CHAPTER XIV

 

When Colonel Leavenworth went to the mouth of the Minnesota, in the autumn of 1819, he was accompanied by Major Lawrence Taliaferro, as agent to the Dakotas and the latter continued in this position for twenty-one years, having the absolute confidence of the Indians and the government alike. He had been a lieutenant of the regular army, but had resigned at the request of President Monroe, who was a friend of Taliafarro's family, to accept the arduous position. From the beginning he found himself opposed by both the military and the traders, but his standing, with the administration was such that in spite of all conspiracies for his discomfiture he was reappointed six times and finally resigned. When word came that Governors Clark and Cass would meet the various tribes of Indians at Prairie du Chien, in the summer of 1825 Taliaferro rounded up three hundred eighty-five Santees, being headmen from all of the bands from the Mississippi and the Minnesota and Big Stone Lake, and took them to the Prairie du Chien. Arriving at the Painted Rock, a short distance above that post he stopped and allowed his Indians to make their most elaborate toilets. They were all in small canoes and when the gorgeous dresses had been donned he again embarked them, having in the meantime decorated the canoes, which were dressed up in regular columns, and the grand entry was made with drums beating, many flags flying and with incessant discharges of small arms. It is doubtful if a more picturesque demonstration has been any where made than was that brilliant flotilla of nearly two hundred canoes sweeping down the Mississippi. Governor Cass had already arrived and during the period of a few days awaiting the arrival of Governor Clark, Schoolcraft, then agent of the Chippewas at Sault Ste. Marie, and the fur traders, who were there in large numbers, made life as burdensome for the Dakotas' agent as it was possible for those ingenious gentlemen to do. They were determined to break him down because of his interference in schemes to secure recognition for large rights in the coming treaty. The Yanktons were involved at this time in war with the Sacs and Foxes and refused to come to Prairie du Chien, lest they fall into some ambush of their enemies while enroute. Governor Clark arrived and on the 19th of August the treaty, after a vast deal of bargaining, map studying and cross questioning, was completed and signed.

Section one, provides for a general peace between all of the tribes. Section two, defines the line separating the Sacs and Foxs and the Dakotas as follows: Commencing at the mouth of the upper Iowa, on the western bank of the Mississippi and ascending the said Iowa River to its left fork; thence up that fork to its source; thence crossing the fork of the Red Cedar River in a direct line to the second or upper fork of the DesMoines River; thence in a direct line to the lower fork of the Calumet River (Rock River emptying into the Big Sioux), and down these streams to the juncture with the Missouri. The Yanktons not being present, the portion of the line from the DesMoines to the Missouri was not to be considered as settled until the Yanktons consented to it. The Iowas agreed to the line above described, they having some sort of joint claim with the Sacs and Foxes, and the Otoes not being represented and it being acknowledged that they too had some sort of right in the premises that their right, whatever it might be, should not be affected by the treaty. The foregoing mentioned provision for the Iowas being comprised in section three and that for the Otoes in section four. Section five, defined the line dividing the territory of the Dakotas and the Chippewas as follows: Beginning half a day's march below the falls of the Chippewa River (Wisconsin), thence to the foot of the falls in the Red Cedar; thence to the standing Cedar on the banks of the St. Croix, a day's paddle in a canoe above the head of Lake St. Croix; thence passing between the two lakes called by the Chippewas, Green Lakes and by the Sioux, "the lakes they bury the eagles in," to the "standing cedar the Sioux split," thence to Rum River at the mouth of a small stream called "Choaking Creek," a long day's march from the Mississippi (six miles below Cambridge), thence to a point of woods that projects into the prairie a half day's march from the Mississippi, (seven miles southwest of Princeton) thence in a straight line to the mouth of the first river that enters the Mississippi on its west side above the mouth of Sac River, (crossing at Sauk Rapids,) thence up said little river to a small lake at its head, thence in a straight line to a lake at the head of the Prairie River, which is supposed to enter the Crow Wing River on its west side, (a point seven miles directly west of Alexandria) thence in a direct line north to the Ottertail lake portage, thence from Ottertail Lake to a point on Buffalo River half way from its mouth to its source, (eighteen miles east of Moorhead,) thence down the said Buffalo River to the Red River. The eastern boundary of the Dakotas' territory is described in the same section as beginning at the mouth of the Upper Iowa, extending across to a point two or three miles from the east bank of the Mississippi and follows the bluffs north, crossing Badaxe  River to the mouth of Black River and thence to the point on Chippewa River, a half days march below the falls. The line dividing the Sioux and the Chippewa was surveyed by S. L. Bean in 1835. Section six, described the line dividing the Chippewas and the Winnebagoes, and section seven bounded the Winnebagoes' territory. Section eight related to the Menomonees and section ten to the Ottawas and Pottawatomies of Illinois. Section eleven, all of the tribes acknowledged the general controlling power of the United States and also acknowledged the several military and halfbreed reservations. Section eleven provided that a council should be held with the Yanctons in 1826 to secure their agreement to the line in northwestern Iowa and section twelve for a council of the Chippewas for the purpose of explaining the treaty to them. Section thirteen provided that no tribe should hunt outside of their own territory without first obtaining the consent of the other tribes interested. Section fourteen, provided that if any two of the tribes should get into difficulty the other tribes should intervene.

The treaty is signed on the part of the Dakotas by twenty-six headmen and chiefs, among whom are many well known men, including Wapasha, Little Crow, Sleepy Eyes, Waneta. Redwing. Shakopee, Peneshon and Tatankamana. Probably other men of renown are there but it is difficult to identify names from the crude manner in which they are written.

The council over Major Taliaferro returned his Dakotas to Fort Snelling and their homes but several died during the time from natural causes, chiefly due to a change of diet.

The expedition under General Atkinson and Major O'Fallon in 1825 was outfitted at St. Louis and set off up the river on March 20th and arrived at Fort Atkinson, sixteen miles north of Omaha, on April 19th, and remained there almost a month, finally getting away on May 14th. There were in the expedition four hundred seventy-six men and among the officers were Colonel Leavenworth, Majors Kearney, Langham and Ketchum; Captains Armstrong, Riley, Mason, Gaunt Pentland, Kennerly, and Culbertson; Lieutenants Harris, Swearinger, Wragg, Greyson, Waters, Holmes and Doctor John Gale. It will be observed that most of these officers accompanied the Leavenworth expedition against the Ree Indians at Arickara two years earlier. They were embarked in eight keel boats, called the Beaver, Buffalo, Elk, Mink, Muskrat, Otter, Raccoon and White Bear. Besides the usual equipment of paddles, poles, cordelles, sails, etc., each of these boats was equipped with a set of paddle wheels operated by hand power. Forty of the men went on horseback and went by with the power of the government. Its first council in the Dakota country was held at Fort Kiowa, on the west side of the Missouri eight miles above Chamberlain, South Dakota, where they arrived on the 18th of June and met there certain of the Yanktons, Yanktonais and Tetons, the interpreters having been sent ahead to call them in to meet the commission. On the 20th a military demonstration was made for their benefit. The brigade was reviewed by General Atkinson and staff on horseback. The display was very fine, the troops being in fine order and the impression on the Indians was excellent. The council was then organized and the credentials of the chiefs examined. At this point a few words as to the authority of chiefs and headmen to make treaties binding upon the tribe may be in order. "The Dakotas fully recognized among themselves chieftainship by heredity. This, however, was frequently set aside and to a greater or less extent depended upon the ability of the individual to make good his claim. Delegation of power to make treaties, went with the selection of their headmen and these headmen came to be such, by gradual growth of influence, rather than by specific election. I do not think this power is ever delegated so as to prevent the leading men from voting in councils held. All men who are invited to such councils have a vote. Everybody, however, is not invited; only those of recognized influence. Invitation to councils is made by the chief and his personal advisors, who are responsible for the initiative, who 'make the council,' in the terms of the vernacular."

To state the proposition again, the tenure of office of the chief of any of the Dakota tribes, whether he be hereditary or elective, depended upon the force of character of the individual, but rarely was a man strong enough to control the action of his people without calling into his cabinet the other strong men of his nation, but when he had "made his council" and called in the strong men of all the bands and after mature deliberation a course of action was determined upon, that action was final and the tribe adopted it readily as the policy of the whole people. A treaty made upon any other basis was of little effect. Thus it was that the commissioners found it highly important, as a preliminary to any negotiations, to satisfy themselves that the chiefs and headmen who appeared before them were in fact the acknowledged leaders of the tribes or bands they assumed to represent. Failure to do this in some subsequent negotiations, as we shall learn, led to some serious and even tragic results. Being satisfied that the headmen present were in fact duly empowered to treat, the convention was drawn and duly signed on the 22nd day of June and was in the following form

Article I. It is admitted by the Teton, Yankton and Yanctonies bands of the Sioux Indians that they reside within the territorial limits of the United States and acknowledge their supremacy and claim their protection. The said bands also admit the right of the United States to regulate all trade and intercourse with them.

Art. 2. The United States agree to receive the said Teton, Yancton and Yanctonies bands of Sioux Indians into their friendship and under their protection, and to extend to them from time to time such benefits and acts of kindness as may be convenient, and seem just and proper to the president of the United States.

Art. 3. All trade and intercourse with the Teton, Yancton and Yanctonies bands shall be transacted at such place or places as may be designated and pointed out by the president of the United States through his agents, and none but American citizens, duly authorized by the United States, shall be admitted to trade or hold intercourse with said bands of Indians.

Art. 4. That the Teton, Yancton and Yanctonies bands may be accommodated with such articles of merchandise, etc., as their necessities may demand, the United States agree to admit and license traders to hold intercourse with such tribes or bands, under mild and equitable regulations; in consideration of which the Teton, Yancton and Yanctonies bands bind themselves to extend protection to the persons and the property of the traders and the persons legally employed under them, whilst they remain within the limits of their particular district of country. And the said Teton, Yancton and Yanctonies bands further agree that if any foreigner, or other person not legally authorized by the United States, shall come into their district of country, for the purposes of trade or other views, they will apprehend such person or persons and deliver him or them to some United States superintendent, or agent of Indian affairs, or to the nearest military post, to be dealt with according to law. And they also further agree to give safe conduct through their country to all persons who may be legally authorized by the United States; and to protect in their persons and property all agents or other persons sent by the United States to reside temporarily among them.

Art. 5. That the friendship which is now established between the United States and the Teton, Yancton and Yanctonies bands should not be interrupted by the misconduct of individuals, it is hereby agreed that for injuries done by individuals no private revenge or retaliation shall take place, but instead thereof complaints shall be made by the parties injured, to the superintendent, or agent for Indian affairs, or other person appointed by the president; and it shall be the duties of said chiefs as aforesaid to deliver up the person or persons against whom complaints are made, to the end that he may be punished agreeably to the laws of the United States. And in like manner if any robbery, murder or violence be committed upon any Indian or Indians belonging to said bands, the person or persons so offending shall be tried and if found guilty shall be punished in like manner as if the injury had been done to a white man. And it is agreed that the chiefs of the said Teton, Yancton and Yanctonies bands shall to the utmost of their power exert themselves to recover horses or other property which may be stolen or taken from any citizen or citizens of the United States by any individual or individuals of said bands; and the property so recovered shall be forthwith delivered to the agents or other persons authorized to receive it, that it may be restored to the proper owner, and the United States hereby guarantee to any Indian or Indians of said bands, a full indemnification for any horses or other property which may be stolen from them by any of their citizens; provided that the property so stolen cannot be recovered, and that sufficient proof is produced that it actually was stolen by a citizen of the United States. And the said Teton, Yancton and Yanctonies bands engage, on the requisition or demand of the president of the United States, to deliver up any white man resident among them.

Art. 6. And the chiefs and warriors, as aforesaid, promise and engage their band or tribe will never, by sale, exchange or gift, supply any nation or tribe of Indians, not in amity with the United States, with guns, or ammunition or other implements of war.

Done at Fort Lookout, near the three rivers of the Sioux pass, this 22nd day of June, A. D. 1825, and of the independence of the United States the forty-ninth.

This treaty was duly signed on the part of the United States by "H. Atkinson, br. gen. U. S. Army," and "Benj. O'Fallon, U. S. agt. Ind. aff.," and on the part of the Yanktons by the following chiefs and head men: Mawtosabekia, the well known Smutty Bear; Wacanohignan, the Flying Medicine; Wahhahginga, the Little Dish; Chaponka, the Mosquito; Etakenuskean, the Madface; Tokaoo, the One that Kills; Ogatee, the Fork; Youiasan, the Warrior; Wahtakendo, the One Who Comes from War; Toquinintoo, the Little Soldier; Hasashah, the Iowa. On behalf of the Tetons: Tatankaguenishquignan, the Mad Buffalo; Mahtokendohacha, the Hollow Bear; Eguemonwaconta, the One that Shoots at the Tiger; Jaikankane, the Child Chief; Shawanon, or Oetekah, the Brave; Mantodanza, the Running Bear; Wacanguela, the Black Lightning; Wabelawacan, the Medicine War Eagle; Campeskaoranco, the Swift Shell; Ehrakachekala, the Mad Hand; Japee, the Soldier; Hoowagahhak, the Broken Leg; Cechahe, the Burnt Thigh; Ocawseenongea, the Spy; Tatankaseehahueka, the Buffalo with the Long Foot; Ahkeechehachegalla, the Little Soldier.

These names were of course written before the Dakota language had been systematized in its orthography and the meaning of the words are consequently more or less obscure, but there is a vast improvement in the phonetic spelling of them, over the efforts of Lewis and Clark in the same direction. There arc no signers who are designated as Yanktonais and it is probable that such as were present signed with the Yanktons. It is probable that the Tetons were in the main Brules and Oglalas, though that is not certain. The assembled tribes were given an exhibition of fireworks in the evening which made even a more profound impression than did the guard mount earlier in the day. The Indians, too, made a good impression upon the commissioners, who say, "These tribes deport themselves with gravity and dignity, while they displayed a quality of taste in their dress which did great credit to their untutored view of things." They were eight days in passing from Fort Kiowa to Fort Pierre, and enjoyed some sport hunting elk and buffalo upon the islands of the river, but did not come in contact with any of the Indians until the mouth of the Teton and Fort Tecumseh was reached. The Oglalas were awaiting them, but the "Siounes" had not yet come in. It is clear that the commissioners did not have a very comprehensive idea of the tribal divisions of the Dakotas. The bands called Siounes they divided into the Siounes proper, who signed at Fort Tecumseh (Pierre), and the Siounes of the Fireheart band, who signed several days later at the Hidden Creek, the latter, from the fact that the commissioners at this place visited Medicine Rock, is identified as the Little Cheyenne at -Forest City. These Siounes were manifestly Cut Head Yanktonais, a fact revealed by the signature of Waheneta, (Waneta) the Rushing Man, head chief of the latter band. When the Fourth of July arrived the commissioners resolved to give the Dakotas a manifestation of genuine "down east" patriotism by providing them a typical celebration. Colonel Leavenworth was made officer of the day, orations were delivered by the commissioners and Lieutenant W. S. Harney, who thirty years later was to win distinction upon that same soil, read the declaration of independence, a salute was fired in the morning and at noon the Oglalas made a feast of the flesh of thirteen dogs "boiled in seven kettles much done," to which the officers were invited. The remainder of the day was spent in games, races, etc., and in the evening a fine display of fireworks. On the 5th a regular military review took place, which "struck the Indians with great awe and on the 6th after the treaties had been signed, Lieutenant Hotness threw six shells from the howitzer, which exploded handsomely and made a deep impression upon the savages." The treaty made here was in all respects the same as the one made with the Tetons, Yanktons and Yanktonais and was signed on the part of the Siounes by Waheneta, the rushing man; Cahrewecaca, the crow feather; Marasea, the white swan; Chandee, the tobacco; Okema, the chief; Towcowsanopa, the two lance; Chantawaneecha, the Noheart; Hehumpee. the one that has a voice in his neck; and Numcahpah, the one that knocks down two.

