Fort Snelling

Common card · No. 317415

Fort Snelling is a former military fortification and National Historic Landmark in the U.S. state of Minnesota on the bluffs overlooking the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers. The site was initially named Fort Saint Anthony but was renamed Fort Snelling when its construction ended in 1825. Before the American Civil War, the U.S. Army allowed its soldiers and fur traders to bring their personal enslaved people to the fort. These included African Americans Dred Scott and Harriet Robinson Scott, who lived at the fort in the 1830s. In the 1840s, the Scotts sued for their freedom, arguing that having lived in "free territory" made them free, leading to the landmark United States Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Sandford. Slavery ended at the fort just before Minnesota became a state in 1858. The fort served as the primary center for U.S. government forces during the Dakota War of 1862. It also was the site of the concentration camp where eastern Dakota and Ho-Chunk non-combatants...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Jonathunder, CC BY-SA 3.0