[Footnote: Turner,
Character and Influence of the Fur Trade in Wis., in Wis. Hist.
Soc., Transactions, 1889.]
In the War of 1812, all along the frontier of Indiana, Illinois, and
Missouri, as well as in the southwest, the settlers had drawn back
into forts, much as in the early days of the occupation of Kentucky
and Tennessee, and the traders and the Indians had been entirely
under the influence of Great Britain. In the negotiations at Ghent,
that power, having captured the American forts at Mackinac, Prairie
du Chien, and Chicago, tried to incorporate in the treaty a
provision for a neutral belt, or buffer state, of Indian territory
in the northwest, to separate Canada from the United States.
[Footnote: Cf. Babcock, Am. Nationality (Am. Nation, XIII.), chap.
x.] Taught by this experience, the United States, at the close of
the war, passed laws excluding aliens from conducting the Indian
trade, and erected forts at Green Bay, Prairie du Chien, Chicago,
and Fort Snelling. By order of Secretary of War Calhoun, Governor
Cass, of Michigan, made an expedition in 1820 along the south shore
of Lake Superior into Minnesota, to compel the removal of English
flags and to replace British by American influence.
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