Part III, Chapter III: The Northwoods Revolution (

The proclamation of the newly created "North Star Republic" by the First Council of the Northwoods and the subsequently drafted "Declaration of a Liberated Republic" (later referred to colloquially as the Declaration of the Republic) had been, for lack of a better term, a shot in the dark by the council members who had signed it. Pike and the fellow members of the elected council realized that their advocacy of secession of federal territory from the Union would be regarded as treason and rebellion by both the American Supreme Court and the American Congress, and the President of the United States, Andrew Jackson, would respond with harsh and sweeping consequences for those who had been responsible for its introduction, primarily by trying and at worst executing those responsible for the secession. The resignation of John C. Calhoun's Vice Presidency in the fall of 1829 had further demonstrated the decisive fracture in the United States government concerning nullification and the Tariff of 1828, and it was determined by Pike and his fellow council members that the proclaimed secession would only add to this fracture, but would also give Jackson a unique opportunity to quell any future thoughts concerning secession and nullification (which had mostly originated from the South) and would reinforce his popularly upheld idea of a strong, centralized federal government and a perpetually unbroken union of independent states. Thus, the only chance for the North Star Republic's survival was, according to Pike, through political and cultural alliances throughout the Upper Mississippi River Valley, but more importantly the secession would require widespread public approval throughout the Upper Midwest in order for the secession and the Republic to succeed, regardless of the American response, which was predicted to be overwhelmingly hostile, both through legislation, judiciary measure and, eventually, military presence.



The published account of the creation of the North Star Republic through the Minnesota Voyager and The Bay Intelligencer immediately after the conclusion of the First Council and the public's approval or disapproval would ultimately determine the fate of the proposed nation, which was in every way questionable. Although the majority of the members of the council had been directly elected to represent every settlement throughout the frontier of the Republic, the secrecy involving the actual topic at hand that would be discussed at the council had remained a mystery in a (successful) attempt to disguise the true intentions of the meeting from the United States government, and as a result had shielded this same truth from the Upper Midwest public. Few voters, if any, had realized the implication for the region when they had cast their ballots to elect a representative of their settlement or demographic to meet in a council at Saint Anthony Falls, which had been titled as a "discussion for a solution regarding the Tariff," and as a result had not foreseen that they had indirectly elected for eventual secession. This misrepresentation or conversely exact representation of popular thought and sentiment would ultimately determine the fate of the young nation. Nonetheless, the news of the creation of the Republic had been published and spread, and by December, word had reached every corner of the continent that a great part of the federal Michigan Territory had declared independence, and had thus seceded from the Union.



Public perception, however, had finally answered the troubling questions of many of the Council members, and throughout December of 1829, widespread approval of the Council and its proposed secession had emerged, as evidenced by great celebration. Relieved that his countrymen had approved of the First Council and its Declaration, Pike immediately called for a Second Council, this time to determine the direction of the Republic's fight for independence. The declaration in itself had been left purposely ambiguous, and had not defined the borders of the self-proclaimed "North Star Republic," as the borders of the Wisconsin and Minnesota territories had likewise not yet been defined. As the Second Council began in mid-December of 1829, it was revealed that Pike and Carver's reasoning for this was to also provide the Republic the opportunity to expand its ideals and borders, which would benefit it economically in great fashion over the long-term should it live to see the signing of an eventual peace treaty with the United States. It also provided an opportunity for incorporation of other waterways, and as a result hopefully allow the Republic to gain international recognition from Great Britain and France, who had been removed from the continent, and thus would provide the powerful nations with a vetted interest and an obvious strategic benefit if they contributed and invested into the Republic's cause of independence from the United States, if solely due to its territorial ownership to massively profitable waterways. This support would, however, undoubtedly require a decisive military victory, a victory that Pike was unsure if the Republic could deliver due to one giant hole in the Republic's ambitions.



