USA > Minnesota > Redwood County > The history of Redwood County, Minnesota, Volume I > Part 12
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In 1857, the Indian department at Washington sent out Major Kintzing Prichette, a man of great experience, to inquire into the cause of this disaffection towards the government. In his report of that year, made to the Indian department, Major Prich- ette says :
"The complaint which runs through all their councils points to the imperfect performance, or non-fulfillment of treaty stipu- lations. Whether these were well or ill founded it is not my province 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 $305,000, and that we have not seen." Mapipa Wicasta (Cloud Man), second chief of Jagmani's band, said : " At
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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 become of it. Every white man knows that they have been five years upon their reservation, and have yet heard nothing of it."
When the treatment of the Indians became widely known the government could no longer cover up the matter and decided 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 presented :
"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 payment 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 $375,000 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 among 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," (This was the paper which the Indians declared they were told was merely another copy of the treaty .- Ed.)
"For this large sum of money, Hugh Tyler executed two receipts to the governor, as the attorney 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 Men- dota, December 11, 1852.
"And of the sum of $110,000, stipulated to be paid to the Medawakantons, under the fourth article 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 together the sum of $320,000. This has been shown to have been contrary to the wishes and remonstrances 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 appro- priations 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
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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 Congress, August 30, 1852.)
The Indians claimed, also, that the third section of the act was violated, as by that section the appropriations therein re- ferred to, should, in every instance, be paid directly to the In- dians themselves, to whom it should be due, or to the tribe, or part of the tribe, per capital, "unless otherwise the imperious in- terests 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 traders and half- breeds, without any previous agreement, 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 testimony 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 requested ; 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 Tyler's power of attorney.
The examination of this complaint, on the part of the Indians, by the Senate of the United States, resulted in "whitewashing" the governor of Minnesota (Governor Alexander Ramsey), yet the Indians were not satisfied with the treatment they had received in this matter by the accredited agents of the govern- ment.
Neither were the Indians satisfied with the annual payments. They had desired that they receive the money promptly and in cash. Instead they received part of it in provisions, which gave the whites many opportunities for taking advantages of them, the market value of the provisions never being equal to the amount which was taken out of the Indian fund to pay for them. The Indians rightfully felt that they should be given the money and allowed to do the purchasing themselves.
Then, too, a certain amount of the money due the Indians each year was devoted to a "civilization fund," that is, for agency expenses, erecting agency buildings, paying agents, teach-
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ers, farmers, missionaries and the like, thus making another drain on an already small sum. The Indian could not view with calm- ness the luxury in which the whites were living on money which rightfully belonged to the Indian, while the Indian himself was living in poverty, shut off from the rich sweeps of land where he had formerly received his sustenance and condemned to a man- ner of life and work for which he had no aptitude
The action of the government in regard to the Inkpadoota massacre, so called, added force to the smouldering dissatisfac- tion. The Indians guilty of this tragedy were formerly members of Sioux bands, but their own acts, in many cases murder of com- panions and relatives, had shut them off from their own people, so at the time of the 1857 outrage they were renegades, outlaws, whose crimes against their own kinsmen had been such that the Sioux had driven them forth to wander the prairies like savage wolves, hated alike by Indian and Caucasian.
For many years they were in constant trouble with the whites, their outlaw acts being many and black, though the authorities took no action against them. Sometimes, however, an outraged white settler visited summary punishment on his own account without waiting for the authorities.
Early in March, 1857, Inkpadoota's band of outlaws stole some horses and sleds from some settlers on the Little Sioux river, and on March 8 commenced their awful slaughter on Lake Okoboji, in Dickinson county, Iowa. Spirit lake is connected with this lake by open straits, and though only one man was actually murdered on the banks of Spirit lake the affair is usually called the Spirit lake massacre.
March 26 came the massacre at Springfield, in what is now Brown county, this state. Inkpadoota, whose force consisted of but twelve fighting men, in addition to women and children, was pursued by several companies of soldiers. Many innocent Indians were fired upon and maltreated, but Inkpadoota was not cap- tured.
In June came the time for the annual payments to the Indians at the agency. When the Indians gathered there to receive their money they were told that no payments would be made unless they (the Indians) should go out and capture Inkpadoota. This command was made on the order of Indian Commissioner J. W. Denver.
