1819.

LARGE LAND PURCHASE FROM INDIANS.

929

by tbe committee on Military Affairs, tbe following winter, it was contemplated by tbe administration to establish a post at the Mandan villages; that the expense of the Yellow Stone expedition, " over aud above what the troops would have cost had they remained in their former positions," was estimated at sixty-four thousand two hundred and twenty-six dollars. This, it is supposed, included the steamboat effort to the Council Bluffs, which proved a failure.

One boat reached the vicinity of Cote Sans Bessein; another lay by at Old Franklin, and a third ascended to the mouth of Grand river. In the end, the military stores were transported on keel-boats, which returned to St. Louis in tbe spring of 1820.

The expenses were heavy. A member of the committee on Military Affairs, at the sessions of 1819-20, stated that the claims for detention of the boats, and the losses, exceeded a million of dollars. The Secretary of the War Bepartment had projected the establishment of a military post at or below the mouth of the Yellow Stone, and a series of military roads to connect that post by St. Peters and the northern lakes, which Congress refused to sanction, by withholding the necessary appropriations.

On the 24th of September, Lewis Cass concluded at Saginaw, a treaty with the Chippewas, by which another large part of Michigan was ceded to the United States.

On the 20th of August, Benjamin Parke, for the United States, bought at Fort Harrison, of the Kickapoos of Vermillion river, all their lands upon the Wabash; while on the 30th of July, at Ed-wardsville, Illinois, Auguste Chouteau and Benjamiu Stephenson, bought of the main body of the same tribe, the claims upon the same waters, together with other lands reaching west, to the mouth of Illinois river.

In this year the United States appropriated ten thousand dollars annually, toward the civilization of the Indians, but no part was at first expended, as the best modes of effecting the object were not apparent.

During 1819, also, a report was made to Congress upon the Missouri fur trade, exhibiting its condition at that time, and tracing its history. It may be found in the 6th volume of the American State Papers, p. 201.

The second United States bank was chartered in 1816. On the 28th of January, 1817, this bank opened a branch at Cincinnati; and on the 13th of October following, another branch at Chillicothe, which did not commence banking, however, until the next spring.