The City of St. Paul was birthed with the expulsion of immigrants by the U.S. military. In the 1600s French explorers, traders and missionaries came to the Midwest via Canada and the Great Lakes. In 1811 the Red River Colony or Selkirk Settlement was founded on 116,000 square miles of land that included parts of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Minnesota and North Dakota. Many settlers had Native (Ojibwe) wives and their descendants made up a unique métis population and culture. The language was primarily French, with Native and English added.
Life on the prairie was brutal: ferocious winters, locusts and mosquitoes, disease, floods and prairie fires, conflicts with native tribes and lack of experience in developing the prairie for agriculture. After an 1826 flood colonists walked their cattle to Fort Snelling, a six-month 700-mile journey. Between 1821 and 1835 it is estimated that close to 500 refugees from Selkirk’s Colony found refuge at Fort Snelling.
The 1837 Land Cession Treaty with the Dakota opened territory east of the Mississippi River for American settlement. The Dakota Kap’oża/Kaposia village was moving to the river’s west bank near South St. Paul, originally located below Mounds Park. In 1838 Major Joseph Plympton redefined the boundaries of Fort Snelling’s military reserve and forced civilian settlers out with their first stop at Fountain Cave. In 1841 he again expanded the fort’s boundary and literally burned out that community. The refugees relocated with their livestock to make claims in what is now St. Paul’s downtown plateau above its bluffs as well as at Pointe Leclair/Point Basse two miles south…