To the stupidity and stubbornness of this man Denver, Minne- sota owes its Indian massacre of 1862. Wise men in the territory suggested that the people of the territory be allowed to raise a troop of soldiers and go after Inkpadoota, supported by a detach- ment of cavalry. But these men were promptly told by Secretary of War Floyd and Commissioner Denver that no suggestions were
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desired and that the officials at Washington would handle the affair as they saw fit.
Thus the weeks passed while the Indians endured untold suf- ferings of illness and starvation. They saw their wives and chil- dren hunger and sicken and die. The grasshoppers were eating up their garden produce and their corn fields and truck fields were spoiling of neglect while they waited at the agency for the money that a great government owed them. And this great gov- ernment, whose own well-armed and well-equipped troops had failed to capture a small band of twelve men, though at one time only a few miles away from them, demanded that the starving Sioux awaiting their payments arm and equip themselves and capture these outlaws, in whose doings they had no part and no interest.
"Give us our annunities first, so that we can eat, and we will go after Inkpadoota," said many of the Indians. "The treaty I signed at Traverse des Sioux said our money would be paid us regularly, and nothing was said about our having to go out and bring in those who had killed white people. Ne-manka-Ha-yu- sha" (skin your own skunk). Thus spoke Chief Red Iron. Super- intendent Cullen and Agent Flandrau could only reply that they were acting under orders from Commissioner Denver and must obey him. But Cullen's heart was not in the work; he sent an agent, a Mr. Bowes, down to Dunleith, Illinois, then the nearest telegraph station to Minnesota, so that speedy communication could be had with Washington, and he telegraphed Denver, repeatedly urging a repeal, or at least a modification of the obnoxious order, which Cullen and Flandrau were as loth to enforce as the Indians were unwilling to execute. But Denver was obdurate, and Secretary Floyd was haughtily indifferent. At last Cullen and Flandrau appealed to Little Crow to help them. They assured him that their superiors were determined that before the annunities were paid the peaceable Indians must pursue and destroy, or capture, Inkpadoota and all his band. If the Indians persisted in their refusal to do what was required there was the greatest danger of a bloody war between them and the whites, and nobody knew that better than Little Crow. He was asked to set an example by furnishing fifty men from his own bands for the expedition against the outlaws, and to command the expedition himself. "Your band shall first be furnished with abundant supplies," said Major Cullen. The chief at once con- sented, and visited the other chiefs and bands to induce them to join him.
On the eighteenth another council was held relative to the expedition against Inkpadoota. Cullen, Flandrau, Special Agent Pritchette and Major Sherman represented the whites. A num- ber of new bright colored blankets and a fat beef were presented
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to each band for a feast. The Indians decided to undertake the expedition, with Little Crow in command, and no white troops to go.
The next day, Sunday, July 19, the Lower Indians set out to join the Upper Indians at Yellow Medicine, and from that agency on the Wednesday following the entire party marched, Little Crow in command. Major Cullen sent his interpreter, Antoine Joseph Campbell, and three other half-breeds, John and Baptiste Campbell and John Mooers. The entire party numbered over one hundred men-Major Cullen says one hundred and thirty-one; Joe Campbell reported one hundred and six. Major Sherman furnished a wagon laden with provisions, drawn by six mules.
The expedition set out for Skunk lake-now called Madison lake-about forty miles west of the Red Pipestone Quarry, in what is now Lake county, South Dakota. Joe Campbell kept a daily journal of the expedition, and from his itinerary, published with the superintendent's report, it is learned that two days after leaving Yellow Medicine the party reached Joseph Brown's trading post on the head of the Redwood; here Glittering Cloud was elected conductor or guide of the expedition. The next day they encamped at the village of Lean Bear, head soldier of the Sleepy Eye band. Then via the "Hole in the Mountain," and Crooked river, the expedition reached Sunk lake on the afternoon of July 28 and found the outlaws. Meanwhile the outlawed band had quarreled and separated. Inkpadoota and three other war- riors, with a number of women and children, had gone far to the westward. The other eight fighting men, with nine women and thirteen children, had come eastward and encamped at Skunk lake, where there were ducks and fish in abundance. They occu- pied six lodges, which were distributed along the lake shore for three miles. The advance of Little Crow and his party had been discovered, and all the lodges had been deserted, and their inmates had fled to another lake twelve or fifteen miles to the westward, then called by the Indians Big Driftwood lake, and now called Lake Herman. Little Crow had a mounted advance guard of seventeen men led by himself. They overtook the fugi- tives crossing the lake, and after a short parley commenced shooting, firing into and across the lake until the fugitives were far out of range. In all three women, three men and three chil- dren of the Inkpadootas were killed. It was never known or cared whether or not the women and children were killed delib- erately.
