Talk:Pierre Bottineau

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Red Lake Falls, Minnesota

Pierre Bottineau in his later years

Minnesota Historical Society Pierre Bottineau spent his youth hunting and trapping in the Red River Valley of northwestern Minnesota under the tutelage of his French-Canadian father, a voyageur in the employ of the Canadian trading companies that operated freely in the area before the Americans were able to assert their control. His father had been embroiled in the Pemmican War of 1816, a series of skirmishes between two of the largest trading companies in Canada. The internecine conflict had diminished Canadian influence in the area, while American control of trade routes grew with the success of Fort Snelling. By the 1860's, the Red River Valley was being settled in a way that was beyond the dreams of the founders of the Selkirk trading colony in Winnipeg, who had tried, with little effect, to introduce agriculture to the region. The place had simply been too remote, and the mix of white and Indian interests too volatile, during the period of Canadian control of the trade routes in the American fur country.

Thanks in no small part to the services of Pierre Bottineau, the veteran expeditionary guide, and interpreter, rail was mitigating the distance between farm and market. It was also diminishing the role of the ox cart caravans that had moved people and goods through the corridor for a hundred years. In 1863, Bottineau helped negotiate the sale of 11 million acres (45,000 km²) of key Red River Valley land by the Pembina and Red Lake Ojibwe to the United States. This accession meant U.S. control of the prime Red River crossing into Canada and the West. In 1869, Bottineau guided a much-ballyhooed expedition to explore routes through the area for the Northern Pacific Railroad. By the 1870s, Bottineau no doubt saw that his native frontier was closing, and he was motivated to claim its fertile heart before it could be over-run by opportunists from distant parts.

In May, 1876, Bottineau led 119 families from St. Paul into the Red River Valley. Like Bottineau, most of these families were of French-Canadian descent, early settlers of Ramsey and Hennepin Counties. The wagon train wound its way up the Northwest Corridor from the Twin Cities, passed through St. Cloud and then the dozens of outlying settlements strung out along the ox-cart trails. At Crookston the Bottineau party turned north and east, arriving 17 days after its departure at the cradle of the Red Lake and Clearwater Rivers. Bottineau's Ojibwe ancestors had occupied the area 200 years before. A French trading post had started operating nearby in 1798. Yet the wave of American homesteading had ignored this place, which contained some of the most fertile soil in the world.

There the Bottineau party set up the towns of Red Lake Falls and Gentilly. At first times were tough. Tales were told of living all winter on a barrel of flour and jack rabbits. But the area soon flourished. In 1878, Bottineau traveled into Canada and recruited yet more settlers.

It was in Red Lake Falls, within 50 miles of his birthplace at Grand Forks, that the famous ranger Pierre Bottineau more or less retired, though he was said to have been as strong and active at 65 as he was at 30. In 1879, influential Minnesotans secured him a Congressional pension of $50 per month in recognition for his long service. He sat on the village council of Red Lake Falls from 1882-1887 and was elected its president in 1885. He remained active in regional affairs and was involved in another land treaty with the Pembina Ojibwe in 1889.

Bottineau died in 1895, aged 78, vigorous to the last. It was said he took ill while on a moose hunt near Thief River Falls. He was eulogized across the state as the last of the breed of hearty frontiersman that put Minnesota on the map. A memorial to Bottineau stands in the cemetery at Red Lake Falls.


 * I moved this info here. --Auric (talk) 15:21, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Are we missing something in translation?
Pierre Bottineau's mother's Ojibwe name appears to be Majiikwezens Adik-zoongab which should translate to "Evil-Girl Caribou [that] Firmly-Sits". So, how do we get the translation of "Clear Sky Woman"? Conversely, "Clear Sky Woman" should be something more like Mizhakwadook[we] (or a phonetic transcription of that), so, why this disparity? CJLippert (talk) 22:13, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Métis, lived as outcasts
Unsubstantiated claim taken from early 20th century adventure literature  when mixed-race, Negro or Asian were regarded as unreliable cowards who killed from behind unlike the cruel but brave redskins. White supremacist views were always present in the American community, but show me a reliable source that says that Métis were regarded as outcasts by the First Nations. Creuzbourg (talk) 06:27, 9 April 2024 (UTC)