USA > Minnesota > Hennepin County > Minneapolis > Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota > Part 12
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There was a sudden and a very wild excitement among the Sioux that morning. Swift messengers bore the startling and astounding news from village to village and from tepee to tepee, crying out wildly : "The Chippewas! The Chippewas! They have turned treacherously back from their homeward journey and are butchering us! Middle Iron Wing is already killed! On the bank of Lake Harriet-there lies his dead body, all bloody ! Go and see it. But get your fighting implements ready first !"
In two hours Cloud Man's warriors, Red Bird at the head, stripped almost as naked as Adam, but painted and armed for fight, were all ready and eager for the war path. Then in another hour the warriors from the other villages began to arrive. They came from Good Road's village, from Bad Hail's, from Black Dog's, from Eagle Head's, and even from Shakopce's. Little Crow's men did not come, as will be explained, but the plan was made known to him.
The plan was soon arranged. The Chippewas were to be pursued on both of the routes they had taken. Little Crow (or Big Thunder) and his Kaposia band, because they were miles nearer to them, were to fol- low after the St. Croix Chippewas, with whom they had an old account to settle anyhow, and overtake them at Stillwater if possible. The other bands were to pursue Hole-in-the-Day's people and those from the Mille Lacs. Each pursuing party largely out- numbered the Chippewas it pursued, the latter being composed largely of women and children, while the Sioux were all warriors.
The Sioux came to the war path painted, armed, moccasined, and victualed, and all eager as wolves on the scent. In effect the warriors were sworn into service. The oath or pledge was brief but strong. It bound him who took it to fight to the death and to show no quarter to any living Chippewa thing. No mercy was to be asked and none was to be given. The babe was to be served as the grandsire and the virgin as the warrior.
The authorities at the Fort did not offer to inter- fere; it would not have been of any use. The Sioux hurried up to St. Anthony's Falls and crossed the river by detachments in canoes, landing on the east bank, just above the head of Nicollet Island. Samuel W. Pond went up and viewed the crossing, which was not effeeted until near sundown. Red Bird, so Pond
* In the spring of 1895 the writer interviewed this "boy," but he was then 68 and bearing the white man's name of David Watson. He was then at Flandrau, S. D., where he died a few years later. He was a nephew of Middle Iron Wing and well remembered the incident.
** Meaning literally People of the Waterfalls, the Sioux name for the Chippewas who, when the Sioux first knew them, lived at the Falls of Sault Ste. Marie.
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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA
tells us, caused his 400 warriors to be seated in a line, down which he marched, naked execpt for breech-clout and war paint, laying his hand on every warrior's head and bidding him fight to the last for the sake of the Dakota gods and the honor of the Dakota nation.
It had been a hot July day, but the war party started as soon as the favor of its gods had been invoked, marehed all night, and just before day reached IIole-in-the-Day's eamp on Rum River. Lit- the Crow and his warriors marched all night and arrived at Stillwater at daylight, finding the Chippe- was in camp, but ready to embark on the St. Croix for their homes.
Red Bird managed well at Rum River. He waited until the Chippewa hunters had gone ahead on the trail and dispersed themselves on either side of the road to kill game for the subsistence of the party, and these hunters were half of the Chippewa warriors. Not every warrior had a gun, but every gun was loaded only with bird shot. The eamp had just been broken up and the morning eolumn, composed largely of women and children, was stringing out when Red Bird gave the signal for attack by a loud and long war whoop. The Sioux sprang forward with gun and spear and tomahawk. The Chippewa women and chil- dren fled in horror and dismay; the Sioux leaped upon them and cut them down. The men present with guns fought as best they eould, but what eould they do with bird shot ?
In a little time the Chippewa hunters had come back and then the killing was not all on one side. Oh, no! Hole in the Day and his warriors always did their share of killing in a battle. The Chippe- was, frenzied at the sight of their dead and mangled women and children, fought with such desperation that in twenty minutes the Sioux were retreating from the field, leaving their dead, and some of their disabled. Shakopee # and his Prairieville band were made the rearguard and had all they could do to keep back the infuriated Chippewas. Once, when hard pressed and his men were not supported, he rode among the other chiefs and complained: "You have poured blood on me," he said, "and now you run away and leave me.''
