But so far as the portage at Chicago was concerned this change of sovereignty made little difference. What with the constant strife among the savage tribes whose normal condition was that of warfare, and the dangers to the whites caused by the neglect of military protection, the region was left a solitude; and the few references to its existence during a hundred years indicate confused relations between the tribes and the few whites who ventured to visit the region. The sovereignty of the western country again changed in 1783, this time from the British to the American Government. A few cabins were built in the vicinity in later years, and when the American Government proceeded to the erection of a fort in 1803 these cabins constituted the only evidences of civilization that existed on the spot. II FORTIFYING THE FRONTIER IN the early summer of 1803, the schooner "Tracy," a transport vessel belonging to the United States Government, left Detroit with a cargo of building material and supplies, and in due time arrived off the mouth of the Chicago River. The purpose was to build a fort at this point. About the same time a company of sixty-six men and three commissioned officers took their departure from Detroit to take part in building the fort and to occupy it after its completion. Because of the diminutive size of the schooner the men composing this force did not sail in her, except the commanding officer, Captain John Whistler, accompanied by several members of his family. The soldiers marched overland, conducted by Lieutenant James S. Swearingen, and reached Chicago about the same time that the vessel arrived. On its way, the vessel stopped at St. Joseph, Michigan, where Captain Whistler and his family disembarked; they continued their journey to Chicago in a rowboat. The family of Captain Whistler consisted of himself and his wife, their son, Lieutenant William Whistler, and his wife, recently married, and a younger son, George Washington Whistler, who was about two years old. General Henry Dearborn was at that time Secretary of War in the cabinet of President Jefferson. His orders to the commanding officer at Detroit were to send a body of men to construct and garrison a fort at the mouth of the Chicago River. This locality had long been considered a suitable one for the construction of a frontier military post. A tract "six miles square, at the mouth of the Chikago River," had been ceded by the Indians to the United States at the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, evidently with a view to its favorable location as the site of a fort. William Burnett, a trader at St. Joseph, writing to a firm in Montreal under date of August, 1798, said that it was understood that a garrison would be sent to Chicago in that year. This expectation, however, was not realized until five years later.