The history of Redwood County, Minnesota, Volume I, Part 11

Author: Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn. 4n
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Chicago, H. C. Cooper, jr.
Number of Pages: 658

USA > Minnesota > Redwood County > The history of Redwood County, Minnesota, Volume I > Part 11

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Dr. Williamson was accompanied by his wife and child, Alex- ander G. Huggins and family, and Sarah Poage, a sister of Mrs. Williamson.

In 1852 another mission was established a few miles above the

. mouth of the Yellow Medicine river. In the summer of 1854, a

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

new section, New Hope (Hazelwood) was built two miles from the Yellow Medicine station.

These mission stations brought to the region of Redwood county nearly all the early Protestant missionaries of Minnesota.

Chronology. Following is a summary of the history of Minne- sota during the period of exploration :

1635. Jean Nicollet, an explorer from France, who had win- tered in the neighborhood of Green Bay, brought to Montreal the first mention of the aborigines of Minnesota.

1659-60. Grosseilliers and Radisson wintered among the Sioux of the Mille Lacs region, Minnesota, being its first white explorers. In a previous expedition, four years earlier, they are thought by some to have come to Prairie island, west of the main channel of the Mississippi, between Red Wing and Hastings.

1661. Father Rene Menard left Kewennaw, on Lake Supe- rior, to visit the Hurons, then in northern Wisconsin, and was lost near the sources of the Black and Chippewa rivers. His breviary and cassock were said to have been found among the Sioux.

1679. July 2, Daniel Greyselon Du Lhut (Duluth) held a council with the Sioux at their principal settlement on the shore of Mille Lacs. Du Lhut, in June, 1680, by way of the St. Croix river, reached the Mississippi and met Hennepin.

1680. Louis Hennepin, after captivity in the village of the Mille Lacs Sioux, first saw the Falls of St. Anthony.

1689. May 8, Nicolas Perrot, at his Fort St. Antoine, on the Wisconsin shore of Lake Pepin, laid formal claim to the sur- rounding country for France. He built a fort also on the Minne- sota shore of this lake, near its outlet, as well as other posts.

1690. (?) Le Sueur and Charleville ascended the Mississippi above St. Anthony falls.

1695. Le Sueur built a fort or trading post on Isle Pelee, now called Prairie island, above Lake Pepin.

1700. Le Sueur established Fort L'Huillier, on the Blue Earth river (near the mouth of the Le Sueur), and first supplied the Sioux with firearms.

1727. The French established a fort on the present site of Frontenac on Lake Pepin. Forts were also erected on nearly the same site in 1727 and 1750.

1728. Great flood in the Mississippi.

1763. By the treaty of Versailles, France ceded Minnesota, east of the Mississippi, to England, and west of it to Spain.

1766. Captain Jonathan Carver visited St. Anthony falls and Minnesota river. He claimed to have made a treaty with the Indians the following spring, in a cave, afterward called "Carv- er's Cave," within the present limits of St. Paul, at which he said

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

they ceded to him an immense tract of land, long known as "Carver's Claim," but never recognized by government.

1796. Laws of the Ordinance of 1787 extended over the Northwest territory, including the northeastern third of Minne- sota, east of the Mississippi river.

1798-99. The Northwestern Fur Company established itself in Minnesota.

1800. May 7, that part of Minnesota east of the Mississippi became a part of Indiana by the division of Ohio.

1803. April 30, that part of Minnesota west of the Mississippi, for the preceding forty years in possession of Spain as a part of Louisiana, was ceded to the United States by Napoleon Bonaparte, who had just obtained it from Spain.

1803-04. William Morrison, the first known white man to discover the source of the Mississippi river, visited Elk lake and explored the streams entering into the lake forming the head of the river.

1805. Lieut. Z. M. Pike visited Minnesota to establish gov- ernment relations there, and obtained the Fort Snelling reserva- tion from the Dakotas.

1812. The Dakotas, Ojibways and Winnebagoes, under the lead of hostile traders, joined the British during the war. Red river colony established by Lord Selkirk.

1819. Minnesota, east of the Mississippi river, became a part of Crawford county, Michigan. Fort Snelling established and a post at Mendota occupied by troops, under command of Colonel Leavenworth. Maj. L. Taliaferro appointed Indian agent, arriv- ing April 19.

1820. Cornerstone of Fort Snelling laid September 10. Gov- ernor Cass visited Minnesota and made a treaty of peace between the Sioux and Ojibways at Fort Snelling. Col. Josiah Snelling appointed to the command of the latter post.

