The history of Redwood County, Minnesota, Volume I, Part 7

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 7

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

for our red brothers that they have not entrusted the entire treaty to Sleepy Eye, because they would not have made so good a bargain for themselves as they have." As a matter of fact the amount named in the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux was less than half of the amount Sleepy Eye requested. Out of the sum named in the treaty the traders and cost of removal were to be paid. Of what remained the Indians were not to receive one cent-merely the interest for a certain number of years. Even some of this interest was to be used to pay white teachers and white farmers. And as a climax the payment of that part of the interest which remained was, just before the massacre, with- held and delayed under various pretenses. Even were the amount named in the Treaty of Mendota added to the amount named in the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux the total still falls far short of $3,500,000.

Then Thunder Face, or "Limping Devil," a sub-chief of the Sissetons, whose village was on the present site of the late Gil- fillan farm, in Redwood county, came forward and signed. He was followed by Sleepy Eye, who came gravely forward and touched the pen. "Big Curly" was next, but after reaching the platform he said: "Before I sign I want to say that you think the sum you will give for our land is a great deal of money, but you must well understand that the money will all go back to the whites again, and the country will remain theirs." The Blunt- Headed-Arrow, or "The Walnut," the Handsome Man, the Gray Thunder, the Good Boy, and other noted warriors and head men signed in order. Face-in-the-Middle was introduced by his father, "Big Curly," who said: "This is my son; I would like you to invest him with the medal which you have given to me by my right as chief. He is to succeed me and will keep the medal for you." Red Day next signed and was followed by Young Sleepy Eye, nephew of and successor to the old chief upon the latter's death in 1859. They were followed by old Rattling Moccasin, chief of a small band which generally lived in the neighborhood of the great bend of the Minnesota. Old Red Iron was the first Wahpaton chief to sign.

The treaty was signed by the following Sisseton and Wah- paton chiefs, head men and chief soldiers:

Chiefs-Running Walker, or "The Gun;" Star Face, or "The Orphan;" Thunder Face, or the "Lame Devil;" Sleepy Eye, Extends the Train of His Head Dress, Walking Spirit, Red Iron and Rattling (or Sounding) Moccasin.

Head Men-Blunt-Headed-Arrow, or "The Walnut;" Sound- ing Iron, the Flute, Flies Twice, Mildly Good, Gray Thunder, Iron Frenchman, Good Boy, Face in the Middle, Iron Horn, Red Day, Young Sleepy Eye, Goes Galloping On, Cloud Man, the Upper End, the Standard or Flag, Red Face (2) (there were two

1 1 1

---

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

Red Faces), Makes Elks, Big Fire, Moving Cloud, the Pursuer, the Shaking Walker, Iron Lightning, Reappearing Cloud, the Walking Harp that Sounds, the Iron that Shoots Walking and Standing Soldier.

Of the Indian signers Red Iron and Sleepy Eye were the most prominent of the chiefs. The head-man, "Goes Galloping On" (or Anah-wang Manne in Sioux), was a Christian Indian and a member of Reverend Riggs' Hazelwood Republic. He had been baptized under the name of Simon Anahwangmanne, and was commonly called Simon by the whites. He distinguished himself by his fidelity to and services for the whites during the outbreak in 1862. The Iron-That-Shoots-Walking was a Christian comrade of Simon and called by his white brethren Paul Mazah-koo-te- manne, but commonly Paul or Little Paul. He well nigh immor- talized himself during the outbreak by his efforts in behalf of the white prisoners.

As soon as the signing was completed a considerable quantity of provisions and other presents, including silver medals, were presented to the Indians. These presents, which had been fur- nished by the government, had been piled up and displayed some- what ostentatiously, under guard, while the treaty was under discussion. The commissioners announced that the presents would be distributed "just as soon as the treaty is signed," and the announcement was sufficient to hasten the signing, and even to remove many objections to the terms of the treaty. The mem- bers of the rank and file of the great Indian host present kept constantly calling out: "Sign! sign! and let the presents be given out."

July 23, the next morning after the treaty had been signed, Chief Star Face, or "The Orphan," and his band in their fullest and richest dress and decoration, with all the animation they could create, gave the buffalo dance and other dances and diver- sions for the entertainment of the white visitors. A delegation accompanied the commissioners to the river when they embarked for Fort Snelling that evening and gave them a hearty goodbye.

