This intriguing map shows a proposed series of forts along the western frontier of the United States designed to protect westward settlers from raids by Native Americans. The map covers most of modern-day Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota, as well as parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas. Fort Snelling, located right at the top of the map on the western shore of the Mississippi, is now the site of Minneapolis-St Paul. The region's early road network is marked in red, and a table of distances is helpfully included in the lower left corner. Not only does the table list the distances along the roads in miles, but it also calculates how many days of marching an army would require to move from one point to another.



This particular system of defences was proposed by Charles Gratiot, Chief of Engineers for the US military. Gratiot's was originally published in 1837 to accompany an official report to Congress on the state of the western frontier. This example, however, was reissued in 1861 as part of the compilation of the American State Papers, a 38-volume compilation of the legislative and executive documents of Congress during the period 1789-1838. The project to compile the records of Congress began in 1831 and took 30 years to complete. As this map appears in the final volume of the Military Affairs section of the Papers, it was one of the last to be published, finally being printed in 1861.



This map is of particular interest to modern scholars as it shows the locations of many Native American groups during and after their forced removal to "Indian Territory" by the US government, starting in the 1830s.



Printed colour. [USA6620]