History of Freeborn County, Minnesota, Part 3

Author: Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn. 4n
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Chicago : H. C. Cooper
Number of Pages: 1220

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From prehistoric days up to the time of the treaty signed at Mendota, August 5, 1851. ratified and amended by the United States senate, June 23, 1852; accepted with amendments by the Indians, September 4 and 6, 1852, and proclaimed by President Filmore, February 24, 1853, the territory embraced in Freeborn county remained in the undisputed possession of the Indians, being used as a hunting ground by the Sioux Indians, but also being visited by other redmen. Before this treaty, however, sev- eral agreements were made between the Indians of this vicinity and the United States government, regarding mutual relations and the ceding of lands.

Visit to Washington. In the spring of 1824 the first delega- tion of Sioux Indians went to Washington to see their "Great Father," the president. A delegation of Chippewas accompanied, and both were in charge of Major Taliaferro. Wabasha, then properly called Wa-pa-ha-sha, the head chief of the band at Winona; and Little Crow, head of the Kaposia band; and Wah- natah, were the principal members of the Sioux delegation. The object of the visit was to secure a convocation of all of the upper Mississippi Indians at Prairie due Chien to define the boundary line of the lands claimed by the separate tribes and to establish general and permanent friendly relations among them. The party went in keel boats from Fort Snelling to Prairie du Chien, and from there to Pittsburg by steamboat, thence to Washington and other eastern cities by land.

Prairie du Chien Treaty of 1825. The treaty of Prairie du Chien, signed in 1825, was important to the Indians of this vicin- ity, in that it fixed certain boundaries between the Sioux and other Indians. The boundary lines were certainly, in some

HISTORY OF FREEBORN COUNTY

respects, quite indefinite, and whether this was the trouble or not, in any event, it was but a few months after the treaty when it was evident that none of the Indians who were concerned were willing to be governed by the lines established-and hardly by any others. The first article of the treaty provided : "There shall be a firm and perpetual peace between the Sioux and the Chippewas; between the Sioux and the confederated tribes of Sacs and Foxes; and between the 'Toways' and the Sioux." But this provision was more honored in the breach than the observ- ance, and in a little time the tribes named were flying at one another's throats and engaged in their old-time hostilities. On the part of the Sioux this treaty was signed by Chiefs Wabasha, Little Crow, Standing Buffalo, Sleepy Eye, Two Faces, Tah-sah- ghee, or "His Cane;" Black Dog, Wah-ah-na-tah, or "The Charger ;" Red Wing Shakopee, Penishon and Eagle Head, and also by a number of head soldiers and "principal men." The Chippewa signers were Shingauba Wassa, Gitche Gaubow. Wis Coup, or "Sugar, " and a number of sub-chiefs and principal men.

Second Treaty of Prairie du Chien. In 1830, the second treaty with the northwest Indian tribes was signed at Prairie du Chien. A few weeks previous to the convocation, which was begun July 15. a party of Wabasha's band of Sioux, and some Menominees. ambushed a party of Fox Indians some twelve or fifteen miles below Prairie du Chien and killed eight of them, including a sub- chief called the Kettle.

The Foxes had their village near Dubuque, and were on their way to Prairie du Chien to visit the Indian agent, whom they had apprised of their coming. They were in canoes on the Mis- sissippi, and as they reached the lower end of Prairie du Pier- reaux, they paddled up a narrow channel which ran near the eastern shore. At this point their concealed enemies opened fire. The Foxes returned to their village. bearing their dead, while the Sioux and Menominees went home and danced over their victory. A few weeks previous the Foxes had killed some of Wabasha's band on the Red Cedar river in Iowa. a few miles southeast of Freeborn county, and the Sioux claimed that their part in the Prairie du Pierreaux was taken in retaliation for the Red Cedar affair. In June of the following year, a large number of Menominees were camped on an island in the Mississippi. less than half a mile from Fort Crawford and Prairie du Chien. One night they were all intoxicated-men, women and children- when two hours before daylight the Dubuque Foxes took dread- ful reprisal for the killing of their brethren at Prairie du Pier- reaux. Though but a small band. they crept into the Menominee encampment, fell upon the inmates, and in a few minutes put numbers of them to the gun, tomahawk and the scalping knife.

HISTORY OF FREEBORN COUNTY

Thirty Menominees were killed. When the entire Menominee band had been aroused, the Foxes, without having lost a man, retired, calling out in great exultation that the cowardly killing of their comrades at Prairie du Pierreaux had been avenged.