1823. The first steamboat arrived at Mendota, May 10, Major Taliaferro and Beltrami being passengers. Maj. Stephen H. Long explored Minnesota river, the Red river valley, and the northern frontier. Beltrami explored sources of the Mississippi.

1826. Great flood on the Red river; a part of the colony driven to Minnesota, settling near Fort Snelling.

1832. Schoolcraft explored sources of Mississippi river, and named Lake Itasca (formerly called Elk lake).

1833. First mission established at Leech lake by Rev. W. T. Boutwell.

1834. The portion of Minnesota west of the Mississippi attached to Michigan. Gen. H. H. Sibley settled at Mendota.

1835. Catlin and Featherstonhaugh visited Minnesota.

1836. The territory of Wisconsin organized, embracing the

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

part of Minnesota east of the Mississippi, the part on the west being attached to Iowa. Nicollet visited Minnesota.

1837. Governor Dodge, of Wisconsin, made a treaty, at Fort Snelling, with the Ojibways, by which the latter ceded all their pine lands on the St. Croix and its tributaries; a treaty was also effected at Washington with a deputation of Dakotas for their lands east of the Mississippi. These treaties led the way to the first actual settlements within the area of Minnesota.

Authority. This article has been compiled by the editor from many available sources regarding the early Minnesota explorers. The chronology is from the Minnesota Legislative Manual.

References. "History of Minnesota," by Edward D. Neill.

"Minnesota in Three Centuries," by Warren H. Upham and Return I. Holcombe.

Vol. I, "The Geological and Natural History Survey of Min- nesota," 1872-1882.

"History of Lyon County, Minnesota," by Arthur P. Rose, 1912.

The Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society (fifteen volumes).

See catalogue of the Minnesota Historical Society Library for volumes dealing with the trips of the various explorers.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE LOWER SIOUX AGENCY.

The Sioux Indian Reservation as established by the treaties of 1851, embraced a strip of land, twenty miles wide, ten miles on each side of the Minnesota, extending from the mouth of the Little Rock (Mud creek) a few miles west of New Ulm, to the western boundary of the state. A reservation was divided into the Upper and Lower reservations by a line a few miles west of Redwood county. The strip on the northern side of the river was little used by the Indians, and was by them relinquished in 1858.

The work of removing the Indians of the Mississippi and lower Minnesota river country to the lower reservation was a long and difficult task, and stretched over a period of several years. Ft. Ridgely, a few miles east of Redwood county, was started in 1853, but there were at that time no considerable number of Indians living in the Lower reservation. In 1854, the Lower Redwood agency was established in Sherman township, Redwood county. A building was erected for agency headquar- ters, and in time other structures for the officials, teachers, gov-

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HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

ernment farmers, mechanics, laborers, missionaries, and even for the Indians themselves were erected. Several stores were also put up. In 1855 a sawmill was constructed at the falls within what is now the city of Redwood Falls.

Gradually the Indians settled about the agency, and here, too, gathered quite a colony of white people, and a few half-breeds also settled near by.

The events in the life of the agency, will be related in the following chapter under the head of "Causes of the Outbreak," and in that chapter also will be found the location of the differ- ent tribes.

Splendid communication existed between the Lower agency and the outside world. The ferry connected it with the govern- ment military road to Ft. Ridgely, and from Ft. Ridgely there were roads to St. Peter, and to Henderson, as well as trails to many other pioneer points. From the Lower agency the mili- tary road led to the Upper agency on the Yellow Medicine, while across the river was the road westward from Ft. Ridgely to Ft. Abercrombie. Another road from the Lower agency led south to Col. Nobles' Government Wagon road from Ft. Ridgely to the South Pass of the Rocky mountains. Many boats were plying the Minnesota, bringing both supplies and passengers.

With the building of the Lower agency, the Government un- dertook the difficult task of making white men out of the Indians. The civilization and habits which the white race had acquired through countless generations of development was to be thrust upon a people whom Nature had designated for a wholly different life. The race which had lived on the boundless sweeps, sleeping in God's fresh air, and getting their livelihood by the chase, were to be confined in houses and made to till the soil, while proud warriors at whose command had been the unlimited wealth of river and lake, of forest and stream, of hill and prairie, were to be made into common laborers, splitters of wood, and delvers of the earth.

