he first forty
years. It was the passing of Old Fort Snelling which for so many years
had been the remotest outpost of American law.

The development of the Northwest was not brought about by the
spectacular and romantic incidents which the chroniclers loved to
record. So gradual was its progress that the factors contributing to it
can be seen only in the perspective of fifty years. It was the result of
the monotonous details of the life of the fur trader who was the
unwitting explorer of the Northwest, and the forerunner of the permanent
resident. The routine duties of garrison life and expeditions to the
Indian country, often barren of any visible result, added to its
progress, as also did the weary marches of the explorer and the minute
notations of the scientist who accompanied him. The patient sacrifices
of the missionary who toiled at unaccustomed labors in the half-cleared
cornfield and taught his primitive pupils in the log mission-house,
introduced a new civilization. The daily contact of the Indian
and the white man at the fort and agency were prophetic of a new
relationship between the two races.

But because these events were so commonplace the contemporary
chroniclers have bequeathed only a brief though eloquent epitome of this
old Mississippi River post. It was the exception and not the rule to
note that a company of soldiers was up the river watching the movements
of the Indians, that a missionary had been presented with a ham, or that
an explorer took with him so many vegetables from the gardens of the
fort that the gunwale of his boat was brought within four inches of the
water. But such are the stray references which indicate the almost
complete dependence upon the fort of all the factors in the development
of the Northwest.

In the preceding pages an attempt has been made to gather together from
all sources the references which bear upon each particular phase of the
process. In most cases they are few, not because the military men were
not concerned with them, but because at every post in the Mississippi
Valley conditions were practically the same and the public, being
acquainted with these routine duties, was more interested in the
picturesque Indian legends or in the duels between the officers. Of
these latter incidents the pages of the history of Fort Snelling are
full and in this respect it was typical of the American army post. But
it is also an example of that which is of more importance--t