Manuscripts Collection
Information taken from Helen McCann White's
Taliaferro's journals make reference to most of the prominent Ojibwe and Dakota Indians, Indian traders, explorers, military officers, and missionaries active in Minnesota during that time, as well as visitors of note and many settlers, voyageurs, and Red River colony migrants. There are details on Indian bands, trade goods, annuity payments, gifts, health, missionary work, frontier life, and relations between whites and Indians. Taliaferro's friendships with Josiah Snelling and Joseph N. Nicollet are well documented, as are his objections to unscrupulous trade dealings with the Indians in general and his disagreements with Alexis Bailly in particular.
A few papers relate to the War of 1812 and to Taliaferro's experiences in the U.S. army in 1813-1819. Two order books (1813, 1815) provide details of army life on the Niagara frontier. A land patent (1861) transferring Taliaferro's War of 1812 bounty land to one John H. Bryant is also included.
Also present is a short Dakota language dictionary by H.N. Dillon (1835).
Includes typed transcripts of certain volumes, research note cards that were created during production of the microfilm edition, and data sheets for the correspondence and journals that provide bibliographic data and subject entries.
Microfilm copies of the correspondence and volumes and the research note cards are available for researcher use.
The papers do not constitute a complete record of Taliaferro' s service at the agency. The letters received by Taliaferro in this collection probably constitute only a small part of Taliaferro' s original collection. Copies of letters sent are missing for much of the period between 1829 and 1836. Journals for some years are missing; others are incomplete. Financial records, lacking for the years from 1823 to 1829, are far from complete for the rest of the period.
Despite these gaps, the collection is a valuable source of information on the upper Mississippi valley region, particularly on the Dakota and Ojibwe who resided here, and on the white men -- army and civilian government employees, fur traders, travelers, and missionaries -- who penetrated the region before 1840.
These documents are organized into the following sections:
Microfilm described in: White, Helen McCann.
Original materials that have been microfilmed are closed to general use.
Access to and use of reserve materials requires the curator's permission.
Consult the reference staff for more information.
Documents and volumes (M35): Saint Paul, Minn.: Minnesota Historical Society, 1966. 4 reels; 35 mm.
Research note cards (M35-A): Saint Paul, Minn.: Minnesota Historical Society, 1988. 1 reel; 16 mm.
Microfilm available for sale or interlibrary loan from the Minnesota Historical Society.
The correspondence and miscellaneous papers were given to the Minnesota Historical Society by Lawrence Taliaferro in 1868. According to Taliaferro, they were once a part of a larger collection of papers. Many letters and documents bearing the autographs of "public men" had been given to various historical societies and "curious friends," while other papers were destroyed in a fire that burned Taliaferro's home in March 1865.
Taliaferro had sent other papers to Edward D. Neill in 1863 in response to a request by Edward D. Neill, then serving as a secretary to President Lincoln,
Part of the collection was loaned to Edward D. Neill in 1863 and was thus saved for later presentation to the Society.
When Taliaferro gave his papers to the Minnesota Historical Society, he regretted the loss of a number of his journals. One of them, he reported, had been loaned to the editor of the
Shortly after Taliaferro's retirement in 1863, the Reverend Edward D. Neill, an officer of the Minnesota Historical Society, asked permission to "peruse" any records the agent had kept of his years of service on the upper Mississippi. Taliaferro sent Neill many of the items now in the Taliaferro Papers. Neill used them in preparing an article on "Occurrences in and around Fort Snelling, from 1819 to 1840," which was published in
In response to a suggestion from Neill in 1864, Taliaferro wrote the autobiography which appears in the papers. He sent the manuscript to the White House, where Neill was then employed as a secretary to President Lincoln. Neill kept the autobiography and the other manuscripts hoping to prepare a biographical sketch of Taliaferro.
Although the agent had given away to libraries and collectors many of his manuscripts bearing famous autographs, he must have had a large collection of papers in his home at Bedford when fire destroyed his library there in March 1865. Those which survived the fire, including one of the journals (volume 13), were presented to the Minnesota Historical Society in the next three years. During this time, Taliaferro authorized J. Fletcher Williams, the Society's secretary, to procure the records which had been entrusted to Neill. Williams, it appears, later cataloged the collection and prepared Taliaferro's autobiography for publication in the
In 1915 another Taliaferro journal (volume 8) turned up in a pile of old books in a cellar in St. Louis. The volume was purchased by W.M. Nisbet, a book dealer, who sold it to Edson S. Gaylord of Minneapolis; Gaylord then gave it to the Society. In 1927 Taliaferro's grandniece, Mrs. Virginia Bonner Pesch of St. Louis, presented photocopies of an 1861 letter to Taliaferro from James Buchanan and two newspaper clippings of the 1860s about Taliaferro. In the 1960s copies of two letters, from Josiah Snelling and John C. Calhoun to Taliaferro, were presented by Floyd Risvold of Minneapolis, and an 1814 letter from John O'Fallon, the gift of George Flaskerd of Minneapolis.
