Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 6

Author: Holcombe, R. I. (Return Ira), 1845-1916; Bingham, William H
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Chicago : H. Taylor & Co.
Number of Pages: 1190

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ASCENDS TO RUM RIVER.

Having observed the Falls until his .enriosity was satisfied, Capt. Carver, accompanied by his Canadian

* Evidently Capt. Carver was acquainted with the history of the Falls, and did not believe that Du Luth visited the Naudowessie village at Mille Lacs a year prior to Hennepin.

* The best authorities give the total descent of Niagara Falls as 212 feet "from the head of the rapids."

HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

Frenchman and his Winnebago prince, journeyed up the Mississippi until November 21, when he reached the mouth of the St. Francis. He estimates the dis- tance from the Falls to this river at 60 miles, an over- estimate of some 20 miles. He says: "To this river Father Hennepin gave the name of St. Francis,* and this was the extent of his travels, as well as mine, towards the northwest. The Mississippi has never been explored higher up than the River St. Francis, and only by Father Hennepin and myself thus far."

Of course he crossed Rum River, which he says is 14 miles above the Falls, an under-estimate, and when he erossed, it was 20 yards, or 60 feet. The St. Francis was 30 yards wide. On November 20 he says he passed "another stream ealled Goose River, 12 yards wide." The cold weather, he tells us, prevented his making many observations of the country in this quarter. He noted, however, the mouth of the St. Francis. "Here," he says, "the Mississippi grows narrow, being not more than 90 yards over, and it appears to be chiefly composed of small branches. The ice prevented me from noticing the depth of any of these rivers;" but he could have added that it facilitated traveling on foot and especially his cross- ing streams. Of the country he says :

"The country in some places is hilly, but without large mountains, and the land is tolerably good. I observed here many deer and earribboos, some elk, with abundance of beavers, otters, and other furs. A little above this, to the northeast, are a number of small lakes ealled the Thousand Lakes, [Mille Lacs] the parts about which, though but little frequented, are the best within many miles for hunting, as the hunter never fails of returning loaded beyond his expectations."

GOES UP THE MINNESOTA.

November 25 Capt. Carver returned to his eanoe or boat which he had left at the mouth of the St. Pierre. Here, he says, he bade good-bye to the Win- nebago prinee, and set out to explore the Minnesota, taking with him his Mohawk and Canadian Freneh- man. He discovered and named Carver River and passed the Blue Earth, which he calls the Verd, or Green River, and which, he says, "forks at a little distance from the St. Pierre," the west fork being ealled the "Red Marble River," meaning probably the Red Pipestone. He says this fork had its souree among some mountains containing red marble.

Two hundred miles up the St. Feter, according to his estimate, he says he came to a large village of the Naudowessies or Sioux of the Plains, and here he asserts that he remained living with the Indians from December 7, 1766, to April 27, 1767. This period he says, on one page of his book, was five months, and on another he states that it was seven months. The truth probably is that he did not pass the winter in Minnesota at all.

As a geographieal and topographical gazetteer of the Minnesota country, Capt. Carver's book of travels is very faulty and misleading. He deseribes the country that he actually saw very well indeed; but he frankly says that he was obliged solely to the Indians for his knowledge of mueh of that which he did not see but attempts to deseribe, and these latter descriptions are almost worthless, being for the most part incorrect. Then, too, his estimates of distanees, like the estimates of other early explorers, are not even approximately accurate in most instances. The early explorers did not earry odometers or other instruments for measuring distances traveled, and their calculations of spaces traversed seem to have been based on the fatigue and labor involved in encompassing them, and so were always exaggera- tions. For example, Capt. Carver says he aseended the Minnesota for 200 miles; his map indicates that he went up to a point a few miles below New Ulm, or, taking into aeeount the meanderings of the river, about 100 miles from Mendota. If he had gone 200 miles, he would have stopped not far below Big Stone Lake.

But Capt. Carver's worst fault was that of many another traveler. He was a great romaneer and pre- varieator. He was probably not very much worse than some other early explorers and chronielers of Minnesota, and his false statements did no great harm or particular injustice. He said he lived among the Sioux for several months and "perfectly acquired" their language ; the pretended Sioux words and terms he gives in his book show that he had but a smat- tering of the language. His description of their manners and customs, founded upon his pretended personal observation of and acquaintance with them, is quite inaccurate and misleading.

