Editing Fort Snelling (section)

===Bdóte===
{{main|Bdóte}}
Bdóte ('meeting of waters' or 'where two rivers meet')<ref name="mhsbdote">{{cite web |title=Bdote |publisher=Minnesota Historical Society |date=November 4, 2008 |url=https://www.mnhs.org/fortsnelling/learn/bdote |access-date=January 15, 2022}}</ref> is considered a place of spiritual importance to the Dakota.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Engstrom|first=Tim|date=November 8, 2019|title=Is it going to be Fort Snelling or Bdote or both or something else?|work=The American Legion Department of Minnesota |url=https://mnlegion.org/is-it-going-to-be-fort-snelling-or-bdote-or-both-or-something-else/|access-date=2022-01-14}}</ref> ''A Dakota-English Dictionary'' (1852) edited by missionary [[Stephen Return Riggs]] originally recorded the word as ''mdóte,'' noting that it was also "a name commonly applied to the country about Fort Snelling, or mouth of the Saint Peters,"<ref>Riggs, Stephen Return (1852). ''[[iarchive:dakotaenglishdic0000rigg/page/312/mode/2up|A Dakota–English Dictionary.]]''Originally published by the Smithsonian Institution. Expanded versions published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press (1890, 1992), and by Ross & Haines (1968), p. 313.</ref> now known as the Minnesota River. According to Riggs, "The [[Mdewakanton]]wan think that the mouth of the Minnesota River is precisely over the center of the Earth and that they occupy the gate that opens into the western world.".<ref name="Riggs Dorsey 1893 p. 164 ">{{cite book |last1=Riggs |first1=S.R. |last2=Dorsey |first2=J.O. |title=Dakota Grammar, Texts, and Ethnography |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |series=Contributions to North American ethnology |year=1893 |url=https://archive.org/details/grammerdakota09riggrich/page/164/mode/2up |access-date=January 15, 2022 |page=164}}</ref>

The confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers also became a place where [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]] would sign treaties with the [[United States]]: the 1805 Treaty of St. Peters signed by the [[Mdewakanton|Mdewakanton Dakota]], the [[Treaty of St. Peters|1837 White Pine Treaty]] signed by several [[Ojibwe]] bands, and the [[Treaty of Mendota|1851 Treaty of Mendota]] signed by representatives of the Mdewakanton and Wahpekute Dakota.