Upon the return of Little Crow and his force with the two women prisoners, one of them the widow of Shifting Wind, who had been killed, they were notified that perhaps they had not done enough to secure the payment of their annuities; the author- ities at Washington must decide. Commissioner Denver at first
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ordered that the payment and issue of supplies should be with- held until Little Crow should again go out and scour all the western country until he had destroyed the remainder of Inkpa- doota's band. The representations and protestations of Super- intendent Cullen and of the department's special agent, Major Kintzing Pritchette, could not change the unreasonable and stub- born commissioner. Little Crow and party returned to the agencies August 3. They and their women and children con- tinued to go hungry, as the superintendent said, until about September, when, during Denver's absence from Washington, Acting Commissioner Charles T. Mix directed Superintendent Cullen to make the payment and issue the supplies. Denver's unwise and unjust course was to have its effect five years later.
The treaty of 1858 was not pleasing to the majority of the Indians. It was made at Washington by a few Indians picked by the white men for that purpose, and the braves declared that those who made the treaty had no authority to give away the Indian lands without the consent of the Indians as a whole.
By this treaty the Sioux relinquished their lands north of the Minnesota, and confined their reservation to a strip ten miles wide on the south side of that river.
The treaty also elaborated a scheme for forcing the Indian to the white man's way of living. A civilization fund was pro- vided, to be taken from the annuities, and expended in improve- ments 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 asigned in severalty, eighty acres to each head of a family. On these farms were to be erected out of the annuities the necessary farm buildings and farming implements, and cattle were to be furnished them.
In addition to these so-called 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 rapidly, until the outbreak of 1862, at which time about one hundred and sixty had taken advantage of the provisions of the treaty. A number of farms, some 160, had good, snug brick houses erected upon them. Among these was Little Crow, and many of these farmer Indians belonged to his own band.
The Indians disliked the idea of taking any portion 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 unmistakably to the destruction of the chase.
The treaty of 1858 had opened for settlement a vast frontier country of the most attractive character, in the Valley of the
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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 Renville county. The county of Brown adjoined the reservation, and was, at the time, settled mostly by Germans. In that county was the flourishing town of New Ulm, and a thriving settlement on the Big Cottonwood and Waton- wan, consisting of German and American pioneers, who had selected this lovely and fertile valley for their future homes.
In the spring and summer of 1862 the several Sioux bands of Minnesota who had been parties to the Treaties of 1851 and 1858 had, with a few exceptions, all their villages within the prescribed limits of the reservation. The Yanktons were on the Missouri river, in the region where the city of Yankton, South Dakota, is now located. They never came east of Lac qui Parle. The Sisse- tons were for the most part on the banks of Lake Traverse and Big Stone lake, though some were to the westward. The Wahpa- tons were near the Yellow Medicine, in the region known as the Upper Agency. The Medawakantons and the Wahpakootas, the "Lower Agency Indians," had their bands along the south bank of the Minnesota, stretching from a little east of Yellow Medicine eastward to some four miles below Ft. Ridgely.
The sub-band of Shakopee (Six, commonly called Little Six) was a mile and more west of the mouth of the Redwood river. All about the Lower or Redwood Agency were the other Medawa- kanton sub-bands. The old Kaposia village of Little Crow was on the south side of the Minnesota, a little west of the small stream called Crow's creek, somewhat above the present village of Morton. Near Crow's village was the band of the Great War Eagle, commonly called Big Eagle (Wam-bde-Tonka), and this had been the band of Gray Iron, of Fort Snelling. Below the agency was the sub-band of Wah-pahah-sha (meaning literally Red War Banner), who was commonly called Wabasha, and who was the head chief of the Medawakanton band. Near him was the village of Wacouta (pronounced Wah-koota, and meaning the Shooter), who was now chief of the old Red Wing band. In this vicinity was the band of Traveling Hail, sometimes called Pass- ing Hail (Wa-su-he-yi-ye-dan). Old Cloud Man was alive, but old and feeble, and had turned over the chieftainship to Traveling Hail, formerly of Cloud Man's band of Lake Calhoun; and farther down the Minnesota, but along the crest of the high bluff bank was the band of Mankato, who had succeeded his father, the historie old Good Road, in the chieftainship of one of the prominent old Fort Snelling bands. The Wahpakootas were
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reduced to one band, whose chief was Red Legs (Hu-sha-sha), although Pa-Pay was recognized as one in authority. The Wah- pakoota village was below Mankato's on the same side of the river.