Shakopee, Red Bird, and some others were on horse- back, having made their horses swim the Mississippi. Red Bird was killed. He rode upon a Chippewa who was in his death agonies, but still held his loaded gun. Red Bird dismounted to finish him with his knife, when the dying warrior shot him through the neek and the noted medicine man and fighter fell a eorpse and into the hands of his enemies. His son, a lad of 15, was mortally wounded. As they were bearing him from the field he noticed that his intestines were dan- gling from his wound and he said : "I wish my father eould see this." Told that his father was killed, he did not utter a word more, but closed his eyes and wan ! Hkah-hkah-Tonwan !" *** or, "the Chippewas !
The Chippewas followed the Sioux for some miles, and killed three and wounded 25 of Shakopee's rear guard. At last they turned back to bury their dead,
to care for their strieken ones, and to chop to pieces the bodies of the dead and wounded of their enemies left on the slaughter field. The Sioux bore away 70 scalps, at least 50 of which were those of women and children. Some of the Chippewas killed were not scalped. The Sioux had 12 warriors killed and ear- ried off about 50 wounded, some of whom afterward died, one when he was being lifted from a canoe on the west bank of the Mississippi. (See "Two Mission- aries ;" also Vol. 2, Minn. in Three Cents.)
Meanwhile Big Thunder's Kaposia warriors had been successful to a degree; for they too were forced to retreat from the field. The Chippewas were in their camp at Stillwater in the big ravine where the penitentiary now stands. At the same hour when Red Bird attacked the Chippewas on Rum River, Big Thunder attacked the St. Croix and Pokegama people. The Sioux had erept up within gunshot and bowshot, and, without warning, suddenly poured a plunging and deadly fire from the crest of the bluff upon their enemies' eamp. The Chippewas behaved well. They retreated toward the St. Croix, women and children going first, and the men protecting the rear, fighting bravely. Near the shore they halted and cheeked the Sioux, finally driving them back and away from the battle ground, but not in time to prevent them from taking about 20 scalps and cutting off and carrying away half a dozen heads. The Sioux retreated in a panic, although the Chippewas did not pursue them beyond the crest of the bluffs. The fighting was wit- nessed by Wm. A. Aitkin, the trader, (for whom the county was named) and by Mrs. Lydia Ann Carli, a sister of Joseph R. Brown, who lived in the big log castle at Stillwater (then ealled "Dakota") which her brother had built.
In both battles the Chippewas lost 95 killed. 75 at Rum River and 20 at Stillwater. The Sioux lost 12 killed at Rum River and five at Stillwater, or 17 in all. The whole number of wounded cannot well be estimated. The Chippewas carried all of their wounded back to their villages, those from Rum River on litters and those from Stillwater in eanoes, at least a great part of the way.
The scene at Fort Snelling when the Sioux returned from their victories was one of wild and fieree exulta- tion. Rev. Gideon H. Pond, who was present, wrote : "It seemed as if hell had emptied itself here." They paraded their bloody sealps and ghastly heads with great ostentation as if for the delectation of the white spectators. They yelled and danced until they worked themselves into a state of delirium and frenzy. They kept up the scalp danee in all their vil- lages for a month. Why not? They had 95 scalps !
The Pond brothers and the officers of the Fort saw the great and horrid celebration but did not inter- fere. There were other witnesses. There were at Fort Snelling at the time the Right Reverend Bishop Mathias Loras and his assistant, the Abbe Pelamour- gues, Catholie ecelesiastics stationed at Dubuque, who had come up to look after the interests of the Mother Chureh in this quarter. The gentle-souled, mild- mannered Bishop was inexpressably shocked at the loathsome and hideous spcetaele of the daneing and
* Father of the chief hung at Fort Snelling.
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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA
howling Sioux and their ghastly trophies, and he shed tears of heartsickness and horror as he looked upon it.
One of the two young Chippewas that shot the Badger and brought the disasters upon their people died at Mille Laes in 1903. To the late Wm. L. Quinn, of St. Paul, who at one time was a trader among them and who himself had Chippewa blood in his veins, they told the story. It is now well known that after they had done the shooting they made their way to the "Little Falls," now the Falls of Minne- haha, and effected their escape as they planned to. Behind the broad sheet of water that formed the cataract proper, snug under the deep shelving bluff over which the water poured, they crawled and hid themselves. Here they remained that day and night and the following day. They reasoned that the Sioux would not search carefully for them, but would fol- low their brethren; and when the Dakota warriors had gone they would slip away in the darkness and go back to Mille Lacs. All about the Falls there were brambles and brushwood, and the sheet of fall- ing water hid them as if they were behind a big white blanket. On the second night they crept away, swam the Mississippi by the aid of a log, and got safely back to their village. They were very sorry that the fire they kindled had caused so much distress and sadness, but their people forgave them because they had meant well and from the Indian point of view had acted bravely.