This giant hole in the Republic's ambitions was armed manpower. As a military response from the United States was deemed as inevitable, Pike and the Council members had realized that wartime control of Wisconsin, who had already invited armed combat through interception of American supplies and provisions headed to Fort Pike at the hands of local militia in its frontier in the fall of 1829, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and Iowa would prove to be impossible, as they provided no natural bottleneck to the continental border with the United States, unlike Minnesota, whose border was dictated by the Mississippi River (which had strong currents) and Lake Superior (which was greatly expansive,) and the former only contained one passable bridge, which was controlled inherently by whomever occupied Fort Pike. Nonetheless, a defense of the Mississippi crossing from an imminent rush of American military presence resided solely on the assembled crowd at Saint Anthony Falls, but the 9,000 able bodied rioters who had assembled at the small town which laid only 8 miles upriver of Fort Pike were far from experienced in military tactics, nor did they have the capability to be fully armed, as only an estimated quarter had brought with them their personally owned firearms, many of which dated to antiquity and lacked suitable ammunition. Likewise, the entire region of the Upper Midwest excluding the unorganized "mob" that had assembled at Saint Anthony Falls only contained roughly 37,000 settlers, and only a third of this was estimated to be male and able bodied, and they were spread throughout the far reaches of the Upper Midwest. The inherent problem in equipping these remaining scattered settlers for the Republic's cause, assuming they even supported the secession with such fervor as the assembled Saint Anthony Falls protesters, training them, and subsequently transporting them in an orderly fashion to the Upper Mississippi River to hold off a likely American advance into the "seat" of the Republic's "government" only added to the multitude of problems that the Council faced, and these problems were only proved to be significantly insurmountable by the Council's inability to provide no clear answer or solution.



In Washington, the response to the "secession" had proved harsh, as predicted. An unwavering Congress quickly moved to place the Territories under martial law, which Jackson approved in due haste, and immediately consulted with various military leaders in order to expedite eventual relocation of United States Army regulars to the Upper Mississippi to quell the supposed and unrecognized "revolution." The United States, however, was not without its own problems. The financial crisis resulting from secession of nearly 3/4 of the Michigan Territory had once again sparked interest in finding unique solutions to pay off the nation's growing debt, which due to the Midwestern rebellion was only estimated to increase, as arming and transporting federal troops to the Wisconsin frontier or Fort Pike itself was deemed as extremely costly. Jackson's response to simply raise the Tariff of 1828's fees, however, gained widespread approval in the Northern dominated Congress, but as a result received sharp backlash from Southern representatives and senators. Calhoun, emboldened by Pike and the now widely regarded agriculturally impractical "Tariff of Abominations," (which had only become more intolerable) had, as a direct result, introduced a bill into the state legislature of South Carolina that, if passed, would also announce the state's secession from the Union. This simultaneous act of dissent, however novel, inadvertently forced the United States to divert further assets to quell rising southern unrest, which it deemed as a much bigger threat than the rebellious Michigan Territory, although South Carolina, under direction of Calhoun, was the only state to have introduced such radical legislation, and it was not expected to be pushed to a vote. However, in essence, Calhoun's act had bought the Council and the Republic valuable time, as America was forced to delay its attempts to crush the Northwoods Revolution by force.



The Second Council of the Northwoods had defined the strategic goals of the independent Republic in order to achieve its sovereignty, and had concluded by the end of December, although it had also decided that both the elected and unelected members of the Council would have to relocate to the Saint Anthony Falls settlement out of necessity in order to expedite further decision making and for the security of its members. Carver, as the de facto leader of the Council, outlined several key goals that the Republic had to meet by the end of 1830 in order for him and his countrymen to avoid the American gallows. These included, but were not limited to, firstly, the immediate taking of Fort Pike and thus the forced closure to inland Minnesota. This would force future American efforts to cross the Mississippi and take Saint Anthony Falls to become bottlenecked on the only bridge spanning the Mississippi, which was exclusively controlled by the massive overwatch position that the Fort provided. Secondly, the Republic required immediate international recognition from both Great Britain and France, and would use its currently controlled waterways of the Mississippi River, Lake Superior and Lake Ontario and its "claimed" waterways of the Missouri River and the Hudson Bay watershed to bribe the nations into investing into its independence, even if physical control of the two latter waterways were absent, as a future promise to control these waterways after eventual development would lead to promising economic results for all nations involved, and as an added bonus, all of the waterways would be free of oppressive American taxation and tariffs, which had proved to be unpopular. Thirdly, most importantly and most difficultly, although not within the same time constraint as the two former points, the Republic would eventually require a major decisive military victory.