In the spring of 1861 the Republican party came into national power. Major William J. Cullen, the Democratic Indian super- intendent, was removed, and Clark W. Thompson, of Fillmore county, was appointed in his stead. Joseph R. Brown, agent for the Sioux, was removed, and his place taken by Thomas J. Gal- braith, of Shakopee.
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 raising little or nothing. The cut worms had destroyed well nigh all the corn fields of the Sissetons, and the same pests, together with the blackbirds, had greatly damaged the crops of the Wahpatons, Medawakantons and Wahpakootas. Agent Gal- braith was forced to buy on credit large quantities of pork and flour for the destitute Indians. Under the direction of Mission- ary Riggs, who lived among them, Agent Galbraith fed 1,500 Sissetons and Wahpatons from the middle of December, 1861, to April 1, 1862, when they were able to go off on their spring hunts. He also fed and cared for a number of the old and infirm and other worthy characters among the Lower Indians; but for the assistance of the government numbers of these wretched savages would 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.
Prior to 1857 the payment to the Indians under the treaties were made semi-annually. In that year Superintendent Cullen changed this practice to one payment a year, which, until 1862, had commonly been made about the tenth of June. This event was a great red letter day in the Indian calendar. It engaged attention for months before it came; it was a pleasant memory for months afterwards. Every beneficiary attended the payment, and many of the Cut Heads and Yanktonnais, that were not entitled to receive anything, came hundreds of miles and swarmed on the outskirts of the camp, hoping to get something, however little, from the stock to be distributed. So there was always a big crowd present at the payment and a rare good time.
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The traders always received a liberal share of the money. For a year the Indians had been buying goods from them on credit, promising to pay in furs at the end of the hunting season. When default was made in the payment, which was invariably the case, the balance was promised in cash "at the payment." The traders were therefore always present near the pay tables, with their books of account, and when the Indian had received his money from the government paymaster he was led over to his trader and asked to pay what he owed. The majority of the Indians were willing to pay their debts, but there were others who would not pay the most honorable debt if they could avoid it; usually the latter class owed their traders more than the thirty dollars they had received. Sometimes for some years a detachment of sol- diers had been sent up from Fort Ridgely to preserve order.
In 1861 the Lower Sioux had been paid June 27, and the Upper Sioux July 18. On the seventeenth of June the "St. Peter Guards," a newly recruited company, which became Company E of the Second Minnesota, Captain A. K. Skaro, and the "Western Zouaves" of St. Paul, which became Company D of the Second Regiment, Captain Horace H. Western, arrived by the steamer City Belle at Fort Ridgely as its garrison, taking the place of Company B, Captain Bromley, and Company G, Captain McKune, of the First Regiment, which companies had been stationed at the post since May. Captain McKune's company, however, remained at Ridgely until July 6.
About the first of July the Indians began certain demonstra- tions indicating that they would make serious trouble if troops were stationed at the agencies and near the pay tables during the coming payments. They seemed to believe that the presence of soldiers on these occasions was to coerce them into paying debts to the traders, and they were opposed to the idea. They soon organized a "soldiers' lodge" (or a-ke-che-ta tepee) to consider the matter. A soldiers' lodge was composed of warriors that were not chiefs or head soldiers, and who met by themselves and conducted all their deliberations and proceedings in strictest secrecy. Their conclusions had to be carried out by the chiefs and head soldiers. If a war was contemplated the soldiers' lodge decided the matter, and from its decision there was no appeal. Many other matters concerning the band at large were settled by the a-ke-che-ta tepee.
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