Accession number: 1724; 1918B; 2722; 7534; 8902; 9164; 10,149; 10,203; 10,302; 11,676; 10,149; 13,964; 16,848; 17,048
Formerly cataloged under call number A/.T146.
Volume numbers were added to the volumes in Taliaferro's papers by the Minnesota Historical Society.
Typed supplementary indexes that have been added to various volumes were prepared by the Minnesota Historical Society when the papers were microfilmed.
Portions of this inventory were adapted from the descriptive notes that appear on the microfilm edition of the papers and from Helen McCann White's
Catalog ID number: 001735339
Contents: Undated items among the papers comprise two lists of Indian trade goods. One of the first dated items in the papers (1813) is a certificate of membership in the Franklin Society of Lexington (Virginia). On the back of it are the names of Taliaferro's slaves, one of whom, Harriet Robinson, was married to Dred Scott.
A few items are concerned with Taliaferro's service in the U.S. Army between 1813 and 1819. They include a copy of Taliaferro's memorandum of advice given him by James Monroe in 1813; documents (1814) bearing the signatures of Morrill Marston and John C. Symmes; and single letters from such army officers as John O'Fallon and William Christy (1814), Charles Larrabee and Zachary Taylor (1817), and Hezekiah Bradley (1818).
The major part of the collection contains letters and documents received in the course of Taliaferro's service as Indian agent at St. Peters (1820-1839). They include his first commission, a copy of his first bond (1819), and his sixth and last commission (1839). There are also drafts of letters sent, some of which are duplicated in the letterbooks and journals, and notes of Indian speeches and councils.
Among Taliaferro correspondents in Washington of special interest are John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, and Samuel L. Southard. Southard, Secretary Of the Navy from 1823 to 1828 was Acting Secretary of War during part of the latter year. He was married to a relative of Taliaferro and was Taliaferro's former tutor. Letters were also received from the various heads of the Indian office in the Department of War and from such Superintendents of Indian Affairs as Lewis Cass, William Clark and Henry Dodge. Significant correspondence with Indian agents and subagents includes letters from Nicholas Boilvin (most of his letters are in French), Joseph M. Street, former controversial newspaper editor and publisher, and John Marsh, all of whom were stationed at Prairie du Chien. The letters from Prairie du Chien, particularly those of Street, give, in addition to routine news of Indian affairs, information about life at Prairie du Chien, the Black Hawk War, postal service, and the introduction of sawmills into the upper Mississippi River valley.
There are also letters from Agent Thomas Forsyth at Rock Island, George W. Johnson, subagent at La Pointe, one letter from Henry W. Schoolcraft, Chippewa Agent at Sault Ste. Marie, written in 1831 from Yellow River, and two from Chippewa subagent Miles M. Vineyard. A few letters and notes are in the handwriting of Taliaferro's subagents Elias T. Langham and Horatio Grooms.
Other correspondents worthy of mention were military officers Zachary Taylor, whom Taliaferro had known since his army days, and Willoughby T. Morgan at Fort Crawford (Prairie du Chien), Robert C. Wood and Josiah Snelling among others at Fort Snelling, Stephen W. Kearny, and Jonathan L. Bean who was in charge of the Dakota-Ojibwe boundary survey of 1835, and John Miller, one of Taliaferro's former commanding officers, who was a member of Congress from Missouri.
There is correspondence with, or reference to, most of the men who were engaged in the fur trade in the Minnesota country during the years Taliaferro was Indian agent at St. Peters. These men included both Americans -- independent traders, and those affiliated with the Columbia and American fur companies -- and foreigners who were licensed to work for the Americans. Most numerous are the items relating to Alexis Bailly, who represented the American Fur Company at St. Peters (Mendota) before 1834 when he was replaced by Henry H. Sibley. Bailly's feud with Taliaferro, growing out of the problem of introducing whiskey in the Indian trade, resulted in legal actions not finally settled until the 1840s.
A few letters in the collection appear to have no direct relationship to Taliaferro, and were probably collected for their autographs. Among these is a letter from Winfield S. Scott. The collection has only a few items dated after 1839; one of them is the Scott letter, others relate to Taliaferro's claims for money owed him by the government, and one is a copy of a letter (1861) from an old friend, James Buchanan.
Miscellaneous papers also include a copy of a Belmont, Wisconsin, newspaper, copies of several newspaper clippings, and photocopies of other items the originals of which are elsewhere in the collection or in private ownership. Those items in private ownership were reproduced with the permission of their owners. The location of the original items for which copies were made, is given on information targets in the microfilm.
Arrangement and Processing Information: On the microfilm, as in the original collection, undated material precedes the dated items; end page endorsements follow the body of letters or documents. Enclosures are filed with the letter or document with which they were enclosed and photocopies of these enclosures were filed under their own dates.
