USA > Minnesota > Redwood County > The history of Redwood County, Minnesota, Volume I > Part 14
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Instantly there were yells of surprise and shouts of warning, and the Indians fell back on either side of the line of fire and the range of the gun, leaving a wide and distinct lane or avenue be- tween the cannon and the warehouse door. Lieutenant Sheehan now appeared with a detachment of sixteen men, and that brave soldier, Sergeant Solon A. Trescott, of Company B, at their head. Down the lane with its living walls marched Sheehan and his little band straight to the warehouse. Reaching the building the lieutenant went at once to the office of Major Galbraith, too impotent through fear, drink and excitement for any good. Sergeant Trescott and his men summarily drove every Indian from and away from the warehouse. Only about thirty sacks of flour had been taken.
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Lieutenant Sheehan stoutly demanded that Galbraith at once give to the Indians the provisions which really belonged to them, and thereby avert not only starvation but probably war. But the agent, now that the soldiers were in line and their leader in his presence, became, through his "Dutch courage," very digni- fied and brave. He said that if he made any concessions to the Indians they would become bolder in the future, that the savages must be made to respect his position and authority as their agent, and not attempt to coerce him into doing his duty. He then de- manded that Lieutenant Sheehan should take his soldiers and make the Indians return the flour they had seized and which their women were already making into bread.
Sheehan had his Irish spirit thoroughly aroused, and at last forced the agent to agree to issue three days' rations of flour and pork to the Indians, if they would return to their camps and send their chiefs for a council the next day. Meanwhile the Indians had assembled by bands about the warehouse and were addressed by their chiefs and head soldiers, all of whom said, in effect : "The provisions in that big house have been sent to us by our Great Father at Washington, but our agent will not let us have them, although our wives and children are starving. These sup- plies are ours and we have a right to take them. The soldiers sympathize with us and have already divided their rations with us, and when it comes to the point they will not shoot at us, but if they do, we can soon wipe them off the earth."
The three days' rations were issued, but the Indians declined to return to their camps, unless they should first receive all that was due them. They again became turbulent and threatened to again attack and loot the warehouse. Lieutenant Sheehan moved up his entire command directly in front of the warehouse and went into fighting line with his two cannons "in battery." Then the Indians concluded to forego any hostile movement and re- turned to their camps. Their three days' rations had been well nigh all devoured before midnight.
Agent Galbraith continued in his excited mood and eccentric conduct. Months afterward, in writing his official report and de- scribing the events of the fourth of August, he declared that when the Indians assaulted the warehouse they "shot down the American flag" waving over it. His statement was accepted by Heard, who, in his history, states that the flag was "cut down." Lieutenant Sheehan and the men who were under him at Yel- low Medicine all assert that the flag was neither shot down or cut down or injured in any way, but that when the trouble was over for the day the banner was "still there." August 5 the agent was still beside himself. He declared that the loyal old Peter Quinn, who had lived in Minnesota among his white breth- ren for nearly forty years and was always faithful to his trust,
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even to his death in the slaughter at Redwood Ferry-was not to be trusted to communicate with the Indians. He ordered Lieu- tenant Sheehan, who had brought Quinn from Ridgely, to send him back and he requested that the loyal old man be "put off the reservation."
Sheehan could bear with the agent no longer. He accommo- dated him by sending Quinn away, but he sent the old interpreter with Lieutenant Gere, whom he directed to hasten to Fort Ridge- ly, describe the situation to Captain Marsh, and urge that officer to come at once to Yellow Medicine and help manage Galbraith. The captain reached Yellow Medicine at 1:30 p. m. on the sixth, having come from Fort Ridgely, forty-five miles distant, by buggy in seven hours.
August 7, Galbraith having been forced to agree to a sensible course of action, he, Captain Marsh and Missionary Riggs held a council with the Indians. The agent had sent to Hazelwood for Mr. Riggs and when the good preacher came, said to him appeal- ingly: "If there is anything between the lids of the Bible that will meet this case, I wish you would use it." The missionary as- sured the demoralized agent that the Bible has something in it to meet every case and any emergency. He then repaired to Standing Buffalo's tepee and arranged for a general council that afternoon. The missionary gives this description of the proceed- ings :
"The chiefs and braves gathered. The young men who had broken down the warehouse door were there. The Indians ar- gued that they were starving and that the flour and pork in the warehouse had been purchased with their money. It was wrong to break in the door, but now they would authorize the agent to take of their money and repair the door. The agent then agreed to give them some provisions and insisted on their going home which they promised to do."