Because of the Prairie du Pierreaux affair, the Foxes at first refused to be present at the second treaty of Prairie du Chien, but finally came. Delegates were present from four bands of the Sioux, the Medawakantons, the Wapakootas, the Wahpatons and the Sissetons, and also from the Sacs, the Foxes and Iowas, and even from the Omahas, Otoes and Missouris, the homes of the last three tribes being on the Missouri river. At this treaty the Indian tribes represented ceded all of the claims to the land in western Iowa, northwestern Missouri, and especially the coun- try of the Des Moines river valley. The lower bands had a spe- cial article inserted in the treaty for the benefit of their half- blood relatives :

"The Sioux bands in council have earnestly solicited that they might have permission to bestow upon the half-breeds of their nation the tract of land within the following limits, to-wit: Be- ginning at a place called the Barn, below and near the village of the Red Wing chief, and running back fifteen miles; thence, in a parallel line, with Lake Pepin and the Mississippi river about thirty-two miles, to a point opposite Beef, or O'Boeuf, river, thence fifteen miles to the Grand Encampment, opposite the river aforesaid, the United States agree to suffer said half-breeds to occupy said tract of country, they holding the same title, and in the same manner that other Indian titles are held."

Certificates or "scrip" were issued to many half-breeds, and there was much speculation in them, and litigation over them, in subsequent years, a matter of which will be treated later in this history. The Sioux also ceded a tract of land twenty miles wide along the northern boundary of Iowa from the Mississippi to the Des Moines, the consideration for which was $2,000 in cash and $12,000 in merchandise. Thus it will be seen that as early as 1830 the Indians relinquished their title to the land just south of Freeborn county. The strip in question was for many years known as the "Neutral Land."

The Doty Treaty. The Doty treaty, made at Traverse des Sioux (St. Peter), in July, 1841, failed to be ratified by the United States senate. This treaty embodied a Utopian dream that a ter- ritory of Indians could be established, in which the redmen would- reside on farms and in villages, living their lives after the style of the whites, having a constitutional form of government, with a legislature of their own people elected by themselves, the gov- ernor to be appointed by the president of the United States, much along the plan long followed with the Cherokees in the Indian ter-

HISTORY OF FREEBORN COUNTY

ritory, except that it embodied for the Indians a much higher type of citizenship than is found in the Indian territory. The Indians were to be taught the arts of peace, to be paid annuities, and to be protected by the armies of the United States from their Indian enemies on the west. In return for these benefits to be conferred upon the Indians, the United States was to receive all the lands in what is now Minnesota, the Dakotas and north- western Iowa. This ceded land was not to be opened to the settle- ment of the whites, and the plan was to have some of it reserved for Indian tribes from other parts of the country who should sell their lands to the United States, and who, in being moved here, were to enjoy all the privileges which had been so beautifully planned for the native Indians. But no one can tell what would have been the result of this experiment, for the senate, for politi- cal reasons, refused to ratify the treaty, and it failed of going into effect. This treaty was signed by the Sisseton, Wahpaton and Wahpakoota bands at Traverse des Sioux, July 31, 1841, and by the Medawakanton bands at Mendota, August 11 of the same year.

Treaty of Traverse des Sioux. In the spring of 1851 Presi- dent Fillmore appointed Governor Alexander Ramsey and Luke Lea as commissioners to open negotiations with the Indians for the purpose of opening to settlement what is now the greater part of Minnesota. The conference was held at Traverse des Sioux (now St. Peter), between the chiefs and head men of the Sisseton and Wahpaton, or Upper Bands, as they were called, and the two commissioners. The Indians were accompanied by their families, and many prominent pioneers were also present. The meeting was held under a brush arbor erected by Alexis Bailly, and one of the incidents of the proceedings was the mar- riage of two mixed blood people, David Faribault and Nancy Winona McClure, the former the son of Jean Baptist Faribault, and the latter of Lieut. James McClure. The treaty was signed July 22, 1851, and provided that the upper bands should cede to the United States all their land in Iowa as well as their lands east of a line from the Red river to Lake Traverse and thence to the northwestern corner of Iowa.