On the part of the Oglalas: Tatuncanashsha, the standing buffalo; Healongga, the shoulder; Matoweetco, the full white bear; Wanarewagshego, the ghost boy; Ekhahkasappa, the black elk; Tahtongishnana, the one buffalo; Mahtotaongca, the buffalo white bear, Naganishgcah, the madsoul. On July 7th at 9 o'clock in the morning, the expedition having first started most of the cavalry back to Fort Atkinson, set out for the upper tribes. "The exhibition was beautiful. The wind being fair, the boats put off in regular succession, under sail and under the wheels, and ran up a stretch of nineteen and one half miles in view of more than three thousand Indians who lined the shore." They were five days reaching "Hidden Creek," where on the 12th the same treaty was signed by the Siounes of the Fireheart band as follows: Chautapata, the fireheart; Wahcontanionee, the one that shoots as he walks; Keahashapa, the one that makes a noise as he fires; Matocokeepah, the one that is afraid of the whitebear; Hotoncokeepah, the one that is afraid of his voice; Womdishkiata, the spotted war eagle; Chalonwechakota, the one that kills the buffalo; Carenopa, the two crows; Careatunca, the crow that sits down; Tokeawechacata, the one that kills first.

A separate, but similar treaty was made with the Uncpapas at Arickara, on the 15th, and was signed by Matochegallah, the little white bear; Chasahwaneche, the one that has no game; Tahhahneha, the one that scares the game; Tawomeneeotah, the womb; Mahtowetah, the whitebear's face; Pahsalsa, the Arickara: Hahahkuska, the white elk .

This completed their work with the Dakotas. It will be observed that of the sixty-two Dakota chiefs and headmen who signed the three treaties five bore the name of "Buffalo" in some form or other and the ingenious secretary to the commission devised four differing methods of spelling the word Tatanka, which is the Dakota equivalent for the name. Eight others were of the "Bear" family and four methods of spelling Mato, which means bear, were found. The expedition went on to the Yellowstone, making treaties with all of the tribes which could be reached, and returning passed through the Dakota country without noteworthy incident so far as relations with the Indians were concerned.

This was one of the most successful enterprises in which the government had engaged among the Indians since the explorations of Lewis and Clark. It established fair trade relations between the Americans and all of the American Indians and effectually shut the British out of our field, for it is a somewhat remarkable fact that though the Missouri River country had been ours for twenty-two years and the Mississippi region for forty-nine, the English had enjoyed the greater portion of its rich trade up to this time.

 

CHAPTER XV

 

Instead of lessening the disasters of Indian warfare, the building of Fort Snelling in the heart of the Indian country and upon the line dividing the ranges of the Dakotas and the Chippewas, had the direct effect of vastly increasing the horrors of that warfare. Depending upon the protection of the military, both tribes brought their women and children into the disputed territory, where before the coming of the soldiers they would never have dared expose them, and it soon developed that the fort afforded no protection to the children of the forest against the savagery of their hereditary enemies, who made treaties of peace only to thereby gain better opportunity for butchery.

At the break of day on May 28, 1827, Flatmouth, the celebrated Chippewa chief, arrived at Fort Snelling. He was accompanied by seven warriors and women and children, making a party of twenty-four in all. They asked Colonel Snelling and Mr. Taliaferro for protection and were told to camp within musket shot of the walls of the fort and so long as they were under the United States flag they would be safe. That afternoon they were visited by a Dakota whose home was at Shakopee. whose name was Tooponca Zeze. and eight young warriors, among whom was the elder Little Six, a son of Old Shakopee's. They were cordially received by Flatmouth and a feast of meat, corn and maple sugar was spread in their honor, and after a hearty meal they engaged in pleasant conversation and smoked the peace pipe. They remained as guests of Flatmouth until 9 o'clock in the evening, boasting of their exploits, coquetting with the Chippewa women, in every way exhibiting the most friendly relations, when they rose to go. Passing out of the tipi one of the Dakotas held the flap of the tent back with his foot while the other eight each discharged their guns among the party with whom they had just been visiting. There were nine persons in the tent and eight of them were seriously wounded, at least two of them fatally. One of the spent bullets barely missed the head of Captain Cruger, who was spending the evening in a social company at the home of Major Clark, near by. The outbreak created great alarm among the Chippewas as well as in the garrison and Major Clark was at once dispatched to go to the nearest Dakota village and round up and bring in as many Dakotas as could be secured. The Chippewas were brought within the gates and the wounded taken to the hospital. Thirty Dakota warriors were brought in and committed to the guardhouse. It was found that everyone of the eight bullets fired into the Chippewa lodge had taken effect and that the wounds were of the most ghastly character. The bullets had been chewed until they were rough and as the occupants of the lodge were all reclining, with their feet toward the door, most of the bullets took effect in the limbs and ploughed awful and ragged furrows through the flesh. One girl was killed outright, one man was mortally and one seriously wounded, being shot through both ankles and made a cripple forever. The others were women and children and were more or less injured. At dawn the next morning the military conveyed the wounded Chippewa on litters to the guard house, where the imprisoned Dakotas were paraded before them and they readily identified two of them as being of the band of murderers. Colonel Snelling at once turned these two over to the Chippewas to be dealt with as they saw fit. Little Soldier, one of the Chippewas, whose wife had been seriously wounded, bound their arms and then fastened them together at the elbows of one arm and they were taken out to a rise of ground a quarter of a mile from the fort. One of them set up the death song and carried himself with great courage but the other was stricken with consternation. They were told to run for their lives and were not slow to obey the mandate. The six remaining Chippewa warriors stood with guns in hand, but waited until their victims were thirty yards away before they raised them. Then the six muskets rang out and the two Dakotas dropped dead. An eye witness thus described what followed: "Instantly the prairies rang with the Chippewas' cry de joie and the executioners rushed toward the corpses with their knives bared and yelling like fiends. Twice and thrice did each plunge his weapon into the bodies of the prostrate foes and then wipe their blades on their faces and blankets. One or two displayed a ferocity which those only who saw, can entirely realize. They drew their reeking knives through their lips and exclaimed with a smack that they had never tasted anything so good. An enemy's blood was better than even firewater. The whole party then spat upon the body of him who had feared his fate and spurned it with their feet. They had not tasted his blood. It, they said, would have made their hearts weak. To him who had sung his death song they offered no indignity. On the contrary they covered him with a new blanket. They then returned to the fort but Colonel Snelling told them the bodies must not be left there but must be disposed of and they returned to the. slaughter ground and took the two enemies by the heels and dragging them to the edge of the bluff, which at that point is one hundred feet high, pitched them over into the Mississippi and they were not again seen. Among the Dakotas detained in the guard house was an old man named Eagle's Head, who was the uncle of one of the young men who was shot, and he was greatly agitated. After the execution he sent for Colonel Snelling, and told him that his nephew had been enticed into the mischief by Tooponca Zeze, who was a very bad man belonging to Shakopee's band, who were a very bad people, constantly getting the Dakotas into trouble, and that they should be punished for their conduct. If he was permitted to go he would return the next day with at least two more of the murderers, whom he would turn over to him for punishment. Colonel Snelling took him at his word and let him go. He left Fort Snelling upon the forenoon of May 29th promising to be back by sunset of the 30th upon pain of being given up to the Chippewas. At daylight the next morning he was at the lodge of "The Englishman," father of Tooponca Zeze, where he found the latter lately arrived and boasting of his exploits. With that lack of ceremony by which an Indian is permitted to enter any place, however private, without announcement of any kind, Eagle Head walked into the lodge of "The Englishman" and catching up Tooponca's boast declared: "You have acted like a dog, and so have you," turning to another of the assassins who was present, "Some one must die for what you have done and it is better that your lives should be taken than that others should die for your folly. There are no worse men than you in our nation. Go with me like men, or I will kill you where you sit." Saying this he cocked his gun and drew his tomahawk from his belt. No resistance was offered him. Eagle Head, though not a chief was a man of great influence, and he was surrounded in this camp by his sons and sons-in-law and other relatives. Tooponca at once arose and offered his arms to be tied, handing Eagle Head a cord to be used for that purpose. When he had been secured he requested his father to thrust splinters through the muscles of his arms that the Americans might know that he did not care for pain. His father complied without uttering a word in protest. The other man seemed stupified by terror. He submitted passively and when all was ready, Eagle Head took up his gun. "Now start and walk before me, for you must die at the American fort at sunset and it is a long distance." It was about sixty miles. At sunset they were at the fort, when Colonel Snelling gave Eagle Head his liberty and a fine present. By this time the excitement had drawn all of the Dakotas of the neighborhood about the fort. The condemned Indians distributed their property among their relatives. Tooponca was a man of splendid physique, almost a perfect model, but his companion had a harelip and was hideous to look upon, and f likewise had a reputation as a thief,' a vice not common among Indians.

When the prisoners were turned over to the Chippewas Flatmouth protested that the law was fully satisfied. That two of their people had been killed and that they had taken two lives in return, and he feared if they took more lives that the Dakotas would revenge themselves upon them and that his people were weak and unable to protect themselves against Dakota fury; but Little Soldier, a dwarfish, thickset fellow, very promptly declared if the chief was scared he was not, that Tooponca had the previous year slain his brother, and that his wife was now lying at the point of death. These fellows deserve to die and they shad die. He indicated to the prisoners that they were to march. Tooponca at once struck up the death song:

I must die, I must die.

But willingly fall.

They can take from me but one life;

But I have taken two from them.

Two for one, two for one, two for one.

The Split Lip, on the contrary was overcome with fright. He piteously begged for his life. He did not deserve to die, for he had killed no one. Tooponca, however, indignantly disputed him and called him a cowardly and lying old woman. When they arrived at the place of execution they were given thirty yards and Split Lip fell dead at the first discharge, and the throng that bound them together was cut off by a bullet and Tooponca had reached one hundred fifty yards before a shot from Little Soldier's gun brought him down. After this all of the Dakotas left the neighborhood of the fort for a long time, tut gradually their hostility wore away and they returned.

 

CHAPTER XVI

 

That there was some real hostility among the Dakotas as the result of the affair at Fort Snelling was at once made manifest. In June two keelboats passing up the river with supplies for Fort Snelling were stopped by Wapasha's people and the boats taken possession of by hostile Indians, but the boatmen, though not armed, succeeded in bluffing them off and got away without violence. Hostile demonstrations were also made at Redwing's and Little Crow's villages but they reached the fort without loss. On their return down the river Wapasha's Dakotas were dancing the war dance. There does not appear to have been any open warfare, but as General Sibley says, an outbreak was imminent and it is likely the Dakotas took the lives of at least one white man and one Indian for every Dakota executed at Fort Snelling.  The winter of 1827 was one of unusual severity and a party of thirty lodges of Sissetons passing from one hunting ground to another, near Lac qui Parle, were caught in a blizzard on the open prairie without food or fuel. The storm raged three days They dispatched some of the strongest men to the trading house at Lac qui Parle for supplies and Renville sent them four Canadians with food, but so much time was lost in coming and going that when they reached the camp almost the entire population was dead. The survivors were subsisting upon the flesh of their fellows. One woman became insane and committed suicide at Fort Snelling in the spring. The Wakpekutes had established themselves on the Cannon River in 1828 and Alexis Baily built a trading post there for their convenience. That year, Colin Campbell, acting for the Columbia Fur Company, established a trading post for the Cut Heads, Waneta's band, on Elm River, South Dakota, outfitting it at Fort Tecumseh. That year, also a new attempt was made to cut pine timber on the Chippewa under a permit granted by Wapasha, who claimed the region, but without the government sanction. Major Taliaferro therefore stopped it, to the disgust of the lumbermen and of Wapasha, who was to receive a thousand dollars per year for the privilege.

An attempt to drive cattle to Fort Snelling for the use of the garrison proved a failure that summer of 1828. Samuel Gibson started from Missouri with a large herd and missing his way abandoned his cattle out near Lac qui Parle, where they were rounded up by Joseph Renville and afterwards sold for the benefit of the drover, by order of Major Taliaferro.

In 1829 the first attempt was made to establish Protestant missions among the Dakotas. On the 1st of September Revs. Alvan Coe and Jedediah Stephens arrived at Fort Snelling. Major Taliaferro gave them much encouragement and tendered them the use of the old grist mill at St. Anthony's Falls for a station and also of the farm opened up by the government at Lake Calhoun. They carefully examined the field, preached several times at the fort and conversed with the Dakotas, but concluded not to attempt a permanent settlement at that time.

The boundary established between the Sacs and Foxes and the Dakotas by the treaty of 1825 had not proven the successful barrier its projectors anticipated. In fact it was the direct cause of increased warfare and bloodshed. Hitherto the line between the territory of these tribes had been somewhat indefinite, so that it was not always easy to determine a trespass, but with a definite line established, it was the easiest thing in the world for a tantalizing Indian, bent on mischief, to provoke a trespass from his neighbors, so that the fighting was almost continuous and the reprisals and counter reprisals taken by the tribes were becoming a serious drain upon them. By 1830 a new plan was developed by some of the brilliant minds in the Indian department. It was proposed to assemble the Indians in council and secure from them a cession of a strip of land forty miles wide separating the two nations, and this, it was thought, would present a sure enough, impassible barrier. Forty miles to stop Indians who but recently had tramped down to Drummond's Island to tell the English officers what they thought of their conduct. Accordingly Colonel Zachary Taylor, in command at Fort Crawford, (Prairie du Chien) was instructed to call the Dakotas and the Sacs and Foxes together there in July, 1830, and Colonel Taylor sent word to Major Taliaferro to bring down his Dakotas. Taliaferro in turn sent Colin Campbell express to the Wakpekutes, Wahpetons and Sissetons. As Campbell proceeded up the Minnesota he found the Indians enthusiastic for the enterprise but upon his return he discovered that a change had come over the spirit of their dreams. The traders had decided to oppose the new treaty and had turned the Dakotas against it. They made the Dakotas believe that if they went to Prairie du Chien they would be turned over to the Sacs and Foxes in revenge for certain Indians of that tribe who had been killed in their forays, as the young men were turned over to the Chippewas in 1827. After a good deal of persuasion, however. Taliaferro was able to secure a respectable delegation and proceeded down the river. While enroute to this convocation a party of Dakotas and Menomonees who were not of Taliaferro's delegation but were going down on their own account, fell upon a camp of Foxes upon an island in the Mississippi and killed eight of them. In consequence of this massacre the Foxes would not take part in the treaty making. Before the Indians met, Colonel Taylor went down to St. Louis and left the negotiations to Captain Clark and Major Willoughby Morgan. After the usual amount of bargaining, counciling and explaining the Dakotas ceded to the government a strip twenty miles wide adjoining the treaty line of 1825 and the Sacs and Foxes, a like strip twenty miles wide adjoining the said treaty line. These united strips were known as the neutral belt, which was extended from the Mississippi to the Missouri. By this treaty too, the Santee half breeds were give a reservation fifteen by thirty-two miles in extent on the west bank of Lake Pepin and the Yankton half breeds got an interest in a reservation ten miles square at the mouth of the Kansas River. The Santee half breeds never occupied their reserve and later relinquished it to the government for $50,000, and the Yanktons relinquished their rights in the Kaw reservation very soon afterward. In consideration of the cession the Dakotas were to receive annuities as follows: The Sioux of the Mississippi two thousand five hundred dollars; the Yanktons and "Santies" three thousand dollars for ten successive years at such place or places on the Mississippi or Missouri Rivers as the tribes might indicate, either in money, merchandise or domestic animals at the option of the Indians, and if merchandise was given them it was to be furnished carriage paid at the wholesale price in St. Louis. The government in addition agreed to furnish a blacksmith to the Mississippi River bands and one to the Yankton, for the period of ten years, together with all necessary tools and agricultural implements to the amount of four hundred dollars annually. The Yanktons not being fully represented it was provided that if they should sign the treaty then they were to be bound by it. They did sign at Fort Tecumseh, (Pierre) on the 13th of October following.