Many of the white men concerned in this purpose were high minded men of sincere convictions, but many were mere parasites, preying upon the Indian, debauching his womankind, cheating him in trade, and securing his funds and substance through trick- ery and fraud.

In September, 1857, Joseph R. Brown was appointed agent for the Sioux agency, succeeding Charles E. Flandrau. He im- mediately began important reforms and his influence was vastly more powerful than that of all his predecessors in the aggregate. The Indians were nearly all blanketed and wild when Major Brown took charge, but shortly he had influenced scores of them to wear the garb of the white man, to have their hair cut short, to cast their ancient adornments aside and instead to carry hoes

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

or spades or axes in their hands. They began to live in houses, to cook their food on stoves, and to sleep on four-post bedsteads. Numbers of them professed to be Christians. The Indian farming operations, the work of building houses, and the other improve- ments were superintended by white men in the employ of the Government, but in some instances a full-blood Indian was in- structor in farming for the other members of a band; such a character was called a "farmer Indian." Oxen for teams, wagons, plows, and other implements were issued by the Gov- ernment, and distributed among the bands. The annual pay- ments and issues of other supplies were made, for a time, regu- larly, and a skilled physician was in attendance at each agency to minister to the Indians in case of sickness, the medicines be- ing furnished by the Government. The majority of the Indians, however, continued the repose and trust of their faith in the "medicine man" of the olden times.

The change in the administration of the Government in 1861, resulting, as it did, in a general change in the minor offices throughout the country, carried into retirement Major William J. Cullen, superintendent of Indian affairs for the northern super- intendency, and Major Joseph R. Brown, agent for the Sioux, whose places were filled respectively by Colonel Clark W. Thomp- son and Major Thomas J. Galbraith. Colonel Thompson entered upon the duties of his office in May of that year, and Major Gal- braith on the first day of June. In that month the new agent and many of the new employes, with their families, took up their residence on the reservations.

These employes, save a few young men who were employed as laborers, were, with the two exceptions, men of families, it being the policy of the agent to employ among the Indians as few uumarried men as possible.

The new agent endorsed the policy and adopted the methods of his predecessor almost entirely. Especially, did he endeavor to make the Indians self-supporting. Those who were already "farmers" or "breeches Indians," were favored and encouraged in many ways, and those who were still barbaric and blanketed were remonstrated with, and entreated to enter upon the new life.

The autumn of 1861 closed upon the affairs of the farmer- Indians quite unsatisfactorily ; their crops were light-the Upper Sioux raised little or nothing. The cutworms and blackbirds had destroyed or damaged almost all the crops. Under the direction of Missionary Riggs, who lived among them, Agent Galbraith fed one thousand five hundred of the Indians, with supplies bought on credit, from the middle of December, 1861, to April 1, 1862, when they were able to go off on their spring hunt. He also fed and cared for a number of old and infirm Indians, who,

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

but for the assistance of the Government, must have starved during that hard winter of 1861-1862.

The "farmer" Indians were kept at work during the winter, making fence rails, cutting and hauling saw logs to the saw mills at the Upper and Lower agency, and other work, and in payment received regular issues of supplies for themselves and families.

In August, 1861, the agent hired the farmer of the Lower agency to plow 500 acres of fallow land, in what was called the public land, or the land cultivated by the Indians in common. The price of plowing was from $1.50 to $2 per acre. At the same time, 475 acres of similar land were plowed for the Upper Sioux ; later the Lower farmers plowed 250 aeres and the Upper farm- ers.325 acres for their individual use. The plowing was done at this time to kill the eggs of the cutworms. In November, 1861, the fine stone warehouse, the walls of which are still standing, was completed at the Lower agency. At this time there was a good steam sawmill, with a corn grinding mill attached, oper- ated by Government employes, at each of the agencies. In the winter of 1861-62, the Indians delivered at the Redwood saw- mill 650,000 feet of saw logs and 128 cords of shingle blocks, and the Upper mill received from the same class 178,000 feet of logs. The tree tops and other fallen wood from the log timber, was cut into cord wood by the Indians, who were paid $2.55 a cord at the Lower and $1.25 at the Upper agency ; this wood was used for burning brick. The sawmill supplied the carpenter shops with lumber for repairing sheds and wagons, and other imple- ments, and even for building lumber. The "farmer" Indians built stables and pens for their cattle.