Treaty of Mendota. From July 29, 1851, to August 5, Men- dota was the scene of the conference which opened Freeborn and surrounding counties to white settlement. The chiefs and head men of the lower bands were thoroughly familiar with the proceedings of the Indians and the representatives of the United States at Traverse des Sioux and all were on hand that bright August day, waiting for the negotiations to open at Mendota. The first session was held in the warehouse of the Fur Company at that place, but the Indians found the atmosphere stifling, and

HISTORY OF FREEBORN COUNTY

not in accord with their usal method of outdoor councils, so the consideration of the treaty was taken up under a large brush arbor, erected by Alexis Bailly, on an elevated plain near the high prominence known as Pilot Knob. Dr. Thomas Foster was secre- tary for Commissioners Lea and Ramsey; the interpreters were Alexander Faribault, Philander Prescott and Rev. G. H. Pond; the white witnesses were David Olmsted, W. C. Henderson, Alexis Bailly, Richard Chute, Henry Jackson, A. L. Carpenter, W. H. Randall, A. S. H. White, H. L. Dousman, Fred C. Sibley, Martin McLeod, George N. Faribault and Joseph A. Wheelock. After much deliberation and many disagreements, the treaty was signed August 5, 1851. Little Crow was the first signer. To the treaty Little Crow signed his original name, Tah O-ya-te Doota, meaning His Red Nation. Wabasha was the next to sign, making his mark. Then the other chiefs, head soldiers and principal warriors crowded around to affix their marks. In all, there were sixty- five Indian signatures.

At Mendota, as at Traverse des Sioux, when the treaty was concluded, each Indian signer stepped to another table where lay another paper which he signed. This was called the traders' paper, and was an agreement to pay the "just debts," so called, of the Indians, including those present and absent, alive and dead, owing to the traders and the trading company. Some of the accounts were nearly thirty years old, and the Indians who had contracted them were dead, but the bands willingly assumed the indebtedness and agreed that it might be discharged out of the first money paid them. The territory ceded by the two treaties was declared to be: "All their lands in the state of Iowa, and also all their lands in the territory of Minnesota lying east of the following line, to-wit: Beginning at the junction of Buffalo river with the Red River of the North (about twelve miles north of Morehead, at Georgetown station, in Clay county), thence along the western bank of said Red River of the North, to the mouth of the Sioux Wood river; thence along the western bank of said Sioux Wood river to Lake Traverse; thence along the western shore of said lake to the southern extremity thereof; thence, in a direct line, to the juncture of Kampeska lake with the Tehan-Ka-Sna-Duka, or Sioux river; thence along the west- ern bank of said river to its point of intersection with the north- ern line of the state of Iowa, including all islands in said rivers and lakes."

The lower bands were to receive $1,410,000, to be paid in the manner and form following: For settling debts and removing themselves to the new reservation, $220,000, one-half to the Meda- wakanton bands, and one-half to the single Wahpakoota band; for schools, mills and opening farms, $30,000. Of the principal of

HISTORY OF FREEBORN COUNTY

$1,410,000, the sum of $30,000 in cash was to be distributed among the two bands as soon as the treaty was ratified, and $28,000 was to be expended annually, under the president's direction, as follows: To a civilization fund, $12,000; to an educational fund, $6,000; for goods and provisions, $10,000. The balance of the principal, or $1,160,000, was to remain in trust with the United States at 5 per cent interest, to be paid annually. to the Indians for fifty years, commencing July 1, 1852. The $58,000 annuity interest was to be expended as the first installment-$30,000 in cash, $12,000 for civilization, $6.000 for education, and $10,000 for goods and provisions. The back annuities under the treaty of 1837 remaining unexpired were also to be paid annually. Their reservation was to extend from the mouth of the Yellow Medicine and Hawk creek southeasterly to the mouth of Rock creek, a tract twenty miles wide and about forty-five miles in length. The half-breeds of the Sioux were to receive in cash $150,000 in lieu of lands allowed them under the Prairie du Chien treaty of 1830, but which they had failed to claim.