Captain Marsh demanded that all of the annuity goods, which for so long had been wrongfully withheld, should be issued im- mediately, and Reverend Riggs endorsed the demand. Galbraith consented, and the Indians promised that if the issues were made they would return to their homes and there remain until the agent advised them that their money had come. The agreement was faithfully carried out by both parties to it. The issue of goods began immediately and was continued through the eighth and ninth. By the tenth all the Indians had disappeared and on the twelfth word was received that Standing Buffalo's and the Charger's band, with many others, had gone out into Dakota on buffalo hunts. On the eleventh the soldiers left Yellow Medicine for Fort Ridgely, arriving at that post in the evening of the fol- lowing day.
All prospects of future trouble with the Indians seemed now
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to have disappeared. Only the Upper Indians had made mis- chief; the Lower Indians had taken no part nor manifested any sympathy with what their brethren had done, but had remained quietly in their villages engaged in their ordinary avocations. Many had been at work in the hay meadows and corn fields. All the Indians had apparently decided to wait patiently for the annuity money. This agreeable condition of affairs might have been established six weeks earlier, but for the unwise, yet well meant work of Agent Galbraith, who should have done at first what he did at last.
Believing that no good reason any longer existed for the pres- ence of so many troops at Fort Ridgely, Captain Marsh ordered Lieutenant Sheehan to lead Company C of the Fifth Minnesota back to Fort Ripley, on the Upper Mississippi, the march to be made on foot, across the country, by the most direct route. At 7 o'clock on the morning of August 17, the detachment set out, encamping the first night at Cumming's Grove, near the present site of Winthrop, Sibley county.
After the troubles at Yellow Medicine were over a number of discharged government employes, French-Canadians, and mixed blood Sioux expressed a desire to enlist in the Union army, under President Lincoln's call for "300,000" more.
The Government was advancing forty dollars of their pros- pective bounty and pay to recruits, and as quite a number of the would-be volunteers were out of employment and money, the cash offer was perhaps to some as much of a stimulus to enlist as was their patriotism. A very gallant frontiersman named James Gorman, busied himself with securing recruits for the pioneer company, which, because most of its numbers were from Reuville county, was called the "Renville Rangers." Captain Marsh had encouraged the organization, and Agent Galbraith had used all of his influence in its behalf. August 12 thirty men enlisted in the Rangers at Yellow Medicine and on the fourteenth twenty more joined the company at Redwood. Galbraith and Gorman, with their fifty men, left Redwood Agency for Fort Snelling, where it was expected the company would join one of the new regiments then being formed. At Fort Ridgely Captain Marsh furnished the Rangers quarters and rations and sent Sergeant James G. McGrew and four other soldiers with them on their way to the fort. At New Ulm they received a few men, and the entire com- pany, in wagons, reached St. Peter in the afternoon of the eighteenth.
Much that is false has been written regarding the cause of the Sioux Outbreak, many idle speculations have been published as absolute fact.
There certainly was no conspiracy between the Chippewas and the Sioux ; there were certainly no representatives of the southern
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Confederacy urging the Indians to revolt, Little Crow was most assuredly guiltless of having long planned a general massacre. Possibly, for such is human nature, the Indians, smarting under untold wrongs, may have considered the possibilities of driving out the whites and resuming their own ancient freedom. But no details had been planned upon. The officials at Washington and their representatives on the reservation were wholly and solely responsible for the great massacre. The spark which lighted the conflagration was the lawless act of a few renegades, but there would have been no blaze from this spark had not the whites, through guile and dishonesty, been gradually increasing the dis- gust, discontent and resentment in the Red Men's breast.
The editor of this work holds no brief for the Indian. No one realizes more than he the sufferings of those innocent settlers, those martyrs to civilization, who underwent untold horrors at the hands of a savage and infuriated race. In savage or civil- ized warfare, no acts of heartless cruelty can be excused or con- doned. In the wrongs to which the Indian had been subjected the noble settlers of the Minnesota valley were guiltless.