Pagination and Physical Condition: Many of the papers were once bound in a scrapbook and numbered in blue pencil in the upper right hand corner of their first page. The blue penciled numbers no longer have any significance in the arrangement of the papers.
Arrangement and Processing Information: The arrangement of the volumes within the Taliaferro Papers has been followed in microfilming the collection, with some exceptions. All indices to volumes, no matter what their position in the volume is, have been microfilmed at the beginning of the volume, and although no new indices have been compiled, those that were incomplete have been completed as a typed supplemental index inserted in the volume following the original index.
The journals (volumes 6-16), particularly for the period of the 1820s, contain in addition to a regular sequence of entries scattered copies of letters sent, memoranda, a few clippings, financial records, and journal entries for dates other than those of the main body of entries in the volume. When the collection was microfilmed, it seemed advisable to try to preserve each volume in its original form and at the same time to put the scattered materials in a more usable order. To do so, clearly identified photocopies of all items out of chronological order were inserted in more logical places in the papers and each volume was microfilmed complete with its original entries and the supplementary photocopies. Similarly, miscellaneous financial records from several journals were photocopied and inserted with other related materials in volumes 7, 16 and 17.
Volume 7 contains two series of journal entries and one of financial records; it has been microfilmed in three units, out of page order, in order to provide a more meaningful sequence of entries. Volume 11, which consists of two separate journals for two different years, has been microfilmed as though each part were a separate volume. One part precedes volume 12; the other follows volume 13 on the microfilm. Digital versions of these volumes were not rearranged but were scanned in their original sequential page order.
Notes about the Society’s arrangement and processing of the papers were inserted into the volumes to give the location of originals from which photocopies were made and to supply other background information helpful to navigating through the volumes.
Historical Note: In camp at Cantonment Saranac during the War of 1812, the First Brigade of the Northern Army of the United States included troops of the Sixth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Infantry Regiments. Later in the spring, the Brigade moved to Sackets Harbor. Augmented by volunteers and other troops including men of the Twenty-First Infantry, they invaded Canada and captured York (Toronto) and Fort George. The Brigade was later reorganized to include the Sixth, Ninth, Thirteenth, Fifteenth, Twenty-Third and Twenty-Fifth Regiments.
Pagination and Physical Condition: There are 132 pages in the volume, many of them water-soaked. Pages appear to be missing after entries of February 13 and May 25, 1813; entries are missing for dates from March 13 to 27, April 21-27, and April 29-May 9, 1813.
Cover Title: Orderly book, Sacket's Harbor.
Historical Note: Under the army reorganization following the end of the war with Great Britain, the Twenty-First Infantry became a part of the new Fifth Infantry under the command of Brevet Major Morrill Marston. A detachment of the old First Infantry, under Captain Thomas Hamilton, became a part of the new Third Infantry and was assigned with the Fifth, to go to Detroit.
Until May 1815 Taliaferro was a member of the First Infantry, but he had been sent on recruiting service to New Jersey and was later granted a furlough to go to his home in Virginia, so that he was not with his regiment at Sackets Harbor during the period of this volume. In May he was transferred to the Third Infantry and ordered to go to Detroit.
In 1868 Taliaferro wrote some observations about the war on the outside and inside front cover of the volume. Apparently at the same time he marked "Dead" on other pages opposite the names of some of the soldiers. On January 4, 1869, in a letter to J. Fletcher Williams of the Minnesota Historical Society, Taliaferro recalled that this volume came into his possession with other records of his old company of the First Regiment while he was stationed in Detroit. All of the records but this "imperfect" volume, he recalled, were forwarded to the office of the Adjutant General.
Contents: Kept at Sackets Harbor, New York, between January 13 and June 1815, the volume contains orders for the First Brigade and for the combined First and Twenty-First Infantry Regiments of the United States Army under the command of Marston. The orders for the detachment of the old First Infantry and its movement into the Third Infantry, and other orders issued in Detroit in August and September, are also included in this volume. On page 77 Taliaferro has noted the order he received to go to Detroit. On the last page of the volume he made an entry for clothing received in October and November 1815 from Captain Hamilton and others in Detroit.
Pagination and Physical Condition: The volume contains 116 pages. Pages at the beginning of the volume have been defaced by mildew; other pages throughout the volume were water-soaked; some twenty-five pages were cut out of the volume between numbered pages 112-113.
Cover Title: Copies of letters to Gov. William Clark, Supt. of Indian Affairs, St. Louis.
Contents: The volume consists of copies of letters sent by Lawrence Taliaferro, Indian agent, to Governor William Clark, Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Louis. Taliaferro's letters were written at Prairie du Chien, where he stopped on his way to his new post, and at St. Peters, his post on the Upper Mississippi River, at the mouth of the St. Peters or Minnesota River.