The battles between the Sioux and Chippewas in the first days of July, 1839, are to be remembered in connection with the history of Minneapolis. They were the largest affairs of the kind that occurred in Minnesota after the supposed great battles between the two tribes near Mille Lacs about 1750, or perhaps
about 1760, and they were planned on the present site of Minneapolis. Nearly all the Sioux warriors that fought in it were from or near the city's site, set out from here, and returned here. At least 115 Indians of both sides were killed-more than the aggregate of all the Indians that died on Minnesota battle fields after 1760, including those killed in fight and hung at Mankato during the Sioux Outbreak of 1862.
Intelligence of the affairs, generally exaggerated as to details, went to all parts of the country. Writing from St. Louis July 26, 1839, Robert E. Lee, then a captain of U. S. Engineers and who had been en- gaged in engineering work on the Mississippi up as far as Prairie du Chien, wrote to his associate officer, Lieut. Joseph E. Johnston, about these Indian battles. (It will be understood that both these officers were afterwards the two principal Confederate generals.) After mentioning an excursion party that had re- cently gone up the river on a steamboat to the Falls of St. Anthony, "with music playing and colors fly- ing," and which their mutual friend "Dick" (who- ever he was) had accompanied from Galena, Capt. Lee wrote :
"News recently arrived that the Sioux had fallen upon the Chippewas and taken 130 [sie] scalps. The Hole in the Day, Diek's friend, had gone in advance with the larger party and they did not come up with him. It is expected that this chief, who is represented as an uncommon man, will take ample revenge, and this may give rise to fresh trouble. You will see the full account in the papers."
The letter in full is printed in Gen. Long's "Mem- oirs of R. E. Lee," and in Dr. J. William Jones's "Life and Letters of Lee," at page 35, but it has never before been noticed in a Minnesota publication.
CHAPTER VI. PREPARING FOR THE WHITE MAN'S COMING.
THE CHIPPEWA AND SIOUX TREATIES OF 1837-THE INDIAN TITLE TO THE EAST. BANK OF THE MISSISSIPPI PURCHASED, MAKING POSSIBLE SETTLEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT AT ST. ANTHONY FALLS-OPERATIONS BEGUN HERE AND ON THE ST. CROIX-FRANKLIN STEELE LAYS THE FIRST FOUNDATIONS OF MINNEAPOLIS AT ST. ANTHONY-LATER VISITORS AND EXPLORERS EXAMINE THE COUNTRY-FEATHERSTONHAUGH, CATLIN, AND NICOLLET-MINNEAPOLIS CAME NEAR BEING IN PERMANENT INDIAN TERRITORY-CERTAIN DANGEROUS CRISES IN THE HISTORY OF THE COUNTRY NARROWLY PASSED-A MIGHTY METROPOLIS ON THE FORT SNELLING SITE PREVENTED BY THE ILL CON- DUCT OF A MILITARY BOSS-THE BANISHMENT OF WORTHY SETTLERS LEADS TO THE BUILDING OF ST. PAUL.
THE TREATIES OF 1837-OPENING THE WAY FOR MINNEAPOLIS.
Prior to the year 1837 every foot of land in what is now the State of Minnesota-except the little reservation about Fort Snelling-was in primeval condition and barbaric ownership. The country was red-peopled and virgin, and a white man might not make his home anywhere in all that great expanse without permission of the Indians. These people held the land solely by the right of conquest and the rule of might, having taken it by force from weaker breth- ren and defended it against stronger. It was theirs, therefore, under Rob Roy's rule :
the simple plan, That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can."'
The mighty resources of the country, the iron, the granite, the soil, the water-power, were as they had been for thousands of years. The great water-power at St. Anthony's Falls was unharnessed and undi- verted and the Mississippi flowed "unvexed to the sea." But in 1837 a breach was made in the barriers that had shut out the forces of civilization, and through the gap soon came the advance guard of the great army of progress whose many battalions were not far to the rear. A foothold was obtained whereon white men could stand and from whence they could not be driven. It was made possible and lawful to take away the great Falls of St. Anthony of Padua from the Onktayhee or Indian gods that controlled them and make them subserve the uses of mankind, and the way was clear to found a great city at their site. Two treaties were made with the Chippewa and Sioux which opened the lands east of the Mississippi in this quarter to white settlement. It would follow that the lands west of the river would soon pass under the same control.