In addition the government agreed to provide for the education of the children of the tribes, and paid over to them at the time of the signing five thousand, one hundred and thirty-two dollars' worth of merchandise. On behalf of the M'dewakantons the treaty was signed by Wapasha, Little Crow, Big Thunder and twenty-three others. Mazamanee and eight others signed for the Wakpekutes; Sleepy Eyes and Hotomanee for the Sissetons; Smutty Bear and twenty-two others for the Yanktons. Among the Yankton signers were Chaponka, who had signed the treaties of 1815 and 1825, and Hazassa or Hisayu, who signed the treaty of 1825.

While Major Taliaferro and his Indians, including Little Crow, were down at Prairie du Chien a nephew of Little Crow's, with fifteen or twenty young men from Kaposia, seized upon the opportunity to go off upon a raid against the Chippewas and at the Falls of the St. Croix killed Michael Cadotte, a half breed trader, and three or four Chippewas. In July, 1831, a raiding party of forty Sacs crossed the neutral belt and attacked a party of Sissetons on the headwaters of the Cannon River. The circumstance indicates the efficacy of the new treaty. That summer Major Taliaferro made a trip to Big Stone Lake and convened the Sissetons, Wahpetons and Wakpekutes at Traverse des Sioux to explain to them the terms of the treaty of the previous year, which being made in a somewhat irregular way required to be ratified by the tribes. He had a letter from General Jackson to the Indians, in which he said, "Let us smoke the same pipe and- eat out of the same dish. War is hurtful to any nation. Keep the seven fires of your nation in peace and good order and I will try and do the same with the twenty-seven fires of my nation. Make your wants known to your faithful agent and you will bear from your true friend speedily." The Indians promptly ratified the treaty, in spite of the action in opposition by the traders."'

At about the time that Major Taliaferro, on the Minnesota, learned of the massacre of the Sissetons by the Sacs, Wapasha and a large party of his people appeared at Fort Crawford. A band of Wapasha's Dakotas had been out on the Red Cedar hunting when they came upon the trail of the Sacs and followed it until they came to the battleground. They had hurried to Fort Crawford to tell the news, but it does not appear that the military took any action to punish the Sacs and the Dakotas themselves were left to revenge their relatives in the old fashioned way, which matter of business was promptly attended to by them.

That fall the Black Hawk troubles were already on and before spring the Winnebago country was in a state of wild excitement. Sub-agent Burnett, at Prairie du Chien, under direction of General Atkinson, undertook to raise and arm the Indians of the locality on behalf of the government, with good success. Wapasha promptly tendered his warriors to assist in destroying his long time enemy, nevertheless while the attention of the military was directed Black Hawkward, he seized the occasion to hurry off a band of his young men to take a fall out of the Chippewas, in the Menomonee country. The Dakotas did not get into the Black Hawk campaign until the very close of the enterprise and spent some time scouting along the river to prevent Black Hawk's people from crossing and thus escaping the military. After the battle of Bad Axe had practically destroyed the enemy, a small remnant of women, children and old men managed to cross the river to the west side. Wapasha was set upon the trail of these refugees, by General Atkinson, and he overtook them and relentlessly destroyed them. Scarcely one escaped. General Atkinson was justly reproached for this needless cruelty.

During that summer the Yanktons found the corpse of a white man near the second fork of the DesMoines River, near the present town of Dakota, Iowa. He was a tall, light-haired man dressed in blue coat, black silk vest and gray pantaloons. They found twenty dollars in money and a gold watch upon his person, which they carried and delivered to Alexander Farebault, the trader. The body never was identified.

While the events as above narrated were transpiring among the Santees the Yanktons and Tetons were pursuing the even tenor «f their way, trading peaceably on the river, at the James, Fort Lookout and Fort Pierre, hunting the buffalo, trapping the beaver, drinking the abominable whiskey spirited into the country by the traders, and diverting themselves by an occasional foray against the Pawnees, Poncas, Crows, Rees, Mandans, and even the far off Arapahoes. Only the faintest intimation of these wars come to us, without definite information of the battles, where fought, or how eventuating. They were either horse stealing enterprises or else intended to revenge the death of some warrior slain by the enemy in the last previous bout.

On May 22, 1832, George Catlin, the artist, arrived at Fort Pierre, having come up river on the steamboat Yellowstone to somewhere near the Niobrarah, when with Fontenelle, the trader, and a party of hunters he tramped across to the fort. He spent some time there and painted likenesses of many prominent Dakotas. Catlin was an enthusiast who was easily imposed upon and the reports he gives of the importance of the men he painted are not verified from other sources. His coming and his pictures, were, however, an event in the lives of the Dakotas, second only to the appearance of the steamboat. Pierre Chouteau, Major Sanford, sub-agent for the Missouri River Indians, and Kenneth McKenzie were present and the Dakotas gave them a dog feast with much ceremony, presided over by One Horn, the head chief of the Minneconjous, who with becoming seriousness had assured Catin that the Dakotas were divided into forty-one tribes, each having its chief, but that he occupied the exalted position of head chief of all of these tribes. The ceremony on this occasion was similar to that participated in by Lewis and Clark upon the same ground, twenty-eight years earlier.

One circumstance of Catlin's visit to Pierre, if true, is noteworthy. It must be premised however with the statement that the Fort Pierre journal for the period makes no reference to it. nor does any contemporaneous writer. Catlin's story is given for what it is worth. Catlin says that when he was going up river and waiting for the arrival of the Yellowstone, which he had left hung up on a sand bar near the Niobrarah, he was painting the likeness of Little Bear, a chief of the Uncpapas, when Shonka, a surly chief of the Sans Arcs, who was watching the operation and observing that it was a profile likeness, showing but half of the face, said with a sneer that Little Bear was half of a man. "Who says that?" asked Little Bear slowly. "Shonka says it," was the reply, "and Shonka can prove it." "At this", says Catlin, "Little Bear's eyes, which he had not moved, began to steadily turn, and slow as if on pivots, and when they were rolled out of sockets till they fixed upon the object of contempt, his dark jutting brows were shoving down in trembling contention with the blazing rays that were actually burning with contempt the object that was before them. 'Why does Shonka say it?' 'Ask the painter. He can tell you; he knows you are but half a man; he has painted but one half of your face and knows the other half is good for nothing.' 'Let the painter say it and I will believe it; but when Shonka says it let him prove it.' 'Shonka said it and he can prove it," By this time the disputants and all of the Indians were violently angry and the principals were flinging opprobrious epithets at each other. Little Bear had rather the best of it, for Shonka's reputation was not savory and the sympathies of the Indians were with Little Bear, and when the latter gave a shot that raised a derisive laugh at the expense of Shonka the latter left the studio in high dudgeon. Little Bear resumed his sitting until the likeness was completed when he started for his own tipi, which was near by, but he was intercepted by Shonka, who demanded an explanation, but Little  Bear was not disposed to recant anything he had said. Both parties then started for their arms and a moment later appeared before Little Bear's door, where they drew and fired at the same instant but Little Bear's shot did not take effect, but Shonka's carried away all of that part of Little Bear's face which had not appeared in the likeness, carrying away one half of the jaws and the flesh from the nostrils and corner of the mouth to the ear, including one eye, and leaving the jugular vein exposed.

In a moment the community was in an uproar. The friends of Shonka crowded about him to protect him, while the friends of Little Bear were out for blood.  Arrows flew and bullets whizzed until Shonka was far out of sight upon the prairies." On the next day Little Bear died and was given honorable burial by Laidlaw, the Bourgeois, assisted by Catlin and Chouteau; and Catlin endeavored to square himself with the Indians, who regarded him as the cause of the trouble, by giving liberal presents to Mrs. Little Bear and to the head men. On the day of the burial the Yellowstone steamed on up river and Catlin got away without trouble. "While I was gone the spirit of vengeance pervaded nearly all of the Dakota country in search of Shonka, who evaded pursuit. His brother, however, a noble and honorable fellow, esteemed by all who knew him, fell in their way in an unlucky hour and they slew him." The excitement kept up and the more they considered the proposition the more they felt that Catlin was responsible for their woes, and after deliberation in council they determined if they could not find and kill Shonka that they would take it out of Catlin. In one of their councils an Uncpapa said: "The blood of two chiefs has sunk into the ground and a hundred bows are bent to shed more. On whom shall we bend them. I am a friend of the white man, but there is one whose medicine is too strong. He was the death of Little Bear; he made only one side of his face; he would not make the other; the side that he made was alive; the other was dead and Shonka shot it off. How is this? Who is to die?' Torn Belly, the Yankton, agreed with the Uncpapa that Catlin's medicine was too strong. That he had done much harm. Little Bear's brother spoke in the same strain, but Catlin was defended in the council by Tohkieto, the principal warrior of the Yanktons, but in the end they resolved that if Shonka was not caught Catlin must die. This was the welcome news given the painter upon his return to Fort Pierre, by Laidlaw, on the 14th of August. He remained over one day and left down river on the 16th. He does not appear to have been molested. It would seem that had there been any serious foundation for the story some minute would have been made of it in the post journal. In all probability the occurrence is grossly exaggerated.

In 1835 Catlin was again among the Dakotas, visiting the Mississippi, painting the likenesses of Wapasha, Walking Buffalo, better known as Redwing II, and Little Crow. In 1836 he again came up the Mississippi and thence passed up the Minnesota and visited the Pipestone quarry, being accompanied from his trading post upon the Redwood by Joseph La Framboise. He enlarges upon an affair which occurred at the post of LeBlanc (Provencelle), at Traverse des Sioux. General Sibley says that he exaggerates this story though he did have some trouble. It seems that a band of Wakpekutes were gathered at the trader's and offered some objections to the white men visiting the quarry and they made a big talk about their rights in the quarry. One Indian in expressing his views gesticulated pretty violently very close to Catlin's face, but young LeBlanc told him if he repeated the offense he would knock him down and that put an end to the obstruction. The gist of the talks made there was in laudation of the English, for the benefit of Mr. Wood, who was an Englishman and Catlin's traveling companion. After visiting the quarry they returned to St. Louis by way of Fort Snelling, no incident having occurred affecting the Dakotas during the trip. That year the Fort Pierre traders were represented at the annual round up of the Sioux on the James River by William Dickson, the son of the red headed Scotch major, Robert Dickson.

 

CHAPTER XVII

With the spring of 1835 a new element entered into the lives of the Dakotas which was far reaching in its influence and eventually changed the entire atmosphere for very many of them, and yet is the most potent instrumentality in their slowly evolving civilization. We refer to the establishment and maintenance of Protestant missions among them. The courage, self sacrifice and unchanging devotion of the men and women who made and maintained this plant are no whit less than were those elements in the old Jesuit and Franciscan fathers who brought the story of salvation to them two centuries earlier. There was this radical difference in method. The old fathers sought to Christianize them without civilizing them. The Protestants sought from the first to inculcate ideas of cleanliness, industry, thrift; to educate, to clothe and civilize; at the same time touching their hearts with the truths of Christian teaching. It was a field filled with tares and thorns, the soil was not fecund, but the missionaries were faithful, patient, long suffering, undaunted by difficulties and the end of the second generation finds the Dakotas a Christian nation and generally living after civilized models.

The reconnaissance of Revs. Alvan Coe and Jedediah Stevens in the fall of 1829 has already been mentioned. In the spring of 1835 Mr. Stevens, accompanied by his wife, returned to Fort Snelling and to take up the work there, and found that in the spring of 1834 Revs. Samuel W. and Gideon H. Pond, acting independently of any of the missionary societies, had come to Fort Snelling and settled down to missionary work among the Dakotas at Lake Calhoun, where they erected a log house for a. home and a mission station. At about the time of their arrival, Dr. Thomas S. Williamson had arrived upon an exploring tour in the interest of the American board, and returning to his home in Ohio, brought out his wife and one child and his wife's sister. Miss Sarah Poage and Alexander Huggins with his wife and child, and they arrived at Fort Snelling at about the time of the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Stevens in the spring of 1835. Co-operation among the three parties from the beginning assisted in the work and enlarged its usefulness. Mr. and Mrs. Stevens decided to settle at Lake Harriet and the Ponds helped them to erect their buildings there. They at once established a boarding school, which for several years was successfully conducted by a niece.

At the invitation of Joseph Renville, the Williamsons went to Lac qui Parle in June and established their mission on the north side of the Minnesota near the lake. In 1836 Gideon H. Pond also was sent to Lac qui Parle, to assist Mr. Williamson, while Samuel Pond remained at the Fort Snelling mission. On June 1, 1837, Rev. Stephen Return Riggs, accompanied by his young and accomplished wife, arrived at Fort Snelling and spent the summer there at the Stevens home and in the autumn went to Lac qui Parle.

 

The Lac qui Parle mission was destined to be much the more permanent and useful. The personal equation doubtless had most to do with this result, but there were other contributing causes. At the Fort Snelling mission the Dakotas there were the most advanced in civilization of any of the nation, but their wars with the Chippewas resulted in the massacre of two of their number by the Chippewas in 1839, near the mission, and for this the Dakotas retaliated by entering the Chippewa country and killing a large number of women and children. After this, anticipating that the Chippewas would attempt to revenge themselves upon them, the Dakotas feared to remain about the mission, and they were compelled, to abandon the work. Mr. Stevens became farmer for Wapasha's band at Winona, and Mr. G. H. Pond farmer for the Lake Calhoun band, both in the government employ.

At Lac qui Parle, however, matters went more satisfactorily. Before the arrival of Mr. Riggs, Mr. Williamson had organized a native church with seven members, and within five years it numbered forty-nine. The missionaries at once set to work to reduce the Dakota language to writing and in a short time had translated some of the books of the New Testament and persisted in this laborious undertaking until a Dakota bible, a large Dakota dictionary, a Dakota Pilgrim's Progress, some hymn books and other literature in the Dakota tongue resulted. It was not all smooth sailing.

In the spring of 1838 a party of Chippewas under Hole in the Day came down upon the mission Indians and killed eleven of them in a camp near the Chippewa River. Mr. Pond assisted the Indians in burying their massacred relatives. The next spring Eagle Help, a headman and warrior of the Lac qui Parle Indians, resolved to lead a party against the Chippewas to revenge the killing of these persons, and the missionaries earnestly advised them against the enterprise. To reward the whites for thus meddling in their affairs they butchered several head of the mission cattle. From that period there was a division among the Indians and the heathen fellows made life difficult for the mission people, and for the Dakotas who became Christians and attended school and took up industrial pursuits.

During the winter of 1838-39 Dr. Williamson returned to Ohio to secure the printing of the first books in the Dakota tongue, and when he returned in the spring he brought Miss Fanny Huggins with him to assist in the work. It was decided at this time to undertake some industrial education and several spinning wheels and a loom were procured. They grew flax and wool and manufactured a good deal of yarn and cloth, in which work the Indian women became more or less proficient The Dakotas were utterly ignorant of the gospel of soap, and had never heard of washing a garment. Mrs. Riggs, a lady nurtured in refinement and untrained in such work, was unable to abide the filthy habits of these women and she took upon herself the task of instructing them in the art of washing clothing as well as in personal cleanliness. It was a slow task, but after a time washing became a fad among them and Mrs. Riggs had the great satisfaction of seeing her flock become the cleanest of people. The Indians about this mission were of the Wahpeton band. Something of the manner of living there may be interesting. The mission was a large log house. The lower story was occupied by Dr. Williamson for his home and a large room containing a fireplace was used for several years for church and school purposes. There were three rooms above, in the largest of which, 10x18 feet, the Riggs made their home. Everything was primitive. Mr. Riggs improvised a bedstead, they had a small cookstove but no stove furniture, but were enabled to borrow from the Indians a kettle and pan. Neither Mr. or Mrs. Riggs had any training in housekeeping nor other labor, neither could milk a cow, and Mr. Riggs states that at first it took them both to accomplish this feat. Joseph Renville was the trader for the Columbia Fur Company, and he had a stockaded  post called Fort Adams at first and later Fort Washington. He threw all of his vast influence with the Dakotas in .favor of the missionaries. The village at Lac qui. Parle contained about four hundred persons and among the very first to give their countenance and support to the mission were the young men of the soldiers' lodge, who were induced to do so through the influence of Mr. Renville. The Indians readily took to reading in the Dakota language, but, it was slower work to get them interested in the English, yet from the first it was the plan to use the Dakota only as a step toward the English. During the first year Alfred L Riggs, the well known missionary to the Santees, near Springfield, South Dakota, was born, and Rev. John P. Williamson, who is still doing the Master's work as missionary to the Yanktons, was born at Lac qui Parle three years earlier, that is in 1835. After five years spent by the Riggs and Williamsons working together in reducing the Dakota language to writing it was felt that sufficient progress had been made so that they could divide their effort to better advantage to the natives, so Mr. and Mrs. Riggs established a new mission at Saint Peter.

