History of Fillmore County, Including the Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota, Part 31

Author: Edward D. Neill
Publication date: 1882
Publisher:
Number of Pages:

USA > Minnesota > Fillmore County > History of Fillmore County, Including the Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota > Part 31

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"Each rude and jostling fragment soon Its fitting place shall find- The raw material of a State. Its muscle and its mind."

But we must be allowed, in a word, to state the results which we hope to see accomplished, before the jostling fragments which are yet plastic and warm, shall have attained a temperament not easily fused and "rounded" into one homogenous national system, rising in the several States from the kindergarten to the University, and from the State Universities through all orders of specialties demanded by the widening industries and growing demands of a progressive age. And in this direc-

tion we cannot fail to see that the national govern- ment must so mould its intellectual systems that the State and national curricula shall be uniform throughout the States and territories, so that a class standing of every pupil, properly certified, shall be equally good for a like class standing in every portion of the government to which he may desire to remove. America will then be ready to celebrate her final independence, the inalienable right of American youth, as having a standing limited by law in her State and national systems of education, entitling them to rank everywhere with associates and compeers on the same plain; when in no case, shall these rights be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State or authority thereof, on account of race, color, or previous condition of scholarship, secular or sectarian, till the same shall forever find the most ample protection under the broad banner of NATIONAL and NATURAL rights, common alike to all in the ever widening REPUBLIC of LETTERS. .

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HISTORY

OF THE

SIOUX MASSACRE OF 1862

CHAPTER XXX.

LOUIS HENNEPIN'S VISIT TO THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI IN 1680-CAPTAIN JONATHAN CARVER VISITS THE COUNTRY IN 1766-THE NAMES OF THE TRIBES- TREATIES WITH SIOUX INDIANS FROM 1812 TO 1859-THEIR RESERVATIONS-CIVILIZATION EF- FORTS-SETTLEMENTS OF THE WHITES CONTIGU- OUS TO THE RESERVATIONS.

The first authentio knowledge of the country upon the waters of the Upper Mississippi and its tributaries, was given to the world by Louis Hen- nepin, a native of France. In 1680 he visited the Falls of St. Anthony, and gave them the name of his patron saint, the name they still bear.

Hennepin found the country occupied by wild tribes of Indians, by whom he and his compan- ions were detained as prisoners, but kindly treated, and finally released.

In 1766, this same country was again visited by a white man, this time by Jonathan Carver, a British subject, and an officer in the British army. Jonathan Carver spent some three years among different tribes of Indians in the Upper Missis- sippi country. He knew the Sioux or Dakota Indians as the Naudowessies, who were then occu- pying the country along the Mississippi, from Iowa to the Falls of St. Anthony, and along the Minnesota river, then called St. Peter's, from its source to its mouth at Mendota. To the north of these tribes the country was then occupied by the Ojibwas, commonly called Chippewas, the heredi- tary enemies of the Sioux.

Carver found these Indian nations at war, and by his commanding influence finally succeeded in making peace between them. As a reward for his good offices in this regard, it is claimed that two chiefs of the Naudowessies, acting for their nation, at a council held with Carver, at the great cave,

now in the corporate limits of St. Paul, deeded to Carver a vast tract of land on the Mississippi river, extending from the Falls of St. Anthony to the foot of Lake Pepin, on the Mississippi; thence east one hundred English miles; thence north one hundred and twenty miles; thence west to the place of beginning. But this pretended grant has been examined by our government and entirely ignored as a pure invention of parties in interest, after Carver's death, to profit by his Indian ser- vice in Minnesota.

There can be no doubt that these same Indians, known to Captain Carver as the Naudowessies, in 1767, were the same who inhabited the country upon the Upper Mississippi and its tributaries when the treaty of Traverse des Sioux was made, in 1851, between the United States and the Sisse- ton and Wapaton bands of Dakota or Sioux Indi- ans. The name Sioux is said to have been bestowed upon these tribes by the French; and that it is a corruption of the last syllable of their more an- cient name, which in the peculiar guttural of the Dakota tongue, has the sound of the last syllable of the old name Naudowessies, Sioux.

