USA > Minnesota > Renville County > The history of Renville County, Minnesota, Volume I > Part 15
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For many years they were in constant trouble with the whites, their outlaw aets 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,
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and on March 8 commenced their awful slaughter on Lake Okoboji, in Dickinson county, lowa. 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 upen and maltreated, but Inkpadoota was not eap- tured.
In June came the time for the annual payments to the Indians at the ageney. When the Indians gathered there to receive their money they were tokl 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, Minnesota 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 detachment of cavalry. But these men were promptly told by Secretary of War Floyd and Commissioner Denver that no suggestions were 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 ehil- dren hunger and sicken and die. The grasshoppers were eating up their garden produce and their eorn fields and truek fields were spoiling of negleet while they waited at the ageney for the money that a great government owed them. And this great government, 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 starv- ing Sioux awaiting their payments arm and equip themselves and capture these ontlaws, in whose doings they had no part and no interest.
"Give us our annuities 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-la-yu- sha" (skin your own skunk). Thus spoke Chief Red Iron. Super- intendent Cullen and Agent Flandran could only reply that they were aeting 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
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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 hanghtily indifferent. At last Cullen and Flandran appealed to Little Crow to help them. They assured him that their superiors were determined that before the annuities 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 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 Sher- man 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, pub- Jished with the superintedent's report, it is Jearned 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 Skunk lake on the after- noon of July 28 and found the outlaws. Meanwhile the outlawed
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band had quarreled and separated. Inkpadoota and three other warriors, 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 dueks and fish in abundance. They oeenpied 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 advanee 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 ordered that the payment and issue of supplies should be with- held until Little Crow should again go out and seour 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- tinned 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 nnjust 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 pieked 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 foreing 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-
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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 assigned in severalty, eighty aeres 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 erops they raised. Indian farmers now augmented rapidly, until the outbreak in 1862, at which time abont one hundred and sixty had taken advantage of the provisions of the treaty. A number of farms, some 160. had good, sung 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 npon 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 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 this 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, Sonth Dakota, is now located. They never came east of Lac qui Parle. The Sissetons were for the most part on the banks of Lake Traverse and Big Stone lake, though some were to the west- ward. The Wahpatons were near the Yellow Medicine. in the region known as the Upper Agency. The Medawakantons and the Wahpakootas, the "Lower Ageney Indians, " had their bands along the south bank of the Minnesota. stretching from a little
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east of Yellow Medieine 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, nearly opposite 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 ageney 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 Clond Man was alive, but old and feeble, and had turned over the chieftanship 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 reduced to one band, whose chiel was Red Legs (Hu-sha-sha), although Pa-Pay was recognized as one in anthority. 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 Democratie Indian super- intendent, was removed, and Clark W. Thompson, of Fillmore county, was appointed in his stead. Joseph R. Brown, agent for the Sionx. was removed, and his place taken by Thomas J. Ga !- 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 erops 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
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Hour 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 fenee 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 them- selves 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 erowd present at the payment and a rare good time.
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 goverment 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 MeKune,
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of the First Regiment, which companies had been stationed at the post since May. Captain MeKune'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 sokliers on these occasions was to correo 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 con- sider the matter. A soldier's 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 strietest scereey. 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.
It was believed by the whites that the soldiers' lodges on the Sioux reservation had determined on armed resistance to the presence of troops at the pay tables. Agent Galbraith and other white people about the agencies became greatly alarmed, and June 25 the agent called on Fort Ridgely for troops to come at once to Redwood. The St. Peter Guards were promptly sent and remained at the Lower Ageney until after the payment. which passed off quietly. July 3 Major Galbraith again became alarmed at the Indian signs and called for a strong Force to come to Yellow Medicine. MeKune's company of the First Regiment and Skaro's of the Second Regiment were at once started from Fort Ridgely, but ten miles out were turned back. The next day Captain Western's company started for the Upper Agency, and on the sixth was overtaken by Captain Skaro's and the two companies reached the Yellow Medicine on the seventh, to the great relief of the agent and the other government employes and traders and their families, who were in great fear of the rebellions and menacing Indians, chiefly young men and reckless characters. The payment at the Upper Agency was without disorder; the Indians paid their debts, but some of them were reported as say- ing that " this is the last time" they would do so.
July 23 the two companies of the Second Regiment marched back to Fort Ridgely. August 13 detachments of both companies. under Captain Western and Lieutenant Cox, were sent by Lieuten- ant Colonel George, commanding the post at Fort Ridgely, to the Spirit Jake distriet, in Towa. to protect the settlers in that region from the depredations of certain Indians, who, it was feared. contemplated another raid of the Inkpadoota character. The command was absent for two weeks.