In July, 1837, Governor Henry Dodge, of Wiscon- sin Territory,-to which division of the national domain the country east of the Mississippi and now in southeastern Minnesota then belonged-made a treaty with the Chippewa Indians at Fort Snelling for the cession of their lands in southeastern Minnesota and
southwestern Wisconsin. The treaty was signed July 29, but was not ratified by the Senate until June 15 of the following year. It was a great occasion. Maj. Taliaferro's journal says there were 1,200 Chippewas present. They came from all their villages between Lake Superior and the Mille Lacs, and this was the largest convocation of the tribe ever assembled in Minnesota.
Under present conditions the boundary line of the ceded territory ran from the mouth of the Crow Wing River ("Kah-gee Wugwan Sebe" in Chippewa) almost directly east to the Upper Lake St. Croix, about 30 miles southeast of Duluth ; thence, generally east, to within 30 miles of the Michigan linc; thence south about 60 miles, or due west of Menomonie, Wis- consin; thence, in a general direction south, by way of Plover Portage to a point twelve miles south of Chippewa Falls; thence, northwesterly, to the mouth of the Watab River, eight miles above St. Cloud. and thence to the mouth of the Crow Wing, the place of beginning.
Within what is now Minnesota the boundary line included the southern part of the counties of Crow Wing, Aitkin, and Pine; all of Morrison east of the Mississippi ; all of Mille Lacs, Kanabec, Benton, Isanti, Chisago, Sherburne, Anoka, Washington, and Ramsey. It also included the greater part of northern and western Wisconsin, practically confining the Chip- pewas of that then Territory to the comparatively narrow strip along the southern shore of Lake Superior.
In consideration of the cession of this vast expanse of country, amounting to fully 60,000,000 acres, the Indians were to receive less than two cents an acre, or $810,000 in goods and money, payable in twenty annual installments to the members of the tribe; and the further sum of $200,000 to be divided,-$100,000 to the half brecds of the Chippewa nation, and $100,000 for debts due by members of the nation to traders and other whites. Of this latter $100,000, there was to be paid to Wm. A. Aitkin, $25,000; to Lyman M. Warren, $25,000; to Hercules L. Dous- man, $5,000. Aitkin and Warren were married to Chippewa women. Many of Warren's descendants are yet prominent members of the Chippewas of Min-
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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA
nesota. Not until June 15, 1838, however, did the U. S. Senate ratify and confirm the provisions of this treaty, so that it did not become effective until that date.
The treaty was signed by Gov. Henry Dodge, as the U. S. Commissioner, and by the following named Chippewas of Minnesota-Wisconsin Chippewas not named :
From Leech Lake --- Chiefs: Flat Mouth and Elder Brother. Warriors: Young Buffalo, The Trap, Chief of the Earth, Big Cloud, Rabbit, Sounding Sky, and Yellow Robe.
From Gull Lake and Swan River-Chiefs: Hole in the Day and Strong Ground. Warriors: White Fisher and Bear's Heart.
From St. Croix River-Chiefs: Buffalo and Flat Mouth. Warriors: Young Buck, Cut Ear, and Com- ing Home Hallooing.
From Mille Lacs-Chiefs: Rat's Liver and First Day. Warriors: The Sparrow and Both Ends of the Sky.
From Sandy Lake -- Chiefs: The Brooch, Bad Boy, and Big Frenchman. Warriors: Spunk and Man That Stands First.
From Snake River -- Chiefs: The Wind, Little Six, Lone Man, The Feather. Warriors: Little French- man and Silver.
From Red Lake-Francis Goumeau, a Chippewa half-blood.
Among the white witnesses to the signatures were Maj. Lawrence Taliaferro, Capt. Martin Scott, Surgeon Dr. John Emerson, H. H. Sibley, H. L. Dous- man, Lyman M. Warren, Wm. H. Forbes, J. N. Nicol- let, Rev. D. P. Bushnell, Peter Quinn, and Scott Campbell. The last two, with Stephen Bonga and Baptiste Dubay, were Indian interpreters.
By this treaty the United States secured the most valuable pine lands in southeastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin from the Chippewas, who claimed them. The timber districts then obtained were not entirely cut over in forty years, and not until they had yielded many millions of dollars in as good lum- ber as was ever cut.
This treaty, also,-in connection with the treaty with the Sioux, made two months later, -- opened the whole of what are now Washington and Ramsey Counties and the small part of Hennepin County which is east of the Mississippi, but which was large enough to contain St. Anthony, now that part of Min- neapolis on that side of the river. And of course this included the land at the east end of St. Anthony's Falls where the first improvements of the Falls were to be made by civilians. The vast cession contained pine timber enough to supply the entire country of Min- nesota as well as many other markets, and the mills at the east end of St. Anthony's Falls would reduce this timber to lumber.
