USA > Minnesota > Redwood County > The history of Redwood County, Minnesota, Volume I > Part 5
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If an imaginary line is drawn east and west through the south- ern boundary of Virginia, then except for the northwest corner of British America, the Red Men in the territory north of this line and east of the Rocky mountains, including the larger part of the United States and British America, are and have been for centuries almost exclusively of just three linguistic stocks: Iro- quoian, Siouan and Algonquian. The one reason for classing these Indians into three ethnic stocks is that the vocabularies of their languages do not seem to have a common origin. Otherwise these Indians are so familiar physically and psychically that even an expert will at times find it hard to tell from appearance to which stock an individual belongs. These three stocks are in mental, moral and physical endowment the peers of any American aborigines, though in culture they were far behind the Peruvians, Mexicans and the nations in the southwestern United States. But their native culture is not so insignificant as is the popular impression. Except the far western bands who subsisted on the buffalo, they practiced agriculture; and in many, if not in most tribes, the products of the chase and fishing supplied less than half their sustenance; their moccasins, tanned skin clothing, bows and arrows, canoes, pottery and personal ornaments evinced a great amount of skill and not a little artistic taste. Their houses were not always the conical tipi of bark or skins, but were often very durable and comparatively comfortable and constructed of timber or earth or even stone.
The Dakotas. As to how these stocks came originally into this territory there is no certain knowledge but much uncertain speculation. Here we shall be content to start with the relatively late and tolerably probable event of their living together, in the eastern part of the United States, some five centuries ago. Algon- quians lived on the Atlantic slope, the Iroquois perhaps south of Lake Erie and Ontario, and the Siouans in the upper Ohio valley. These Siouan peoples had possibly previously occupied the upper
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HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY
Mississippi region, but for some reason had left there. At any rate, a century or so before the arrival of Columbus, found them for the most part in the upper Ohio valley. What peoples, if any, were in the meantime living on the plains of the upper Mississippi is not definitely known. Of the Siouan peoples we are interested in the main division of the Sioux, more properly the Dakotas. Probably because of the pressure of the fierce and well organized Iroquois, the Sioux, perhaps about 1400 A. D., began slowly to descend the Ohio valley. Kentucky and the adjacent parts of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois were certainly at that time a primitive man's paradise, and the anabasis begun under compulsion was enthusiastically continued from choice. They reached the con- fluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi. Probably here they first encountered the buffalo, or bison, in large numbers. The spirit of adventure and the pressure of an increasing population sent large bands up the Mississippi. When the Missouri was reached no doubt some followed that stream. Those who kept to the Mississippi were rewarded as they ascended the stream by coming into what was from the viewpoint of primitive man a richer coun- try. Coming up into Minnesota a forest region was encountered soon after passing through beautiful Lake Pepin. Soon a roar- ing cataract blocked the way of the Dakota canoes. St. Anthony Falls, of which now scarce a remnant is left, thundered over its ledge among the leafy boskage of banks and islands. Slowly but surely up the stream pushed the Dakotas. Rum river was reached, and its friendly banks were doubtless for many seasons " dotted with the Dakota's tipis. But when the hunter-explorer's eyes first rested on the wide expanse of Mille Lacs, he rightly felt he had found a primitive paradise. M'dewakan, the Spirit lake, the lake of spiritual spell, soon became the site of perhaps the largest permanent encampment or headquarters of the Sioux. From there they scattered wide. Some of the bands discovered the upper Minnesota river region and here settled. These return- ing Sioux, it is believed, were the builders of all or nearly all of the Redwood county mounds, though some may have been built by their ancestors before they were expelled many centuries earlier. The Redwood county mounds, though less in size and smaller in number, have the same interest as those found in Ohio, and which this same people are believed to have constructed.
The name "Dakota," which these Indians applied to them- selves, means, "joined together in friendly compact." "Sioux" is a contraction of the word Nadowessioux (variously spelled), the French version of the Chippewa word meaning "Little Adders," or figuratively, "enemies."
The Sioux were in many ways the highest type of the North American Indian, and were physically, perhaps, among the high- est types that mankind has reached. Living free lives close to the
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democracy of nature, they saw no advantages in organized gov- ernment; living on the boundless sweeps of the prairies and in the limitless forests, they saw no virtue in that civilization which shackles mankind to a daily routine of petty duties and circum- scribes life to the confinement of crowded cities and villages.
There was no written code of law. Tradition and custom alone dictated the conduct and morals of the Sioux. The spirit of this traditional law was as stern as the Mosaic law of the Holy Scriptures, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." A favor was never forgotten, neither was a wrong. Possibly no race has ever been so true to its standards as was the Sioux. Punishment swift and sure was meted out to those who departed from these precepts.
