Fort Saint Antoine was a French fort on

Lake Pepin Lake Pepin is a naturally occurring lake on the Mississippi River on the border between the U.S. states of Minnesota and Wisconsin. It is located in a valley carved by the outflow of an enormous glacial lake at the end of the last Ice Age. The ...

in present-day Wisconsin founded in 1686 by explorer and fur trader Nicholas Perrot and his expedition of

Canadiens French Canadians (referred to as Canadiens mainly before the twentieth century; french: Canadiens français, ; feminine form: , ), or Franco-Canadians (french: Franco-Canadiens), refers to either an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to Fren ...

. They had come to the region to begin trading with Native American tribes of the area.

Perrot's expedition

In the fall of 1685, Perrot and his men arrived at Trempealeau Mountain by canoe down the Trempealeau River, reaching its mouth at its confluence with the Mississippi River. They built a protective shelter there in preparation for winter. Several weeks earlier they had left

La Baye La Baye was a small trading post established on the ''Baie des Puants'' in 1634 by Jean Nicolet. Nicolas Perrot, who was sent by Father Claude-Jean Allouez, continued the work that Nicolet had started. In 1671, the Jesuits constructed a mission. ...

and crossed

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

via the

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

and Wisconsin rivers to reach the upper

Mississippi Valley The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it ...

. Their purpose was to establish alliances with the

Ioway The Iowa, also known as Ioway, and the Bah-Kho-Je or Báxoje (English: grey snow; Chiwere: Báxoje ich'é) are a Native American Siouan people. Today, they are enrolled in either of two federally recognized tribes, the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma an ...

and

Dakota Dakota may refer to: * Dakota people, a sub-tribe of the Sioux ** Dakota language, their language Dakota may also refer to: Places United States * Dakota, Georgia, an unincorporated community * Dakota, Illinois, a town * Dakota, Minnesota, ...

Indians in order to expand French interests in the fur trade market. Although Perrot's venture was not the first French excursion into the upper Mississippi Valley, his was the first attempt to establish a trading foothold among the Native American tribes in this region.

Founding of Fort Saint Antoine

In the spring of 1686 the expedition abandoned the Trempealeau site for a more advantageous location along

, where Perrot built Fort Saint Antoine. Over the next thirty-five years French economic fortunes in the upper Mississippi Valley waxed and waned. It was not until 1731, and the end of the Fox Indian Wars, that the French under the command of René Godefroy, sieur de Linctot returned to Trempealeau and established another trading post on the upper Mississippi. After the French lost the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (175 ...

to the British in 1763, they ceded all land in North America east of the Mississippi to Britain. They ceded their territory to the west to Spanish rule.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Antoine, Fort 1686 establishments in the French colonial empire Forts in Wisconsin Trempealeau County, Wisconsin French forts in the United States

Perrot's expedition

Founding of Fort Saint Antoine

See also

References