A similar treaty was signed at Mendota, August 5, by the lower bands of the Sioux, the Medawakantons and the Wah- pakootas.

When the ceremony of signing the treaty was completed, both at Traverse des Sioux and Mendota, each Indian signer stepped to another table, where lay another paper. which he signed. This was called the traders' paper and was an agreement to pay the "just debts" of the Indians, including those present and absent, alive and dead, owing to the traders and the trading company. Some of the accounts were nearly thirty years' stand- ing and the Indians who contracted them were dead. It was afterward claimed that the Indians in signing the "traders'

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

paper" thought they were merely signing a third duplicate of the treaty. The matter of payment had been discussed, but Sleepy Eye had justly demanded an itemized account, and the Indians had supposed that this request was to be complied with before they agreed to pay.

The entire territory ceded by the Sioux Indians was declared to be: "All their lands in the State of Iowa and also all their lands in the Territory of Minnesota lying east of the following line to-wit: Beginning at the junction of the Buffalo river with the Red river of the North (about twelve miles north of Moor- head, at Georgetown station, in Clay county) ; thence along the western bank of said Red river of the North, to the mouth of the Sioux Wood river; thence along the western bank of said Sioux Wood river to Lake Traverse; thence along the western shore of said lake to the southern extremity thereof; thence, in a direct line, to the juncture of Kampeska lake with the Tehan- Ka-sna-duta, or Sioux river; thence along the western bank of said river to its point of intersection with the northern line of the State of Iowa, including all islands in said rivers and lakes."

The consideration to the Upper bands was the reservation twenty miles wide-ten miles on each side of the Minnesota- and extending from the western boundary to the mouth of the Yellow Medicine and Hawk creek, and $1,665,000, payable as follows: To enable them to settle their affairs and comply with their present just engagements, and to enable them to remove to their new reservation and subsist themselves for the first year, $275,000. To be expended under the direction of the President, in the erection and establishment of manual labor schools, mills and blacksmith shops, opening farms, etc., $30,000. The balance ($1,360,000) to remain in trust with the United States and five per cent interest thereon, or $68,000 to be paid annually for fifty years from July 1, 1852. This annuity was to be paid as follows : In cash, $40,000; for general agricultural improvement and civil- ization fund, $12,000; for goods and provisions, $10,000, and for education, $6,000.

The written copies of the Traverse des Sioux and the Mendota treaties, duly signed and attested, were forwarded to Washing- ton to be acted upon by the Senate at the ensuing session of Con- gress. An unreasonably long delay resulted. Final action was not had until the following summer, when, on June 23, the Senate ratified both treaties with important amendments. The provi- sions for reservations for both the Upper and Lower bands were stricken out, and substitutes adopted, agreeing to pay 10 cents an acre for both reservations, and authorizing the President, with the assent of the Indians, to cause to be set apart other reser- vations, which were to be within the limits of the original great cession. The provision to pay $150,000 to the half-bloods of the

---------------

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

Lower bands was also stricken out. The treaties, with the changes, came back to the Indians for final ratification and agreement to the alterations. The chiefs of the Lower bands at first objected very strenuously, but finally, on Saturday, September 4, 1852, at Governor Ramsey's residence in St. Paul, they signed the amended articles, and the following Monday the chiefs and head men of the upper bands affixed their marks. As amended, the treaties were proclaimed by President Fillmore, February 24, 1853. The Indians were allowed to remain in their old villages, or, if they preferred, to occupy their reservations as originally designated, until the President selected their new homes. That selection was never made, and the original reservations were finally allowed them, Congress on July 31, 1854, having passed an act by which the original provisions remained in force.

The Ramsey Investigation of 1853. During the greater part of the year 1853 public attention in Minnesota and elsewhere in the country was directed to an official investigation of the con- duct of ex-Governor Ramsey in connection with the payment to the representative of the traders of money to which the Indians supposed themselves entitled under the treaties of 1851. The Indians protested against paying any of their money in discharge of their debts to the traders. They had at both treaties signed a paper providing for the payment of these debts, but subse- quently claimed that the nature of the "traders' paper" they had signed was misrepresented to them as merely another copy of the treaty.