Just as Jehovah revealed himself to the Hebrews as a spirit, permeating all space and all matter, the great Creator who breathed in and through all things, so had the Great Spirit revealed himself to the Sioux. The Sioux found God everywhere. The waterfalls, the winds, the heat, the cold, the rains and the snows, the trees and the birds, the animals and the reptiles, all were "wakon," spiritual mysteries in which God spoke to them.
In an age when civilized Europeans were having their blood drawn from their veins by a barber as a panacea for all diseases, and believing implicitly in the curing powers of witches' brews, made of such ingredients as snake's eyes and rabbit's claws, the Sioux was bringing the ailing back to health by the use of sweat baths and simple herbs.
But with the coming of the white man a great change took place. Outspoken, absolutely truthful, the Sioux was no match for the lying tongue of the white, by which he was robbed of much more than by the white man's gun and powder. He was no match against the insidious vices of alcohol and lust which the white man introduced.
The life of the red man before he came in contact with our so-called civilization, and even later when he had secured nothing more than his gun, knife and kettle, was, though primitive and coarse, not mean nor base. The Indian was healthy and sound in mind and body, wholesome as the woods through which he hunted.
He was poor and improvident, it is true, living from hand to mouth, and taking little thought of the morrow. But this was not moral nor physical shiftlessness, it was a part of his religion. His creed pledged him to poverty; with God's boundless riches spread around about him, his faith forbade his taking more than was necessary for his immediate needs. No one was richer than another. All food was shared. A friend was always welcome to help himself at any time.
The chief was usually the man who by force of personality
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HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY
could command sufficient respect to hold the position. While there is no evidence that the office of chief was hereditary, never- theless from the coming of the white man each tribe seems to have had its royal dynasty, handing the ruling power of chief from father to son through several generations. War and hunt- ing parties, however, were led by any brave who could gather a sufficient number of friends about him. One brave might be chief of one expedition and another brave of a succeeding expe- dition, while the permanent chief of the band seems to have occupied more of a civil position, deciding disputes and giving counsel.
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Wabasha, living at Ke-ox-ah (Winona), seems to have been the great overlord of the Medawakanton Sioux, and he likewise seems to have been recognized as ruler by many of the other branches of the Sioux. Each band likewise had a permanent chief, and as noted each expedition that was made had a tem- porary chief.
All in all, the Indian as he was before the coming of the white man, is deserving of all honor and respect. And horrible though the warfare was that he later waged on the whites who had secured his lands, terrible and wanton as was the revenge he took on defenseless men, women and children, occupying his ancient domains, bitter though the feeling against him must of necessity be by those whose loved ones were ravished, mutilated and murdered, nevertheless the methods of the most civilized and modern warfare have taught the world that between the motives of the wildest savage and the most cultured soldier there is little difference when a man finds himself fighting for existence against those whom he believes to have wronged him. The Indian's method was to torture and mutilate, to strike such terror that the enemy would forever after fear him. The civilized method likewise mutilates, terrorizes and strikes sudden death against those equally defenseless and inoffensive as were those the Indian massacred. The Indian, regarded and treated by the whites as a little lower than an animal, with even his treaty rights disre- garded, struck, in the only way he knew, in behalf of the con- tinued existence of himself and of his wife and bahes, against a race whose desire for broad acres was ever driving the Red Man and his family further and further from the sweeps over which his forefathers had ranged.
Evil days indeed came for the simple child of the forest, when as scum on the advancing frontier wave of civilization came the firewater, the vices and the diseases of civilized man. Neither his physical nor his spiritual organization is prepared to withstand these powerful evils of a stronger race, and the primitive red man has often, perhaps generally, been reduced to a pitiful parasite on the civilized community, infested with the diseases, the vermin
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HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY
and the vices of the white man and living in a degradation and squalor that only civilization can furnish.
The white man took from the Indian all his primitive virtues, and gave him none of the virtues of the white man in return. He taught the red man all of the evils of civilization before he was advanced enough to accept its advantages, and tried to make him conform suddenly with those habits of life which with the white race have been the development of ages. Thus burdened with the white man's vices, his own natural mode of living sud- denly made impossible, driven here and there by the onrush of civilization, cheated and defrauded by traders and government officials alike, the Indian has degenerated until he is only a travesty on the noble kings of the forest who once held sway in the upper Mississippi and the Minnesota valleys. But a change is now coming with an awakened public conscience. And the results are encouraging. The census seems to indicate that the Indian is no longer a vanishing race. Steady and considerable progress is made in his civilization, and his physical condition is improving.