Miss Sarah Poage had become the wife of Rev. Gideon H. Pond, and they, in company with Mr. Pond's brother, at about the same time established a new mission eight miles up the Minnesota above Fort Snelling.

In 1836 a missionary society in Basle, Switzerland, sent out Daniel Gavin and Samuel Denton as missionaries to the Dakotas. Mr. Gavin located with Wapasha's people at Trempealeau, and Mr. Denton and his wife at Redwing. In 1839, Mr. Gavin married Miss Lucy Stevens, the teacher at Lake Harriet, so that in the early forties there were five missions among the Santees, all doing reasonably satisfactory work. From 1837 to 1839 the Methodists, under the charge of Rev. Alfred Bronson of Prairie du Chien, undertook a mission at Little Crow's village. He established his work with a considerable force of helpers, among whom were David King and family, a farmer and his family. George Copway, John Johnson and Peter Marksman, T. W. Pope, James G. Whitford and Hiram DeLap. While here Mr. Bronson went up to Hole in the Day's camp and rescued a Dakota woman who was taken captive at Lac qui Parle. In 1839 Mr. Bronson was taken ill and the conference was not satisfied with the results of the work. In those days Methodism carried things by storm, and when a genuine protracted meeting spirit did not seize upon the Dakotas as the result of the work of the missionaries the conference deemed the enterprise unprofitable and the mission was abandoned. During this period of the planting of the missions the Dakotas were experiencing their usual diversions in the way of wars with the Chippewas and Sacs and Foxes. In June, 1835, a party of Chippewas coming down the Mississippi upon a peaceable mission to Fort Snelling were waylaid by a party of Dakotas and one of them killed. In March, 1836, Redwing's people killed one Chippewa. About the same time Jack Frazer, a Redwing halfbreed, killed a Sac Indian. In 1837 thirteen Wakpekutes were killed by the Sacs. In the spring of 1838 a Dakota of Wapasha's band was killed on the Chippewa River in Wisconsin by the Chippewas. A war party followed the murderers and killed five of them. In the spring of 1838 Rev. Gideon H. Pond, then at the Lac qui Parle station went out with a party of Wahpetons on a hunting trip. They were encamped not far from the present city of Benson. Minnesota. There were a half dozen families in the party It was April, the streams were flooded and the weather cold Game did not appear as expected and they were reduced to the most scanty fare. On this account the party divided, Mr. Pond going with Roundwind and his relatives, leaving three lodges with eleven persons. That night old Hole in the Day appeared to the three remaining lodges. He was accompanied by ten warriors and said he had come to make peace. Though starving; the Dakotas killed two dogs and made a feast for their visitors and all laid down for the night, but at midnight the Chippewas arose and killed all the Dakotas, except one woman, who eluded the destroyers and secluded behind a tree watched the murder and mutilation of her people. The next morning she sought Roundwind's party, and accompanied by Mr. Pond they went to the massacred camp and buried the dead. In July of that year Hole in the Day visited Fort Snelling and stopped at Patrick Quinn's, a mile from the fort, to visit Mrs. Quinn, who was a Chippewa. The Dakotas living about the government farm at Lake Calhoun heard of his arrival and started off to kill him, but Major Taliaferro persuaded them to turn back by giving them permission to kill him if they could catch him on his road home. Two of the Dakotas, however, were relatives of the Wahpetons who were killed at Benson in the spring and they hid near Quinn's house to catch him as he left. When he came out he had traded clothes and ornaments with one of his warriors and the warrior was killed by mistake and another one wounded, but Hole in the Day escaped. In retaliation for this, two stepsons of the Chippewa who was killed came down the next summer and killed the son of the chief of the Calhoun band. A few days before this last mentioned event several bands of the Chippewas from the Mississippi, Mille Lacs and the St. Croix had been at Fort Snelling upon business, having their women and children with them, and it was at once surmised that the boys who killed the chief's son had remained behind for the purpose and that the parties would loiter along waiting for them to overtake them. The boys belonged to Hole in the Day's band and the Dakotas concluded that he would be watching out for them should they attempt to follow his trail, but that those from the St. Croix and Mille Lacs would not be on their guard, so they decided to follow the two latter named parties. The agent had given them permission to retaliate if any of their people were killed and they moved away before the military could interfere. The able bodied men of the Shakopee, Goodroad, Eagle Head and Calhoun bands assembled at St. Anthony's Falls and orders were given to take no captives, as in that case the military would make them give them up. By daylight on the Fourth of July they had overtaken the Mille Lacs band, but kept themselves concealed until the hunters had gone off for the morning hunt, when they fell upon the old men and women and children and killed seventy of them. They lost several men of the attacking party. The Dakotas say that when they raised the war whoop the Chippewas did not seem to realize their danger but stood awhile with their burdens upon their backs, gazing upon their pursuers as if they did not know what to make of them. Most of the young women escaped, the Dakotas being too much exhausted by their forced march to overtake them.

The Kaposians had followed the Chippewas of the St. Croix and come upon them while enjoying a drunken carousal, but after killing twenty-five of them the Chippewas seemed to sober up and repulsed their assailants with a good deal of loss. In the two expeditions the Dakotas killed one hundred persons, seventy-five of whom were women and children, and lost twenty-three men in the enterprises.

In March, 1840, seven Dakotas from Redwing killed a Chippewa woman and her two sons. On July 17th Longfoot, a Dakota, and his wife were killed by the Chippewas at Mendota, and the Pottawatomies killed two Dakota women and carried off two children into captivity, from the Blue Earth near Mankato Wapasha killed two Chippewas but lost two warriors to them that year. On April 8, 1841, three Chippewas came down the Mississippi in a canoe which they left between the falls of St. Anthony and Minnehaha, and hid themselves in the night, in some bushes on the bank of the river, near a foot path about a mile above the fort. The next morning as Kai-bo-kah, a Dakota chief, was passing by the place in company with his son and another Indian, the Chippewas killed the son and fatally wounded the chief. Rev. S. W. Pond heard the shots and was on the spot before either of the men died and saw the Chippewas running away, loading their guns as they ran. May nth of that year two of Little Crow's sons belonging to a war party against the Chippewas on the St. Croix, were killed. This story in detail is related by General Sibley in the biographical sketch of Little Crow in this volume. On May 16th a large war party of Dakotas from about Minneapolis and St. Paul reached Lake Pokegama where they killed two Chippewa girls and lost two of their own men in the operation. In July a war party from Little Crow's band killed one Chippewa at the mouth of the St. Croix. In the course of the summer five Dakotas went out against the Pottawatomies and all of them were killed. In retaliation for this the Wakpekutes from about Fort Ridgely killed thirteen Pottawatomies, and about the same time the Wahpetons from Lac qui Parle lost three of their men to the Chippewas.

The operations of 1842 resulted in the killing of a Chippewa and the loss of a warrior to the Kaposians in March, and an attack upon Kaposia by the Chippewas in June in which ten men, two women and a child were killed. In this fight the Chippewas lost four men. The Chippewas this year killed a Sisseton at Lake Traverse. In 1843 the Chippewas killed a Dakota child at Kandiyohi in April and two men at the ford of the Chippewa near Lac qui Parle, and at about the same time the Dakotas killed a Chippewa on Rum River and lost one of their own men.

From this record it will be seen that if the warfare was not especially sanguinary it was at least very continuous. What is most noteworthy is that a large portion of the attacks and killings were directly under the guns of Fort Snelling.

 

CHAPTER XVIII

 

By 1837 a strong demand had arisen for the right to cut pine lumber on the Chippewa river. This lumber was needed by the villages growing up on the Mississippi and St. Louis and after long consideration the government, upon the advice of Major Taliaferro, determined to buy the lands from the Indians. It was owned by the Chippewas upon the upper Chippewa above the falls and below the falls by the Dakotas, as provided in the boundary treaty of 1825. Major Taliaferro was accordingly instructed to organize a full and well authorized delegation of Dakotas to go to Washington and treat for the cession of these lands. While the lands were particularly claimed by Wapasha's band, all of the Santees claimed some right in them and the delegation was selected to represent all of the Santee bands. Before they started away the Chippewas were assembled at Fort Snelling and a treaty made with them directly by General Dodge, the commissioner of Indian affairs. The Dakotas were present to watch the proceeding and secure pointers to be used for their benefit in their own subsequent negotiations. The traders, as usual, opposed the treaty, but were determined that if it was made that all of the debts owing to them by the individual members of the tribes should be deducted from the amounts due the tribes, and paid directly to them. From that date forward the Indian trade has been to a large extent carried along upon the proposition that of the Indian did not pay, that the government sooner or later would do so. In consequence Indian credit has been reasonably good with the traders.

It was not an easy matter to get rid of the Chippewas after the treaty was signed without a clash between them and the Dakotas, but it was accomplished. Then the traders announced that no Indians should be permitted to go to Washington unless a guarantee was first given that the debts of the Dakotas to the traders should be paid before the distribution of any money to the Indians. Taliaferro refused to permit such a guarantee to be made, but securing a steamboat he marched his delegation to the landing and upon the boat the moment the vessel touched the wharf and was gone before the astonished traders could get their wits together. Little Crow, Redwing, Wapasha and Etuzepah were among the delegates, who numbered thirty-five in all. They made a prosperous trip and Secretary of War Poinsett introduced them to the president. General Sibley, Alexis Bailey, Joseph La Framboise, Francois LaBathe, the Farebaults and others were on hand to protect the interests of the traders. The treaty finally agreed upon was signed in Dr. Laurie's church at Washington on September 29, 1837, and, was reasonably satisfactory to all parties concerned. Except the small military reservation at Fort Snelling and the neutral strip, it was the first time the Dakotas had actually sold and parted title with any of their lands. The treaty was a very brief and explicit one and was in the following form:

Article I. The chiefs and braves representing the parties having an interest therein cede to the United States all their land east of the Mississippi River and all their islands in the said river.

Art. 2. In consideration of the cession contained in the preceding article, the United States agree to the following stipulations on their part:

First—To invest the sum of $300,000 in such safe and profitable state stocks as the president may direct, and to pay to such chiefs and braves as aforesaid, annually forever, an income of not less than five per cent thereon; a portion of such interest, not to exceed one-third, to be applied in such manner as the president may direct, and the residue to be paid in specie, or in such other manner and for such objects as the proper authorities of said tribes may direct.

Second—To pay the relatives and friends of such chiefs and braves as aforesaid, having not less than one quarter of Sioux blood, $110,000, to be distributed by the proper authorities of said tribes upon principles to be determined by the chiefs and braves signing this treaty and the war department.

Third—To apply the sum of $90,000 to the payment of the just debts of the Sioux Indians interested in the lands herein ceded.

Fourth—To pay the chiefs and braves as aforesaid an annuity for ten years of $10,000 in goods, to be purchased under the direction of the president and delivered at the expense of the United States.

Fifth—To expend annually for twenty years for the benefit of Sioux Indians, parties to this treaty, $8,250 in the purchase of medicines, agricultural implements and stock, and for the support of a physician, farmers and blacksmiths, and for other beneficial objects.

Sixth—In order to enable the Indians as aforesaid to break up and improve their lands, the United States will supply as soon as practicable after the ratification of this treaty, agricultural implements, mechanics' tools, cattle and other such articles as may be useful to them, to an amount not exceeding $10,000.

Seventh—To expend annually for the term of twenty years the sum of $5,500 in the purchase of provisions to be delivered at the expense of the United States.

Eighth—To deliver to the chiefs and braves signing this treaty, upon their arrival at St. Louis, $6,000 in goods.

Art. 3. This treaty shall be binding upon the contracting parties as soon as it is ratified by the United States.

It was ratified and proclaimed in force on June 15, 1838. The only faction not satisfied were the Farebaults, who endeavored to have their claim to Pike's Island at the mouth of the Minnesota confirmed, or in lieu thereof to have $10,000 allowed to them from the treaty money. It will he recalled that Colonel Leavenworth, without authority, had attempted to grant this island to Mrs. Pelagie Farebault in 1819, and it was due to differences between himself and Taliaferro, the agent, about this attempted grant that the latter secured the substitution of Snelling for Leavenworth at Fort Snelling in 1820 The government refused to recognize the claim of the Farebaults and they attempted to prevent the Indians from signing the treaty. When it came time to sign, Alex. Farebault, a half Dakota, bolted from the room, expecting that his Indian relatives would follow him, but Taliaferro was able to hold them and secured their signatures. The grant gave up all of the lands claimed by the Dakotas east of the Mississippi and all of the islands in  that stream.

The home trip was successfully accomplished, arriving at Fort Snelling on November 10th, but a few days before the river closed. On the way up the river the boiler of the steamboat, the Rolla, exploded, and one of the Dakotas was killed. The next spring Taliaferro went down the river and purchased a large number of horses, cows, oxen and farming utensils as provided for by the treaty. He also provided a number of blacksmiths' outfits and blacksmiths so that each of the principal camps of the Dakotas should be supplied.

The government set out W. L. D. Ewing of Illinois and Colonels Pease and Sperin of the army as disbursing agents of the cash to be paid over. That there should have been trouble between them and Taliaferro was inevitable and they preferred charges against him. but he was sustained by the department

In 1835 Prof. Joseph N. Nicollet, a French scholar, mathematician, astronomer and geographer, arrived at Fort Snelling. having a sort of commission from the government to ex- amine and map the upper Mississippi valley, and he spent the four succeeding years in that employment, the last two of which were under the direction of the war department. His work had little to do with the Dakota Indians save that he explored and mapped most of their territory. In 1838 Mr. Nicollet was accompanied by John C. Fremont, and together they went out from St. Paul and visited the pipestone quarry and mapped the eastern portion of South Dakota, being guided in the trip by a party of Indians and halfbreeds from Lac qui Parle, among whom were Joseph Renville. Jr., and Louis

John C. Fremont

 

Freniere. They returned from the "Undine" country, as Mr. Nicollet designated southwestern Minnesota and eastern South Dakota, to the Renville establishment at Lac qui Parle, where no effort was spared to assist them and afford them amusement. Of Joseph Renville, Sr., Fremont says: "The head of the Renville family is a border chief. Between him and the British line is an unoccupied region of some seven hundred miles Over all of the Indian tribes that ranged these plains he had a controlling influence; they obeyed him and his son (Joseph), who is a firm looking man of decided character. Their goodwill was a passport over all that country. Our stay here was made very agreeable. We had an abundance of milk and fresh meat and vegetables. To gratify us a game of lacrosse was placed with spirit and skill by the Indians. Among the players was a halfbreed of unusual height, who was incomparably the swiftest runner among them. He was a relative of the Renvilles and seemed to have some recognized family authority, for during the play he would seize an Indian by his long hair and hurl him backward to the ground to make room for himself, the other taking it as a matter of course. Toward fall they returned to Fort Snelling. At this place General Sibley, then a young man, made a hunting party for young Fremont's diversion and taking the whole of Little Crow's village, men women and children, they set out for the neutral strip in northern Iowa, where the deer hunting was exceptionally good. It was agreed in advance that Mr. Nicollet was presently to drift down to Prairie du Chien and Fremont was to join him there. Besides Sibley and Fremont there were Alex. Farebault, William H. Forbes and a couple of Canadians in the party. The trip was not an agreeable one and by the time they reached the hunting grounds Fremont had had enough of it, so that Sibley accompanied him to Prairie du Chien. The next year Sibley got up a hunt upon a bigger scale and as he gives a good many details of the Dakota life not found elsewhere, his story will be quite fully given.