It is somewhat remarkable that in his book Carver gives so large a number of geographieal names eor- rectly, as Lake Pepin, the St. Croix, St. Pierre, Rum, and St. Francis Rivers, as they were afterward known. This proves the truth that many of these names were bestowed a hundred years before and were well estab- lished. St. Anthony's Falls was doubtless then the best known geographieal name in the Northwest. Thus, though Capt. Carver's book is false in many things, it is not false in all.

RETURNS TO THE MISSISSIPPI.

In the latter part of April, 1767, Capt. Carver, still with his Mohawk and his Canadian, paddled down the Minnesota, according to his statement, and returned to the "great cave" in the white sandstone bluffs at St. Paul. Here he says a grand couneil was held of representatives of all the Sioux bands, "as was their custom," although we know that this was not their eustom. He further says that they brought with them the bones of their deceased relatives and friends who had died the preceding winter and deposited them on the crest of the bluff above the eave. We have long known, however, that the erest of Dayton's Bluff was the last resting place of only the bones of the old-time Sioux that died in the near-

* See discussion on a preceding page, (Hennepin's account) as to whether or not the stream called by Father Hennepin the St. Francis was not really Rum River.

HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

by villages. The remains of those that died in the remote villages were disposed of there.

At the council, Carver says he delivered a grand speech to the Indians on May 1. He prints this speech in his book, and purports to give a verbatim report (as if he took it down in short-hand) of the reply of one of the chiefs. He also says that on this occasion the Indians created him a chief, which is utter nonsense; the Sioux never made a chief out of a white man. After his death Carver's heirs exhibited a document evidently written by their ancestor and which purported to be a deed to a vast extent of coun- try east of St. Anthony's Falls, and which bore the pretended signatures of two alleged Sioux chiefs. Everything about this "deed" was bogus, and those that attempted to gain anything by it failed utterly.

After attending the council in the Great Cave, Capt. Carver says he returned to Prairie du Chien and thence went to Lake Superior. He spent some time in exploring that region, finally returning to Boston by way of the Sault Ste. Marie, Detroit, and Niagara Falls. He reached Boston in October, 1768, "hav- ing," he says, "been absent from it on this expedi- tion two years and five months, and during that time travelled near 7,000 miles." Soon after he went to England and published the first edition of his book in 1769; subsequently several editions were published and it was translated and printed in Dutch and French.

CARVER, TOO, WAS A FALSIFIER.

As has been said, Capt. Carver, as a writer was a prevaricator, and, like most other early explorers that narrated their own experiences and achievements, often mis-stated and perverted the facts. He wrote to please and interest his readers and imagined that to do so he must write of something extraordinary or at least remarkable. If his own adventures were not really remarkable, he must pretend they were. Imitating Simon Magus, mentioned in Scripture, he meant to "give out that himself was some great one."

From what we now know, it seems most probable that Capt. Carver's experience in and about St. Anthony's Falls was not of high importance or very extraordinary. It may be admitted that he came to the locality ; that he saw and examined the great Falls; that he went up to the St. Francis; that he examined the shores of the Mississippi for two miles or so on either side of the river; that he went up the Minne- sota to the mouth of the Blue Earth-and practically, no farther; that he then returned to the Mississippi. Then he probably spent the winter about the mouth of the Minnesota or he may have hastened back to the comfortable trading houses of the post on Green Bay, where he passed the ensuing season very well.

He hardly spent several months with the Sioux near St. Peter or New Ulm, coming down to the mouth of the Minnesota in the spring of 1768. If he had spent any considerable time with them he would have known them and their country better and his descrip- tions would have been more accurate and in accord with established facts.

He, in no sentence in his book, calls the Indians that he says he came to know so intimately by their proper and real names. Always and in every case where he refers to them he calls them Nadowessies, with various spellings. Now, this term was an epithet bestowed upon the Indians about St. Anthony and on the Minnesota River by the Chippewas and the other tribes east of the Mississippi. The term signifies in the Algonquin dialect "snakes" and also "our enemies."