The tribes inhabiting the Territory of Minne- sota at the date of the massacre, 1862, were the following: Medawakontons (or Village of the Spirit Lake); Wapatons (or Village of the Leaves); Sissetons (or Village of the Marsh): and Wapakutas (or Leaf Shooters). All these were Sioux Indians, connected intimately with other wild bands scattered over a vast region of country, including Dakota Territory, and the country west of the Missouri, even to the base of the Rocky Mountains. Over all this vast region roamed these wild bands of Dakotas, a powerful and warlike nation, holding by their tenure the country north to the British Possessions.

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HISTORY OF THE SIOUX MASSACRE.

The Sissetons had a hereditary chief, Ta-tanka Mazin, or Standing Buffalo; and at the date of the massacre his father, "Star Face," or the "Or- phan," was yet alive, but superannuated, and all the daties of the chief were vested in the son, Standing Buffalo, who remained friendly to the whites and took no part in the terrible massacre on our border in 1862.

The four tribes named, the Medawakontons, Wa- patons, Sissetons and Wapakutas, comprised the entire "annuity Sioux" of Minnesota; and in 1862 these tribes numbered about six thousand and two hundred persons. All these Indians had from time to time, from the 19th day of July, 1815, to the date of the massacre of 1862, received pres- ents from the Government, by virtue of various treaties of amity and friendship between us and their accredited chiefs and heads of tribes.

Soon after the close of the last war with Great Britain, on the first day of June, 1816, a treaty was concluded at St. Louis between the United States and the chiefs and warriors representing eight bands of the Sioux, composing the three tribes then called the "Sioux of the Leaf," the "Sioux of the Broad Leaf," and the "Sioux who Shoot in the Pine Tops," by the terms of which these tribes confirmed to the United States all cessions or grants of lands previously made by them to the British, French, or Spanish govern- ments, within the limits of the United States or its Territories. For these cessions no annuities were paid, for the reason that they were mere con- firmations of grants made by them to powers from whom we had acquired the territory.

From the treaty of St. Louis, in 1816, to the treaty ratified by the United States Senate in 1859, these tribes had remained friendly to the whites, and had by treaty stipulations parted with all the lands to which they claimed title in Iowa; all on the east side of the Mississippi river, and all on the Minnesota river, in Minnesota Territory, ex- cept certain reservations. One of these reserva- tions lay upon both sides of the Minnesota, ten miles on either side of that stream, from Hawk river on the north, and Yellow Medicine river on the south side, thence westerly to the head of Big Stone Lake and Lake Traverse, a distance of about one hundred miles. Another of these reser- vations commenced at Little Rock river on the east, and a line running due south from opposite its mouth, and extending up the river westerly to the easterly line of the first-named reservation, at

the Hawk and Yellow Medicine rivers. This last reservation had also a width of ten miles on each side of the Minnesota river.

The Indians west of the Missouri, in referring to those of their nation east of the river, called them Isanties, which seems to have been applied to them from the fact that, at some remote period, they had lived at Isantamde, or "Knife Lake," one of the Mille Lacs, in Minnesota.

These Indian treaties inaugurated and contrib- uted greatly to strengthen a custom of granting, to the pretended owners of lands occupied for purposes of hunting the wild game thereon, and living upon the natural products thereof, a con- sideration for the cession of their lands to the Government of the United States. This custom culminated in a vast annuity fund, in the aggre- gate to over three million dollars, owing to these tribes, before named, in Minnesota. This annuity system was one of the causes of the massacre of 1862.

INDIAN LIFE .- Before the whites came in con- tact with the natives, they dressed in the skins o' animals which they killed for food, such as the buffalo, wolf, elk, deer, beaver, otter, as well as the small fur-bearing animals, which they trapped on lakes and streams. In later years, as the settle- ments of the white race approached their borders, they exchanged these peltries and furs for blankets, cloths, and other articles of necessity or ornament. The Sioux of the plains, those who inhabited the Coteau and beyond, and, indeed, some of the Sisseton tribes, dress in skins to this day. Even among those who are now called "CIVILIZED," the style of costume is often unique. It is no picture of the imagination to portray to the reader a "STAL- WART INDIAN" in breech-cloth and leggins, with a calico shirt, all "fluttering in the wind," and his head surmounted with a stove-pipe hat of most surprising altitude, carrying in his hand a pipe of exquisite workmanship, on a stem not unlike a cane, sported as an ornament by some city dandy. His appearance is somewhat varied, as the seasons come and go. He may be seen in summer or in winter dressed in a heavy cloth coat of coarse fab- ric, often turned inside out with all his civilized and savage toggery, from head to foot, in the most bewildering juxtaposition. On beholding him, the dullest imagination cannot refrain from the poetic exclamtion of Alexander Pope,

"Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutored mind!"