 

At the outset, in October Sibley made a feast to which all of the warriors of the neighboring villages were invited. For this feast he contributed two oxen and a large quantity of corn. The response was very general indeed. After the feast an old man was sent around to announce the object of the gathering. Several hundred small sticks, painted red were then produced and offered for the acceptance of each grown warrior. It was understood that whoever received one of these sticks was solemnly bound to be one of the hunting party under penalty of punishment by the soldiers. One hundred fifty men accepted and were thereupon declared to be duly enrolled. These men at once separated from the main body of Indians and selected ten of the bravest and most influential young men to act as soldiers, having absolute control of the movements and authorized to punish any infraction of the rules promulgated for the government of the camp. These soldiers soon announced that six days later the buffalo skin lodges would be pitched on a designated spot in the rear of Mendota, and that there must be no default in appearing upon the part of any one. The interval was employed in preparations. At the appointed time all were present, but one family, the head of which refused to proceed. Five of the soldiers at once set off for his home, twelve miles distant, and in a few hours returned with the fellow's lodge and appendages packed on the backs of horses, himself and family following with downcast eyes. The soldiers kindly let him off without further infliction, but warned that a second attempt to evade his obligation would result in summary punishment. He gave them no more trouble. The Indians started ahead but Sibley overtook them on the Cannon River and placed himself, like the Indians, under the control of the soldiers. The place for the camp was selected by the soldiers and at the close of each day the limits of the following day's hunt would be announced by the soldiers, designated by a stream, grove or other natural object. The limits of each day's hunt was about ten miles ahead of the proposed camping place, and the soldiers each morning went forward and stationed themselves along the line to detect and punish any one who attempted to pass it. The reason for the adoption of this rule was that in a large camp the young men. unless restrained, would run over the country for a great distance in advance and frighten away the game so that a supply of food would with difficulty he obtained from that source. The penalty attached to the violation of the rules of the camp was discretionary with the soldiers. In aggravated cases they would punish the offender unmercifully. Sometimes they would cut the clothing of a man or woman entirely to pieces, slit down the lodges with a knife, break kettles and do other damage. "I was made the victim upon one occasion," says Mr. Sibley, "by venturing too near the prohibited boundary. A soldier hid himself in the long grass until I approached sufficiently near, when he sprang from his concealment, gave the soldier's whoop and rushed upon me. He seized my fine double barreled gun and raised it in the air as if with the intention of dashing it against the ground. I reminded him that guns were not to be broken because they could be neither repaired or replaced. He handed me back my gun and then snatched my fur cap from my head, ordering me back to camp where he said he would cut down my lodge in the evening! I had to ride ten miles on a cold day bareheaded, but there was no recourse, as it is considered disgraceful in the extreme to resist a soldier in the discharge of his duty. When I reached the lodge I told Farebault of the predicament in which I was placed. We concluded the best policy was to prepare a feast for the soldiers to mollify them. We got together all of the best things we could muster, and when the soldiers appeared in the evening we went out and asked them to appease their hunger in our lodge. The temptation was too strong to be resisted. They entered and soon devoured all that had been provided for them We then filled their pipes and presented each of them with a plug of tobacco, at the same time intimating that as they had been well treated, it would not be kind to have our beautiful white lodge cut into ribbons. They agreed not to interfere with it, and kept their word. The soldier who had worn my fur cap during the day returned it to me. but I did not venture to make use of it until it had undergone a long process of fumigation."

The view presented by so large a body of Indians on the march was rather imposing. Each family was possessed of one or more ponies, and these animals were attached to poles, one end of which was fixed on each side of the saddle like the shafts of an ordinary vehicle, while the other end trails on the ground; there being a sort of basket made of interlaced leather thongs attached to the poles, upon which were placed the skin lodge and others of the heavier articles, with a young child or two on top of the load. The horses were led by the women, the elderly men taking the lead, while the other members of the family old enough to walk assumed their appropriate places in the procession. One family, followed another in single files, so that the procession was extended to a great length. When they arrived at a stream requiring to be crossed the women were expected to carry over the baggage on their shoulders. These streams are generally rapid, but seldom more than waist deep, except in seasons of high water. It was a favorite amusement for the young men to station themselves along the banks when the crossing was in progress and make impertinent allusions to the ankles of the women and girls. The mothers and other female relatives of the young girls, excessively enraged at such freedom of observation, made it a point to drive off the intruders by a heavy discharge of sticks and stones. When the camping place was reached the ponies were unloaded and turned out to graze, poles cut and the lodges raised in an incredibly short space of time by the women, the men meantime, or such of them as were not engaged in hunting, quietly smoking their pipes. The man's business is to furnish the inmates of his lodge with food and clothing, and the woman must do all of the rest In fact a woman would feel ashamed to see her husband performing any of the labor or drudgery about the camp.

When the Big Woods on the Red Cedar in the neutral strip were reached a permanent winter camp was made. The lodges were surrounded by a stockade and outside of this a chevaux de frise was constructed from the sharpened ends of the tops of the trees from which the logs were cut. In the fort the women and children were left in comparative security under guard of the old men who were too infirm to hunt. Continuing his story General Sibley says: "I left the camp one morning to 'still hunt' in a direction different from that taken by the Indians I was successful and returned to my lodge bearing upon my shoulders the greater part of a young buck. I soon ascertained there was quite a commotion in the camp. One of the women came to inform me that all of the men except five old fellows who could not travel had gone down to the forks of the Red Cedar, more than forty miles distant, where they intended to remain and hunt for three or four days, and she further said a strange Indian had been seen behind a tree outside of the camp, taking observations. This information startled me not a little for I at once suspected that a scout had been sent forward by a war party of Sacs and Foxes to reconnoiter preparatory to an attack upon the camp. Seizing my rifle and followed by my two huge wolf dogs, my constant companions, I sallied forth and examined the spot where the Indian was said to have been seen. As there was snow on the ground a trail could easily be followed. There was no mistake about it, for there was the moccasin track of a man, and from appearances he had but recently left the place. I followed the trail for nearly two miles, when it occurred to me if I should overtake the stranger I would have no right to shoot him, and it was by no means certain he would surrender without a fight. I therefore abandoned the pursuit and went back to the camp with a foreboding that it would be attacked during the night. I called the five old men together and explained to them the condition of things and that the salvation of the women and children depended upon their vigilance and courage; that the night must be spent in watching. They assented to my suggestions and we all made such preparations as were in our power to meet the threatened assault. There was one main entrance, which I determined to hold in person, with the assistance of a half-breed boy, the Canadians having been dispatched to a trading house below for needed articles. The four small entrances were to be guarded by the old men. who were passably well armed. Taking our stations we awaited the denouement of the affair. About 8 o'clock in the evening the women reported having seen men moving in the woods on the side of the camp. I forthwith mustered all hands and directed a general discharge of firearms in the direction, so as to produce an impression that we were on the alert and had more men in camp than there really were. I fired five shots from my double barrelled gun, rifle and pistols and all of the others followed suit so that there was quite a respectable display of force. No other alarm was given until 3 o'clock the next morning, when every one of the numberless Indian dogs in the encampment set up a barking and made a rush to the outside of the stockade. I firmly believed that the decisive moment had arrived and so thought all of the tenants of the lodges, for the old men began to sing-their dismal death songs, the women screamed and the children cried, so that together with the howling and barking of the dogs there was such a concert, of anything but harmonious sounds, as never before greeted the ears of a civilized being. I sent the boy to still the tumult if possible, telling him to say to them that their loud demonstrations of fears were certain to invite an attack. The quadrupeds and bipeds were finally silenced and I must confess that I was rejoiced when the dawn appeared. I went forth at sunrise to examine the surroundings and found in the snow the tracks of many moccasined feet, and followed the broad trail to the place where the enemy, some fifty or sixty in number, had tied their horses to the trees. They probably were deterred from the attack by the strength of the defences and the certainty that they could not effect an entrance without the loss of more men than they were willing to sacrifice. I selected a bright looking Dakota boy fifteen years old and asked him if he was man enough to follow the trail of the hunters to the forks and he replied proudly, that he was. 'Hasten then,' said I, 'and tell the men to return without delay.' He sprang away at a rapid rate and communicated my message to the hunters, and shortly after midnight of the same day we heard gladly, their guns at intervals, telling us of their approach. The distance accomplished by the boy in eighteen or twenty hours, going and coming was considerably over eighty miles. I reproached Little Crow (Big Eagle), who was of the party, for the recklessness displayed by him in leaving so large a number of women and children in an enemy's country in an unguarded camp. He acknowledged it was very foolish to do so and promised that such carelessness should not be repeated. In the morning a number of the fastest runners were dispatched on the enemy's trail, but they were too well mounted and had too long a start to be overtaken."

In that year of 1839, Messrs. Nicollet and Fremont came up the Missouri to Fort Pierre, where after some weeks of preliminary work they explored and mapped the country from the Missouri to the James and north to Devils Lake, coming back down the Sheyenne and across the coteau to Big Stone Lake and lac qui Parle and thence to Fort Snelling. This  year Louis Freniere and William Dickson were their guides, accompanied by a considerable number of Lac qui Parle Wahpetons, including Joseph Renville, Jr., and his family. A large village of Yanktons were encamped near Fort Pierre while Nicollet and Fremont were there, and after some preliminary exchanges of courtesies a visit to the village was arranged. On the way the explorers were met by thirty of the principal chiefs mounted and riding in a line. They were conducted to the village and treated with great ceremony. They were given the conventional feat. Fremont. who always had an eye to the ladies, says the girls were noticeably well dressed, wearing finely prepared skins, nearly white, much embroidered with beads and porcupine quills, dyed many colors, and stuffs from the trading posts completed their dress. Having made the customary presents which ratified the covenants of good will and free passage over their country, the chiefs escorted the visitors back to the fort.

A few days later one of the chiefs came to Fort Pierre bringing with him a pretty girl handsomely dressed. Accompanied by an interpreter he came to the room opening upon the court where the scientists were employed with their sketch books and maps and formally offered her to Mr. Nicollet as a wife. This placed the Frenchman for a moment in an embarrassing position, but with ready and crafty tact he  explained to the chief that he already had a wife and that the great father would not permit him to have two, at the same time suggesting that Fremont had no wife at all. This put Fremont in a worse situation, but being at bay he replied that he was going far away and was not coming back and did not like to take the girl away from her people. That it might bring bad luck but that he was greatly pleased with the offer and to prove it would give the girl a suitable present. Accordingly an attractive package of scarlet and blue cloths, beads and a mirror was made up and they went away, the girl apparently quite satisfied with her trousseau, and he with other suitable presents made him. While the matrimonial conference was in progress the girl, well pleased, composedly leaned against the door post.

While going up toward Devils Lake Nicollet and Fremont left the James at the north end of Sand Lake and reached the highland between that stream and the Cheyenne, when they found themselves in a vast herd of buffalo and presently Freniere brought into camp three Indians, who informed them that there was a large camp of Dakotas on the Sheyenne preparing for a surround, and they realized at once that it would be extremely hazardous to proceed, for they might frighten away the buffalo. Freniere was immediately dispatched to camp to request the chiefs to indicate what route they could travel without disturbing the game. The chiefs sent back a pressing invitation for them to come down and visit them at their camp. The encampment consisted of three hundred lodges of Yanktons, Yanktonais and Sissetons, out to make meat. There were two thousand persons in the outfit. A feast was at once provided for the visitors and the courtesy was reciprocated by inviting all of the chiefs to feast with the white men. "The chiefs sat around in a large circle upon buffalo robes or blankets, each provided with a deep soup plate and a spoon of tin. The first dish was a generous pot au feu, principally of fat buffalo meat and rice. No one would begin until all of the plates were filled. When all was ready the feast began. With the first mouthful each Indian silently lay down his spoon, and each looked at the other. After a pause of bewilderment the interpreter succeeded in having the situation understood. Mr. Nicollet had put among our provisions some Swiss cheese and to give flavor to the soup a liberal portion of this had been put into the kettles. Until this strange flavor was accounted for the Indians thought they were being poisoned but the cheese being shown them an explanation made, confidence was restored and by the aid of several kettles of water well sweetened with molasses and such other tempting delicatessen as could be produced from our stores the dinner party went on and terminated in great good humor and general satisfaction.

"The next day they made their surround. This was their great summer hunt when their provision of meat was made for the year, the winter hunting being in small parties. The meat of many fat cows was brought in and the low scaffolds upon which it was laid to be sun dried were scattered over all of the encampment. No such occasion as this was to be found for the use of presents and the liberal gifts distributed through the village heightened their enjoyment of the feasting and dancing which was prolonged through the night. Friendly relations established, we continued our journey.

The Dakotas quite understood the degenerating influence of incestuous marriages and as most of the persons in any one band were related these summer visits among the tribes were encouraged to offer  opportunities to the young people to marry outside their own bands.

 

CHAPTER XIX

In the autumn of 1840 Rev. Stephen R. Riggs and Alexander Huggins set out upon a missionary reconnoisance to the Missouri river. They traveled with a horse and cart and accompanied a band of Indians who were going out to the Dakota country for their fall hunt. The horses, women, children and dogs were all heavily laden with kettles, various articles of clothing and corn for provisions until they should reach the buffalo. "In consequence," says Dr. Riggs, "our marches were extremely short, only about six or eight, or at the most ten miles per day, and that was sufficiently long enough for the most of our party. The little girls, some of them just able to toddle along through the grass, were obliged to carry packs, while their brothers, often much larger than they, carried only bows and arrows and at will sported along the way. Often these little ones came into camp weary, but such is native elasticity, that, no sooner had they thrown down their packs, than they were ready for their sports again."

"We had agreed with the chief, Thunderface (Itewakinyan), to continue with them in their slow marches until we had reached the valley of the James River, from which we were to have a guide to Fort Pierre. Traveling thus slowly was somewhat tedious, but it gave us abundant opportunity to examine the country and become acquainted with those who composed our party. We knew we were with those reputed to be the greatest thieves and the most vile mouthed of the nation. The last we found true to a greater extent than we had supposed. The former unenviable distinction they may still hold, but as we had cast our lot with them and placed ourselves under the protection of the chief of robbers we lost nothing by them. Before we started they had repeatedly told us that the Dakotas on the Missouri were so bad that the best we could hope for was to escape with our lives. They would most certainly plunder us of our horses and other things. This was not so. From a thread to a shoe lachet we lost nothing by theft.

"On the sixth day after leaving home, when we were encamped at Chanopa, the old residence of Thunderface and his band, we heard that one of his younger brothers meditated evil against us. He is a most malignant man and has for a long time been jealous of his elder brother. He had left Lac qui Parle before we did and spending some weeks at Big Stone Lake, had proceeded across to met our party before we entered the buffalo region. The two encampments were now some ten miles apart when a messenger came to our camp and told us that Kanikanpi, the younger brother, had declared he would break up our cart and kill our horses besides doing other mischief to his brother and others of the party. He had sometime last summer forbidden our making this tour. He had some difficulty with Mr. Renville in trade and now his old jealousy of his brother was renewed, by knowing we were going under his convoy. This news produced no little anxiety in our camp. They all professed to believe that Kanikanpi would do as he had said. Some advised our return, but we did not think it our duty to do so until we had seen the threat actually put into execution. In this state of things Thunderface agreed to change his first plan and send two young men with us from the place we then were a few miles beyond Chanopa. The next morning we arose before day and passed on by the camp of Kanikaup and on our return as he had passed to the north of our course we saw him out."