Civilization can never repay the Minnesota pioneers for the part they had in extending further the dominion of the white man, for the part they took in bringing the county from a wild wilderness to a place of peace, prosperity and contentment.
The treatment of the Indian by the settlers of this county was ever considerate and kind, the red man was continually fed and warmed at the settlers' cabins. There is no condoning the terrible slaughter of these innocent, kind hearted, hospitable whites who in seeking their home in this rich valley were not unmindful of the needs of their untutored predecessors.
It should, however, be remembered that however cruel, lust- ful and bloodthirsty the Indian showed himself to be, base, treacherous, barbarous as his conduct was, cowardly and mur- derous though his uprising against the innocent pioneers; never- theless not his alone was the guilt. The officials who tricked and robbed him, whose stupidity and inefficiency incensed him, whose lack of honor embittered him against all whites, they too, must bear a part of the blame for that horrible uprising.
It should be remembered too, that the white soldiers battling for a great nation taught the Indian no better method than the Indian himself practiced. The Indian violated the flag of truce, and likewise the white soldiers fired on Indians who came to parley under the white flag. The Indians killed women and chil- dren, the white soldiers likewise turned their guns against the teepes that contained the Indian squaws and papooses. The In- dian mutilated the bodies of those who fell beneath his anger, and there were likewise whites who scalped and mutilated the bodies of the Indians they killed. The Indian fired on unprotected white
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men, and there were white men too, who fired on unprotected Indians who had no part in the outbreak.
Neither side was guiltless. And the innocent settlers, espe- cially those heroic families living along the valley of the Minne- sota, paid the horrible price for the crimes of both races.
Authority and references. See Chapter X.
CHAPTER X.
THE SIOUX OUTBREAK.
Sunday, August 17, 1862, was a beautiful day in western Min- nesota. The sun shone brightly, the weather was warm, and the skies were blue. The corn was in the green ear stage; the wild grass was ripe for the hay mowing; the wheat and oats were ready to be harvested.
A large majority of the settlers and pioneers in the Upper Minnesota valley, on the north or east side of the river, were church members. The large German Evangelical settlement, on Sacred Heart creek held religious services on that day at the house of one of the members, and there were so many in attend- ance that the congregation occupied the dooryard. A great flock of children had attended the Sunday school and received the ninth of a series of blue cards, as evidence of their regular at- tendance for the nine preceding Sundays. "When you come next Sunday," said the superintendent to the children, "you will be given another blue ticket, making ten tickets, and you can ex- change them for a red ticket." But to neither children or super- intendent that "next Sunday" never came.
At Yellow Medicine and Hazelwood there was an unusual attendance at the meetings conducted by Riggs and Williamson. At the Lower Agency Rev. S. D. Hinman, the rector of the sta- tion, held services in Sioux in the newly erected but uncompleted Episcopal church and among his most attentive auditors were Little Crow and Little Priest, the latter a Winnebago subject, who, with a dozen of his band, had been hanging about the Agency awaiting the Sioux payments. Little Crow was a pagan, believing in the gods of his ancestors, but he always showed great tolerance and respect for the religious opinions of others.
Altogether there was not the slightest indication or the faintest suspicion of impending trouble before it came. There are printed statements to the effect that a great conspiracy had been set on foot, or at least planned; but careful investigation proves these statements, no matter by whom made, to be baseless and unwar- ranted. Except the four perpetrators nobody was more startled
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or surprised upon the learning of the murder of the first whites, than the Indians themselves.
The Rice Creek Indians were deserters from the bands to which they rightfully belonged, because they were discontented with conditions and had grievances against their chiefs or others of their fellow-clansmen. They were, too, malcontents generally. They did not like their own people; they did not like the whites. Not one of them was a Christian, and they had nothing but con- tempt for their brethren that had become converts. Many of them, however, wore white men's clothing, and a few were good hunters and trappers, although none were farmers. They de- pended almost altogether for provisions upon their success in hunting and fishing. Detachments from the band were constantly in the big woods, engaged in hunting, although in warm weather the game killed became tainted and nearly putrid before it could be taken home; and from daylight until dark the river bank in front of their village was lined with women and children husily fishing for bullheads.
