Fort Snelling at Bdote background reading list from Linden Hills Public Library

For millennia, the place where the Minnesota River joins the Mississippi has been a crossroads, a place of strategic power. But that symbolism is complicated. This tour is a powerful reminder that most Minnesotans today are descendants of immigrants, living on conquered land.

Peter DeCarlo, author of Fort Snelling at Bdote, shares the story of the power of place and its peoples. He introduces us to key people who lived in the area. Their lives demonstrate a complicated story laden with the brutal realities of how people were treated, government and those chosen as leaders, and the landscape.

Peter DeCarlo is a historian whose research centers on the history of colonialism in Minnesota. He works at the Minnesota Historical Society.