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EFFORTS OF CIVILIZATION.

EFFORTS TO CIVILIZE THESE ANNUITY INDIANS. -The treaty of 1858, made at Washington, elabo- rated a scheme for the civilization of these annuity Indians. A civilization fund was provided, to be taken from their annuities, and expended in im- provements on the lands of such of them as should abandon their tribal relations, and adopt the habits and modes of life of the white race. To all such, lands were to be assigned in severalty, eighty acres to each head of a family. On these farms were to be erected the necessary farm-buildings, and farming implements and cattle were to be furnished them.

In addition to these favors the government offered them pay for such labors of value as were performed, in addition to the crops they raised. Indian farmers now augmented rapidily, until the appalling outbreak in 1862, at which time about one hundred and sixty had taken advantage of the munificent provisions of the treaty. A number of farms, some 160, had good, snug brick houses erected upon them. Among these civilized savages was Little Crow, and many of these farmer-Indians belonged to his own band.

The Indians disliked the idea of taking any por- tion of the general fund belonging to the tribe for the purpose of carrying out the civilization scheme. Those Indians who retained the "blanket," and hence called "blanket Indians," denounced the measure as a fraud upon their rights. The chase 'was then a God-given right; this scheme forfeited that ancient natural right, as it pointed unmistaka- bly to the destruction of the chase.

But to the friends of Indian races, the course inaugurated seemed to be, step by step, lifting these rude children of the plains to a higher level. This scheme, however, was to a great degree thwarted by the helpless condition of the "blanket Indians" during a great portion of the year, and their persistent determination to remain followers of the chase, and a desire to continue on the war- path.

When the chase fails, the "blanket Indians" re- sort to their relatives, the farmers, pitch their tepees around their houses, and then commence the process of eating them out of house and home. When the ruin is complete, the farmer Indians, driven by the law of self-preservation, with their wives and children, leave their homes to seek such subsistence as the uncertain fortunes of the chase may yield.

In the absence of the family from the house and fields, thus deserted, the wandering "blanket In- dians" commit whatever destruction of fences or tenements their desires or necessities may suggest. This perennial process goes on; so that in the spring when the disheartened farmer Indian re- turns to his desolate home, to prepare again for another crop, he looks forward with no different results for the coming winter.

It will be seen, from this one illustration, drawn from the actual results of the civilizing process, how hopeless was the prospect of elevating one class of related savages without at the same time protecting them from the incursions of their own relatives, against whom the class attempted to be favored, had no redress. In this attempt to civil- ize these Dakota Indians the forty years, less or more, of missionary and other efforts have been measurably lost, and the money spent in that di- rection, if not wasted, sadly misapplied.

The treaty of 1858 had opened for settlement a vast frontier country of the most attractive char- acter, in the Valley of the Minnesota, and the streams putting into the Minnesota, on either side, such as Beaver creek, Sacred Heart, Hawk and Chippewa rivers and some other small streams, were flourishing settlements of white families. Within this ceded tract, ten miles wide, were the scattered settlements of Birch Coolie, Patterson Rapids, on the Sacred Heart, and others as far up as the Upper Agency at Yellow Medicine, in Ren- ville county. The county of Brown adjoined the reservation, and was, at the time of which we are now writing, settled mostly by Germans. In this county was the flourishing town of New Ulm, and a thriving settlement on the Big Cottonwood and Watonwan, consisting of German and American pioneers, who had selected this lovely and fertile valley for their future homes.

Other counties, Blue Earth, Nicollet, Sibley, Meeker, McLeod, Kandiyohi, Monongalia and Murray, were all situated in the finest portions of the state. Some of the valleys along the streams, such as Butternut valley and others of similar character, were lovely as Wyoming and as fertile as the Garden of Eden. These counties, with others somewhat removed from the direct attack of the Indians in the massacre, as Wright, Stearns and Jackson, and even reaching on the north to Fort Abercrombie, thus extending from Iowa to the Valley of the Red River of the North, were severally involved in the consequences of the war-

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HISTORY OF THIE SIOUX MASSACRE.

fare of 1862. This extended area had at the time a population of over fifty thousand people, princi- pally in the pursuit of agriculture; and although the settlements were in their infancy, the people were happy and contented, and as prosperous as any similar community in any new country on the American continent, since the landing of the Pil- grim Fathers.

