USA > Minnesota > Renville County > The history of Renville County, Minnesota, Volume I > Part 5
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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 voarse, 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. llis ereed 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 could command sufficient respeet 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 hunting 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 ol a civil position. deeiding disputes and giving counsel.
Wabasha, living at Ke-ox-ah (Winona), seems to have been the great overlord of the Medawakanton Sioux, and he likewise
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seems to have been recognized as ruler by many of the other branches of the Sioux. Each band likewise had a permanent chiel, 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, multilated 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 massaered. 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- tinned existence of himself and of his wife and babes, 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 sem on the advancing frontier wave of civilization came the firewater, the vices and the diseases of civilized man. Neither his physical nor bis 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 and the vices of the white man and living in a degradation and squalor that only civilization ean 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 has been the development of ages. Thus burdened with the white man's viees, his own natural mode of living sud- denly made impossible, driven here and there by the ourush 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
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in the upper Mississippi and the Minnesota valleys. But a change is now coming with an awakened publie 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 ocenpaney of the Minnesota valley during the era of the early explorers is some- what vague. After the Dakotas in prehistorie 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 abont 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 Warpeton- wans, apparently closely allied to the Medewakantons, were rang- ing 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 Mine- sota and Mississippi rivers, extending Trom Winona to Shakopee. Most of the Indians living on the Mimesota river above Shakopee were Warpetonwan. At Big Stone Jake there were both Warpe- tonwan and Sissetonwan, and at Lake Traverse, Thanktonwan (Yankton), Sissetonwan and Warpetonwan. Part of the Warpe- Inte lived on Cannon river and part at Traverse des Sioux. There were frequent intermarriages between these divisons of the Dakotas, and they were more or less intermingled at all their villages. Though the manners, language and dress of the different divisons were not all precisely alike. they were essentially one people."
Thus, at that time, Renville county was Wapeton (spelled Warpetonwan. Wahpeton and Warpeton) country, through 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 vieinity of the month of the Little Rock, not far from the present area of Renville county.
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HISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
INDIAN TREATIES.
From prehistorie days up to the time of the treaties signed at Traverse des Sionx, 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 Renville 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 months of the Minnesota and St. Croix rivers was ceded to the government for military pur- poses.
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 foot- ing 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 par- ties against the other shall be mutually forgiven and forgotten." 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-bah-sha, the head chief of the band at Winona ; and Little Crow, head of the Kaposia band ; and Wal- 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 seeure 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 Angust 19, was of importance to the Indians who ranged Renville county in that it fixed eertain general boundaries, and confirmed the fact that the present county lay entirely in Sioux territory. The
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treaty was participated in by the Chippewa, Sank (Sae) and Fox : Menominee, Iowa, Sioux, Winnebago ; and a portion of the Ottawa, Chippewa and Potawatomi tribes living on the Ilinois.
The line between the Sioux and the confederated Sauks and Foxes extended across a part of northern lowa. It was declared in the treaty to run up the Upper lowa (now the Oneota) river to its left fork, and up that fork to its sonree ; thence erossing 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 Sionx ) river, and down that river to the Missouri river. On both sides of this line extended a traet 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 month of the "Ioway" river, running back to the bluffs and along the bluffs to the Bad Axe river, thence to the month 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 Menominees claimed as far west as the Black river. The Chippewa country was to be to the north of the Winnebagoes and Menominees, and Past 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, thenee 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 month of the Watab river just above St. Cloud. Thus both sides of the Missis- sippi during its course along Renville county were 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 estab- lished, and hardly by any others. The first article of the treaty provided : "There shall be a firm and perpetual peace between the Sioux and the Chippewas: between the Sioux and the con- federated tribes of Saes and Foxes: and between the 'loways' 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.
HENRY TIMM'S CABIN
WILLIAM WICHMAN'S BIRTHPLACE
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LE .: 1 4:5 TILDEN +
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HISTORY OF RENVILLE COUNTY
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, inelnding 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 np 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 vietory. 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 erept 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 Menon- 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 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 Omalas, 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 elaims 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 traet 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
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States Senate. This treaty embodied a Utopian dream that a territory of Indians could be established, in which the redmen would reside on farms and in villages, living their lives after the style of the whites, having a constitutional form of goverment, with a legislature of their own people elected by themselves, 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 Dakotas 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 experiment, for the Senate, For political reasons, reinsed to ratify the treaty, and it failed of going into effect. This treaty was signed by the Sisseton, Wahpeton and Wahpa- koota 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 natu- rally rich enough for a kingdom was released from the sway of its owners and opened to white settlement.
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 hulians 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 relin- quished land.
In his message to the first Territorial Legislature Governor Ramsey recommended that a memorial to Congress be prepared and adopted praying for the purchase by treaty of a large extent of the Sioux country west of the Mississippi. . Accordingly a lengthy petition, very earnest and eloquent in its terms, was, after
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considerable deliberation, drawn up, finally adopted by both houses and duly presented to Congress. This was in October, but already the national authorities had taken action.