The written copies of the Traverse des Sioux and the Mendota treaties, duly signed and attested, were forwarded to Washington to be acted upon by the senate at the ensuing session of congress. An unreasonably long delay resulted. Final action was not had until the following summer, when. on July 23, the senate ratified both treaties with important amendments. The provisions for res- ervations for both the upper and lower bands were stricken out, and substitutes adopted, agreeing to pay ten cents an acre for both reservations, and authorizing the president, with the assent of the Indians, to cause to be set apart other reservations, which were to be within the limits of the original great cession. The provision to pay $150,000 to the half-bloods of the lower bands was also stricken out. The treaties, with the changes, came back to the Indians for final ratification and agreement to the altera- tions. The chiefs of the lower bands at first objected very stren- uously, but finally, on Saturday, September 4, 1852, at Governor Ramsey's residence in St. Paul they signed the amended articles, and the following Monday the chiefs and head men of the upper bands affixed their marks. As amended, the treaties were pro- claimed by President Fillmore, February 24, 1853. The Indians were allowed to remain in their old villages, or, if they preferred, to occupy their reservations as originally designated, until the president selected their new homes. That selection was never made, and the original reservations were finally allowed them. The removal of the lower Indians to their designated reservation began in 1853, but was intermittent, interrupted, and extended over a period of several years. The Indians went up in detach- ments, as they felt inclined. After living on the reservation for

HISTORY OF FREEBORN COUNTY

a time, some of them returned to their old hunting grounds, where they lived continuously for some time, visiting their reser- vation and agency only at the time of the payment of their annuities. Finally, by the offer of cabins to live in, or other sub- stantial inducements, nearly all of them were induced to settle on the Redwood Reserve, so that in 1862, at the time of the out- break, less than twenty families of the Medawakantons and Wah- pakootas were living off their reservation. With the subsequent history of these Indians this volume will not deal in detail; the purpose of treating with the Indians thus far in this chapter having been to show the various negotiations by which Freeborn county and the surrounding territory came into the possession of the whites and was thus opened for settlement and development.

It should be stated in this connection that the Medawakanton Sioux, generally speaking, had their villages along the west banks of the Mississippi, within the present limits of the state of Minne- sota, while the Wahpakoota Sioux had their headquarters around the headwaters of the Blue Earth and Cannon rivers, both within easy marching distance of their hunting grounds in Freeborn county.

Under "Anecdotes and Incidents" in this book will be found a discussion of the lines of the "Neutral Territory."

CHAPTER IV.

GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY.

Early Claims of Title-Spain, France and England-Treaties and Agreements - The Louisiana Purchase-Indiana-Louisiana District - Louisiana Territory -- Missouri Territory - North- west Territory-Illinois Territory-Michigan Territory-Wis- consin Territory-Iowa Territory-No Man's Land-Sibley in Congress-Minnesota Territory-Minnesota State,

The history of the early government of what is now southern Minnesota is formulated with some difficulty, as, prior to the nineteenth century, the interior of the country was so little known and the maps upon which claims and grants were founded were so meagre, as well as incorrect and unreliable that descriptions of boundaries and locations as given in the early treaties are vague in the extreme. and very difficult of identification with present-day lines and locations.

The Hon. J. V. Brower, a scholarly authority upon this sub- ject, says-("The Mississippi River and Its Sources") : "Spain, by virtue of the discoveries of Columbus and others, confirmed to her by papal grant (that of Alexander VI, May 4, 1493), may be said to have been the first European owner of the entire valley of the Mississippi, but she never used this claim as a ground for taking formal possession of this part of her domains other than incidentally involved in De Soto's doings. The feeble objections which she made in the next two centuries after the discovery to other nations exploring and settling North America were success- fully overcome by the force of accomplished facts. The name of Florida, now so limited in its application, was first applied by the Spaniards to the greater part of the eastern half of North Amer- ica, commencing at the Gulf of Mexico and proceeding northward indefinitely. This expansiveness of geographical view was par- alleled later by the definition of a New France of still greater extent, which practically included all the continent.

"L'Escarbot, in his history of New France, written in 1617. says, in reference to this : 'Thus our Canada has for its limits on the west side all the lands as far as the sea called the Pacific, on this side of the Tropic of Cancer; on the south the islands of the Atlantic sea in the direction of Cuba and the Spanish land; on the east the northern sea which bathes New France; and on the

OLD LOG CABIN

HISTORY OF FREEBORN COUNTY

north the land said to be unknown, toward the icy sea as far as the arctic pole.'

"Judging also by the various grants to individuals, noble and otherwise, and 'companies,' which gave away the country in lati- tudinal strips extending from the Atlantic westward, the English were not far behind the Spaniards and French in this kind of effrontery. As English colonists never settled on the Mississippi in pursuance of such grants, and never performed any acts of authority there, such shadowy sovereignties may be disregarded here, in spite of the fact that it was considered necessary, many years later, for various states concerned to convey to the United States their rights to territory which they never actually ruled over.

