For anyone who missed the memo, My Own True Love and I spent last week in the Twin Cities, finishing up the last bit of our multi-year exploration of the Great River Road. It was wonderful. We enjoyed lots of history-nerdery, learned some amazing stories,(1) and danced to a local Cajun band(2)—a perfect way to link the two ends of the Great River Road on our final visit.

Painting of Fort Snelling by Col. Seth Eastman, ca. 1830

We spent our first day in Minnesota at Historic Fort Snelling, the place where the Twin Cities began. Fort Snelling was built between 1818 and 1825, as a frontier fort with the purpose of protecting American interests in the fur trade. It was in active use through 1946, with a brief pause between 1858, when Minnesota became a state and it was presumed that a frontier fort was no longer needed, and the U.S. Dakota War of 1862, an important event in Minnesota history which neither I nor My Own True Love had heard of. (3) Over the years, new buildings were erected and old buildings torn down. At the time the fort was decommissioned, only four of its original buildings were standing. Today, the fort has been reconstructed to its original 1825 appearance, with the help of extensive archeological research. (Both the reconstruction and the excavations continue.) The buildings house exhibits that include life in the fort, medical knowledge at the time, and archeological exhibits. Staff members are available to answer questions. (I was particularly interested by the representation of how soldiers’ lives and equipment varied from period to period.) Living history exhibitions occur. In short, it resembled many other historic American forts that we have visited, and enjoyed, over the years. (4)

But the fort itself is only part of the story told at the site, an experience summed up in the title of the excellent exhibit in the site’s new visitor center: “Many Voices, Many Stories, One Place.” The on-site interpreters and museum designers take that title seriously.

The main focus on other voices is the Native American presence. Both the brief introductory tour of the fort and the interpretive exhibit begin the story not with the decision to build a fort at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, but with the importance of that location as a sacred place for the Dakota. Exhibits discussed Dakota and Ojibwe culture in the area, the United States’ repeated failure to honor the treaties made with those peoples, and the U.S. Dakota War of 1862.

Historic Fort Snelling also takes care to include the stories of African-Americans and women who were at the fort. Those stories are more than a performative aside. They provided a deeper picture of life at the fort. For example, even though slavery was illegal in Minnesota, Army officers brought enslaved people with them as servants. Two of those servants made history: Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet Robinson Scott, used their years in the free territory of Minnesota as the legal basis when they unsuccessfully sued their owner for their freedom. The landmark case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which effectively declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional—right up there in the list of really bad Supreme Court decisions. The course of the case increased tensions between north and south and brought the United States one step closer to civil war. (5) Two months after the decision, a subsequent owner of the pair emancipated them.

In short, an excellent start to our visit to the Twin Cities.

More stories coming in future posts. Don’t touch that dial!

(1)Don’t worry. I plan to share

(2) What? You don’t associate Cajun music with Minnesota? In fact, local musicians have been playing Cajun music in the Twin Cities and dancers have been waltzing and two-stepping to it since the 1970s.

(3) It is humbling how often I discover big gaps in my knowledge about our own history, let alone that of other places. I hope to fill a few gaps when I read my way through Native American heritage month in November. I own a lot of unread books on the subject . I have a list of others I want to read. I hope to make a small dent in both the To-Be-Read pile and my own ignorance.

(4) For example: Old Fort Madison, Fort Robinson, Fort Sumter, …

(5) It is telling that we know this only as the Dred Scott case. I’m not sure I even knew that he had a wife, let alone that she was part of the legal action. I certainly didn’t know her name. Moreover, the Scotts were not the only enslaved people who used their time at Fort Snelling to claim their freedom. Two enslaved women, known only as Rachel and Courtney, successfully sued for their freedom based on their time in Minnesota. I don’t think they showed up in my textbooks at all. Perhaps because they won.