The first day after leaving Thunderface, and while likely in the upper Sioux valley, they came upon the buffalo and one of the guides killed one. This set the Indian blood wild and it was with great difficulty that they could be induced to go on They crossed the James at Armadale and reached Fort Pierre in safety, where they found Colin Campbell in charge. Campbell gave them a kind welcome and much information. He estimated the total strength of all of the Tetons at 13,000, of the Yanktons at 2.4C0 and the Yanktonais at 4,000, which from modern counts seems to have been a very accurate approximation. To this the Santees were added at 5,500, making the total strength of the Dakotas in 1840 about 25,000 souls.

They endeavored to ascertain the feeling of the Indians in regard to establishing a mission among them. There were about 500 Yanktons and Tetons about the fort and they appeared to be much interested in the project. On a Sunday Dr. Riggs preached and Mr. Huggins sang hymns to them in the fort. This was undoubtedly the first formal religious service on the Missouri River above the Sioux River. Long  Buffalo, a Teton, was particularly impressed and called upon Dr. Riggs repeatedly to learn more of his teachings. They were, too, interested in learning to read and write, but would not send any of their young people so far away as Lac qui Parle to attend school. Dr. Riggs recommended that the board establish a mission in the neighborhood of Fort Pierre, but either the right man or else the means was not forthcoming and nothing was done, and it remained for the son of Dr. Riggs, not yet born at the time of this visit, to go to that locality thirty-three years later and establish the first Protestant mission, and at this writing that son, the honored president of this society, has maintained the mission so established for thirty-one years. The trip back to Lac qui Parle was uneventful.

About 1841, Father Ravoux had established a Catholic mission for the Indians at St. Paul and the soldiers at Fort Snelling. He was under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Dubuque. The latter upon a visit to St. Louis met some of the Missouri River traders there who had half Indian children in the wilderness They implored him to send them a priest and Father Ravoux was dispatched across the country to Fort Pierre in the summer of 1842, where he baptized many children. He traveled in company with a party of Santees who took him to visit Sand Lake, on the James River, and at that point and possibly others enroute he celebrated mass. In 1845 he made a similar excursion to Fort Vermillion, and for the same purpose. Father Ravoux. still living (1904), devoted his years of usefulness to the elevation of the Dakotas, being particularly useful to them in the trying period following the outbreak of 1862.

In 1844 a drover named Watson with cattle for Fort Snelling fell in with a party of Sissetons, who took possession of the stock and in the skirmish which ensued Watson was killed. Troops were dispatched from Fort DcsMoincs to punish the murderers, but Captain Allen, becoming confused, strayed off to the northwest and reached the Sioux River near Lake Kampeska. He got his hearings, reached the Sissetons on the Minnesota and arrested the guilty members of the tribe, but subsequently allowed them to escape. He lost a good many of his horses and finally reached Fort Snelling, not having made a very  brilliant campaign."

The next year Captain Summers was sent with a company of dragoons, from Fort Atkinson, Iowa, to drive the Pembina halfbreeds from the buffalo ranges of the Dakotas. The trespasses of these halfbreeds had long been a source of irritation between the Sissetons, Wahpetons, and Yanktonais and their northern neighbors. He reached Traverse des Sioux on June 25th and a few days later held a council with the Wahpetons at Lac qui Parle. The Wahpetons informed him that the troubles with the halfbreeds were their own business and they did not want Uncle Sam to interfere. On the 5th of July another council was held with the Sissetons, who likewise opposed the soldiers' right to meddle in. their affairs. Three days later, another council was held with another band, when three of the murderers of Watson walked in to take part in the council. They were at once arrested, causing great excitement. Summers went on up to meet the halfbreeds. but accomplished nothing. On his return to Traverse des Sioux he found some of the horses and mules which Allen had lost the previous year. He arrested the Indians in whose possession they were and took them down to Fort Snelling, where they were confined for a time and then released.

In March, 1846, Joseph Renville, the famous halfbreed interpreter, died at his home at Lac qui Parle. He was a remarkable man in every way. In fact he possessed but one quarter white blood. His services to the missionaries were of incalculable value; indeed without him the station at Lac qui Parle could not have been maintained. He was born at Kaposia in 1779. He first came into prominence as guide to Pike in 1805, and later entered the service of Dickson for the British in the war of 1812. He was the official interpreter to the Sioux and to him was intrusted the recruiting of the Dakotas for that war. He was present at Forts Meigs and Stephenson, and to his courage and moderation the good conduct of the Indians is largely due. In 1814 and 1815 he served at Prairie du Chien and that summer attended the Dakotas at Portage des Sioux. As a reward for his services he was given a captain's com mission and half pay by the English, but as the retention of these favors would require him to live without the United States and away from his own people he promptly resigned them and engaged in trade. In 1822 he had accumulated a good estate and was the leader in the powerful Columbia, which met the great American company upon its own grounds and compelled it to in effect give up its business in western Minnesota and upon the upper Missouri to it. At the time of the arrangement with the American in 1828, Renville withdrew from the company and established an independent business at Lac qui Parle, where he spent the remainder of the years of his life, bearing the esteem and affection of all who met him. white or red. It is noteworthy that no traveler ever came into the sphere of his influence, the boorish Featherstonehaugh excepted, who did not write of the genial character, hospitality and helpfulness of this distinguished mixed blood. In 1834 Dr. Williamson met him at Prairie du Chien. and he at once, upon learning of the intentions of the good man to establish a mission in the Dakota county, urged him to settle among the wild Indians surrounding his trading post at Lac qui Parle. The next year he met the doctor at Fort Snelling and conducted him to his trading post and rendered him every assistance in getting settled. Himself and family were the first to unite with the struggling mission church and his tongue translated the bible into the Dakota language.

Featherstonehaugh describes him as "a dark. Indian looking man, showing no white blood, short in stature, with strong features and coarse black hair." If this is a correct likeness of the man he was greatly different from his son. Rev. John B. Renville, who was spare, light, for an Indian, and one of the gentlest characters it has been the fortune of this writer to meet:

Joseph Renville possessed a strongly religious nature, and though reared without religious instruction, he had heard enough to convince him it was the right way and he sent away and procured what was probably the first bible in the state of Minnesota. He was fortunate in securing an edition printed in Geneva in 1558 and .containing a preface in Latin by John Calvin. Unfortunately it was burned in the mission house in Lac qui Parle. Long before the missionaries came, Renville took his Indian bride to Prairie du Chien that they might be regularly married by a Christian minister.

Owing to the continued and unregulated sale of liquor at St. Paul a very bad state of affairs grew up among the Indians there, and after the chief had been shot almost to death, by his brother, in a drunken row, that worthy sent a request for missionaries to be sent to him and in 1847 Dr. Williamson came down and established a mission there and remained there, except for a short period while he acted as post surgeon at Fort Snelling. until the Indians disposed of their lands and removed up the Minnesota.

After the Black Hawk war the government gathered up the remnant of the Winnebagoes and established them upon the neutral strip in northern Iowa, but the location was not satisfactory and in 1846 a new treaty was made with them by which they gave up the Iowa home and were to be set up on a reservation about Long Prairie in western Minnesota. This plan was not agreeable to the Winnebagoes, who felt that they, would in the new location fall victims to the Chippewas and they preferred to go to the Missouri. It was the plan of the agent, J. E. Fletcher, assisted by Hon. Henry M. Rice to move them to their new home in a flotilla of canoes up the Mississippi, but the Indians demurred and could not be started. Their belongings were loaded in wagons to be hauled to the river, but the Indians threw them out as fast as they could be loaded. Finally a detachment of troops were brought up from Fort Atkinson, and the Indians made ready for battle, but a feast was provided for them which for the time overcome their belligerent propensities. They agreed to march across to the river at Winona. When they arrived there they bought the prairie upon which Winona stands from Wapasha and expressed their determination not to proceed a step further. Wapasha joined forces with them and they made war speeches, prepared for battle and worked themselves into a frenzy. Mr. Rice boarded a steamboat and hurried off to Fort Snelling for help. Captain S. H. Eastman, came down with a company of infantry and a delegation of Wahpetons, who adroitly invited the Winnebagoes to come up to be their neighbors, but really to serve as a bumper between themselves and the Chippewas. After a good deal of counciling and nerve trying bluffing, seventeen hundred of the Winnebagoes were induced to go to the new location,  while the remainder scattered into their old haunts in Wisconsin, where, without a reservation and in defiance of several attempts of the government to remove them, they remain to this day. For his part in the performance Wapasha was arrested and lodged in Fort Snelling.

 

 

CHAPTER XX

Until 1849 all of the Indians of the Mississippi were under the general supervision of the superintendent of Indian affairs at St. Louis. This office was organized by Captain Clark in 1807 and continued under his control until his death, September 1, 1838, though until 1822 his position was a subordinate one. the title of the office being created and conferred in this latter year. He was succeeded by Joshua Pilcher as superintendent, who continued in the office until his death in 1847, when D. D. Mitchell succeeded to the position. In 1849 the territory of Minnesota was created, with the provision that the territory should constitute a superintendency and that the governor should be ex officio superintendent. By this provision the Mississippi Dakotas were removed from the jurisdiction of the St. Louis office, but the Missouri River Indians, though within the ex officio limits of the Minnesota superintendency, continued tributary to the St. Louis office. As we have seen, Major Taliaferro was the first efficient agent of the Santees, coming to them in 1819 and continuing for twenty-two years. He was honest and incorruptible and indefatiguable in labor for the advantage of the Dakotas of the Minnesota country. Taliaferro was succeeded by A. I. Bruce, who remained but a short time, to be followed by J. E. Fletcher, who was agent at the time Governor Ramsey came in 1849. On the Missouri Governor Clark appointed a general agent for the upper Missouri tribes above the Kansas, and be appointed as many sub-agents as he saw fit. The agency was located at Council Bluffs. Manuel Lisa was the first agent for the upper Missouri and he was followed by Benjamin O'Fallon, a nephew of Captain Clark's. Most of the leading traders were made sub-agents in the early days and it was the practice to annually send up a few trinkets to the Indians to keep them good natured and attached to the interests of the government. After 1830 the Yanktons, on account of the sale of the neutral strip, became regular annuity Indians, and from that date sub-agents were regularly employed, who were not interested in the Indian trade, but the influence of the great fur companies was so strong that the administration of the Indian department was wholly in the interest of trade instead of that of the Indians. About 1828 a defection grew up in the Wakpekute band and a portion of them removed to the Missouri in the neighborhood of Vermillion, and they participated in the annuities there, being denominated the "Santies" in many of the documents of the time. The Indians were frequently required to go a long distance, at great inconvenience to themselves, to receive the money due them, in order that they might be convenient to the post of some of the traders, where they could spend it. As most of the agents were creatures of the American Fur Company, this method was taken to draw trade away from rival traders and into the zone of the influence of the American. Thus in 1847, G. C. Matlock, an "American" made agent, went up the river with the annuity goods for the Yanktons, on Captain La Barge's vessel, and found them on the east side of the river, not far from the mouth of Crow Creek. There was an opposition post at Fort Lookout, nearby, and it was desired to get them up to the American post at Fort Pierre. The boat tied up at the Yankton village, where Colin Campbell had cut a quantity of cordwood for the steamboat. Matlock told the Indians his errand and gave them a portion of the goods and then packed up and told them they must go to Pierre for the balance, a distance of more than fifty miles. The Yanktons demurred but Matlock argued that there were no conveniences for distribution there and that nothing short of going to Pierre would do. Campbell started to load the wood but the entire tribe came down and sat upon the piles and it could not be touched. They said the timber was theirs and no one had secured the right to cut it from them. This was true. LaBarge was then compelled to buy it of them. After this bargain was effected the roustabouts were sent out to carry the wood on board, but the bucks ranged themselves along the path from the wood pile to the gang plank with their rawhide quirts under their blankets, and as the heavily laden river men passed along toward the boat they belabored them over the shoulders until they dropped the wood and tumbled onto the boat for protection. LaBarge rallied his men and armed them and the Indians withdrew, and the wood was loaded. The wind, however, came up and blew so hard from up river that the boat was unable to proceed, and lay at the bank for several hours. The events mentioned occurred before noon. In the middle of the afternoon the Yanktons slipped down to the vessel and before anyone was aware of their presence boarded her, raised the warwhoop, killed one riverman named Smith, put out the fires, and having possession of the entire front portion of the boat demanded that the stores be turned over to them. LaBarge had a small cannon on board but it was down in the engine deck for some repairs to the carriage, but he managed to get it up the back stairs, and having no bullets, loaded it with engine bolts. The Indians, somewhat awed by their unwonted surroundings, watched this proceeding with curiosity and as Captain LaBarge poured powder into the vent and reached toward it with his lighted cigar they rushed precipitately from the vessel and disappeared through the timber. Tinbold rivermen likewise had disappeared from view and to his great disgust the captain found them hidden in the wheels of the steamboat. In rage he hastened to the engine room, determined to turn on steam and give them all, the ducking they deserved, but the Indians having put out the fire he was compelled to content himself with administering a cursing, in which he was an adept. But the poor Indians were compelled to tramp off to Pierre for the pittance of goods they might in all decency and justice have received at their own doors. With the death of Pilcher and the accession of Mitchell, Matlock was removed and William S. Hatton became the sub-agent for the Dakotas of the Missouri. In 1849 Father P. J. DeSmet, a renowned Jesuit who had already won a high reputation for his self sacrificing ministrations to the Indians of the Rocky Mountains and beyond, visited the Dakotas of the Missouri with the object of establishing missions among them. He spent a good portion of that summer among them and was received with enthusiasm by the Indians, over whom from the first he possessed great influence. Colin Campbell volunteered to go with him among the Teton tribes as his guide and interpreter, and he accomplished an excellent purpose. He found the Brules just returning from a foray against the Omahas with thirty-two scalps of women and children, the Brules feeling that they were in great luck in having caught the Omahas so easily when all of the warriors were off hunting. They at once celebrated the scalp dance, setting up a high post and daubing it with vermillion, the warriors surrounded it flourishing in their hands

At Fort Pierre he met a party of Oglalas under a chief named Red Fish, who had gotten much the worst of the argument in a campaign they had just made into the country of the Crows. The Crows had routed them foot, horse and dragoons, killing twelve of the Oglalas, and worse than all, they had covered the valiant Dakotas with immortal disgrace by driving them off with clubs, not feeling that they were worth wasting good powder upon. Warriors so shamefully defeated of course received very little comfort from their neighbors at home and Red Fish was thoroughly discouraged. Moreover he had lost a favorite daughter captive to the Crows and he was experiencing real grief on that account. He had come down to Fort Pierre to induce the traders to mediate with the Crows for her return, and his arrival fell upon the day after DeSmet arrived there. Learning from the Indians of the presence of the priest he sought him out and requested him to pray for his daughter's delivery from his enemies. Father DeSmet administered to him a stern rebuke for the unprovoked attack of the Oglalas upon the Crows and pointed a moral by indicating how the loss of his daughter might be a divine judgment for his wickedness, and then made an earnest prayer that in the Providence of God the girl might be returned to her parents. Red Fish, much comforted, hurried back to his people and announced to them what had occurred and at that moment a cry of joy rang through the camp and the daughter leaped into her father's arms, having safely escaped from her captors and followed the trail back to her people. The Oglalas and all of the Dakotas were convinced that it was a direct answer to the prayer of the good father and from that moment he enjoyed a place in their esteem and an influence over their actions which no other man ever possessed. Father DeSmet called Father Christian Heocken to his assistance, but the latter died from cholera while enroute to the Dakota' country two years later. DeSmet, however, continued to minister to them until his death a quarter of a century afterwards.