On Sunday afternoon, August 17, the Rice Creekers held an open council, which was attended by some of Shakopee's band located not far away. It was agreed to make a demonstration to hurry up the payment, and that the next day every able-bodied man should go down to the Lower Agency, from thence to Fort Ridgely, and from thence to St. Paul, if necessary, and urge the authorities to hasten the pay day, already too long deferred. But nothing was said in the council about war. An hour or two later nothing was talked of but war.
About August 12 twenty Lower Indians went over into the big woods of Meeker and McLeod counties to hunt. Half a dozen or more of the Rice Creek band were of the party. One of Shako- pee's band, named Island Cloud, or Makh-pea We-tah, had busi- ness with Captain George C. Whitcomb, of Forest City, concern- ing a wagon which the Indian had left with the captain. Reach- ing the hunting grounds in the southern part of Meeker county, the party divided, Island Cloud and four others proceeding to Forest City and the remainder continuing in the township of Acton.
On the morning of August 17 four Rice Creek Indians were passing along the Henderson and Pembina road, in the central part of Acton township. Three of them were formerly Upper Indians, the fourth had a Medawakanton father and a Wahpaton mother. Their names, in English, were Brown Wing, Breaks Up and Scatters, Ghost That Kills, and Crawls Against; the last named was living at Manitoba in 1891. Two of the four were dressed as white men; the others were partly in Indian costume. None of them was more than thirty years of age, but each seemed older.
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As these Indians were passing the house and premises of Robinson Jones, four miles south of the present site of Grove City, one of them found some hen's eggs in a fence corner and proceeded to appropriate them. One of his comrades remon- strated against his taking the eggs because they belonged to a white man and a discussion of the character of a quarrel resulted. To Return I. Holcombe, the compiler of this chapter, in June, 1894, Chief Big Eagle related the particulars of this incident, as fol- lows :
"I will tell you how this was done, as it was told to me by all of the four young men who did the killing. * * They came * to a settler's fence and here they found a hen's nest with some eggs in it. One of them took the eggs when another said : 'Don't take them, for they belong to a white man and we may get into trouble.' The other was angry, for he was very hungry and wanted to eat the eggs, and he dashed them to the ground and replied : 'You are a coward. You are afraid of the white man. You are afraid to take even an egg from him, though you are half starved. Yes, you are a coward and I will tell everybody so.' The other said, 'I am not a coward. I am not afraid of the white man, and to show you that I am not, I will go to the house and shoot him. Are you brave enough to go with me?' The one who had taken the eggs replied : 'Yes, I will go with you and we will see who is the brave.' Their two companions then said : 'We will go with you and we will be brave, too.' Then they all went to the house of the white man." (See Vol. 6, Minn. Hist. Socy. Coll., p. 389; also St. Paul Pioneer Pres, July 1, 1894.)
Robinson Jones was a pioneer settler in Acton township. He and others came from a lumber camp in northern Minnesota, in the spring of 1857, and made claims in the same neighborhood. January 4, 1861, Jones married a widow named Ann Baker, with an adult son, Howard Baker, who had a wife and two young chil- dren and lived on his own claim, in a good log house, half a mile north of his step-father. The marriage ceremony uniting Jones and Mrs. Baker was performed by James C. Bright, a justice of the peace. In the summer of 1862 Mr. and Mrs. Jones adopted into their family a deceased relative's two children, Clara D. Wilson, a girl of fifteen, and her half brother, an infant of only eighteen months. No children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Jones after their marriage.
Jones was a typical stalwart frontiersman, somewhat rough and unrefined, but well liked by his white neighbors. His wife was a congenial companion. In 1861 a postoffice called Acton was established at Jones' house ; it was called for the township, which had been named by some settlers from Canada for their old home locality. In his house Jones kept a small stock of goods fairly suited to the wants of his neighbors and to the Indian trade. He
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also kept constantly on hand a barrel or more of cheap whiskey which he sold by the glass or bottles, an array of which always stood on his shelves. He seldom sold whiskey to the Indians ex- cept when he had traded with them for their furs, but Mrs. Jones would let them have it whenever they could pay for it.