If Capt. Carver had spent five months, or seven months, with the Minnesota Indians, and been treated by them with the great kindness and consideration he says he received from them, he certainly ought to have called them by their proper name, or the name they called themselves-Dakota-meaning the allied or banded together, the union of the "seven great council fires.' They always called themselves Dakotas, resented any other name, and for a long time considered the term Naudowcssies (or Naudowes- sioux and its contraction "Sioux") as an insulting epithet. Nowhere in Capt. Carver's book is it even intimated that the name of these Indians was Dakota, nor does the word Dakota appear. Imagine a traveler spending seven pleasant months in Mexico and then writing a book descriptive of his experience in which he refers to the people of that country only as "Greas- ers." Or a European writing of the United States and calling our people by the sole name of "Yanks."

If Capt. Carver had spent five months with the Indians in the present St. Peter or New Ulm region, he would have learned that there was no "Red Marble River," a fork of the Blue Earth and which rose in "some mountains containing red marble." Some- body told him of the Watonwan and that this insignifi- cant stream had its source out in the direction of the Cotcaus and the Red Pipestone Quarry, and his imagination made mountains of the Coteaus, and marble of the pipestone.

His pretended council with the Indians in the "great cave," at St. Paul, when he says they gave him, merely as an expression of good will, a vast expanse of country, was never held. His so-called deed was a palpable and very clumsy forgery. It pur- ported to be signed by two Sioux chiefs, in their tribal vernacular; but there are no such names in the Sioux vocabulary as he gives to them, and no such words with the translations he presents ; his pretended trans- lations are preposterous. Then it is pretended that with their signatures the grantor chiefs affixed totem marks, when it is well known that the Sioux did not have totem distinctions or use totem marks. It is only necessary to add that the greater part of the land which the deed pretended to convey to Capt. Carver was not Sioux land at all; nearly all the described tract lay east of the St. Croix and belonged to thie Chippewas, the Winnebagos, and the Menominees.

Another evidence that Capt. Carver falsified his account of his sojourn among the Sioux for several months is presented by the many errors he makes in his descriptions of their character, their manners and customs, ctc. He copies much of this matter from the great liar La Hontan, and well nigh imagines all the

HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

rest. He foully and inexcusably slanders the Sioux women whom all other writers praise for their virtue, purity, and innate nobility of character.

For a correct analysis and estimate of Carver's account the investigator is referred to Keating's article in his Journal of Long's Expedition of 1823.

Some respectable historians, like Robert Greenhow, the historian of Oregon and California, and the re- nowned Henry R. Schoolcraft, allege that Carver never wrote the book of "Travels, "etc., which appears under his name. Defending him against this charge his principal champion, Mr. J. Thomas Lee, of Madi- son, Wis., gocs on to make this candid and harmful admission : "That some parts of the 'Travels' were plagiarized from Hennepin, La Hontan, Charlevoix, and Adair, is a fact well established." Mr. Lee be- lieves that Carver himself wrote the book, but readily admits that it is full of larcenies and lies.

Prof. E. G. Bourne, late of Yale College, in an article in the Am. Hist. Review, Vol. XI (1906) proves that many portions of Carver's book were plagiarized and many others stolen bodily from La Hontan's "New Voyages," Charlevoix' "Journal," Vol. I. and Adair's "History of the American Indians." Since the appearance of Prof. Bourne's scathing but con- vincing presentation of the facts, other writers have, as Mr. Lee says, "dismissed Carver with little cere- mony."

CARVER NOT WHOLLY BAD.

But whatever Capt. Carver's demerits were as a descriptive writer of his own travels, he certainly did a great deal for Minnesota and especially for the Falls of St. Anthony. Hc caused them to be still bet- ter known to the civilized world. He described the entire region as well-nigh all that was desirable. If he had been the advertising agent of a big real estate firm owning all the country and desiring to sell it, he could scarcely have written more attractively. His descriptions were glowingly interesting and glaringly false. There was, he said, "an abundance of copper" on the St. Croix, western Wisconsin abounded in "heavenly spots," and nature had showered "a pro- fusion of blessings" over the entire country of west- ern Wisconsin, except in some places along the shore of Lake Superior.

LIEUT. PIKE'S VISIT IN 1805-1806.

Capt. Carver was born and reared in Connecticut and was in America until 1769; but, because he was always a British subject, some writers claim that he was not the first American citizen proper to see St. Anthony's Falls, but that to Lieut. Zebulon Mont- gomery Pike belongs that distinction.