The Catholics, however, did not for many years afterward set up any permanent mission stations among the Dakotas of the Missouri, where they could be surrounded by those extrinsic influences of schools, agriculture, and domestic economy which make so materially for civilization. Neither were they by the system employed enabled to give personal attention to any considerable number of individuals for extended periods and so by precept and example to impress upon them and build into them the good lessons they taught. Nevertheless the good accomplished was incalculable.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXI

 

One of Governor Ramsey's first official acts was to go through the form of recognizing Wamundiyakapi,—the War Eagle that May be Seen,—the hereditary chief of the Wakpekutes. The governor had none of the medals usually furnished for these occasions, but General Sibley provided him with a soldier's medal and a sword and the fellow was duly decorated. The governor says of him : "He was a young, fine looking, intelligent Indian; after he had departed for his residence with his people a hundred miles inland I heard nothing more of him until the latter part of July when I was startled by the horrible intelligence that he and seventeen others of the band had been massacred by a party of outlawed savages whom they encountered when out hunting near the headwaters of the DesMoines in their own country, and of course not expecting any hostile attack. The hostile band was supposed to have consisted of Winnebagoes, Sauks, Foxes and Pottawatomies, numbers of which Indians, renegades from their respective tribes, are still wandering in northwestern Iowa. The Sissetons and Wahpetons, however, are unanimous in the declaration that the massacre was committed by the renegade Inkpaduta and his band of outlaws. The creation of the territory of Minnesota was the natural consequence of the movement of immigration into that section and the demand that the fertile soil should be opened to the settler was urgent. As early as 1841 a treaty had been negotiated for the opening of a large portion of the southern part of the state but the senate had refused to ratify it and so the title to the soil had remained unrelinquished. In 1841, also, in response to the demand of immigration, Agent Fletcher had negotiated a treaty with the halfbreeds for their reservation upon the west side of Lake Pepin, agreeing to pay the sum to $200,000 for it, but this, too, had failed to be approved by the senate. Immediately, however upon the creation of the territory and the accession of Governor Ramsey as ex officio superintendent of Indian affairs, the Indian department began to lay its plans to secure the opening of the great body of the Indian lands. Hon. Orlando Brown, the general commissioner of Indian affairs, on June 5, 1849, sent to the secretary of the interior a special report upon the subject and recommending that negotiations be at once taken up. This recommendation was in due time approved by the secretary, and on August 25th Commissioner Brown transmitted to Governor Ramsey and John Chambers a copy of the report and recommendation and a letter of instructions, directing them to enter into negotiations at once, suggesting that they attempt to cover all of the country from the Mississippi to the Big Sioux and from the neutral strip to the northern boundary fixed by the treaty of 1825. In March, 1843, congress had enacted a law that no stipulations can be inserted in any treaty for the payment of Indians debts. This was intended as a protection against the avarice of the traders but the latter, always equal to any emergency, secured by indirection what could not be done directly. The commissioner calls the attention of the commission to this provision. Speaking of the price to be paid for the land the commissioner says: "Ten cents per acre has been found to be a large price to pay for the best lands purchased of Indians, where it is situated so that it can be brought into the market at an early day," and in consequence of this experience he expresses the opinion that two, or two and a half cents per acre would be an ample equivalent for the south half of the state of Minnesota. In the main, however, the entire matter of the negotiation was left to the discretion of the commissioners. One wise suggestion, however, was urged, that was that by some system the payments to be made under the new treaty and those due under former ones be equalized so that each Indian should receive the same annual payment, "for one cannot be made to understand why he gets less or even more, than another." Further the commissioner says: "No greater curse can be inflicted upon a tribe so little civilized as the Sioux than for them to have large sums of money at their disposal, especially when coming to them in the shape of annuities; which, indisposed as they are to anything like labor for a subsistence, gives them the incentive and the means to live in idleness and debauchery, and more than any thing else tends to debase them, and to hasten their decline and extinction. And while the uncivilized Indians, who are entitled to large amounts, are always the most degraded, they are at the same time the poorest, for their means are squandered principally for what corrupts and debases them and gives them credit with the traders for articles sold at enormous profits; and they are thus always in debt. But this sad and discouraging feature of our Indian system has been so often and so fully stated, and is so well known that it need not be enlarged upon. It largely calls upon us as a matter of humanity and of duty towards their helpless race to make every effort in our power not to place much money at their discretion, but to so dispose of their means for them as will best tend to promote their moral and intellectual elevation and improvement. As large amounts of the consideration to be paid to the Sioux as can be so arranged should, therefore, be set apart for education and the means of improving them in agriculture and the mechanic arts; and instead of their having the funds to purchase for themselves subsistence and clothing, and, but too generally, worthless trinkets and gew-gaws sold to them at unreasonable profits we should endeavor to furnish them as far as possible with what is necessary for their comfort and welfare. It is hoped that you will be able to carry out the foregoing views in any treaty you may be able to effect."

Before the negotiation of the treat was undertaken the death of President Taylor effected a change in the cabinet and Commissioner Brown was succeeded by Luke Lea and it was the summer of 1851 before the Sissetons and Wahpetons were assembled at Traverse des Sioux (St. Peter), Minnesota, to meet the commissioners in council and agree upon the terms of the sale, the M'dewakantons and Wakpekutes being gathered a short time later at Mendota for the same purpose.

The commissioners arrived at Traverse des Sioux in the latter part of June, having sent messengers to the Sissetons and Wahpetons to meet them there, but they were not on hand, and they were compelled to wait three weeks until they were assembled before preceding to business. For several days there had been violent rains and the Dakotas conceived that the storms were due to the fact that the thunderbird had dashed his wings upon the head of the Blue Earth River and broken up the fountains which had caused the water to rise; so they made a propitiary dance to Wakeyan, the god of thunder. This occurred on the afternoon of July 12th and the commissioners were invited to witness the ceremony. There were about one thousand Dakotas present. They made a large enclosure out of the limbs of the popple trees, stuck in the ground, having four arched gateways leading to it. A pole was planted in the middle with an image cut from bark to represent the thunderbird, suspended from the top of it by a string. A shorter pole and smaller image was planted at each gateway. Near the foot of the center pole was a little arbor of bushes in which sat an ugly looking Indian with his face blackened and a wig of green grass over his head. He was a big medicine man and he uttered incantations with fervent unction, and beat the drum and played the flute and sang in turn to regulate the various evolutions of the dance. Before this arbor at the foot of the center pole were various mystical images and emblems: among them the image of a running buffalo, cut out of bark, with his legs stuck into the ground ; also a pipe and a redstone, cut something like a head, and some colored down. This down of the swan seems to have been an important article in their mysticism, for we constantly read of its use in all of their ceremonies. At a given signal by the medicine man the young men sprang through the gateways and commenced a circular dance in procession around the center. After fifteen or twenty minutes the dancers ran out of the ring, returning after a short respite. The third time a few horsemen, in very gay, fantastic costume, accompanied the procession of dancers who were within the ring, by riding around outside of the enclosure. The last time a multitude of boys and girls joined the dancers in the arena and many more horsemen joined the cavalcade that rode round the arena some dressed in blue embroidered blankets and others in white. Suddenly several rifles rang out and the thunderbirds fell from the poles and the sacred dance was ended.

Finally, on the 18th of July, the serious business of the council was undertaken, with the deliberation and gravity due to so important a negotiation, in which an empire unsurpassed in natural resources was to be sold and muniments of title passed. There were five days of feasting, speaking and smoking, when on the 23d of July the completed treaty was read and translated and explained to them by their proven friend, Dr. Stephen R. Riggs, and the chiefs approached and touched the pen with which their names were inscribed upon the important document. The Indians, incited to it by the traders, had insisted in having the greater portion of the down payment and annuities paid in cash. No other single Indian treaty conveyed so vast and noble an estate. It involved fully one-half, and the best half at that, of the great state of Minnesota. The price paid was about six cents per acre. In brief, the treaty provided that the tribes sold and relinquished to the United States all of their lands in Minnesota and Iowa, east of the Big Sioux River and a line from Lake Kampeska to Lake Traverse and the Sioux Woods Rivers. As a consideration for this sale and relinquishment they were to have first, a reservation running from the Yellow Medicine west to the treaty line, ten miles wide, on both sides of the Minnesota River. Second, $275,000 cash in hand. Third, $1,665,000, to remain in trust with the United States, and five per cent interest to be paid thereon for fifty years. The payment of the interest for this period to pay and satisfy the whole debt; that is, it was not intended that the original purchase price ever should be paid. The total interest payment, therefore, was to be $83,300 annually. Of this the government was to expend annually $12,000 for general agricultural improvement and civilization; $6,000 for education, $10,000 for goods and merchandise and the balance was to be paid in cash.

As soon as the treaty of Traverse des Sioux was perfected the commissioners returned to Fort Snelling and convened the M'dewakantons and Wakpekutes in council at Mendota. The council was held in an improvised bower on Oak Hill, and after the regulation feasting, smoking and big talks the treaty was concluded and signed on the 5th of August. Sixty of the head chiefs signed it by touching the pen, but Little Crow, who had had a term or two in the mission school, signed his own name. The treaty was almost identical in form with that of Traverse des Sioux. The lands relinquished were identical. In part payment they were to have as a reservation a strip ten miles wide on both sides of the Minnesota from the Little Rock to the Yellow Medicine. They were to have $220,000 cash down and $30,000 was to be spent at once for the establishment of a manual training school, the erection of mills and blacksmith shops, opening farms, fencing and breaking lands. $1,410,000 was to be held in trust by the United States and five per cent, interest paid upon it annually for fifty years; the principal sum not to be paid. The annual interest payment amounted to $70,500 and $12,000 per year was to be expended by the government for agricultural improvement and civilization, $6,000, for education and $10,000 for the purchase of goods and provisions and the remainder paid in cash.

The sum of $30,000 set aside for education by the treaty of 1837, remained unexpended in the treasury and had been a constant source of perplexity to the missionaries and agents. The Indian exacts the last cent due him upon a contract, however improvidently he may expend it when he gets it, and he had conceived the notion that the missionaries were being paid out of this fund and would not be satisfied that his theory was not right until he saw the coin. In consequence of this belief the usefulness of the mission schools and mission work for a long period was almost destroyed. It was, therefore, resolved to turn this money over to the Indians pro rata and on the 6th of August, the next day after the signing of the treaty, it was done. They immediately repaired to St. Paul to dispose of their wealth. Their fancy ran to horses and the horsemen of the town were enabled to dispose of about $30,000 worth of their most undesirable stock within a day or two and the Dakotas left for their camps without a cent in their purses.

The senate refused to ratify the provision in the treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota, for the selection of the reservations, but inserted a section that they should occupy such reservations, within the ceded lands as the president might select for their accommodation. No such selection was made for them by the president and the Indians, acting under the agreements made in the treaties, removed to and occupied the reservations then provided; and in 1858, under a new agreement negotiated by Commissioner Charles E. Mix with a delegation of the chiefs and headmen whom he had called to Washington, the original reservations provided by the treaty of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota were ratified. Fort Ridgely was built on the Minnesota near the lower end of the M'dewakanton and Wakpekute reserve and the agency for these people established near by, which came to be generally known as the Lower agency, and the agency for the Sissetons and Wahpetons was established at the mouth of the Yellow Medicine and was known as the Upper agency. Thus it came about that in the course of time the M'dwakantons and Wakpekutes came to be generally known and designated as the Lower Indians and the Sissetons and Wahpetons as the Upper bands.

Mention has been made of a defection among the Wakpekutes, by which a band separated from them and established themselves on the Missouri near Vermillion. This was a very small band of not more than a dozen lodges, under Wamdisapa, the Black Eagle, who was a reckless, lawless fellow, always at war with the Sacs and Foxes and other neighboring tribes. After the boundary treaty of 1825 he was one of the first to break over and disregard the boundary between the Dakotas and the Sacs and Foxes, and after the Neutral Strip purchase of 1830 he was a constant trespasser and won the ill will of all his people, who claimed that his conduct provoked their enemies to take many revenges from which the tribe suffered. In consequence he was virtually driven away from the tribe and was no longer considered a member of it. The government, however, was aware of his defection, through information received from Major Taliaferro and from Missouri River traders and when the treaty of 1830 was made it was provided that "the Santies of the Missouri" should sign it and participate in its benefits, and though his name cannot be identified among those who did subsequently sign it at Fort Pierre, a portion of the proceeds were thereafter regularly paid to him at Fort Vermillion, and again a portion of the moneys under the treaty of 1837 seems to have gone to him. though there is some doubt about this. In any event the Wakpekutes considered that he was no longer a member of their tribe and when the treaty of Traverse des Sioux was made he was not called in nor consulted, nor deemed to have any rights in the premises. I am unable to determine when his death occurred, though it was about 1848, but he was succeeded by his son Inkpaduta—The Scarlet Point—who was more treacherous, bloodthirsty and adroit than his father. He claimed a share in the annuities of the Lower Indians and appeared at each payment to demand a portion.

 

CHAPTER XXII

 

The discovery of gold in California and the opening of the overland trail brought the Brule and Oglala Dakotas into close relations with a class of white people quite unlike any with whom they had previously come in contact. For twenty-five years the Oregon trail had brought to them at frequent intervals trading outfits enroute to the mountain rendezvous, with whom they could exchange their peltries for such wares as they desired and which they were already beginning to find essential to their comfort and happiness. It was more convenient to trade with them far out on the trail than to be compelled to tramp down to the Missouri to find traders, and in consequence the mountain outfits were welcomed. The more so as the traders had an interest common with themselves in passing through the country with as little disturbance to the game as possible, but the argonauts enroute to the gold fields of California were of another class. They had no goods to trade, they hurried along, having no time nor use for the Indians, avoiding them as much as possible and showing suspicion or fear of them. As much as possible they lived off of the country and hunted game in an unscientific and careless manner which sent the herds of buffalo scurrying from their native pastures. Instead of coming at rare intervals they were in a constant stream, every day bringing its long train of bull teams with its game destroying and game scaring outriders. It was a movement distinctly inimical to the interests of the Dakotas and they were not slow to resent it. At first it was only a show of surly resentment, then stampedes of the livestock of the voyageurs and then the picking off now and again of a careless outrider which set the government's agents to planning for a means to protect the California trail and the rights of the Indians at the same time. As early as October 13, 1849—the very first year of the overland travel—Superintendent Mitchell wrote to the department urging the assembling of all of the plains tribes in a grand council at Fort Laramie on the upper Platte, where in the presence of a sufficient military force, that would inspire them with respect for the United States, a council could be held and an agreement in the nature of a treaty entered into. "It is only by some measure of this kind that we can ever establish friendly relations with these Indians; and the bones of American citizens that now whiten the plains from the borders of the western states to the Rocky Mountains all admonish of the necessity for peace. We can never whip them into friendship; the prowess of our troops and the vast resources of the government would be wasted in long and toilsome marches over the plains in the pursuit of an ignis fatuus; they never see an enemy."' Superintendent Mitchell suggests as some of the benefits to grow out of such a confederated council, that the interchange of presents among the Indians themselves would take place, solemnized by ancient Indian custom, which would be held more or less sacred and in course of time might produce a universal peace among them. Disputes over boundaries is a fruitful source of war among them and their boundaries could in such council be defined to the satisfaction of all, and further, "justice as well as policy requires that we should make some remuneration for the damages which the Indians sustain in consequence of the destruction of game, timber, etc., by the whites passing through their country. A small annual present of Indian goods distributed among the different tribes would be deemed satisfactory by them and at the same time guarantee their good behavior." He particularly requests that the Sioux residing south of the Missouri be included in the council.

In accordance with the suggestion of Colonel Mitchell, the proposed council was called for September, 1851. Ten thousand Indians were in attendance of the Dakotas, Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Crows, Assinoboins, Gros Ventres, Mandans and Arickaras. The council lasted twenty-three days. Unfortunately the wagon train bringing the provisions and presents which the United States had provided was delayed and the great assembly was at the point of starvation before its arrival. Dispairing of its coming Colonel Mitchell secured the signing of the treaty on the17th of September, his object being to allow the Indians to go out and secure provisions, but they stuck it out and were all in for the distribution when the wagons arrived on September 20th.