The Republic had not, however, defined a government, as opposed to the once fledgling United States, whose Continental Congress had implemented one through the obsolete Articles of Confederation during their similar war of independence. Carver regarded that the government of the Republic would instead be defined after the war's end (should it survive,) but several institutions were granted as necessary in order to continue a prolonged war against the United States. A treasury in order to collect revenue that would further finance a competitive military force, which had to be built from the ground up, and likewise finance efforts towards international recognition through emissaries and diplomats was deemed as one of these necessities. The Council had wisely acknowledged that the gathering of some 9,000 disgruntled Northwood settlers in Saint Anthony Falls would not continue on patriotic fervor and discontent alone, and thus allowed for the creation of the First Federal Bank, headquartered in Saint Anthony Falls and lead by Jean Rolette, who was widely regarded as the most financially savvy member of the council, and would answer directly to the Council itself. Rolette was authorized by the Council to issue bonds in order to finance the Republic's revolution, which were simply loans from private investors who exchanged currency for paper statements that guaranteed a repayment of their loan to the Council with interest following the war's conclusion. The Republic had also chose to continue with the use of the United States Dollar, as providing the Republic with its own form of currency was unfeasible given the current situation, but was acknowledged as a necessary asset that would also be developed at the war's conclusion. The Second Council had also elected Pike to lead the Republic's military ambitions, which most Northwood settlers had regarded as an obvious choice. Pike was authorized by the Council to immediately begin to recruit able bodied men for a single regiment of 3,000 soldiers, which the Council intended to field by summer of 1830, in accordance with a predicted positive sale trend of bonds being granted by private investment to the Federal Bank.



In Washington, the concerted efforts by the Republic to maintain its independence and its growing facilitated effort through the Second Council of the Northwoods to sustain this idea had lead to political unrest by the spring of 1830. Jackson had yet to quiet the growing upheaval of Calhoun and the South, and at a lack of alternatives, instead chose to introduce legislation to repeal the Tariff of 1828, as the situation in South Carolina had proved politically untenable. Congress, with Jackson's urging, regrettably passed the repeal, and dissent in the South slowly faded as agricultural economics at the hands of "King Cotton" returned to normal levels. This inadvertently freed many American military assets who were otherwise busy dealing with growing rural discontent, and the United States Army slowly began to churn towards the Northwestern portions of the rebellious Michigan Territory in an effort to finally bring "justice" to the secessionist rebels. The lack of supply lines, their inaccessibility and interception of payment and provisions at the hands of Wisconsin militia, however, had also forced American military leaders to abandon their foothold in Minnesota at Fort Pike, and voluntarily withdrew from the Fort in April of 1830 to the delight of the secessionists in order to gain a more favorable foothold in Wisconsin, where they could better consolidate their efforts. Thus, by the spring of 1830, the efforts of the Second Council's meeting finally began to take fruition. Carver's Minnesota Voyager had once again called for a mass migration of all able bodied Northwoods male settlers to converge on Saint Anthony Falls in order to prevent the inevitable lethal response from the American government, and the growing multitude had swelled to nearly 10,000 men by March as a result. Pike, upon learning of the Fort which held his namesake's abandonment, swiftly lead his first company of professionally organized regulars to capture the abandoned military installation, and on April 12th, 1830, raised an unofficial flag at the Fort's banister, which had been created by and sewn by Sara Degard, Harold Degard's wife. The red hash on the flag's free running end was later added to denote the imminent blood that would be necessarily shed in defense of the newly founded Republic, and quickly became a popular symbol of the new nation.