Wapeton Dakotas. Information as to the occupancy of the Minnesota valley during the era of the early explorers is some- what vague. After the Dakotas in prehistoric times came up the Mississippi river, and in the upper reaches of that river estab- lished their homes, the Medewakanton and several subsidiary of the Sioux made their headquarters about Mille Lacs, ranging the rivers and forests and prairies from that point to unknown distances. Probably some bands became permanently separated from the main band. In the days of the early French explorers, the Medewakantons were still living at Mille Lacs. The Warpe- tonwans, apparently closely allied to the Medewakantons, were ranging the territory west of the upper Mississippi river, between the Crow and the Crow Wing rivers.
The Chippewas drove the Sioux from the Mille Lacs region, and the deposed tribes established themselves at various points.
The location of the several bands inhabiting Southern Minne- sota in 1834 has been told by the missionary, S. W. Pond, who came to Minnesota that year. He has written :
"The villages of the Medewakantonwan were on the Minne- sota and Mississippi rivers, extending from Winona to Shakapee. Most of the Indians living on the Minnesota river above Shakopee were Warpetonwan. At Big Stone lake there were both Warpe- tonwan and Sissetonwan, and at Lake Traverse, Ihanktonwan (Yankton), Sissetonwan and Warpetonwan. Part of the Warpe- kute lived on Cannon river and part at Traverse des Sioux. There were frequent intermarriages between these divisions of the Dakotas, and they were more or less intermingled at all their villages. Though the manners, language and dress of the differ-
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HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY
ent divisions were not all precisely alike, they were essentially one people."
Thus, at that time, Redwood county was Wapeton (spelled Warpetonwan, Wahpeton and Warpeton) country, though the Sissetons, the Yanktons and the Medawakantons were not far away.
Nicollet in his map of the state placed the Wapetons along the Minnesota river in this part of the state, and the Sissetons in the southwestern part of the state.
However, Sleepy Eye's village of Sissetons appears to have been located for a time at least in the vicinity of the mouth of the Little Rock, not far from the present area of Redwood county, and Sleepy Eye and his people also appear at times to have been located in the Cottonwood valley, at various points.
INDIAN TREATIES.
From prehistoric days up to the time of the treaties signed at Traverse des Sioux, July 23, 1851, and at Mendota, August 5, 1851, ratified and amended by the United States Senate, June 23, 1852, and proclaimed by President Millard Fillmore February 24, 1853, the land now embraced in Redwood county remained in the nominal possession of the Indians. Before this treaty, however, several agreements were made between the Indians of this vicinity and the United States government, regarding mutual relations and the ceding of lands. The first of these was the treaty with Pike in 1805, by which land at the mouths of the Minnesota and St. Croix rivers was ceded to the government for military purposes.
Visit to Washington. In 1816, the War of 1812 having been brought to a close, the Indians of this vicinity made peace with the United States and signed treaties placing the Sioux of this neighborhood "in all things and in every respect on the same footing upon which they stood before the late war." Perpetual peace was promised, and it was agreed that "every injury or act of hostility committed by one or the other of the contracting parties against the other shall be mutually forgiven and forgot- ten." The tribes recognized the absolute authority of the United States. After Ft. Snelling was established, the officers at various times engineered peace pacts between various tribes, but these were usually quickly broken.
In the spring of 1824 the first delegation 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 Lawrence Taliaferro. Wabasha, then properly called Wa-pa-ha-sha or Wah-pah-hah-sha, the head chief of the band at
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HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY
Winona; and Little Crow, head of the Kaposia band; and Wah- natah, were the principal members of the Sioux delegation. When the delegation had gone as far as Prairie du Chien, Wabasha and Wahnatah, who had been influenced by traders, desired to turn back, but Little Crow persuaded them to continue. The object of the visit was to secure a convocation of all of the upper Missis- sippi Indians at Prairie du Chien, to define the boundary line of the lands claimed by the separate tribes and to establish general and permanently friendly relations among them. The party made the trip in keel boats from Fort Snelling to Prairie du Chien, and from there to Pittsburgh by steamboat, thence to Washington and other eastern cities by land.
Prairie du Chien Treaty of 1825. This treaty, signed August 19, was of importance to the Indians who ranged Redwood county in that it fixed certain general boundaries, and confirmed the fact that the present county lay entirely in Sioux territory. The treaty was participated in by the Chippewa, Sauk (Sac) and Fox ; Menominee, Iowa, Sioux, Winnebago; and a portion of the Ottawa, Chippewa and Potawatomi tribes living on the Illinois.