In the early winter of 1862, Agent Galbraith had the plans prepared for fifty new dwelling houses for Indian families, the buildings to cost an average of $300 each, and the "farmer" Indians were promised thirty more houses. In March, he pur- chased and had shipped to the reservation 472 plows of various sizes, shovels, seythes, grain cradles and other implements; four farm wagons and forty-five ox carts; for sowing and planting 20 bushels of beans and peas, 285 bushels of corn, thirty bushels of wheat, 3,690 bushels of potatoes and proportionate quantities of turnip, pumpkin and other vegetable seeds. The wheat, corn, and potatoes were purchased from the "farmer" Indians, and paid for in goods and extra provisions from the Government warehouse. A large number of live stock was also furnished for the Indians. In the spring, Major Galbraith purchased in St. Paul a large quantity of builders' hardware, several hundred suits of ready-made clothing, a set of blacksmith's and two sets of carpenter's tools, a great quantity of wooden ware, furniture, etc., and had them shipped to the Lower agency. During the winter, 1861-62, the "farmer" Indians at the Lower agency made

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

18,000 good rails and posts. Over 200,000 brick had been burned in the fall of 1861.

In the spring of 1862, there were planted for and by the Meda- wakantons and Wahpakootas, on the Lower reservation, 1,025 acres of corn, 260 acres of potatoes, 60 acres of turnips and ruta- bages (twelve acres of experimental spring wheat, and large areas of beans, peas, and other field and garden vegetables. These crops were all well cultivated, plowed, hoed and weeded, and when the outbreak came were in much better condition than the fields of many of their white neighbors, only a few miles away.

The amount of transportation over the road from the Lower to the Upper agency was very large, and traversing this road were numerous sloughs, coulies, brooks, and creeks difficult of passage. In the spring and summer of 1862, Agent Galbraith built no less than eighteen substantial and permanent bridges over the water courses on the agency road. The bridges were not all completed until August 1, and were not much used prior to the outbreak, but they were of great service to General Sibley's army, when it invaded the Indian country.

In June, 1862, Agent Galbraith promised to build for Little Crow, a good brick house, with all the then modern improve- ments, if he would aid in bringing around his young men to habits of industry and civilization, and would himself become a "farm- er" Indian. The chief made the required promise of reforma- tion and agreed to do part of the work himself. The site has been marked by a granite tablet, put up by the late Charles D. Gilfillan. A part of the cellar was finished, at the time of the outbreak, in August, 1862.

By the second week in August, 1862, the Indian crops were in fine condition, and everything looked prosperous for a bountiful harvest. The worst trouble was with the crows and blackbirds; vast swarms and flocks of these birds attacked the cornfields. The grains were in the milk or soft stage, and the strong-billed pests could easily tear open the husk and ruin an ear of corn in a few minutes. The Indian women and children went to the cornfields at dawn and remained until night-fall, busily engaged all day in keeping off the little black-feathered creatures. All the Indian cornfields at both agencies were strongly fenced to keep out the stock, which was allowed to graze at large.

On the fifteenth of August the agent made a careful and con- servative estimate of the erops his Indians would harvest that fall. The lowest estimates were that the Lower Sioux would gather and store 25,625 bushels of corn, 32,500 bushels of pota- toes, 13,500 bushels of turnips, 240 bushels of wheat, a large quan- tity of beans, pumpkins, etc. It was believed that all of this great supply would be available for human food, as the Indians had cut and stacked enough prairie hay to winter their stock, and

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

many of them were still at work cutting grass, when the terrible outbreak began.

In 1862, the agency was a flourishing community, assuming almost the aspect of a city. With its warehouse and other Gov- ernment buildings, a nearly completed Episcopal church, some traders' stores, a boarding house, and many dwelling houses, both Indians and of whites. The steep road which had been graded down the bank to the ferry, was constantly thronged with In- dians, half-breeds, government employes, and the German set- tlers, who had located in large numbers just across the river in Renville county.

In the near neighborhood of the agency were the Indian vil- lages of Little Crow, Blue Earth, Traveling Hail, Big Eagle, Yacouta, Wabasha and Hushasha.

The four trading houses at the Redwood agency in 1862 were those of Capt. Louis Robert, William H. Forbes, Nathan Myrick & Co., and Francois La Bathe, the latter a mixed blood Sioux. All of these stood west of the principal agency buildings, La Bathe's coming first, and then Myrick's just east of the big ravine. Across the ravine to the northward, near the crest of the bluff, was Forbes' store, and to the west of Forbes', about 150 yards, was Robert's. Myrick's was the largest in capacity.