Pagination and Physical Condition: There are 16 numbered pages in the volume, followed by eight blank, unnumbered pages.
Digital version.
Cover Title: Indian agency records - correspondence, etc., 1820-29.
Pagination and Physical Condition: There are 202 numbered pages in the volume. Numbers 57 through 60 are missing, and three pages numbered 67-1 to 67-3 have been inserted in the volume.
Twenty-three blank pages precede pages 187-189 containing a memorandum on "Indian Trade Upper Mississippi" (1831?). Completing the volume is a draft of a letter to the "Editor of the [Galena] Gazette and Advertiser" (August 4, 1836), running in reverse, from page 198 to page 194.
Indexes: The index, comprising pages 190-193, appears first on the microfilm. It is followed by a supplementary index which has been added to the original volume and lists the items not recorded by Taliaferro in the original index.
Digital version.
Cover Title: B.
Contents: A letterbook containing copies of letters sent by Taliaferro, in the course of his duties as Indian agent at St. Peters on the upper Mississippi River. Includes a draft of a memorial to the President of the United States, probably written about 1843 (pages 228-229).
Pagination and Physical Condition: There are 244 numbered pages. Ten pages were cut or torn from the volume following pages A-14 and seven other pages were removed following page 218.
Indexes: Pages A-1 to A-14 comprise the index prepared by Taliaferro for the first 179 pages of the volume. A supplementary index covers items which were not indexed by Taliaferro on pages 180-230.
Digital version.
Cover Title: Indian agent day book.
Historical Note: On October 13, because of ill-health, Taliaferro left the agency to go to Prairie du Chien where he spent the winter. He took care of some agency affairs there before April 1822, when he went on to St. Louis before returning to the agency at St. Peters.
Contents: The more significant journal entries comprise a record of events at the St. Peters Agency from May 28 to October 13, 1821, speeches by Taliaferro and by the Indians who came to see him during this time, and drafts of some letters sent on agency business. There are only fragmentary entries for 1822 following his return to the agency.
Among miscellaneous undated items in the volume are a list of articles purchased at auction, a few personal accounts, various lists of Indians, and notes on laws and regulations concerning trade and intercourse with the Indians.
Arrangement and Processing Information: Items for 1823, 1825, and 1826, which belong more properly elsewhere have been recopied in chronological order in other volumes. Four pages of agency financial records (pages 79-82) have been recopied with more detailed records for the same years in Volume 7. The volume also includes photocopies of additional journal entries for 1821 from Volume 8.
Pagination and Physical Condition: The volume contains 150 numbered pages (A1-A5, 1-145). Some twenty pages have been torn out; other blank pages are not numbered; and many pages are loose from the binding. Ink has soaked through many pages of the text.
Indexes: The partial index (pages 140-141) is microfilmed at the beginning of the volume. It is followed by a supplementary index to the pages which Taliaferro did not list in the original index.
Cover Title: Daybook.
Contents: Taliaferro seems to have used Volume 7 first as a financial record book, later flipping it over and converting it to a journal.
Journal entries from May 22 to October 18, 1823, continue the brief and rather unsystematic record of events at the St. Peters Agency, and include drafts of letters sent as well as speeches made by Taliaferro and the Indians who visited him. Taliaferro left the agency in October and the last entry for the month was made at Prairie du Chien. In charge at St. Peters during Taliaferro's absence was his brother, subagent Muscoe G. Taliaferro.
There are no entries for 1824.
The 1825 entries begin on August 22, as Taliaferro and a group of Indians started up the Mississippi, after the signing of the Treaty of Prairie du Chien. Three earlier 1825 entries relating to the Indians who attended the treaty council are recopied from other volumes. Journal entries also include other items for 1823 and 1826 which have been similarly photocopied. Miscellaneous items in the journal include lists of Indians and fur trade posts.
Agency financial records in the volume include receipts and expenditures from December 1819 to April 1822. Four other related pages of financial records are photocopied from Volume 6. Also among the financial records are itemized lists of presents given to the Indians and accompanying notes on the Indians to whom the gifts were given. Taliaferro appears to have added other information about these Indians to the notes as late as 1837.
Arrangement and Processing Information: The volume has been microfilmed in three parts, out of page order, in an attempt to put the entries in more useful sequence. Part One consists of the journal and related items for 1823. Part Two contains similar items for 1825 and 1826. Part Three includes financial records and related materials.
Pagination and Physical Condition: The volume includes 148 numbered pages; at least 20 pages, or parts of pages, have been torn out; and entries were made from each end of the volume, reading toward the middle.
Indexes: A brief index compiled by the microfilm editor, precedes each part of the volume and lists the items in the order in which they are microfilmed.
Digital version.
Cover Title: Daily journal for the agency, trade intercourse &c., St. Peters.
