“What a contrast between civilization and barbarism.”

Autograph letter signed by Andrew Clarkson Dunn (1834-1918) to his Father, Nathaniel Dunn (1808-1889). Sauk Rapids, Benton County, Minnesota Territory, 14 June 1834. 6 pages, 8vo, 6 1/2 x 8 1/8 in. With original envelope with blue 1-cent stamp and embossed with "New York Tribune" advertisement to flap.

An illuminating letter from the early Minnesota frontier, written by a young pioneer lawyer to his father, a prominent educator in New York. Andrew Dunn was educated by his father and taught at Fordham before moving to the Minnesota Territory in April 1854. He would be admitted to the Minnesota Bar in the autumn and practiced in Sauk Rapids before relocating to St. Paul, later to Verona, Faribault County, and finally to Winnebago in the same county, where he is credited as one of the founders of the town. Here he writes just months after his arrival in Minnesota. After a giving a brief introduction of Sauk Rapids, "merely a town in name - a few houses & a few people" he notes that he is "now truly in a new country, 90 miles from a doctor, no stores of any consequence, and nothing but log houses with the exception of one." He recalls that "the other day I went up to Fort Ripley, the last post on this frontier. it is about 60 miles further up the river than this place. It is built entirely of logs & only intended to awe the Indians. I am within 2 miles of Indian ground & see plenty of Indians of the Winnebago tribe. They disturb no one unless drunk."

He continues with his observations of the local conflicts between the Chippewa and Sioux: "While at Fort Ripley (which is in Chippewa country), I enquired about ‘Copway.' They say he is not a chief of the Chippewa tribe & they don't acknowledge him as such. They all know him, however. A war party of 30 canoes & seventy warriors passed here in their canoes this a.m. to take 'Sioux' scalps. They will not return without them, I know as the 'Sioux' took four of theirs last week."

Before closing his letter with requests for law books and family updates, he provides his father with his own negative impressions of the Native Americans: "There is to be a government payment to the Indians (Winnebagos) four miles above here in the course of a week or two. I shall attend it & will write you an account of the proceedings. I have seen 2,000 Indians together in their lodges at their villages 40 miles below here on the Elk River. They are a dirty, miserable race, take them together. The men won't do a hand's turn & make the squaws loaded down with tent equipage &c. and the men with their guns or bows and arrows walking leisurely along & seeing them put to it. What a contrast between civilization and barbarism."

Letters from this early period of Minnesota Territory are rare, and even more so with such descriptive content of the indigenous populations.

Condition: some old creasing.

[Native Americans, Frontier, Pioneer, Manuscripts, Letters, Documents, Ephemera]