We have in short, traced the Dakota tribes of Minnesota from an early day, when the white man first visited and explored these then unknown re- gions, to the time of the massacre. We have also given a synopsis of all the most important treaties between them and the government, with an allu- sion to the country adjacent to the reservations, and the probable number of people residing in the portions of the state ravaged by the savages.

CHAPTER XXXI.

COMPLAINTS OF THE INDIANS-TREATIES OF TRA- VERSE DES SIOUX AND MENDOTA-OBJECTIONS TO THE MODE OF PAYMENT-INKPADUTA MASSACRE AT SPIRIT LAKE-PROOF OF CONSPIRACY -- IN- DIAN COUNCILS.

In a former chapter the reader has had some account of the location of the several bands of

Sioux Indians in Minnesota, and their relation to the white settlements on the western border of the state. It is now proposed to state in brief some of the antecedents of the massacre.

PROMINENT CAUSES.

1. By the treaty of Traverse des Sioux, dated July 23, 1851, between the United States and the Sissetons and Wapatons, $275,000 were to be paid their chiefs, and a further sum of $30,000 was to be expended for their benefit in Indian improve- ments. By the treaty of Mendota, dated August 5, 1851, the Medawakantons and Wapakutas were to receive the sum of $200,000, to be paid to their chief, and for an improvement fund the further sum of $30,000. These several sums, amounting in the aggregate to $555,000, these Indians, to whom they were payable, claim they were never paid, except, perhaps, a small portion expended in improvements on the reservations. They became dissatisfied, and expressed their views in council freely with the agent of the government.

In 1857, the Indian department at Washington sent out Major Kintzing Prichette, a man of great experience, to inquire into the cause of this disaf-

fection towards the government. In his report of that year, made to the Indian department, Major Prichette says:

"The complaint which runs through all their coun- cils points to the imperfect performance, or non-ful- fillment of treaty stipulations. Whether these were well or ill founded, it is not my promise to discuss. That such a belief prevails among them, impairing their confidence and good faith in the government, cannot be questioned."

In one of these councils Jagmani said: "The Indians sold their lands at Traverse des Sioux. I say what we were told. For fifty years they were to be paid $50,000 per annum. We were also promised $300,000, and that we have not seen."

Mapipa Wicasta (Cloud Man), second chief of Jagmani's band, said:

"At the treaty of Traverse des Sioux, $275,000 were to be paid them when they came upon their reservation; they desired to know what had be- come of it. Every white man knows that they have been five years upon their reservation, and have yet heard nothing of it."

In this abridged form we can only refer in brief to these complaints; but the history would seem to lack completeness without the presentation of this feature. As the fact of the dissatisfaction ex- isted, the government thought it worth while to appoint Judge Young to investigate the charges made against the governor, of the then Minnesota territory, then acting, ex-officio, as superintendent of Indian affairs for that locality. Some short extracts from Judge Young's report are here pre- sented :

"The governor is next charged with having paid over the greater part of the money, appropriated under the fourth article of the treaty of July 23 and August 5, 1851, to one Hugh Tyler, for pay- ment or distribution to the 'traders' and 'half- breeds,' contrary to the wishes and remonstrances of the Indians, and in violation of law and the stipulations contained in said treaties; and also in violation of his own solemn pledges, personally made to them, in regard to said payments.

"Of $275,000 stipulated to be paid under the first clause of the fourth article of the treaty of Traverse des Sioux, of July 24, 1851, the sum of $250,000, was delivered over to Hugh Tyler, by the governor, for distribution omong the 'traders' and 'half-breeds,' according to the arrangement made by the schedule of the Traders' Paper, dated at Traverse des Sioux, July 23, 1851."

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CAUSES OF IRRITATION.

"For this large sum of money, Hugh Tyler ex- ecuted two receipts to the Governor, as the attor- ney for the 'traders' and 'half breeds;' the one for $210,000 on account of the 'traders,' and the other for $40,000 on account of the 'half-breeds;' the first dated at St. Paul, December 8, 1852, and the second at Mendota, December 11, 1852."

