Though many people do not know much about Fort Snelling, it has played a huge part in America’s history. 

It was built in St. Paul, Minn., at the confluence of the Mississippi River and the Minnesota River, with those being two of the biggest rivers in the area. Before settlers came to the area, the Dakota people lived there.

On Thursday, July 6, I met with Pete Edwards, a program supervisor at Historic Fort Snelling. The fort, built by Colonel Josiah Snelling, was finished in 1825, before it was decommissioned in 1946. Then, Minnesota State Highway 5, was constructed through the remains of the fort. In the 1960s, plans to expand the highway would lead to the dismantling of the historic round tower of the fort, which was one of the four structures still standing. This led to a reconstruction of the fort, which was put under the control of the Minnesota Historical Society. The fort has been open to visitors ever since. 

When the fort opened to visitors, it was a living history experience that used actors to portray how people lived in the 1820s. In the 1990s, the fort was changed to a third-person learning experience, using fewer actors and more historians and covering all of the fort’s history.

Edwards explained that “this was a particularly spiritual place to many of the Dakota in that it plays into their creation story. Their creator created the first people of the world right down below where we are standing on an island that they call Wita Tanka.”

The fort housed many important people in the United States’ history. Former President Zachary Taylor was a commander at the fort. But possibly the most famous occupants of the fort were enslaved couple Dred and Harriet Scott from the landmark US Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Sandford.

Dred Scott was brought to the fort around 1836 by Dr. John Emerson, an Army surgeon, after being purchased in St. Louis. Dred met a woman named Harriet Robinson, who, at the time, was enslaved by Major Lawrence Taliaferro. They fell in love and married. They lived at Fort Snelling on and off between 1836 and 1840 and raised two daughters, Eliza and Lizzie.

Edwards said “[the Scotts] based a lot of their lawsuit on their time here, at Fort Snelling.” One of the main arguments in the Dred Scott v. Sandford was the amount of time the Scotts spent in the “free states.” They spent most of that time at Fort Snelling. 

“Soldiers from Fort Snelling would be involved in almost every major conflict from the Civil War on, and that includes the United States-Dakota conflict,” Edwards said.

In the United States-Dakota War of 1862, Fort Snelling was more than just a military base. It was the Fort Snelling Concentration Camp, where the US government imprisoned members of the Dakota people. The camp held Dakota people who had stayed in Minnesota after the conflict. While Fort Snelling does not have an exhibit on the concentration camp at the fort, one is currently being built in Chicago and will be finished soon. 

As a tourist destination, Fort Snelling is a great place for the whole family. If you like history, there is a lot of it, and great staff members can answer all of your questions. For kids, there are demonstrations, a working blacksmith shop, baseball, snowshoeing in the winter, and many other fun activities.

The land around the fort is also beautiful, with a great view of the Mississippi River and many walking paths. I asked Edwards what he hoped people would learn from spending time at the fort.

“Perspective, when studying history, you bring with it a lot of your own prejudice, your own internalization, your own experience, not in a negative way,” he said.

“You bring these prejudices with you to history, and it filters what you see … When you come to a place like this, what I want for young children is to look at something from a number of different ways.”

(For more information about Fort Snelling, visit the home page HERE.)

–July 9, 2023–