The War of the Revolution virtually terminated in 1782 and by the treaty of Paris in 1783, between Great Britain and the United States, the former gov- ernment ceded to the latter all of its former territory in North America below the Canada line. This gave the United States all the territory east of the Mis- sissippi, including the eastern end of the Falls of St. Anthony and the adjacent land. The country west of the Mississippi, to an indefinite extent, belonged,

after 1769, to Spain, from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico; but in 1800, by a secret treaty, Spain ret- roceded it back to France. This country included the site of what is now the western and principal part of Minneapolis.

In 1803, by what is commonly called the Louisiana Purchase, the United States acquired the French country west of the Mississippi. Strangely enough, as it seems to-day, there was great dissatisfaction among a large part of the American people, especially those of New England, with the Louisiana Purchasc. President Jefferson, who had been the principal agent in its negotiation, was strenuously denounced; the price paid for the country, $15,000,000, was declared to be "outrageously extravagant;" the country itself was declared to be "a howling wilderness, the abode of wild and savage beasts and wilder and more savage men, and it cannot be subdued in 200 years," etc., etc. It has long been the condition that any two wards of the western division of Minneapolis are worth far more than the price Thomas Jefferson caused to be paid for the entire and vast Louisiana Purchase.

To silence the clamor against the new acquisition, because he believed in its value, and to inform him- self and the country about it, President Jefferson had the country examined. The southern part, now in- cluding the States of Missouri, Arkansas, and Louis- iana, were fairly well known, but surveyors and explorers were sent in considerable numbers to lay it out for settlement and to report upon it. Two important expeditions, semi-military in character, were ordered to ascend respectively the Missouri and the Mississippi Rivers to their sources, and see if the northern part of the country was really a "hyper- borean region under Arctic conditions," as had been alleged, and to assist President Jefferson in the con- firmation of his opinion that he had not bought a piece of blue sky, but that the country he had purchased was worth the money paid for it. Captains Lewis and Clark, with a considerable expedition, went up the Missouri in 1804 and Licut. Pike, with another party of soldiers, ascended the Mississippi in 1805-6, both expeditions setting out from St. Louis.

Lieutenant Pike, a New Jerseyman, was but 29 years of age when he first saw the Falls of St. Anthony. He set out from his encampment near St. Louis, August 9, 1805, in a keel-boat, 70 feet long, with a crew of regular soldiers consisting of one sergeant, two cor- porals, and 17 privates, and with rations and pro- visions for four months. He was equipped with math- ematical instruments for calculating latitude and long- itude, measuring elevations and distances, etc., and with barometers and thermometers, drawing appa- ratus, etc. ; he was accomplished in the use of all these. On the 21st of September he reached Pig's Eye Slough and what is now Dayton's Bluff, St. Paul, where then was a Sioux village of cabins presided over by Chief Little Crow III, the third of the Corvidean dynasty of . Sioux sub-chiefs. The same day he passed old Jean Baptiste Faribault's trading post, on the west side of the river, below Mendota, and that night encamped on the northeast point of what is now Pike's Island, oppo- site the mouth of the St. Peter's or Minnesota.

HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

THE TREATY OF PIKE'S ISLAND.

On the 23d he held a council under an arbor on Pike's Island with the following Sioux chiefs: Little Crow III, of the Kaposia or "light" band; the Son of Penechon, of the band at Black Dog's Lake; Shakopee of the band living near where the town of Shakopee is now; Stands Suddenly, whose real Indian namne was Wokanko Enahzhe, though Pike gives it as Wayago Enagee also called the "Son of Penishon," and who was a chief of the Wah-pay Kootas, or Leaf Shooters, down on the Cannon River, and Tah-tonka Manne, (Walking Buffalo) of the Red Wing band. There also took part in the treaty, or conference, three Indian head-soldiers, the Big Soldier, the Rising Moose, and the Supernatural Deer's Head (Waukon Tahpay). The deed made at the conference was signed by but two chiefs, Little Crow III and the son of Penishon or Stands Suddenly-"Wayago Enagee." Pike also mentions the Supernatural Deer's Head by the French designation of "Le Becasse," meaning a woodcock.

Under the deed signed by the two chicfs, the Sioux nation granted of their country to the United States, "for the establishment of military posts," nine miles square at the mouth of the St. Croix; "and also from below the confluence of the Mississippi and the St. Peter's up the Mississippi to include the Falls of St. Anthony, extending nine miles on each side of the river." The amount to be paid the Indians was left to the U. S. Senate, which fixed the sum at $12,000, which was subsequently paid mostly in goods.