Historical Note: Shortly before May 4, 1827, by departmental order, the responsibility for dealing with the Ojibwe Indians was taken from the St. Peters Agency. In the next two years Taliaferro faced difficulties growing out of attempts to enforce this order, ill-health, and a lawsuit with Alexis Bailly of the American Fur Company over the seizure of whiskey smuggled into Indian territory. Taliaferro hoped, through the influence of his uncle, John Taliaferro, a member of Congress from Virginia, to obtain a transfer to the Indian agency at Green Bay.
On May 10, 1828, Taliaferro left the agency to be absent for six months on business and furlough. Agency affairs in his absence were in the hands of subagent Elias T. Langham.
During his absence from the agency, he spent time at Prairie du Chien, St. Louis, Washington, and Bedford Springs, Pennsylvania. Taliaferro was married at this time to Elizabeth Dillon, the daughter of Humphrey Dillon, a Bedford hotel keeper. Mrs. Taliaferro returned to the agency with Taliaferro in November.
Contents: Journal entries begin on May 4, 1827 when Taliaferro came back from St. Louis. The day-to-day record of events at the St. Peters Agency is more extensive in Volume 8 than in earlier volumes. It also includes, in addition to reports of speeches and a few drafts of letters, lists of foreigners employed by Indian traders, two newspaper clippings, lists of books, Indian goods, agency property, articles borrowed for the Indian Department, and a petition of Ojibwe Indians for a new agent.
During the winter of 1827-1828 he reviewed the events of his eight years of service at the St. Peters Agency and copied into this volume some records of earlier years. References to these items, or photocopies of them, have been put in chronological order in the earlier journals. A number of other items in other journals have been photocopied here and inserted in chronological order.
There are no entries in the journal between May 10 and November 18, 1828 when Taliaferro was absent from the agency. Nor is there any record here of his liaison with a part-Indian woman, or of the birth of her daughter, Taliaferro's only child, at St. Peters on August 17, 1828. Journal entries resume on November 18 and continue through May 8, 1829, recording Taliaferro's hope that the election of Andrew Jackson to the presidency would result in improvement in affairs at the agency and a more enlightened government policy toward the Indians.
Pagination and Physical Condition: There are 274 numbered pages in the volume (Al-A4, 1-270).
Indexes: The index, comprising pages 261-268, and a supplementary index to the pages not indexed by Taliaferro, are microfilmed at the beginning of the volume.
Cover Title: Journal, Indian agency, St. Peters from May 9, 1824 to November 20, 1830; Daily occurrences, talks, Indian speeches, &c.
Contents: The recording of day-to-day events at the St. Peters Agency is continued in much the same way as in the earlier volumes. Entries from May 12 to September 26 were made at the agency. After that date entries record Taliaferro's journey down the Mississippi River by way of Prairie du Chien, Cassville, Galena and Rock Island, on his way to St. Louis. The entries for 1829 end on October 28 and are followed by some observations entered in the journal (page 81) at some time after 1835.
There is a gap in the journal from this point until July 1830. Entries which follow reflect some of the changes in Indian policy under the terms of the Treaty of Prairie du Chien, July 15, 1830, including the provisions for the education of Indian children and for the instruction of Indians in agriculture. Entries tell of the arrival of the first missionaries who planned to start schools among the Indians, and of the establishment of the first agricultural colony for Indians at Eatonville, near Lake Calhoun. On August 14 an entry records the burning of the agency council house. Some of the problems caused by this tragedy and by the lack of sufficient funds for carrying on agency work are described in entries until November 20, 1830.
Arrangement and Processing Information: Several pages out of chronological order have been recopied in their proper place in the volume. Photocopies of several pages from other volumes are inserted in chronological order in this volume. A photocopy of financial records from this volume has been inserted in the Taliaferro account book (volume 17).
Pagination and Physical Condition: The volume seems to have contained 138 numbered pages; pages 1 and 2 are missing. The threads which bound the pages of the volume together are missing also and the covers loose.
Indexes: The index on pages 137 and 138 is copied at the beginning of the volume; it covers information on pages 1-101.
Cover Title: An uncorrected journal or memorandum of events &c for the agency, noted daily, Indian Agency, St. Peters, December 1, 1830 and part of 1831.
Contents: Journal begins December 1, 1830. Entries continue the day-to-day story of events at the St. Peters Agency. There are two gaps: December 16-23, 1830; and May 12-26, 1831 when Taliaferro went to St. Louis for Indian annuities.
During February 1831 the journal records fires in the home of subagent Elias T. Langham, and in the officers' row at Fort Snelling. In the summer of 1831 the agency council house, which had burned down in 1830, was rebuilt. Entries also describe activity in promoting the agricultural colony at Lake Calhoun and Taliaferro's increasing difficulties with traders and officers at Fort Snelling over the use of whiskey in the Indian trade.
Pagination and Physical Condition: The volume originally consisted of 45 long sheets of rough paper folded in the center and fastened together with thread. Most of the sheets were torn and brittle. The pages have been laminated between sheets of Japanese tissue paper, and in the process were cut at the fold and numbered, making now 90 numbered pages.
