Traverse des Sioux

Name and location

Traverse is a French word that means crossing, and some sources state that its use in the name refers to the crossing of the Minnesota River at this location. At least one scholarly source however states that Traverse des Sioux is named for the transit of the prairie to the west, and not for the river crossing. As used by the French Canadian voyageurs and their Métis relatives and descendants, a traverse was a crossing from a safe resting place across an open area to another point of shelter, such as a voyageurs’ crossing of hazardous waters from point to point rather than along a sheltered shore, or its correlate on land, a crossing by Métis ox cart brigades of open prairie from one secure resting place to another. The settlement at Traverse des Sioux was a destination of Métis carters during the days of the Red River Trails, and was also home of a voyageur community during the same time.

Nineteenth-century explorer John C. Frémont used the term Traverse des Sioux to refer to the transit across the plain west of the river. Westbound travelers left the Minnesota River at the settlement of Traverse des Sioux and went directly west across the open prairie, leaving the shelter of the wooded riverbank in order to shortcut the right-angle elbow of the river at Mankato. They returned to the river near the mouth of the Cottonwood River at modern New Ulm.

History

A ford of the Minnesota River existed from Pre-contact times. A trading post at the site of the crossing likely existed in the last half of the eighteenth century, and a number of fur traders had establishments there in the first half of the nineteenth century. An Indian mission was established there in 1843, and by 1851 the settlement had two missionaries and their families, a school, several fur trading establishments, a few cabins of French voyageurs, and twenty to thirty Indian lodges. By the 1840s it was used as a transshipment point in the fur trade. Pelts from upstream fur posts and from collection points as far away as Pembina and Fort Garry, Canada, were brought by ox cart trains traveling on the West Plains Trail, the westernmost of the Red River Trails. At Traverse des Sioux the furs were transferred to flatboats bound for Mendota, Minnesota and eastern markets. In the later part of that period some cart trains went all the way to Mendota or Saint Paul, Minnesota, where the furs were taken by Mississippi riverboat to markets downriver.

In 1851 the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux was signed at the post, by which tribes of the Sioux people were induced to cede 24 million acres (97,000 km²) of land for seven cents per acre, opening up vast areas of Minnesota Territory to non-native settlement. The lands surrendered including Minnesota west of the Mississippi and south of the lands of the Ojibway, all of what later became South Dakota east of the Big Sioux River, and much of northern Iowa.

After the treaty a town was platted, which kept the settlement's name. Its seventy buildings included two hotels, several churches, and five taverns. This town lost its position as county seat of Nicollet County in 1856, and soon was superseded by Saint Peter, the new seat a short distance to the south. The old town was abandoned by 1869.

Preservation

In 1905 a legislative commission was formed to identify the site of the 1851 treaty. Investigation located the spot, which was dedicated in 1914. Traverse des Sioux Treaty Site Park was established by legislative action, but little development occurred.

The park was reclassified as a state wayside park in 1937, and efforts were made to acquire additional land. By 1963 these efforts had stopped, and the site was inundated by the devastating 1965 floods of the Minnesota and Upper Mississippi Rivers. In 1969 however expansion was authorized, and the foundation ruins of the townsite were marked. In 1980 the wayside and townsite were removed from the state park system and transferred to the control of the Minnesota Historical Society; the additional land went to the city of Saint Peter.

A self-guided tour of the town and treaty site is available, and the Nicollet County Historical Society maintains its headquarters at the adjacent Treaty Site History Center, with exhibits about the treaty and other area history. The site is managed by the Nicollet County Historical Society in partnership with the Minnesota Historical Society.

In recent years historians have been able to locate the site of the river ford, and using an old map, have related it to the location of the fur post, cemetery, and other features of the old settlement. Archaeologists have also found Paleo-Indian projectile points estimated to be 9,000 years old, indicating the site was inhabited or visited by Native Americans for many millennia.