The line between the Sioux and the confederated Sauks and Foxes extended across a part of northern Iowa. It was declared in the treaty to run up the upper Iowa (now the Oneota) river to its left fork, and up that fork to its source; thence crossing the Cedar river to the second or upper fork of the Des Moines, and in a direct line to the lower fork of the Calumet (Big Sioux) river, and down that river to the Missouri river. On both sides of this line extended a tract which came to be known as the "Neutral Strip," into which the Winnebagoes were later moved as a buffer between the Sioux and their enemies to the South.
The eastern boundary of the Sioux territory was to commence on the east bank of the Mississippi river opposite the mouth of the "Ioway" river, running back to the bluffs and along the bluffs to the Bad Axe river, thence to the mouth of the Black river, and thence to half a day's march, below the falls of the Chippewa. East of this line, generally speaking, was the Winne- bago country, though the Menominee country lay about Green Bay, Lake Michigan and the Milwaukee river, and the Menom- inees claimed as far west as the Black river. The Chippewa country was to be to the north of the Winnebagoes and Menom- inees, and east of the northern line of the Sioux country, the line between the Chippewa and the Sioux beginning at a point a half a day's march below the falls of the Chippewa, thence to the Red Cedar river immediately below the falls, thence to a point on the St. Croix river, a day's paddle above the lake at the mouth of that river, and thence northwestward across the present state of Minnesota. The line crossed the Mississippi at the mouth of the Watab river just above St. Cloud. Thus both sides of the
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Mississippi during its course along Renville county was included in Sioux territory.
The boundary lines were certainly, in many 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 signers 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 be- tween the Sioux and the Chippewas; between the Sioux and the confederated tribes of Sacs and Foxes; and between the 'Io- ways' and the Sioux." But this provision was more honored in the breach than the observance, and in a little time the tribes named were flying at one another's throats and engaged in their old-time hostilities.
Second Treaty of Prairie du Chien. In 1830 a second treaty with the Northwest Indian tribes was held 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. As they reached the lower end of Prairie du Pierreaux they paddled up a narrow channel which ran near the eastern shore, where 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 previously the Foxes had killed some of Wabasha's band on the Red Cedar river, in Iowa, and the Sioux claimed that their part in the Prairie du Pierreaux affair 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 Missis- sippi, less than a half a mile from Fort Crawford and Prairie du Chien. One night they were all drunk, "men, women and chil- dren." Two hours before daylight the Dubuque Foxes took dreadful reprisal for the killing of their brethren at Prairie du Pierreaux. Though but a small band, they crept into the Menom- inee encampment, fell upon inmates, and in a few minutes put a number of them to the gun, the tomahawk and the scalping knife. Thirty Menominees were killed. When the entire Menom- inee band had been aroused the Foxes, without having lost a man, retired, crying 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 treaty of Prairie du Chien, but finally
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came. Delegates were present from four bands of the Sioux, the Medawakantons, the Wapakootas, the Wahpatons and the Sisse- tons, and also from the Sacs, 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 their claims to the land in western Iowa, northwestern Missouri and especially the country of the Des Moines river valley.
The Medawakanton, Sioux, Wabasha's band, had a special article (numbered 9) inserted in the treaty for the benefit of their half-breed relatives.
The Sioux also ceded a tract of land twenty miles wide along the northern boundary of Iowa from the Mississippi to the Des Moines; consideration $2,000 in cash and $1,200 in merchandise.
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 territory of Indians could be established, in which the red men would reside on farms and in villages, living their lives after the style of the whites, having a constitutional form of govern- ment, with a legislature of their own people elected by them- selves, the governor to be appointed by the president of the United States. They 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 Da- kotas and northwestern Iowa. This ceded land was not to be opened to the settlement 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 experi- ment, for the Senate, for political reasons, refused to ratify the treaty, and it failed of going into effect. This treaty was signed by the Sisseton, Wahpeton and Wahpakoota bands at Traverse des Sioux, July 31, 1841, and by the Medawakanton bands at Mendota, August 11 of the same year.
Preliminaries to Final Session. No other events or incidents in all time have been of more importance in their influence upon the character and destiny of Minnesota than the negotiations with the Sioux Indians in the summer of 1851, commonly known as the Treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota. As a result of these treaties a vast region of country large enough and nat- urally rich enough for a kingdom was released from the sway of its owners and opened to white settlement.
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Prior to these events only the lands in Minnesota east of the Mississippi river were open to white occupation. The fine, fer- tile expanse to the westward was forbidden ground. The waves of immigration were steadily rolling in and beating against the legal barrier in increasing volume and growing forces; and as opposed to the demand of the whites for land and power the rights and necessities of the Indians were of little weight. A decent regard for the opinions of mankind and also a fear of the revenge that the Indians might take, demanded, however, that the government go through the form of a purchase, and that some sort of price, even if ridiculously small, be paid for the relinquished land.
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