Indexes: There is no index.
Digital version.
Cover Title: Journal no. 9, 1835, U.S.I.A.
Back Cover: Daily journal, 1835, of all transactions and occurrences at the agency at St. Peters.
Historical Note: During this time work proceeded in the rebuilding of the council house, annuities were distributed to the Indians, and difficulties with traders, military personnel, and inadequate appropriations continued to plague the Agent.
With the appointment of Henry H. Sibley to replace Alexis Bailly as the American Fur Company representative in the area, Taliaferro's relations with that company were somewhat improved, although the lawsuit with Bailly was not settled for years after this time. A new Chippewa subagency authorized in 1835, offered some hope for relieving Taliaferro's problems with the Ojibwe Indians.
Contents: Journal entries begin June 25 and continue through September 28, 1831 (pages 10-60), giving a day-to-day account of events at the St. Peters Agency. Miscellaneous items (pages Al-9) include: a requisition for provisions for Indians at the Treaty of Prairie du Chien; lists of property at the agency (1819-1830) and property lost in the fire of 1830; descriptive lists (1827-1828) of foreigners in the Indian trade; lists of persons employed at the agency (1828-1829); passports for two men to go into the Indian country (May 21, 1831). Rough pencil sketches of Taliaferro and several Indians are on the inside front cover, while a memorandum of June 1829 (page 257), pasted on the inside back cover, records Joseph Renville's arrangement for hiding supplies to be used in time of difficulty between whites and Indians. Photocopies of all items out of chronological order have been put in order in this volume.
The second part of the volume, including entries from June 1 through December 1835 (pages 61-257), appears to be the continuation of an earlier 1835 journal which is missing from the Taliaferro Papers. In addition to the record of usual events, entries give information on the survey, under the direction of Major Jonathan L. Bean, of the boundary line between Dakota and Ojibwe Indian territories; on the arrival of missionaries who were encouraged by Taliaferro to start an Indian school at Lake Harriet near the agency and religious and agricultural work near the headwaters of the Minnesota River at Lac qui Parle; on the expansion of agricultural work among the Indians and the growth in duties of the agency blacksmith; and on such visitors to the agency and Fort Snelling as George W. Featherstonhaugh and George Catlin.
Pagination and Physical Condition: Part One of the volume (pages A1-60 and pertinent pages of the index) is microfilmed following the Taliaferro journal, Volume 10. Part Two (pages 61-257 and pertinent pages of the index) is microfilmed following the Taliaferro journal, Volume 13. The complete Volume 11, includes 258 numbered pages (Al, 1-257). Approximately fifty pages at the end of the volume are written in red ink.
Indexes: The index on pages 251-256 covers most of the entries in the volume.
Digital version.
Cover Title: Daily journal for the agency at St. Peters.
Historical Note: In June Taliaferro left the agency to go to St. Louis where he obtained a furlough to go to Bedford, for his health.
Contents: The volume contains a record of agency events for the short period from May 12 through June 1832, giving information about Indians and military affairs relating to the Black Hawk War, smallpox among the Indians, and the resignation of subagent Langham. The journal continues until August 12 when Taliaferro reached Bedford, and includes a photocopy of a draft of a letter written by Taliaferro on October 2 from Bedford.
Inside the front cover (page 1) is a memorandum of complaints against Canadian traders; a glossary of sixty-seven Dakota words and phrases and their English equivalents appears on pages 55-56; and an undated draft of a letter about Indian agents comprises pages 57-58.
A note on the back cover, from Taliaferro to the Reverend Edward D. Neill, October 22, 1863, reads "Should you deem the enclosed Journals & loose papers worthy of presentation to the Historical Society of St. Paul, Minnesota you can do so in my name."
Pagination and Physical Condition: The 58 numbered pages of the volume include the inside faces of the volume covers. The covers are paper, much tattered, and pages and covers are fastened together with red tape.
Indexes: There is no index.
Contents: The day-to-day record of events at the St. Peters Agency follows the pattern of other years in the Taliaferro journals. A few entries were made by subagent Horatio Grooms. Entries are preceded by a photocopy of an 1833 memorandum from Volume 14 and continue from May 25 through August, with one entry for September. Entries for 1834 begin with May 23 (page 41) and record Taliaferro's journey up the Mississippi to the agency, continuing at St. Peters through August 30.
Pagination and Physical Condition: Many entries are fragmentary because the volume has been partially destroyed, probably by the fire that consumed many of Taliaferro's records in 1865. Fire has eaten into all of the pages and other pages have been torn, leaving only fragments. The volume has no covers. There are 92 numbered pages. All of the pages have been laminated between sheets of Japanese tissue paper.
Indexes: There is no index.
Cover Title: Journal, 1836, 10th volume, daily transactions and other matters on Indian affairs, St. Peters Agency.