At Traverse des Sioux the Indians' protest against paying the traders took the form of menace and violence on the part of Chief Red Iron and his band, and quiet was secured only by the soldiers present through the seizing and imprisoning of Red Iron. But Governor Ramsey was firm in his purpose that the traders should be paid. At Traverse des Sioux he paid a representative of the traders $210,000 which, he said, "paid $431,735.78 of Indian indebtedness;" at Mendota he paid a representative of the trad- ers $70,000, which, he said, "according to the traders' books of account paid $129,885.10 of indebtedness."

In December, 1852, charges of conspiracy with H. H. Sibley, Franklin Steele and others to defraud the Indians; that he had made unlawful use of the public funds by depositing them in a private bank and exchanging government gold for the bills of that bank; that he had been guilty of tyrannical conduct toward the Indians in connection with the payment of the sums due them, were made against Governor Ramsey. The authors of the charges were Madison Sweetzer, of Traverse des Sioux, and Colonel D. A. Robertson, of St. Paul. Sweetzer was a trader, who had rather recently located at Traverse des Sioux, and was connected with a rival company to that of Pierre Choteau, Jr., &

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

Company, the corporation to which Sibley, Steele and the others charged with conspiracy belonged. Colonel Robertson was the editor of the Minnesota Democrat, which was the organ of the faction controlled by H. M. Rice, then the opponent of Sibley and Ramsey.

The allegations against Governor Ramsey were, that he had paid the traders various sums of money without the right to do so, and that for so doing he had been paid by the beneficiaries, and thus, in effect, had been bribed to violate the law and his duty.

At the request of Mr. Sibley, then the delegate in Congress, Senator Gwin of California, secured the passage of a Senate resolution (April 5, 1853), ordering the investigation of the charges against the ex-governor. At the same time the gov- ernor's accounts as paymaster under the treaties were held up until the investigation should be concluded. President Pierce appointed Richard M. Young, of Ohio, and Governor Willis A. Gorman, of Minnesota, commissioners to investigate, during which testimoney was given by Madison Sweetzer, Dr. Charles Wolf Borup and Joseph A. Sire.

The investigation and the taking of testimony began at St. Paul July 6, and was concluded October 7, 1853. A large num- ber of witnesses were examined-whites, Indians and mixed bloods. Some of the most prominent citizens of the Territory testified-Sibley, Brown, McLeod, Steele, Forbes and Alexander Faribault, the traders; Reverends Riggs and Williamson, of the missionaries ; Dr. Thomas Foster, Captain W. B. Dodd, Henry Jackson and David Olmsted, of the citizens; Wabasha, Little Crow, Wacouta, Red Iron, Grey Iron, Shakopee, the Star and Cloud Man, of the Indians; Captain James Monroe, of the army ; Indian Agent Nathaniel McLean, and many others.

Commissioner Young made an official report of the investiga- tion to the commissioner of Indian affairs, which bears date December 20, 1853. This report criticised the conduct of Gov- ernor Ramsey in depositing the government funds in a private bank and in paying out large amounts in bills and drafts on that bank to beneficiaries under the treaty. It also contained some strictures on various other features of the governor's conduct. It did not, however, find him guilty of conspiring with the trad- ers, nor of being paid by the traders for the part he took in bringing about the signing of the treaties. February 24, 1854, Senator James Cooper, of Pennsylvania, a member of the com- mittee on Indian affairs, presented a report to the effect that Governor Ramsey had been acquitted by the committee of all im- propriety of conduct, and that one of the complainants, Colonel D. A. Robertson, had retracted his charges. The resolution was considered by unanimous consent and the committee discharged.

----

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

As a matter of fact, the guilt, if guilt there was, was shared by all. The whites desired that Minnesota be opened to settle- ment, the traders demanded vast sums for the goods which they had already sold to the Indians on credit, the only way the Indians could be persuaded to sign the treaties was through the influence of the traders, and the traders would not consent to serve unless the Indians were compelled to sign the "traders' paper." Probably the Indians had no idea what they were doing when they signed the paper, and even of the treaty which they knowingly signed they had no adequate conception, and the white men who negotiated it were well aware that if the Indians realized the truth about what they were doing they would never sign even the treaty, to say nothing of the "traders' paper." It was not a crime of individuals, it was merely one of the steps by which one race through guile, trickery and force of numbers and superiority of war equipment, was supplanting another and more primitive people.