August 10, a young married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Viranus Webster, from Wisconsin, in search of a Minnesota homestead, came to Howard Baker's in their fine two-horse wagon and were given a welcome and a temporary home until they could select a claim. As Baker's rooms were small, the Websters continued to use their covered wagon as a sleeping apartment. Webster had about $160 in gold coin, and some other money, and good outfit, including a fine shotgun.
The Ghost Killer and his three companions went to Jones' house, and according to his statement, made half an hour later, demanded whiskey, which he declined to give them. He knew personally all of the four, and was astonished at their conduct, which was so unusual, so menacing and threatening, that-al- though he was of great physical strength and had a reputation as a fighter and for personal courage-he became alarmed and fled from his own house to that of his step-son, Howard Baker, whither his wife had preceded him on a Sunday visit. In his flight he abandoned his foster children, Clara Wilson and her baby brother. Reaching the house of his step-son, Jones said, in apparent alarm, that he had been afraid of the Indians who had plainly tried to provoke a quarrel with him.
Although the Jones house, with its stores of whiskey, mer- chandise, and other articles had been abandoned to them, the Indians did not offer to take a thing from it, or to molest Miss Wilson. Walking leisurely, they followed Jones to the Baker house, which they reached about 11 a. m. Two of them could speak a little English, and Jones spoke Sioux fairly well. What occurred is thus related in the recorded sworn testimony of Mrs. Howard Baker, at the inquest held over the bodies of her husband and others the day following the tragedy :
"About 11 o'clock a. m. four Indians came into our house; stayed about fifteen minutes; got up and looked out; had the men take down their guns and shoot them off at a mark; then bantered for a gun trade with Jones. About 12 o'clock two more Indians came and got some water. Our guns were not reloaded; but the Indians reloaded theirs in the door yard after they had fired at the mark. I went back into the house, for at the time I did not suspect anything, but supposed the Indians were going away.
"The next thing I knew I heard the report of a gun and saw Mr. Webster fall; he stood and fell near the door of the house. Another Indian came to the door and aimed his gun at my hus-
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band and fired, but did not kill him; then he shot the other barrel of the gun at him, and then he fell dead. My mother-in-law, Mrs. Jones, came to the door and another Indian shot her; she turned to run and fell into the buttery; they shot at her twice as she fell. I tried to get out of the window but fell down cellar. I saw Mrs. Webster pulling the body of her husband into the house; while I was in the cellar I heard firing out of doors, and the Indian immediately left the house, and then all went away.
"Mr. Jones had told us that they were Sioux Indians, and that he was well acquainted with them. Two of the Indians had on white men's coats ; one was quite tall, one was quite small, one was thick and chubby, and all were middle-aged; one had two feathers in his cap, and another had three. Jones said to us: 'They asked me for whiskey, but I could not give them any.'" (See History of Meeker county, 1876, by A. C. Smith, who pre- sided at the inquest and recorded the testimony of Mrs. Baker.)
In a published statement made a few days later (See com- munication of M. S. Croswell, of Monticello, in St. Paul Daily Press, for September 4, 1862) Mrs. Webster fully corroborates the statements of Mrs. Baker. She added, however, that when the Indians came to the Baker house they acted very friendly, offering to shake hands with everybody; that Jones traded Bak- er's gun to an Indian that spoke English and who gave the white man three dollars in silver "to boot," seeming to have more money ; that Webster was the first person shot and then Baker and Mrs. Jones; that an Indian chased Jones and mortally wounded him so that he fell near Webster's wagon, shot through the body, and died after suffering terribly, for when the relief party came it was seen that in his death agonies he had torn up handfuls of grass and turf and dug cavities in the ground, while his features were horribly distorted.
Mrs. Webster further stated that she witnessed the shooting from her covered wagon; that as soon as it was over the Indians left, without offering any sort of indignities to the bodies of their victims, or to carry away any plunder or even to take away Web- ster's and Baker's four fine horses, a good mount for each In- dian. Mrs. Webster then hastened to her dying husband and asked him why the Indians had shot him. He replied : "I do not know; I never saw a Sioux Indian before, and never had any- thing to do with one." Mrs. Baker now appeared from the cellar, and, with her two children ran into a thicket of hazel bushes near the house and cowered among them. As soon as Webster was dead and his body had been composed by his wife, she, too, ran to the bushes and joined Mrs. Baker.
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