In June, 1849, Orlando Brown, Commissioner of Indian affairs, addressed an official letter to Thomas Ewing, then Secretary of the Interior, recommending negotiations with the Sioux, "for the purpose of purchasing their title to a large tract of country west of the Mississippi river." The commissioner said that the objeet. of the purchase was, "in order to make room for the immigrants now going in large numbers to the new territory of Minnesota, as the Indian title has been extinguished to but a comparatively small extent of the country within its limits." Secretary Ewing approved the report and selected Governor Ramsey and John Chambers, the latter a former territorial governor of lowa, as commissioners to make the proposed treaty.
In his annual report for 1848 Commissioner Brown had recom- mended an appropriation to defray the expenses of a Sioux treaty, but Congress failed to make it. So desirous was he for the treaty in 1849 that he was willing to pay the attendant expense out of the "small current appropriations" for his office, and so he warned Ramsey and Chambers that "the strictest economy in all your expenditures will be necessary." He said if they waited for a special appropriation from the next Congress the treaty in its complete form would be postponed for two years, and in the meanwhile there would be increasing trouble between the Indian owners of the land and trespassing settlers.
In August, 1849, Commissioner Brown addressed a lengthy letter to Governors Ramsey and Chambers informing them of their appointment as commissioners to make the treaty and instructing them particularly as to their duties in the premises. The instructions were not only clear, but very elaborate and com- prehensive, and so far as they could be given the commissioners were told just what to do and just how to do it. The fact that some of the directions were unwise and unwarranted was due to the misinformation on the subject which the commissioner had received, and his consequent lack of knowledge as to the situation. For example, in describing the territory which the commissioners were to acquire, Commissioner Brown expressed the opinion that it contained "some 20,000,000 of acres," and that "some of it," no doubt, contained "lands of excellent quality." With respect to the probable worth of the country to the United States the commissioner expressed the opinion that, "From its nature, a great part of it can never be more than very trifling, if of any, value to the government." The country was more valuable for the purpose of a location for homeseekers than for any other pur- pose, and Commissioner Brown realized that "only a small part of it is now actually necessary for that object."
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The contemplated and directed treaty with the Sioux in the fall of 1849 was not held as contemplated. On repairing to Traverse des Sioux in October, Commissioners Ramsey and Cham- bers found that a large majority of the Upper Indians were absent on their fall hunts. Coming down to Mendota, they found the greater part of the Lower bands were absent gathering wild rice, hunting in the Big Woods and elsewhere, and those still in the villages were, under the circumstances, unwilling to engage in any important negotiations.
At Mendota, however, a treaty was made with some of the chiel's of the Medawakanton and Wapakooto bands providing for the purchase, on reasonable terms, of what was known as the "Half-Breed Tract," lying west of Lake Pepin, and which had been set apart for the Sioux mixed bloods by the treaty of July 15, 1830. The traet comprised about 384,000 acres of now well known and valuable country. The purchase was to be completed as soon as possible, and the money given to the mixed blood bene- ficiaries in lieu of the lands. The treaty was duly forwarded to Washington, but never ratified by the Senate. In 1850 the agita- tion for a more comprehensive treaty resulted in the important negotiations of the summer of 1851, and the subject of the Lake Pepin Half Breed Traet was put aside and soon forgotten.
At last. in the spring of 1851, President Fillmore directed that a treaty with the Sioux be made and appointed commissioners to that end. The pressure upon him could no longer be resisted. The Territorial Legislature had repeatedly memorialized Con- gress, Ramsey had written, Sibley and Rice had reasoned and pleaded, and Goodhue and the other Minnesota editors had well nigh heated their types in their fervid exhortations to the national anthorities to tear down the barriers and allow the eager and restless whites to grasp the wealth of the great inland empire now furnishing home and sustenance to its rightful owners. Already many settlers, as reckless of their own lives as they were regardless of the laws of their country, were squatting within the Forbidden area.
The traders were especially desirous that a treaty be made. It was the practice in such negotiations to insert a provision in the treaty that the "just debts" of the Indians should be paid out of the amounts allowed them. The American Fur Company- then Pierre Chouteau. Jr., & Company-represented by Sibley and the various sub-traders claimed that the Sioux of Minnesota owed them in the aggregate nearly $500,000 for goods they had received in past times ; the accounts, in some instances, were dated twenty years previously. If a treaty were made, all of the accounts, both real and fietitious, and augmented to suit the traders' faney, would probably be declared as "just debts" and paid out of such funds as might be allotted the Indians. That the
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traders, including the firm of Chotean, Jr., & Company, did all they could to have a treaty made may readily he believed.
Under a paragraph in the Indian appropriation bill of 1851, approved February 27, all Indian treaties thereafter were to be negotiated by "officers and agents" connected with the Indian Department and selected by the president. The appointees were not to receive for their service in such cases any compensation in addition to their regular salaries. Previously treaties had been negotiated on the part of the government by special agents, who were generally not connected with the public service and who were paid particularly and liberally for these services.
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