The way was opened, therefore, for the building of a great city at the Falls of St. Anthony of Padua, and when the foundations of that city were fairly laid it was called Minneapolis.
The treaties also opened to permanent white occu- pation and settlement the land in Minnesota on which
the first settlements were really made, viz .: at Gray Cloud Island, at Stillwater, at St. Paul, and at East or North Minneapolis. Therefore these treaties are important to be considered among the incidents per- taining to the foundation of Minneapolis. They were - the first authoritative measures and proceedings which made the city possible. All information about them, therefore, ought to be of interest to every Minnea- politan.
THE SIOUX TREATY.
Notwithstanding that, by the treaty of Prairie du Chien, of 1824, the Sioux apparently ceded away all their lands in Minnesota east of the Mississippi for the benefit of the Chippewas, yet the Government recognized and admitted that they still held a sort of title to them. So in 1837 there was made with them another treaty, which in effect was a sort of quit-claim deed from them to the land east of the river.
In September, pursuant to orders from the Indian Department, a delegation of about 20 chiefs and "head men" of the Medawakanton band of Sioux, in charge of the agent, Maj. Taliaferro, left Fort Snel- ling on the steamboat Pavilion, Captain Lafferty, for Washington to make the treaty referred to. At Ka- posia village, below St. Paul, the chief of the band, Big Thunder, (or Little Crow IV.) and his pipe-bearer (Wind That Upsets) came aboard; at Red Wing the Walking Buffalo and his head soldier, and at Winona Chief Wabasha and his head soldier, took passage, making in all a delegation of 26.
A number of white men, chiefly fur traders, inter- ested in the treaty, accompanied the delegation. The American Fur Company sent H. H. Sibley, its chief factor ; also Alexis Bailly, Joseph La Framboise, Alex. Rocque, Francois La Bathe, Alexander and Oliver Faribault, and other traders. They wanted to secure a provision in the treaty that about $100,000 should be paid them out of the money allowed the Indians in discharge of the debts due them from said Indians for goods had and obtained.
The treaty was concluded and signed September 29, (1837) by Joel R. Poinsett, then Secretary of War, who was, by special appointment, the Commis- sioner on the part of the Government. None but Indians of the Medawakanton band signed, for they were the only ones interested. The cession included "all their land east of the Mississippi River and all their islands in said river." The land east of the river was a strip varying from a mile to a few miles in width from the mouth of the Bad Ax (opposite the extreme southeastern corner of Minnesota) up to the mouth of the Watab. It was an indefinite extent of country and there was no possible way of comput- ing its area. It could not be said that the Indians had a good title to the country, since they had already surrendered it to other Indians and had abandoned it twelve years before. Under all the circumstances, therefore they were fairly well paid for it, receiving, and to receive, the following sums :
The interest on $300,000 at five per cent forever ;
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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA
for their mixed blood relatives and friends, $110,000; to pay their debts to the traders, $90,000; an annuity for twenty years of $10,000 in goods, or $200,000; for the purchase for themselves of medicines, farming implements, and live stock, and the support of a physician, farmers, and blacksmiths, etc., $8,250 annually for twenty years; for a supply of useful articles, to be furnished immediately, $10,000; for the purchase of provisions, to be delivered free by the United States, $5,500 a year for twenty years; "for the chiefs and braves signing this treaty, $6,000 in goods upon their arrival in St. Louis." The Sioux received for the land which they virtually only quit- claimed at this time far more, in proportion to its area. than they obtained for any other land that they ever released to the United States.
On the part of the Indians the treaty was signed by the following chiefs and "head men" of the Medawakanton band: Chiefs-Big Thunder, Grey Iron, Walking Buffalo, Good Road, Cloud Man, Eagle Head, and Bad Hail. Head Men-Standing Cloud, Upsetting Wind, Afloat, Iron Cloud, Comes Last, Iron with Pleasant Voice, Dancer, Big Iron, Shakes the Earth, Red Road, Runs After Clouds, Walking Circle, Stands on Both Sides, and Red Lodge, These were all of the upper sub-bands of the Medawakantons.
For some reason which cannot here be explained neither Wabasha or any of his sub-band signed the treaty, although he was present and he was head chief of the entire Medawakanton band. A considerable portion of the ceded country along the Wisconsin shore of the Mississippi was only immediately across the river, from the Minnesota lands of Wabasha and his people, and they must have had an interest in its disposition ; but their signatures to the treaty do not appear in the printed copy .*
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