Contents: The full journal for 1836 includes, in the day-to-day record of events at the St. Peters Agency, information on a number of special subjects. Taliaferro writes critically of Henry R. Schoolcraft, particularly of his conduct of Indian affairs and his alleged discovery of the source of the Mississippi River. Entries also tell of Joseph N. Nicollet's visit to Fort Snelling and the agency, the spread of smallpox among the Dakota, the difficulties of obtaining a subagent for the Ojibwe, and Taliaferro's problems in carrying on the work of the agency for most of the fiscal year without funds.
Among the miscellaneous items in the volume are a summary of events at the agency from January through July 1836 (pages 219-230); a list (pages b-c) of household furniture shipped to Bedford, and other property (1839); miscellaneous financial records, 1831-1832 (pages f-j); and drafts of letters and other memoranda, 1813-1855 (pages 231, 243-245). Photocopies of all items for years other than 1836 have been put elsewhere in the collection in proper chronological order.
Pagination and Physical Condition: Pages in the volume are designated a-j and 1-245; of these, two are missing (pages 232-233) and five are blank (pages 234-236 and pages 241-242). Entries on some dozen pages of the volume are made in red ink. The back cover contains a narrative inscription detailing the history of the agency.
Indexes: The index (pages 237-240), microfilmed at the beginning of the volume covers entries for pages 1-168.
Cover Title: Records - journal, 1838-39.
Historical Note: During this period the agency was put under the superintendency of Robert Lucas, Governor of Iowa Territory.
Contents: The detailed record of events at the St. Peters Agency continues from May 25 to October 24, 1838, when Taliaferro left on furlough for Bedford. Entries in the journal run through November 15, on the journey, and resume, after a lapse of five months with an entry on April 14, and a continuous record from May 2 through June 9, 1839.
The journal contains much information on the hearings of the U.S. Commissioners who came to St. Peters to negotiate with the Indians for payments under the terms of the treaty which Taliaferro had been instrumental in achieving in Washington in September 1837. Taliaferro was guardian for his daughter and a number of other half and quarter-breed Indian children, and represented their claims before the Commission. The journal also includes information on the activities of subagent for the Ojibwe, Miles Vineyard; on payments to five tribes of Dakota for the military lands at Fort Snelling; on the nomination of Taliaferro (a nomination which he declined) for delegate to Congress from Iowa; on the presence at Fort Snelling and the agency of Joseph N. Nicollet and his exploring party, Captain Frederick Marryat, John M. Stanley, lumbermen from the East bound for the St. Croix Valley pineries; and on the growing number of tourists who came up the Mississippi to visit the Falls of St. Anthony.
Although entries describe the expansion of missionary, educational, blacksmith and agricultural services among the Indians, they also record Taliaferro's difficulties in carrying on the agency work with insufficient funds and under the suspicion that Samuel C. Stambaugh, one-time postmaster, sutler and land speculator at Fort Snelling, was attempting to discredit Taliaferro in the hope of becoming the agent's successor.
Arrangement and Processing Information: Two unnumbered pages and the inside back cover contain miscellaneous, undated notes. Photocopies of a list of household furniture and other property have been inserted in the volume with other entries for 1839.
Pagination and Physical Condition: The volume contains 140 numbered pages. The spine of the volume is broken, the stitching torn, and sections of pages have become separated.
Indexes: There is no index.
Digital version.
Cover Title: Requisition book.
Historical Note: During most of the fiscal year Taliaferro carried on the business of the agency without operating funds or the trade goods and specie payments due the Indians under their various treaties with the government. Although he had been reappointed for a sixth term as agent, Taliaferro felt that he had not been supported and sustained by the Washington office, and on July 15 submitted his resignation. His health was poor, his private funds were exhausted, and his life had been threatened. When his authority was challenged by a British-born trader, Henry C. Menck, however, Taliaferro tried without success to withdraw his resignation, not wishing to leave the agency without vindicating himself.
Contents: Financial records for the period from June 1835 through June 1839, (pages 10-74) are largely in the form of requisitions drawn on the military disbursing agent of the Indian Office at Fort Snelling. They include records of expenditures for the survey of the Dakota-Ojibwe boundary line, 1835, and routine expenditures for salaries and wages of persons employed at the agency, for postage, stationery, blacksmith and agricultural tools and supplies, transportation and fuel. Expenditures for presents, annuity goods and payments, and such other expenses as coffins for the Indians, are also included, but the records do not contain annuity rolls.
The journal entries (pages 76-177) record daily events from June 10 through October 7, 1839, during Taliaferro's last months at the agency. Miscellaneous notes (pages 179-186) include drafts of a report on schools and missions within the agency, and drafts of a letter to the secretary of war describing conditions at the agency and giving Taliaferro's reasons for resigning. A sketch map of the area at the juncture of the St. Peters and Mississippi Rivers (page 175) shows the location of the agency buildings and Fort Snelling.