The treaty, which was joined in by all of the represented tribes, pledged peace among themselves and with the United States, with mutual undertakings for indemnification for any damages committed, the one against the other. Citizens of the United States were guaranteed right of way across their lands and the tribes guaranteed them protection while passing over the road. The territory of each tribe was defined, that of the Dakotas being as follows: "Commencing at the mouth of White River; thence in a southwesterly direction to the forks of the Platte, thence up the north fork of the Platte to a point known as the Red Butte, or where the road leaves the river; thence along the range of mountains known as the Black Hills to the head waters of Heart River, thence down Heart River to its mouth; and thence down the Missouri to the place of beginning." This limit was modified by this clause: "It is, however, understood that in making this recognition and acknowledgement, the aforesaid Indians do not hereby abandon or prejudice any right or claim they may have to other lands; and further that they do not surrender the privilege of hunting, fishing or passing over any of the tracts of country heretofore described" as belonging to other tribes.

The consideration for the right of way over their lands was the sum of $50,000 annually for ten years, payable in merchandise and delivered to the said tribes; but providing that any tribe violating the treaty should not participate in the distribution of the goods.  Father DeSmet was present at the council and thus describes it: "I attended the council from the outset to the close. As I have before stated, 10,000 Indians belonging to different tribes, many of whom had been at war from time immemorial, met upon the same plain. During the twenty-three days of the assembly there was no disorder; on the contrary, peaceable and tranquil, which is saying much for Indians. They seemed all to form but a single nation. Polite and kindly to each other, they spent their leisure hours in visits, banquets and dances; spoke of their once interminable wars and divisions as past things to be absolutely forgotten, or 'buried' to use their expression. There was not a remark in all of their conversations to displease; never did the calumet pass in peace through so many hands.  It was really a touching thing to see the calumet, the Indian emblem of peace, raised heavenward by the hand of a savage, presenting it to the Master of Life and imploring his pity upon all of his children on earth and begging him to confirm the resolutions they had made.

"Notwithstanding the scarcity of provisions felt in the camp before the wagons came, the feasts were numerous and well attended. No epoch in Indian annals probably shows a greater massacre of the canine race.  The Indians regaled me several times with a dish highly esteemed among them. It consists of plums dried in the sun and afterwards prepared with pieces of meat. I must own I found it quite palatable. But hear what I subsequently learned as to their manner of preparing it. When an Indian woman wishes to preserve plums, which grow in profusion here, she collects a great quantity and then invites her neighbors to her lodge to pass an agreeable afternoon. Their whole occupation then consists in chatting and sucking the stones from the plums, for they keep only the skins, which after being sun dried are kept for grand occasions. The wagons containing the presents destined by the government to the Indians reached here on the 20th of September. The safe arrival of this convoy was an occasion of general rejoicing. Many were in absolute destitution. The next day the wagons were unloaded and the presents suitably arranged. The flag of the United States floated from a tall staff in front of the tent of the superintendent and a discharge of cannon announced to the Indians that the division of the presents was about to take place. Without delay the occupants of the various camps flocked in—men, women and children—in great confusion and in their gayest costumes, daubed with paints of glaring hues and decorated with all the gew-gaws they could boast. They took the respective places assigned to each particular band, thus forming an immense circle covering several acres of ground, and the merchandise was piled in the center. The great chiefs of the different nations were served first and received a suit of clothes. You may easily imagine their singular movements upon appearing in public and the admiration they excited in their comrades, who were never weary admiring them. The great chiefs were for the first time in their lives pantalooned; each was arrayed in a general's uniform, a gilt sword hanging at his side. Their long coarse hair floated above the military costume and the whole was crowned with burlesque solemnity of their painted faces.

"Colonel Mitchell employed the Indians as his agents in distributing the presents to the various bands.  The arrangement was characterized by benevolence and justice. The conduct of this vast multitude was calm and respectful. Not the slightest index of impatience or of jealousy was observed during the distribution ; each band appeared indifferent until its portion was received. Then glad or satisfied they removed from the plain with their families and their lodges."

For some reason not now apparent the senate did not ratify this treaty but congress made the necessary appropriations to carry out its provisions and the merchandise was regularly distributed. Father DeSmet seized the occasion to press religious truths upon the Indians and many were baptized.

General Harney denominated Colonel Mitchell's treaty of Fort Laramie a "molasses and crackers treaty." It was scarcely so binding in its operation as good molasses. In point of fact the Indians paid no attention to it either in their relations to the whites, or toward each other. The Oglalas and Brules were always jealous of any interference with their game preserves and they recognized the inevitable tendency of white immigration through their country to scatter and destroy the buffalo and they determined to make travel so dangerous that immigrants would give up the attempt to reach California overland, or else seek another route. Consequently they continued to show acts of hostility to the argonauts. Cattle stampedes continued to be their favorite tactics. Fort Laramie had been established as a fur post in 1834, and was the resort of the Oglalas of the southwest, but after the opening of the California mines the post was purchased by the government and a small garrison established there as early as July, 1849, but the presence of soldiers there had no more effect upon the conduct of the Indians than had Fort Snelling thirty years earlier upon the Dakotas and Chippewas of the Mississippi. They would lie about the fort and make a rendezvous from which to sally out and attack trains approaching or leaving that point. Scarcely a train passed the Dakota country without the loss of stock and occasionally of men.  These depredations were continued, under the very eyes of the military at Fort Laramie, and finally the killing of Lieutenant tirattan and two others by a party of Brules near Laramie culminated the long list of depredations and murders and determined the government to inflict upon the murderers speedy and vigorous chastisement. At the time General Harney, fresh from the victories and honors which he had won in the Mexican war, was absent in Europe, and he was summoned home to take command of the campaign planned against the Dakotas. He reported at Fort Leavenworth in the spring of 1855 and was given 1,200 troops for the expedition. The government had just negotiated the purchase of Fort Pierre, and it was Harney's purpose to proceed by way of Fort Kearney, up the Platte to Laramie, and thence turn back through the heart of the country of the Oglalas and Brules to Fort Pierre, carrying terror to the hearts of all the savages he met. He got away from Leavenworth on the 5th of August with a portion of his forces and picked up the remainder at Kearney, and proceeded on his campaign without incident until he reached the Blue where he secured information that a large party of Dakotas were encamped near Ash Hollow on the immigrant trail where they were causing a great deal of annoyance to the travelers. He pushed on to the head of Ash Hollow where he found a train which had been compelled to corral and defend itself three times on the day of his arrival. The Indians were aware of the approach of the soldiers and they did not attempt violence to the travelers but were determined to secure what arms and ammunition the argonauts had, to use, as they said, in fighting the soldiers. The immigrants pointed out the camp of the Indians, which, with the aid of a spyglass, could be seen far to the northwest. Harney went into camp for the night, planning an attack for the next morning, September 3, 1855. Before dawn he dispatched the cavalry to make a circuit and approach the Indian camp from the northwest. With the infantry he planned to attack in front. He reached a point very near to the camp before the Indians discovered his presence. Little Thunder, the chief, came out and desired to have a council. Harney, who was not yet sure that the cavalry was in position, humored him for a time untii information came that the cavalry was ready, then he told Little Thunder that he had come to fight him and that he should go immediately and get his men ready. Little Thunder flew back to his camp, Harney in hot pursuit with his infantry. When the latter got within hailing distance of the camp he motioned the Indians to run. They started to do so and ran plump into the cavalry. Then the Indians, finding themselves trapped, set into a fight for their lives, but they were overwhelmed from the beginning. The battle of Ash Hollow was little more than a massacre of the Brules. Still they resolved to die game. An Indian severely wounded and supposed to be dead rose up and shot a soldier. A dismounted cavalry man rushed up to finish the Indian with his saber, but as he struck the Indian threw up his gun and the saber broke off at the hilt. An officer came to the rescue and the dying Indian caught up the broken saber and almost severed the leg of the officer's horse. He was then dispatched with a revolver ball. This illustrates the spirit of the trapped savages' defense. Upon the battle field were a lot of old caches in which the warriors took refuge, and from which they succeeded in killing thirteen soldiers and wounding many more. One hundred thirty-six Indians were killed and the entire camp with all of their property captured.

Though hailed as a great victory and an additional plume in Harney's crest of fame, the battle of Ash Hollow was a shameful affair, unworthy of American arms and a disgrace to the officer who planned and executed it. The Indians were trapped and knew it and would have surrendered at discretion had an opportunity been afforded them. That opportunity was not given, and the massacre which ensued was as needless and as barbarous as any which the Dakotas have at any time visited upon the white people. It of course had the effect of making the Indians fear Harney and possibly in that view did result in a degree of protection to the trail. Harney went on to Laramie. Twelve warriors had escaped from Big Thunder's band at Ash Hollow and preceded the military to Fort Laramie, where they appeared ostensibly to trade. When Harney arrived they stood under the walls of the fort and as the Mexican herders came up with the stock they raised a whoop, swung their blankets and stampeded 150 head of Harney's horses, with which they made their escape. The Brule prisoners were left at Fort Laramie, and after a ten days' rest the start was made for Pierre, by way of the head of White River, over the old fur trail from Pierre to Laramie. They reached Fort Pierre on October 19, 1855, where the force was united with three companies which Captain Turnley had brought up the river in August. Most of the troops were wintered at Pierre and in that vicinity but a portion were taken down river and stationed, some at Fort Lookout, some at Handy's Point (Fort Randall), and some at the mouth of the Sioux. In March of 1856 Harney assembled all of the Teton tribes at Fort Pierre and made a treaty with them. They agreed to respect the right of travel on the Overland trail, and to permit travel upon a road from Fort Laramie to Fort Pierre, in consideration of which they were to receive certain annuities in goods. The treaty was not ratified but the goods were provided for a certain period.

Harney devised a plan for the government of the Tetons which unquestionably would have been of the first advantage to them and saved the government vast sums and many lives. In brief it was the plan of policing their camps with their own warriors. Each camp was to have one head chief and as many sub-chiefs as there were confederated bands in it. In addition there were to be in each camp a sufficient number of soldiers to preserve order and compel the young men to behave themselves. The chiefs, sub-chiefs and soldiers were to be uniformed according to their rank and were to be clothed and maintained at the expense of the government. He went to the extent of selecting the chiefs and sub-chiefs and arranged with them to choose the soldiers for the police force. In the aggregate the plan required the government to clothe and feed 700 men. The Indian department threw up its hands in horror at the very suggestion and defeated the arrangement. In later years the campaigns against the Sioux cost money enough to have supported the Harney scheme for a century.

That year he located Fort Randall and began its construction. There were no incidents relating to the Indians this year of noteworthy interest. Captain LaBarge was at Fort Pierre when the treaty was made. At that time chloroform was first coming into use as an anaesthetic and Harney was seeking to impress the Tetons with the superior power of the white man. "Why," he said, "we can kill a man and then restore him to life. There, surgeon, kill that dog and then restore it." The surgeon obediently administered a dose of chloroform to an Indian dog and after it had succumbed to its effects he passed it about among the Indians who pronounced it "plenty dead." "Now," said Harney, "Bring it to life." The surgeon took possession of the dog and undertook to resuscitate it. He worked over it vigorously, applying all known restoratives, but the dog was plenty dead, sure enough. Finally he was compelled to give up the task. The Indians laughed boisterously. "White man's medicine too strong," they said.

The next summer Lieutenant Gouvernor K. Warren, afterwards the well known general of the civil war, then topographical engineer to Harney's expedition, was sent to make a preliminary survey of the Black Hills. He left Sioux City early in July and made his way to Laramie, whence with a very few men he proceeded north into the hills, following very nearly upon the line now dividing South Dakota and Wyoming until Inyan Kara peak was reached, where he encountered a large body of Dakotas who protested earnestly against his proceeding any further into their country. "Some of them," says Lieutenant Warren, "were for attacking us at once, as their numbers would have insured success; but the lesson taught them by General Harney in 1855 made them fear they would meet with retribution, and this I endeavored to impress upon them.  The grounds of their objection to our traversing their region were very sensible and of sufficient weight, I think, to have justified them, in their own minds, in resisting us. In the first place they were encamped near herds of buffalo whose hair was not yet sufficiently grown to make robes and the Indians were, it may be said, actually herding the animals. No one was permitted to kill any in the large herds for fear of stampeding the others and only such were killed as straggled away from the main bands. Thus the whole range of buffalo was stopped so they could not proceed south which was the point to which they were traveling. The intention of the Indians was to retain the buffalo in their neighborhood until the hair would answer for robes, then to kill the animals by surrounding one band at a time and comletely destroying each member of it.  In this way no alarm was communicated to the neighborhing bands which often remain quiet, almost in sight of the scene of slaughter.

"For us to have continued on then would have been an act for which certain death would have been inflicted upon a like number of their own tribe had they done it; for we might have deflected the whole range of the buffalo fifty or 100 miles to the west and prevented the Indians from laying in their winter stock of provisions and skins upon which their comfort if not their lives depended. Their feelings toward us under the circumstances were not unlike what we would feel toward a person who should insist upon setting fire to our barns. The most violent of them were for immediate resistance when I told them of my intentions, and those who were most friendly and most in fear of the power of the United States, begged that I would take pity upon them and not proceed. I felt that besides being an unnecessary risk to subject my party and the interests of the expedition to, it was almost cruelty to the Indians to drive them to commit a desperate act which would call for chastisment from the government.

"But this was not the only reason they urged against my proceeding. They said the treaty made with General Harney gave the whites the privilege of traveling on the Platte and along the White River between Fort Pierre and Laramie, and to make roads there and to travel up and down the Missouri in boats; but it guaranteed to them that no white people should travel elsewhere in their country and thus drive away the buffalo by their careless manner of hunting them ; and finally, that my party was there to examine the country to ascertain if it was of value to the whites, and to discover roads through it and places for military posts; and that having already given up all of the country they could spare to the whites, these Black Hills must be left wholly to themselves. Moreover, if none of these things should occur, our passing through the country would give us a knowledge of its character and the proper way to traverse it in the event of another war between themselves and the troops. I was necessarily compelled to admit to myself the truth and force of these objections.

"The Indians whom I first met were Minneconjous, to the number of forty lodges, near whom, as they were friendly, we encamped. They were soon joined by a large camp of Uncpapas and Blackfoot Dakotas, and our position, which was sufficiently unpleasant in the presence of such a numerous party of half avowed enemies, was rendered doubly so by a storm of rain and sleet and snow, which lasted two days and against which we had little protection. A young Indian who had accompanied us from Fort Laramie considered the danger to us so imminent that he forsook our camp and joined his friends, the Minneconjous. I consented to remain three days without advancing in order to meet their great warrior, Bear's Rib, appointed first chief by General Harney's treaty, merely changing our position to one offering better facilities for defense. At the expiration of the time, Bear's Rib not appearing, we broke camp and traveling back on our route for about forty miles, struck off to the eastward through the southern part of these mountains. After we had traveled eastward two days we were overtaken by Bear's Rib, and one other Indian who accompanied him. He reiterated all that had been said by the other chiefs, and added that he could do nothing to prevent our being destroyed if we attempted to proceed further. I then told him that I believed he was our friend, but that if he could do nothing for us he had better return to his people and leave us to take care of ourselves, as I was determined to proceed as far as Bear Butte. After a whole day spent in deliberation he concluded to accompany us a part of the way, and said he would return to his people and use his influence to have us not molested. In return for this he wished me to say to the president and to the white people that they could not be allowed to come into that country; that if the treaty presents were to purchase such a right that they did not want them. All they asked of the white people was to be left to themselves and let alone; that if the presents were to induce them not to go to war with the Crows and their other enemies, they did not want them. War with them was not only a necessity, but a pastime. He said General Harney had told them not to go to war, yet he was all the time going to war himself. Bear's Rib knew that when General Harney left the Dakota country he had gone to the war in Florida, and that he was at that time in command of the army sent against the Mormons. He said, moreover, that the annuities scarcely paid for going after them, and if they were not distributed at the time of their visits to the trading posts on the Missouri to dispose of their robes, they did not want them.

"He said that he had heard that the Yanktons were going to sell their lands to the whites. If they did so he wanted them informed that they could not come to his people's lands. They must stay with the whites. Every day the Yanktons were coming, but they were turned back.

"Whatever may have been Bear's Rib's actions after leaving us, it is certain that we saw no more Indians in the Black Hills.

The examination was continued to Bear Butte, when Lieutenant Warren returned to Fort Randall.