Although only two chiefs touched the goose-quill and made their marks to this deed, none of the tribe ever attempted to repudiate it for any reason what- ever. There are some interesting features of this so- called treaty and deed which may be passed over here.

PIKE SURVEYS AND PASSES ST. ANTHONY'S FALLS.

On the 23d of September, from his camp on his island, Lieut. Pike sent up three of his mncn to make a preliminary observation of St. Anthony's Falls, but "their reports were so contradictory," he says, "that no opinion can be formed from them." But on the 25th he broke camp and renewed his voyage to see them for himself. That night he encamped opposite the mouth of Minnehaha Creek, but did not notice or com- ment upon the stream or the beautiful little waterfall only a few hundred yards away. As for his itinerary the ensuing four days, the following extracts from his Journal comprise a sufficient account :

"Sept. 26-Embarked at the usual hour, and after much labor in passing through the rapids, arrived at the foot of the Falls about 3 or 4 o'clock ; unloaded my boat and had the principal part of her cargo carried over the portage. With the other boat [his barge] full loaded, however, they were not able to get over the last shoot, [chute] and encamped about 600 yards be- low. I pitched my tent and encamped above the shoot [chute]. The rapids mentioned in this day's march might properly be called a continuation of the Falls of St. Anthony, for they are equally entitled to this ap- pellation with the falls of the Delaware and Sus

quehanna. Distance nine [ ?] miles. Killed onc deer .* "Sept. 27-Brought over the residue of my lading this morning. Two men arrived from Mr. Frazer, on St. Peter's, for my dispatches. Sent a large packet to the general [Gen. James Wilkinson] and a letter to Mrs. Pike, with a short note to Mr. Frazer. This business of closing and sealing [ letters and dispatches] appeared like a last adieu to the civilized world. * Carried our boats out of the river as far as the * bottom of the hill.

"Sept. 28-Brought my barge over and put her in the river above the falls. While we were engaged with her, three-quarters of a mile from camp, seven Indians, painted black, appeared on the heights.

"We had left our guns at camp and were entirely defenseless. It occurred to me that they were the small party of Sioux who were obstinate and would go to war when the other part of the bands came in. These they proved to be. They were better armed than any I had ever seen, having guns, bows, arrows, clubs, spears, and some of them even a case of pistols.

"I was at that time giving my men a dram, and giving the cup of liquor to the first Indian he drank it off; but I was more cautious with the remainder [ !] I sent my interpreter [Joseph Renville] to camp with them to await my coming, wishing to purchase one of their war-clubs, which was made of elk-horn and deco- rated with inlaid work. This and a set of bows and arrows I wished to get as a curiosity. But the liquor I had given the Indian beginning to operate, he came back for me; refusing to go till I brought my boat he returned, and (I suppose being offended) borrowed a canoe and crossed the river.

"In the afternoon we got the other boat [the keel- boat, 70 feet long,] near the top of the hill, when the props gave way and she slid all the way down to the bottom, but fortunately without injuring any person. It raining very hard, we left her. Killed one goose and a raccoon.

"Sunday, Sept. 29-I killed a remarkably large raccoon. Got our large boat over the portage and put her in the river at the upper landing. This night the men gave sufficient proof of their fatigue by all throw- ing themselves down to sleep, preferring rest to supper. This day I had but 15 men out of 22; the others were sick."

Even at this day, when it can do no good, one cannot but sympathize with Pike's poor soldiers that per- formed so much hard work during his entire expedi- tion, and especially with the 15 that performed the heavy and greatly fatiguing labor of carrying the heavy boats, the baggage, and the provisions up the high and steep banks of the river and around the falls for a distance of at least a mile. The big keelboat was 70 feet long and must have weighed not less than 30 pounds to the foot, or 2,100 pounds, a weight of 140 pounds to each of the 15 soldiers. The Lieutenant's barge was of course smaller, but heavy enough in all conscience. No wonder that Pike gave his men fre-

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Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 6

Author: Holcombe, R. I. (Return Ira), 1845-1916; Bingham, William H Publication date: 1914 Publisher: Chicago : H. Taylor & Co. Number of Pages: 1190

Author: Holcombe, R. I. (Return Ira), 1845-1916; Bingham, William H
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Chicago : H. Taylor & Co.
Number of Pages: 1190