The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1859-10-14

ii, III Cnc mcdntiInc, any vi tuo 'o"n''So
owners up there think they can assist the
War Department in coming to conclusion
now is their last chance.
Before, however, the Secretary's mind is
hopelessly obfuscated by conflicting appeals
from defenceless settlers and devastated set
Elements. we will take the liberty to offer
suggestion.
What surprises us in the history of this
whole Fort question is, not that the officers
of the War Department should find it diff
cult to select suitable military position on
the Upper Red River for the protection
of settlements on the Red River of the
North" but that with this object before
them, they should have steadily agreed
from the first to overlook and disregard, as
utterly as if it had no existence, the only
settlement in the Red River valley which
ever had, or was intended to have, any claim
whatever upon the appropriation. There
should, undoubtedly, be some elfectual mill
tary protection afforded to the incipent set
Elements of the Otter Tail Lake and river
country, and to the prospective settlements
near the head of navigation on the Red
River.
But we respectfully submit that that was
not the object of the appropriation OF
March, 1857. The object was to pro-
tect the existing settlements on the Red
River, and at the time when the appropria-
tion was made, in 1857, the only settle
ment in the Red River at all, on American
territory, was the large community OF
half breeds and others at Pembina and St.
Joseph, on our extreme northern frontier.
The appropriation was made entirely for
their benefit, procured for them by MIR.
RICE's eXertions, in response to their re-
peated appeals to the government for pro-
lection against the raids Of their savage
Sioux neighbors
There never was, perhaps, a more re-
markable instance of the manner in which
government appropriations are diverted
from their original intention, or of the
adroitness with which, in the legislation of
the West, private interests are substituted
for public ends. For years the HaltBreed
settlements On our Northern border had
been besieging the Territorial Legislature,
and through it, Congress, for military de.
fence against the savages, whose repeated
raids threatened to break up the settlement,
and drive the settlers back to the shelter of
the Hudson Bay Company's oppressive
laws. In 1855, Mr.. RICE, as has been be-
fore said, succeeded in obtaining small
appropriation of five thousand dollars
intended as the nucleus of larger expendi-
tures-for building a tort "on the line of the
49th parallel, on or near the Pembina
river
The next year, we believe, Mr.. RICE sue
ceeded in forcing the passage through the
House, and very nearly through the Senate,
of an appropriation of $50 900 for the same
purpose. In the meantime, Col. SMITH WIS.,
tied Pembina and reported to the depart
ment in favor of military post at St.
Joseph, and of another when the extension
of settlements should make it necessary, at
Graham's Point, but objected to the i'm
practicable terms of the Congressional Bill
which was against the geography of the
country, and asked for wider discretion in
the location of the Fort. Upon this report
further appropriation of $4,000 was OBJ
tanned from Congress, .or the protection of
the defenceless settlements at the north, and
the location of the post left to the discretion
of the department. About this time, certain
townsites began to be limited at upon the
Red River, and the parties interested therein
began to take advantage of the loose word
ing of the appropriation clause, to divert the
grant from its original intention. For this
purpose they made an effective use of the very
accommodating legislature of Minnesota,
which twice memorialized the President to
place the proposed Fort at Graham's Point.
The Secretary of War could not disregard
this solemnIy expressed wish of a people
which surely ought to know what its local
wants were and Fort Abercrombie was
built, and the pillaged and decimated settle
ments at Pembina passed entirely out of
sight.
This we believe to be the history of the
transaction, and that the Government
authorities have been mised by an ADVENT
tious local camor, into gross neglect of
poor people which has paramount claims
upon the consideration and sympathy of the
Government, all the more because, speaking
different language from us, and isolated
from all the other communities of the FROM
tier, they are not versed in the arts which
influence legislation and attract patronage.
We are far from being opposed to--on
the contrary, we are heartily in favor ola
fort on the upper waters of the Red River.
We have before pointed out the imperative
necessity of military guardianship for the
incipient settlements there; and if there are to
be two forts, according to Col. SMITHS
recommendation, one should most assuredly
Al L.. n