferson once described Astoria as the "germ of a great, free and independent empire," believing that the entire American claim to the lands west of the Rockies rested on "Astor's settlement at the mouth of the Columbia." And John Quincy Adams, the expansionist-minded secretary of state, labeled then entire Northwest as "the empire of Astoria." This book seeks to explore Astoria as part of a large and complex struggle for national sovereignty in the Northwest. The Astorians and their rivals were always engaged in more than trading and trapping. They were advance agents of empire. -- from Preface

Rising Up from Indian Country

Rising Up from Indian Country PDF

Author: Ann Durkin Keating

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2012-08-15

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0226428966

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In August 1812, under threat from the Potawatomi, Captain Nathan Heald began the evacuation of ninety-four people from the isolated outpost of Fort Dearborn to Fort Wayne. The group included several dozen soldiers, as well as nine women and eighteen children. After traveling only a mile and a half, they were attacked by five hundred Potawatomi warriors. In under an hour, fifty-two members of Heald’s party were killed, and the rest were taken prisoner; the Potawatomi then burned Fort Dearborn before returning to their villages. These events are now seen as a foundational moment in Chicago’s storied past. With Rising up from Indian Country, noted historian Ann Durkin Keating richly recounts the Battle of Fort Dearborn while situating it within the context of several wider histories that span the nearly four decades between the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, in which Native Americans gave up a square mile at the mouth of the Chicago River, and the 1833 Treaty of Chicago, in which the American government and the Potawatomi exchanged five million acres of land west of the Mississippi River for a tract of the same size in northeast Illinois and southeast Wisconsin. In the first book devoted entirely to this crucial period, Keating tells a story not only of military conquest but of the lives of people on all sides of the conflict. She highlights such figures as Jean Baptiste Point de Sable and John Kinzie and demonstrates that early Chicago was a place of cross-cultural reliance among the French, the Americans, and the Native Americans. Published to commemorate the bicentennial of the Battle of Fort Dearborn, this gripping account of the birth of Chicago will become required reading for anyone seeking to understand the city and its complex origins.

Lanterna Rally - Theme by Grace Themes