Treaty of 1858. June 19, 1858, the government made a treaty with certain selected chiefs and braves of the Medawakanton, Wahpakoota, Sisseton and Wahpaton bands of Sioux for the cession of their reservation, ten miles in width, on the north side of the Minnesota, and extending from the west line of the State to Little Rock creek, four miles east of Fort Ridgely. The area purchased amounted to about 8,000,000 acres, and the price to be paid was subsequently (but not until June 27, 1860) fixed by the Senate at thirty cents an acre. The Indians agreed that, in the aggregate for the four bands, the sum of $140,000 might be taken from the purchase price to pay their debts owing to the traders, or, as the treaty expressed it, "to satisfy their just debts and obligations."

The influx of white settlers into the country of the Minnesota valley, where were some of the finest lands in the State, had been very large after the Indian title to the greater part of the coun- try had been extinguished. The magnificent domain comprising a great part of what are now the southern portions of Ren- ville, Chippewa, Swift and Big Stone counties was looked upon with covetous eyes by the homeseekers. The waves of immigra- tion beat against the legal barrier which surrounded this fine fertile expanse, and there was a great clamor that the barriers be removed. "The country is too good for the Indian," said the whites. The Indians themselves had not to any consider- able extent occupied the north half of their reservation. Their villages and nearly all of their tepees-except about Big Stone lake-were situated in the south half. But a majority of the Indians, owing to their previous experiences, were opposed to selling any portion of their reserve. Some of the head chiefs and the headmen, however, were willing to sell the north side

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

strip if they could get a good price for it. Major Joseph R. Brown, then the Sioux agent, consulted with them and at last a number of them agreed to accompany him to Washington to make a treaty. Not all of the sub-chiefs nor all of the head-men could be induced to go; some of them were opposed to the sale of the land, and others were afraid of the results of a hostile public sentiment. It required all of Major Brown's great influ- ence with the Sioux to effect the important negotiations. The Indians went to Washington in something like imposing array. Major Brown gave high silk hats and other articles of the white man's adornment to those who would wear them, and there accompanied the party a retinue of whites and mixed bloods from Minnesota. A. J. Campbell (commonly called "Joe" Camp- bell) was the official interpreter, but assisting him was the shrewd old Scotchman, Andrew Robertson, and his mixed blood son, Thomas A. Robertson. Other members of the party were: Nathaniel R. Brown, John Dowling, Charlie Crawford and James R. Roche.

On behalf of the United States the treaty was signed by Charles E. Mix, then commissioner of Indian affairs. Sisseton and Wahpaton Indians who signed it were these :

Sissetons and Wahpatons-Chiefs, Red Iron, Scarlet Plume, and Extends His Train. Headmen: Stumpy Horn, The Planter, Walks On Iron, Paul Mah-zah-koo-te-Manne, John Other Day, and Strong Voiced Pipe.

The small number of dignitaries named assumed to act for the entire Sioux of Minnesota. It is not a matter of surprise that there was dissatisfaction among the bands on account of the limited list of their representatives on so important an occasion.

After the treaty had been signed the Indians were sumptu- ously entertained, given broadcloth suits, high hats, and patent leather shoes to wear, and had a grand good time, all at the ex- pense of the Government. They were photographed and taken to the theatres, and allowed to return home by way of Balti- more, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. When they re- turned to Minnesota their tales of the magnificence and strength of the whites were listened to by their people with interest and in some measure reconciled them to what had been done.

The opening of the "north ten-mile strip," as the land was called, was of great benefit to the development of Minnesota, at least for a time. Settlers came in considerable numbers and the country was improving rapidly when the Civil War inter- rupted the peaceful course of events. Then in 1862 came the Sioux outbreak and all of the civilization on the ten-mile strip was pushed off by a great wave of blood and fire.

Agencies and Forts. The reservations as outlined in the treaties, embraced a tract of land twenty miles wide, ten miles

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

on each side of the Minnesota, extending from the mouth of the Little Rock (Mud creek) westward to Lake Traverse. The divid- ing line between the Upper and Lower reservations was a line drawn north and south through the mouth of Hawk creek. Thus Redwood county for a ten-mile strip along the Minnesota, was in the Lower reservation.