"And of the sum of $110,000, stipulated to be paid to the Medawakantons, under the fourth ar- ticle of the treaty of August 5, 1851, the sum of $70,000 was in like manner paid over to the said Tyler, on a power of attorney executed to him by the traders and claimants, under the said treaty, on December 11, 1852. The receipts of the said Tyler to the Governor for this money, $70,000, is dated at St. Paul, December 13, 1852, making to- gether the sum of $320,000. This has been shown to have been contrary to the wishes and remon- strances of a large majority of the Indians." And Judge Young adds: "It is also believed to be in violation of the treaty stipulations, as well as the law making the appropriations under them."

These several sums of money were to be paid to these Indians in open council, and soon after they were on their reservations provided for them by the treaties. In these matters the report shows they were not consulted at all, in open council; but on the contrary, that arbitrary divisions and distributions were made of the entire fund, and their right denied to direct the manner in which they should be appropriated. See Acts of Con- gress, August 30, 1852.

The Indians claimed, also, that the third section of the act was violated, as by that section the ap- propriations therein referred to, should, in every instance, be paid directly to the Indians them- selves, to whom it should be due, or to the tribe, or part of the tribe, per capita, " unless otherwise the imperious interest of the Indians or some treaty stipulation should require the payment to be made otherwise, under the direction of the president." This money was never so paid. The report further states that a large sum, "$55,000, was deducted by Hugh Tyler by way of discount and percentage on gross amount of payments, and that these exactions were made both from tra- ders and half-breeds, without any previous agree- ment, in many instances, and in such a way, in some, as to make the impression that unless they were submitted to, no payments would be made to * such claimants at all."

And, finally the report says, that from the testi-

mony it was evident that the money was not paid to the chiefs, either to the Sisseton, Wapaton, or Medawakanton bands, as they in open council re- quested; but that they were compelled to submit to this mode of payment to the traders, otherwise no payment would be made, and the money would be returned to Washington; so that in violation of law they were compelled to comply with the Gov- ernor's terms of payment, according to Hugh Ty- ler's power of attorney.

The examination of this complaint, on the part of the Indians, by the Senate of the United States, resulted in exculpating the Governor of Minnesota (Governor Ramsey ) from any censure, yet the In- dians were not satisfied with the treatment they had received in this matter by the accredited agents of the Government.

2. Another cause of irritation among these In- dians arose out of the massacre of 1857, at Spirit Lake, known as the Inkpaduta massacre. Inkpa- duta was an outlaw of the Wapakuta band of Sioux Indians, and his acts in the murders at Spirit Lake were entirely disclaimed by the "annu- ity Sioux.". He had slain Tasagi, a Wapakuta chief, and several of his relatives, some twenty years previous, and had thereafter led a wandering and marauding life about the head waters of the Des Moines river.

Inkpaduta was connected with several of the bands of annuity Sioux Indians, and similar rela- tions with other bands existed among his followers. These ties extended even to the Yanktons west of the James river, and even over the Missouri. He was himself an outlaw for the murder of Tasagi and others as stated, and followed a predatory and lawless life in the neighborhood of his related tribes, for which the Sioux were themselves blamed.

The depredations of these Indians becoming in- sufferable, and the settlers finding themselves suf- ficiently strong, deprived them of their guns and drove them from the neighborhood. Recovering some of their guns, or, by other accounts, digging up a few old ones which they had buried, they proceeded to the settlement of Spirit Lake and demanded food. This appears to have been given to a portion of the band which had first arrived, to the extent of the means of those applied to. Soon after, Inkpaduta, with the remainder of his followers, who, in all, numbered twelve men and two boys, with some women who had lingered be- hind, came in and demanded food also. The set- tler gave him to understand that he had no more

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HISTORY OF THE SIOUX MASSACRE.

to give; whereupon Inkpaduta spoke to his eldest son to the effect that it was disgraceful to ask these people for food which they ought to take themselves, and not to have it thrown to them like dogs. Thus assured, the son immediately shot the man, and the murder of the whole family fol- lowed. From thence they proceeded from house to house, until every family in the settlement, without warning of those previously slain, were all massacred, except four women, whom they bore away prisoners, and afterward violated, with cir- cumstances of brutality so abhorrent as to find no parallel in the annals of savage barbarity, unless we except the massacre of 1862, which occurred a few years later.

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History of Fillmore County, Including the Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota, Part 31

Author: Edward D. Neill Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: Edward D. Neill
Publication date: 1882
Publisher:
Number of Pages: