USA > Minnesota > Renville County > The history of Renville County, Minnesota, Volume I > Part 4
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HISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
Summary and Analysis. The principal sources of water are the deposits of sand and gravel which occur at various depths interbedded with the boulder clay or lying immediately below it. The shallow deposits furnish only small supplies but the deeper ones generally yield abundantly. Moreover, the shallow water is hard and the deeper water is commonly much softer, especially in the northeastern part of the county. Below the glacial drift the drill generally penetrates thin layers of blue or green shale "soapstone," a white elay, or ordinary decom- posed granite. In the southern part of the county water is ob- tained in some places from sandy layers in these beds, but at best they constitute only an uncertain souree. Granite has fre- quently been encountered at depths ranging up to 450 feet. It will not vield water and no water-bearing formation occurs beneath it.
(Note. The foregoing artiele regarding the Underground Waters of the County is based on a government report on the "Underground Waters of Southern Minnesota," by O. E. Mein- zer. published in 1907.
Natural Resources. The greatest natural resource of Ren- ville county is in its fertile soil. Waterpowers have been devel- oped in several places. The natural groves in the ravines and along the watercourses, and the domestic groves on the prairies furnish abundant timber supply. Lime has been burned at various times from lime-stone boulders; and brick has been at times an important industry. Some quarrying has been carried on, and especially in the neighborhood of Morton some excellent granite has been obtained. Morton is the only place in the state where gneiss is quarried. The water-supply, as already noted, is abundant. Traces of gas have been found, the old village well at llector being especially notable in this regard. However geologists declare that such gas is merely the result of vegetable decomposition, and that there is no gas to be found in commer- eial quantities in this region.
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HISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
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CHAPTER II.
PRE-HISTORIC INHABITANTS.
Nature's Paradise-The Coming of Man-The Eskimo-The Mound Builders-Purpose of the Mounds-Life and Habits of the Mound Builders-Location of the Mounds-Excavations and Discoveries.
Scientists declare that in the Glacial period, this region was several times covered with a great ice sheet at recurrent intervals. When for the last time the glacier receded, and its melting waters subsided, it left behind an area that in a few years be- came a wonderfully diversified and beautiful region. Verdure took the place of glaring ice and swirling waters. The smiling expanses of gently rolling prairie, beautiful and virgin, dipping here and there into swales and pools, or even into sparkling lakes, covered in the summer with luxuriant grass and spangled with flowers, were caressed by perfumed breezes, untrod by human foot. and numarred by human handiwork. In the ravines and along the watercourses were dense forests and tangled under- brush. And this varied landscape fairly quivered with animal life. The American bison. commonly called the buffalo, ranged the prairies, countless birds of all kinds flew over its surface, great flocks of waterfowl lived in its marshes and pools. In the edges of the wooded ravines, antlered animals such as the deer and the elk, and the larger fur-bearing animals such as the bear, were found in greatest profusion. All the smaller animals com- mon to this climate found a home here. Prairie and woodland presented a scene of teeming life and ceaseless animal activity.
A country so bountiful and inviting to man, whether primitive or civilized, would remain uninhabited only while undiscovered. At some period of the earth's history, mankind in some form took up its abode in what is now Renville county. How many ages distant that period was no one can tell. It is evident that man followed very closely the receding of the last glacier, if in- deed he had not existed here previous to that time. A disenssion of the possibilities of the existence of man in Minnesota during Glacial, Inter-Glacial and Pre-Glacial ages is beyond the scope of this work. It has been made a special subject of study by several Minnesota savants, and many notable articles have been written concerning evidences that have been discovered.
Many scholars are of the opinion that in all probability the first inhabitants of the northern part of the United States were, or were closely related to the Eskimo. While the data are very meagre, they all point that way. The Eskimos seem to have
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HISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
remained on the Atlantic seaboard as late as the arrival of the Scandinavian discoverers of the eleventh century, for their de- seription of the aborigines whom they call "skrälingar" (a term of contempt about equivalent to "runts") is much more consonant with the assumption that these were Eskimos than Indians.
So possibly it is permissible to picture the first human inhabi- tants of Renville county as a small yellowish-brown skin-clad race, identical with the quartz workers of Little Falls, slipping around nimbly and quietly in the woods and dells, subsisting mainly on fish. but also partly on the chase. Their homes were doubtless of the simplest deseriptions, and their culture not above absolute savagery.
The Eskimos seem to have followed more or less closely the edge of the last receding glacier. Whether they were forced out by a stronger race or whether they found the bleak shores of the Arctic seas more suited to their physical make-up than the fertile regions further south is only a matter of conjecture.
Scholars are of the opinion that the next inhabitants of Minnesota were tribes of the Siouan stoek, in other words the ancestors of the present Sioux (Dakota) Indians. These peoples of the Sionan stock appear to have built the mounds of southern Minnesota. Possibly they lived in Renville county. These Sionan people were possibly driven out by the peoples of the Algonquin stock, whereupon they eventually took up their homes in the neighborhood of the upper valley of the Ohio river and possibly elsewhere. How many centuries they lived there it is impossible even to estimate. In the meantime the Algonquin peoples prob- ably occupied the Minnesota region, and possibly Renville conn- tv. They did not make mounds. Some five hundred years ago the Siouan Mound Builders were driven out from their homes in the upper Ohio region where they had erected the mounds that are now the wonder of the world, and a part of them found their way to the homes of their ancestors in the upper Mississippi and the Minnesota river region. The mounds built here by these peoples were inferior to the ones built by their ancestors. In coming up the valley it is possible that these Mound Builders drove from the Minnesota regions the intruding Algonquins.
The Sionan Mound Builders, returning some five hundred years ago from the Ohio region were doubtless the builders of the mounds in Renville county, though there are possibly some mounds in this county built by the Sionan people during their previous oeenpaney of the region.
The Mound Builders. Not so many years ago, there was a wide-spread belief that the Mound Builders were a mysterious people of high culture resembling the Aztees, and differing from the Indian in race, habits and customs. Now scholars are unani-
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HISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
mous in their belief that the Mound Builders were merely the ancestors of the Indians, doubtless, as already related, of the Sioux Indians, and not characteristically differing from them. These Mound Builders are the earliest race of whose actual resi- dener in Renville county we have absolute evidence. While Renville cannot boast of mounds of such gigantie proportions as some other parts of the United States, nor of such grotesque formations as the serpent mound of Ohio, yet the mounds of the county are sufficient in number, kind and distribution, to present a rich field for archaeological inquiry, as well as supply- ing evidence that Renville county was well populated by this ancient people.
The larger groups are invariably situated near the water- courses and usually on the lofty terraces that give a command- ing view of magnificent prospects. Such a distribution of the mounds finds its explanation in the fact that the river banks afford excellent sites for habitations, and the rivers afford routes of travel in times of peace and war. Above all the streams furnish two substances absolutely necessary for the maintenance of life, namely water and food. The Mound Builder was not slow in picking out picturesque places as a location for his village sites. The distribution of the mounds bears ample proof of this. Anyone who visits the groups cannot fail to be convinced that the Mound Builders were certainly guided in the selection of the location for the mounds by an unerring sense of beanti- ful scenery and a high appreciation and instinctive love of nature as well as by other factors.
Purpose of the Mounds. The mounds of Renville county are both oblong and round, varying from a swell of land to several feet in height. Other varieties have also been found. The ar- rangement of mounds in the various groups does not seem to depend on any definite rule of order, but seems to result from a process of mound building, extending over a considerable period of time, each site for a mound being selected by the builders according to the space, material, or topography of the locality.
I'ndoubtedly each mound was placed for some definite pur- pose on the spot where it is found today, but what the purpose of any particular mound was may be difficult to say. The spade often partially tells us what we want to know, but sometimes it leaves us as much as ever in the dark. When the interior of a mound reveals human bones, then the inference is that the mound served as a tomb, but intrusive burials, that is burials made long after the mounds were built, complicate the problem. But when a mound can be opened without revealing any trace of human remains or of artificial articles, it seems safe to conclude that not all the mounds were built for burial purposes. The erection of such a large number of mounds as exist along the Mississippi and
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HISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
its tributaries in Minnesota must have required an enormous ex- penditure of time and labor. The tools with which all the work was done were probably wooden spades rudely shaped, stone hoes and similar implements which indicate a low degree of in- dustrial eulture. Where the whole village population turned out for a holiday or funeral, a large mound could be built in a mueh shorter time than if the work was performed by only a few individuals. The surface of the land adjoining the mounds in Renville county, and in faet all the mounds of this vicinity, fre- quently shows plain evidenees of where the material was ob- tained for the construction of the monnd. All in all, the regu- larity, symmetry and even mathematical exactness with which the mounds are built show considerable skill and taste. The reader can picture to himself the funeral seenes, the wailings of the sorrowing survivors, and the flames of the funeral pyres which were sometimes built. Or one ean picture the mourning relatives waiting beneath the tree in which the body has been suspended on a scaffold while the elements are stripping the bones of flesh preparatory to their interment.
Life and Habits of the Mound Builders. Modern scientists unite in the belief that the Mound Builders were Indians, the ancestors of the Indians that the early settlers found here. The old theory of a race of Mound Builders superior in intellect and intelligence to the Indian has been exploded by archaeological research, though a few of the older text books advance the now obsolete theory.
The evidences that the race of Mound Builders was a raee of gennine Indians are many. ludians are known to have built mounds. The artieles found in the mounds are the same as the articles found on the Indian village sites nearby. Invariably a large group of mounds has nearby evidences of such a village. The articles found in the mounds and on the village sites are such as the Indians used.
We do not know what human beings first beheld the beauti- ful lakes and prairies of Renville county and claimed them as their home. We may never be able to look beyond the veil or penetrate the mists that enshroud the history of the past, yet we are not left in utter darkness. The relics tell us many in- teresting stories.
Tomahawks, battle clubs, spear heads and arrows signify war and the chase. The entire absence of great architectural remains show that the Mound Builders lived in frail homes. The dearth of agricultural implements speaks of the absence of any but the most primitive farming. Ash-pits and fireplaces mark the bare ground as the aboriginal stove. Net-sinkers imply the use of nets; iee axes the ehopping of holes in the ice to procure water ; stone axes, a ehmsy device for splitting wood; stone knives
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IHISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
were for sealping. eutting meat and leather and twigs; countless Hakes mark the ancient arrow maker's workshop : cracked bones show the savages' love for marrow: shell beads, charms and ornaments in the shape of fish and other designs reveal a primi- tive desire for ornamentation ; chisels and gouges recall the mak- ing of canoes ; sun-dried pottery made of clay mixed with coarse sand, clam shells or powdered granite and marked with rows of dots made with a stick, thumbnail or other objeets, or else marked with lines. V-shaped figures or chevrons, all are an index of rather a ernde state of pottery making. The hand sup- plied the lathe and the wheel.
All of these things tell us something of the habits and con- dition of the Mond Builders and are further evidence that the Mound Builders differed in no important manner from the I- chians found here by the early explorers.
The people were rude, semi-agricultural. warlike, ignorant of all metals except copper, hunters with stone arrow and spear. naked in warm weather and clothed with the skins of the buffalo and bear in winter. Their skill in art was confined to the making of such domestic utensils and such weapons of war and of the chase as were demanded for the personal comforts and physical necessities. They have left no literature, and these heaps of earth and a few rude pictures seraped in soft stones, together with a few erude relies, are our only source of information regarding this once powerful people.
Location of Mounds. The artificial mounds of Renville conty have never been adequately surveyed or excavated, though many interesting studies have been made of them. A vohune entitled "The Aborigines of Minnesota," published by the Minnesota State Historical Society in 1911, contains a valuable resume of these explorations and studies as Follows:
Mounds near Three-mile creek, southeast quarter, section 27, township 112, range 33, about 100 feet above the bottomland of the Minnesota river, on cultivated land. This is a group of nine tili loosely distributed along the bluff, the largest being fifty- Your feet wide and three Feet high, there being two of this size. Surveyed November 7, 1887.
Mounds two and a half miles above Hawk Creek, northwest quarter, northeast quarter, section 19, township 115, range 38, abont ninety feet above the river. This group embraces three mounds, of which one is broad-elongated. Surveyed October 25, 1887.