The removal of the Indians to their reservations was inter- mittent, interrupted and extended over a period of several years.

With the establishment of the new Indian reserve and the removal of the Indians thereto, came the necessity of a new military post in Minnesota. The concentration of so many In- dians upon an area really small in comparison with the country, a part of which they had occupied, and all of which they claimed to own, rendered the situation important and worthy of atten- tion. A military post was necessary to preserve order should the Indians become dissatisfied. There were to be two Indian agencies for the Indians on the reservations. The Upper agency, for the Sissetons and Wahpatons, was established near the mouth of the Yellow Medicine and the Lower, for the Medawanton and Wahpakoota bands, was placed about six miles east of the mouth of the Redwood. Both agencies were on the south bank of the Minnesota river.

The matter of the new military post was called to the atten- tion of C. M. Conrad, then secretary of war, and General Win- field Scott, then commanding the regular army, by Delegate Henry H. Sibley.

General Scott concurred in Sibley's recommendation, and the secretary of war approved it, and issued the necessary or- der. In the fall of 1852 Captain Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana, then of the quartermaster's department, and Colonel Francis Lee, then in command at Fort Snelling, were ordered to select a suitable site for the new fort, "on the St. Peter's river, above the mouth of the Blue Earth."

In the latter part of November, with an escort of dragoons from Fort Snelling and after a three-days' march in the snow, the officers reached Laframboise's trading post, at the Little Rock. Five miles above the Rock, on the crest of the high bluff on the north side of the Minnesota, the site was fixed.

The new post was named Fort Ridgely, in honor of Major Randolph Ridgely, a gallant officer of the regular army from Maryland, who died of injuries received at the battle of Monterey.

When Fort Ridgely was established Fort Riley, Kansas, was ordered built. At the same time Fort Dodge, Iowa, and Fort Scott, Kansas, were ordered discontinued and broken up.

Fort Ridgely took the place of Fort Dodge, and Fort Riley was substituted for Fort Scott. The first garrison at Ridgely

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

was composed of Companies C and K of the Sixth Infantry, and the first commander was Captain James Monroe, of Company K. Companies C and K went up on the steamboat West Newton from Fort Snelling, but later were joined by Company E, which marched across the country from Fort Dodge, and arrived in June, 1853, when work on the buildings was begun. When Com- pany E arrived its captain, Brevet Major Samuel Woods, previ- ously well identified with Minnesota history, took command by virtue of his rank. The work of constructing the fort was in charge of Captain Dana. The story of the Lower Agency is told elsewhere.

Authority and References. This chapter is a somewhat free compilation from articles by Return I. Holcombe in "Minnesota in Three Centuries," and by P. M. Magnusson in the "History of Stearns County." These articles were in turn compiled from other sources. To this material, the editor of this work has added numerous notes and facts, gathered chiefly from "The Aborigines of Minnesota," and from Part 2, of the "Eighteenth Annual Re- port of the Bureau of American Ethnology," 1896-97. Informa- tion has also been gathered from the "History of the Sioux Massacre," by Charles S. Bryant, and contained in the History of the Minnesota Valley, 1882. The article in Minnesota Valley book was in turn compiled from the "History of the Minnesota Indian Massacre," by Charles S. Bryant and Abel B. Murch, 1863.

CHAPTER VI. CLAIM OF TITLE.

The history of the early governmental jurisdiction of the valley of the Minnesota river is formulated with some difficulty, as, prior to the nineteenth century, the interior of the country was so little known and the maps upon which claims and grants were founded were so meager, as well as incorrect and unre- liable, that descriptions of boundaries and locations as given in the early treaties are vague in the extreme, and very difficult of identification with present-day lines and locations.

The Hon. J. V. Brower, a scholarly authority upon this sub- ject, says ("The Mississippi River and Its Sources") : "Spain, by virtue of the discoveries of Columbus and others, confirmed to her by papal grant (that of Alexander VI, May 4, 1493), may be said to have been the first European owner of the entire valley of the Mississippi, but she never used this claim as a ground for taking formal possession of this part of her domains other than incidentally involved in De Soto's doings. The feeble ob-

HISTORY OF REDWOOD COUNTY

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

The history of Redwood County, Minnesota, Volume I, Part 7

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