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About September 1 the Indians at and above Yellow Medi- cine became turbulent and frightened. On the eighth Company E. Captain Skaro, was dispatched from Fort Ridgely and reached the Yellow Medicine on the tenth. On the fifteenth Lientenant J. C. Donahower. with twelve men of Company E, was sent to Big Stone lake as an eseort to the government farmer, who was directed to secure from the Sissetons about the lake some horses which had been stolen by them and the Yanktonnais from white settlers on the Missouri in southeastern Dakota. The lieutenant returned to Yellow Medicine with three of the recovered horses. The Sissetons and Yanktons stole abont thirty horses that sum- mer Trom Minnesota and Iowa settlers. September 23 Captain Skaro left Yellow Medicine for Fort Snelling, where he joined his regiment, which, in a few days, was sent to the South.
On the tenth of October, 1861, Companies A and B, of the Fourth Regiment, became the garrison at Fort Ridgely. Captain L. L. Baxter. of Company A, was commander of the post until in March. 1862. when the companies with the remainder of the regiment were sent to the Union army in front of Corinth. Mis- sissippi.
Tpon the organization of the Fifth Minnesota Infantry, March 29. 1862, three of the companies of that regiment were assigned to garrison duty at the Minnesota forts. To Fort Abercrombie was sent Company D. Captain John Vander Horek: to Fort Ripley, Company C, Captain Hall : to Fort Ridgely, Company B, Captain John S. Marsh. As Captain Marsh had not yet joined the company, and as Lieutenant Norman K. Culver was on detail as quartermaster, Sergeant Thomas P. Gere led the company on its march, in zero weather, through a deep snow, from Fort Snell- ing to Fort Ridgely, arriving at the latter post March 25. April 10 Gere became second lieutenant, and on the sixteenth Captain Marsh arrived and assumed command of the post. There were then at the fort, in addition to the officers and men of Company B, Post Surgeon Dr. Alfred Muller, Sutler Ben HI. Randall, Inter- preter Peter Quinn and Ordnance Sergeant John Jones, and a few soldiers' families living in cabins nearby. Sergeant Jones was in charge of the goverment stores and of six pieces of artillery of different calibers, the relies of the old artillery school at the post, which had been left by Major Pemberton when he departed for Washington with the last battery organization, in February, 1861.
The Minnesota Indian payments for 1862 were greatly delayed. They should have been made by the last of June, but the govern- ment agents were not prepared to make them until the middle of August. The authorities at Washington were to blame. For some weeks they dallied with the question whether or not a part at least of the payment should be made in greenbacks. Com-
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missioner Dole, Superintendent Thompson and Agent Galbraith protested that the payment should be in specie. Not until August S did Secretary Chase, of the Treasury. order Assistant Treasurer Cisco, of New York, to send the Indians' money in gold eoin to Superintendent Thompson at St. Paul. The money-$71,000, in kegs, all in gold coin-left New York August 11 and arrived at St. Paul on the sixteenth. Superintendent Thompson started it the next day for the Indian country in charge of C. W. Wykoff, E. C. Hateh, Justus C. Ramsey, A. J. Van Vorhees and C. M. Daily, and they, with the wagons containing the precious kegs, reached Fort Ridgely, August 18. the first day of the great ont- break. The money and its custodians remained within the fort until Sibley's army came, and then the money, in the original package as stated, was taken back to St. Paul by the parties named who bad brought it up.
Meanwhile there was a most unhappy condition of affairs on the reservation. The Indians had been eagerly awaiting the payment sinee the tenth of June. On the twenty-fifth a large delegation of the chiefs and head men of the Sissetons and Wah- petons visited Yellow Medicine and demanded of Agent Galbraith to be informed whether they and their people were to get any money that year; they alleged they had been told by certain white men that they would not be paid because of the great war then in progress between the North and South. The agent said the payment would certainly be made by July 20. Hle then gave them some provisions, ammunition, and tobacco, and sent them baek to their villages. promising to notify them when the money came of the exact time of the payment. He then went to the Lower Agency and counseled the people there as he had the people at Yellow Medicine, adding that they should busy them- selves in cutting hay for the winter and in keeping the birds from the corn. These Lower Indians had worked hard during the summer but their erops had not turned out well, owing to the numerous bird and insect pests, and their stock of provisions was nearly exhausted. Major Galbraith therefore issued them a supply of mess pork, flour, salt, tobacco and ammunition.
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