Captain Robert was a prominent early settler and trader of Minnesota. One of the principal streets in St. Paul is named in his honor. He was a steamboat owner and captain, and also the owner of many posts and stores. After the massacre, in 1865, he opened the first store in Redwood Falls.

Authorities and References. This article is based upon ma- terial by Return I. Holcombe, appearing in "Minnesota in Three Centuries," and a pamphlet "Monuments and Tablets Erected by the Minnesota Valley Historical Society." Major Holcombe's articles were based upon the report of Major Thomas J. Gal- braith, for 1861-62, upon various published accounts of the massa- ere, upon personal observations of the region, and upon the personal testimony of Indians and whites, who lived at the agency prior to the massacre, or who participated in some of its stirring events.

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

CHAPTER IX.

CAUSES OF THE OUTBREAK.

The Sioux outbreak was the culmination of a long series of injustices toward the Indians on the part of the whites. De- bauched, defrauded, degraded; forced by fear of the strength of the whites, and by misrepresentations, to dispose of their lands; herded together on reservations; treated by the whites as half- witted children, cheated by the traders and starved by the stu- pidity of high officials at Washington, who, in addition to the unfair provisions of unjust treaties, imposed additional condi- tions; the Indians, knowing the revenge that the whites would take for a murder already committed by some renegade braves, arose in their might, and for a time nearly succeeded in regain- ing their hereditary holdings.

The relations of the Sioux Indians to the white trespassers on their lands were of a friendly nature from the time of the arrival of the first white explorer. Adventurers and traders came and went at will. The French, true to their policy, made friends with the Sioux, and the English followed their example. So deep was the friendship existing between the Sioux and the British that they fought side by side in the Revolutionary War and in the War of 1812.

With the people of the United States the Sioux were no less tolerant, and until the great outbreak they remained faithful to the obligations of the treaty they made with Zebulon M. Pike, in 1805, with the exception already mentioned of a short period during the War of 1812, when the Sioux, knowing little of the Americans, and remembering their many obligations to the Eng- lish, took up arms in behalf of the British king. Even during that period Red Wing's band remained loyal to the Stars and Stripes.

There were, of course, isolated cases in which individual Sioux warriors wrought revenge for injuries received, just as there are illegal acts committed in civilized white communities. The despoiling of the French adventurers who, naked and bruised, sought shelter in LeSueur's fort near Mankato in the winter of 1700-01; the murder of Pagonta, "The Mallard Duck," at Men- dota by Ix-ka-tapay in 1761; the murder of the two cattle drovers by a few wild Sisseton near Big Stone lake in 1846; the killing of Elijah S. Terry by men of the same tribe near Pembina in 1852; the shooting in October of the latter year of Mrs. Keener by Zv-yah-se were offenses in which the Sioux as a nation had no part, for which the perpetrators only were responsible. In fact, the Sioux boasted up to the time of the outbreak that never

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

in all history had a white man been injured in the Sioux country with the approval of the Sioux as a people.

Gradually, however, discontent grew up between the Indians and the whites, though an outward friendliness was maintained. The real causes of the final outbreak were the treaties of 1851. The Sioux did not want to give up their land. They desired to live as they had lived through the countless centuries. In sign- ing the treaties which relinquished their lands and condemned themselves to a practical imprisonment on a reservation, the Sioux were bowing to the inevitable.

Probably if the treaties had merely provided for the transfer of their lands to the whites for a certain amount and the amount had been paid, the Indians would have made the best of a bad bargain, and on their reservations they might, as time progressed, have worked out their own problem. But there were many other provisions in the treaties.

By the treaty of Traverse des Sioux, dated July 23, 1851, between the United States and the Sissetons and Wapetons, $275,000 were to be paid their chiefs, and a further sum of $30,- 000 was to be expended for their benefit in Indian improvements. By the treaty of Mendota, dated August 5, 1851, the Medawakan- tons 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 $80,000. Annuities were also to be paid for a certain number of years. The several sums, which were to become payable when the Indians reached their reservations, amounting in the aggre- gate to $555,000, these Indians, to whom they were payable, claimed 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.

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The history of Redwood County, Minnesota, Volume I, Part 11

Author: Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn. 4n Publication date: 1916 Publisher: Chicago, H. C. Cooper, jr. Number of Pages: 658

Author: Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn. 4n
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Chicago, H. C. Cooper, jr.
Number of Pages: 658