"Thus, in the most arbitrary manner, did the Mississippi river, though yet unknown, become the property, successively, of the Iberian, Gaulish and Anglo-Saxon races-of three peoples who, in later times, by diplomacy and force of arms, struggled for an actual occupancy. Practically, however, the upper Mississippi valley may be considered as having been in the first place Canadian soil, for it was Frenchmen from Canada who first vis- ited it and traded with its various native inhabitants. The fur- ther prosecution of his discoveries by La Salle, in 1682, extended Canada as a French possession to the Gulf of Mexico, though he did not use the name of Canada nor yet that of New France. He preferred to call the entire country watered by the Missis- sippi river and its tributaries, from its uttermost source to its mouth, by the new name he had already invented for the pur- pose-Louisiana. The name of Canada and New France had been indifferently used to express about the same extent of ter- ritory, but the name of Louisiana now came to supersede them in being applied to the conjectural regions of the West. Although La Salle has applied the latter expression to the entire valley of the Mississippi, it was not generally used in that sense after his time; the upper part of the region was called Canada, and the lower Louisiana; but the actual dividing line between the two provinces was not absolutely established, and their names and boundaries were variously indicated on published maps. Speaking generally, the Canada of the eighteenth century in- cluded the Great Lakes and the country drained by their tribu- taries ; the northern one-fourth of the present state of Illinois- that is, as much as lies north of the mouth of the Rock river; all the regions lying north of the northern watershed of the Mis- souri, and finally the valley of the upper Missouri itself." This would include Freeborn county.

But it is now necessary to go back two centuries previous and consider the various explorations of the Mississippi upon

HISTORY OF FREEBORN COUNTY

which were based the claims of the European monarchs. Pos- sibly the mouth of the Mississippi had been reached by Span- iards previous to 1541, possibly Hibernian missionaries as early as the middle of the sixth century, or Welch emigrants (Madoc), about 1170, discovered North America by way of the Gulf of Mexico, but historians give to Hernando de Soto and his band of adventurers the credit of having been the first white men to actually view the Mississippi on its course through the interior of the continent and of being the first ones to actually traverse its waters. De Soto sighted the Mississippi in May, 1541, at the head of an expedition in search of gold and precious stones. In the following spring, weary with hope long deferred, and worn out with his adventures, De Soto fell a victim to disease, and died May 21, 1541. His followers, greatly reduced in number by sickness, after wandering about in a vain searching, built three small vessels and descended to the mouth of the Mississippi, being the first white men to reach the outlet of that great river from the interior. However, they were too weary and discour- aged to lay claim to the country, and took no notes of the region through which they passed.

In 1554, James Cartier, a Frenchman, discovered the St. Lawrence, and explored it as far as the present site of Quebec. The next year he ascended the river to Mont Real, the lofty hill for which Montreal was named. Thereafter all the country drained by the St. Lawrence was claimed by the French. Many years later the King of France granted the "basin of the St. Lawrence and all the rivers flowing through it to the sea," to a company, whose leader was Champlain, the founder of Quebec, which became the capital of New France, whose then unex- plored territory stretched westward to well within the bounda- ries of what is now Minnesota. In 1613-15 Champlain explored the Ottawa river, and the Georgian bay to Lake Huron, and missions were established in the Huron country. Missionaries and fur traders were the most active explorers of the new pos- sessions. They followed the shores of the Great Lakes and then penetrated further and further into the wilderness. As they went they tried to make friends of the red men. established trading posts and raised the Christian cross. In 1641 Jogues and Raymbault, Jesuits, after a long and perilous voyage in frail canoes and bateaux, reached the Sault Ste. Marie, where they heard of a large river, the Mich-is-ip-e, flowing southward to the sea, and of a powerful Indian tribe dwelling near its head- waters. Stories of vast fertile plains, of numberless streams, of herds of buffalo, and of many people, in regions far to the west and south, roused missionaries and traders anew, and the voyages and trips of the explorers became more frequent.

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History of Freeborn County, Minnesota, Part 3

Author: Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn. 4n Publication date: 1911 Publisher: Chicago : H. C. Cooper Number of Pages: 1220

Author: Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn. 4n
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Chicago : H. C. Cooper
Number of Pages: 1220