The Swiss Emigration to the Red River Settlement in 1821 and its Subsequent Exodus to the United States

One important question yet remains unanswered: were these misfortunate immigrants ill-suited to be settlers? I believe they weren’t. Of course, there were only 26% farmers among them, but the various professions of the group could perfectly have met the needs of a settlement in full expansion, as this was the case of some towns of the United States in those years. The Swiss had the misfortune to arrive at the wrong time, for, during several previous years, all harvests had been destroyed by the locusts, and if not by this plague then by the floods of the Red River, in a situation made worse by prairie fires that had driven the meat-providing buffalo away from the plains in present-day North Dakota and northern Minnesota. And the wealthier among them might have expected another life than the poor settler’s. Furthermore, all were disgusted by the behaviour and the enrichment, at their expense, of Governor MacDonell and his closer team. Bumsted ends his chapter of The Swiss and Red River, 1819-1826, with the pertinent conclusion: “As a case study in what could go wrong with an early, well-financed settlement venture to the Canadian prairies, the story of the Swiss and Red River is hard to beat”. No wonder the Swiss wanted to depart and move south. They intervened in this sense several times and, in July 1822, that is less than a year after their arrival at the settlement, they even sent a petition to the Governor (see de Huser’s petition in Appendix V), and individual families began to make their way across the American frontier in the direction of Prairie du Chien (nowadays Wisconsin) and the Mississippi. Some ended up eventually in St. Louis, others settled in Minnesota, in Wisconsin, in Missouri, and also in Indiana as did Mrs Zélie Grisard. The voyage was tediously long and, due to the roving Indians, full of dangers.Wyss’ mention of the dramatic massacre of the Tully family inspired me to do further research about the destiny of the two sons who were returned by the Sioux to the garrison at Fort St. Anthony/Fort Snelling.This is the subject of Appendix VII, where Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve recollects the story of Andrew Tully. And, as the reader might be interested to know more about Fort Snelling, I added some information about this stronghold in the middle of the wilderness and 300 miles away from any white people. The same Charlotte writes: Then began our regular fort life, the flag-staff was raised in front of headquarters, the stars ands stripes were run up at the roll of the drum at “guard mounting” and lowered with the same accompaniment at retreat day after day, and we children learned to love its graceful folds as it floated on the breeze and to feel no harm could come to us under the “Star Spangled Banner”.