Group near the mouth of Beaver creek, (a) west side, north- east quarter, northeast quarter, section 28, township 113, range 35, on cultivated land, abont 100 feet above the river. The group contains three small mounds, one being elongated. (b) Sonth half. northeast quarter, seetion 27, east side, about ninety feet
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HISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
above the bottomland. This group embraces but two tumuli, one of which has a short extension sixteen feet wide and one foot high.
In Renville county the following lone mounds have been noted and measured, viz .: Six miles below Birch Cooley, southwest quarter, section 17, township 12, range 33, about 130 l'eet above the river : forty-two feet by four and a half feet.
Two and a half miles below Birch Cooley creek. northeast quarter, seetion 10, township 112-34, about 125 feet above the bottomland ; twenty-five feet by one and a half feet.
Two miles below Birch Cooley creek, northeast quarter. north- West quarter, seetion 10, township 112, range 34, about 125 feet above the bottomland : thirty feet by two feet.
Three-quarters of a mile west of Birch Cooley creek, south- east quarter, northwest quarter, section 32, township 113, range 34, about 100 feet above the bottomland ; thirty feet by two feet.
Opposite Yellow Medieine, west half, northwest quarter, sec- tion 19, township 115, range 38, about ninety feet above the river , forty-six feet by two and a half feet.
Opposite Yellow Medicine, west half, northwest quarter, sec- tion 20, township 115, range 38. about ninety feet above the bot tom : fifty feet by two and a half feet.
Opposite Yellow Medicine, southeast quarter, southwest qual. ter, section 18, township 115, range 38, about seventy feet above the bottomland: a lone, broad-elongated mound ; sixty-six feet by thirty-six feet by two and a half feet.
CHAPTER HI.
INDIAN OCCUPANCY AND TREATIES.
The Dakotas-Life, History and Habits-Wapetons-Sissetons- Treaties-Visit to Washington-Treaties of Prairie du Chien -Doty Treaty-Preliminaries to the Final Session-Treaty of Traverse Des Sioux-Ramsey Investigation-Treaty of 1858 -Agencies and Forts.
The archeology and anthropology of the American Indian is still in its infancy. But a few fundamental facts stand out in bold relief. We are told by scientists that man is of great antiquity in America : and that though the aborigines' blood is doubtless mixed with later arrivals in many localities and tribes, still, harring the Eskimo, the Fundamental race characteristics are the same from Hudson Bay to Patagonia. Hence a common Ameriean ancestry of great antiquity must be predicated of the whole Indian race.
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IHISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
If an imaginary line is drawn east and west through the south- ern boundary of Virginia, then except for the northwest eorner 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- quioan. Sionan and Algonquian. The one reason for classing these Indians into three ethnie 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 moceasins, 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 storks came originally into this territory there is no certain knowledge but much uncertain speculation. llere we shall be content to start with the relatively late and tolerably probable event of their living together, in the rastern part of the United States, some five centuries ago. Algon- qnians lived on the Atlantic slope, the Iroquois perhaps south of Lake Erie and Ontario, and the Siouans in the upper Ohio valley. These Sionan peoples had possibly previously occupied the upper 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 abont 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
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HISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
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 Laes, 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 Renville county mounds, though some may have been built by their ancestors before they were expelled many centuries earlier. The Renville 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 construeted.
The name " Dakota, " which these Indians applied to them- selves, means "joined together in friendly compaet." "Sioux" is a contraction of the word Nadowessioux (variously spelled), the French version of the Chippewa word meaning "Little Adders," or figuratively. "enemies."
The Sionx were in many ways the highest type of the North American Indian, and were physically, perhaps, among the highest types that mankind has reached. Living free lives close to the democracy of nature, they saw no advantages in organized govern- ment : living on the boundless sweeps of the prairies and in the limitless forests, they saw no virtne in that civilization which shackles mankind to a daily routine of petty duties and circum- seribes life to the confinement of crowded cities and villages.
There was no written code of law. Tradition and enstom alone dictated the condnet 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.
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HISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
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 bloo: drawn from their veins by a barber as a panacea for all diseases, and believing implicitly in the euring 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 viees of alcohol and Just which the white man introduced.
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