Arrangement and Processing Information: Photocopies of four pages of records for 1831 (pages 3-6) have been put in the Account Book, Volume 17.
Pagination and Physical Condition: The volume contains 186 numbered pages; pages 63-67 are blank, and there are 19 blank, unnumbered pages. Some ten pages have been cut from the volume. The volume also contains several loose sheets of notes, a piece of newspaper apparently used as a book mark, and some pressed flowers.
Cover Title: Gen. account book, U.S. Indian agency at St. Peter's.
Contents: The volume contains a record of receipts and expenditures at the St. Peters Agency from January 1830 through June 1834.
Itemized lists include payments for wages and salaries of employees, for medical services to the Indians performed by army surgeons at Fort Snelling, and for such other agency expenditures as postage, transportation, stationery and printing.
The volume also includes a record of presents given to the Indians, and payments in specie and goods made under the terms of the Prairie du Chien Treaty of 1830. The annuity lists give the names of individual Indians and heads of families, the number of members in each family, the amount of money paid or the kinds and quantities of goods received by each.
Other records list expenditures for tools and supplies for the blacksmith and for the agricultural program with the Indians.
Sample forms for the financial records required of the agent are on pages 3-9. Pages 1-2 and 133 contain Taliaferro's comments on fraud in the Indian department, his own relations with traders, and methods of paying Indian annuities.
Pagination and Physical Condition: There are 166 numbered pages in the volume; ten of them are blank, and two other pages have been pasted together with sealing wax.
Historical Note: Little is known of the author. He was the brother of Taliaferro's wife Elizabeth; in 1839 he became a partner of Benjamin F. Baker in the sutler business at Fort Snelling; and he made a pictorial sketch of Fort Snelling which Taliaferro enclosed in a letter to the President in 1857.
Contents: The manuscript English-Dakota dictionary comprises some 1300 English words with their Dakota translations. French equivalents of a few of the words are given. The volume also includes Dakota translations of some English sentences and a few notes on verbs.
Some of the Dakota words are not the same as those given in definitions by Samuel and Gideon Pond, the missionaries who arrived at the agency in 1834 and almost immediately began their studies of the Dakota language. Some of the vulgar terms in the volume do not appear in the Pond dictionaries; other differing terms may be those of a Dakota dialect; and the Dillon dictionary does not use the alphabet developed by the Ponds. At least part of the dictionary may have been compiled by Dillon while on a trip to the Cannon River in the summer of 1835.
Pagination and Physical Condition: The volume is made of a notebook containing 80 numbered pages cut laterally to probably half-size. Eight narrower numbered pages have been sewn into the inside back of the notebook.
Digital version.
The autobiography was published, with a few minor editorial revisions and a preliminary note probably by J. Fletcher Williams, in the
Pagination and Physical Condition: The volume contains two page numbering sequences, pages 1-75 and pages 1-11.
Indexes: There is no index.
The following materials have not been microfilmed, and are open to public use.
Photocopies of documents received after conclusion of the microfilming project, created for researcher access. The original documents from which these photocopies were made are interfiled with the closed originals.
Typed transcripts of Taliaferro's journals, apparently made in the 1920s by Minnesota Historical Society staff. Transcripts are in folders unless otherwise noted.
Bears the bookplate of Edward Chenery Gale.
Digital version.
Data sheets for the Taliaferro correspondence and journals (volumes 6-16), giving bibliographic data and subject entries, prepared in 1968 by Michael Smith and funded by the Archaeology Department of the Minnesota Historical Society.
The data sheets have not been microfilmed and are open to public use.
The approximately 2160 3 x 5-inch research note cards reproduced on this microfilm enhance access to the Lawrence Taliaferro Papers by providing more detailed information on individual manuscript items, authors, and subjects than could be included in White's
The cards are divided into two series: 1) chronology cards; and 2) author and subject cards.
The chronology cards abstract the contents of selected manuscript items and/or identify the dates on which significant events occurred. They are filed in a single chronological sequence by year, month, and day. In general, cards referring to undated items are filed before those with dates, and cards with partial dates appear before those that are fully dated. Each card usually includes the date and author of the item referred to and an abstract of its contents or the date and a description of the event.
Author cards identify an item or selected items written by a particular individual; subject cards identify an item or items pertaining to a person or topic. The author and subject cards are arranged in a single alphabetical sequence by name and subject. Multiple cards for the same person or subject are in chronological order. In general, each card includes information on the author(s), date(s), and contents of the item(s) to which it refers. A card may contain biographical and/or historical information on an author or a subject.
A land patent assigning bounty land granted to Taliaferro for his service in the War of 1812 to one John H. Bryant, a tract of 160 acres.
Digital version.
These cards were created during the production of the microfilm. This box includes similar cards from one other microfilmed manuscript collection held by the Minnesota Historical Society.