USA > Mississippi > History of the upper Mississippi Valley, pt 1 > Part 34
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Hole-in-the-Day was not as much respected ns his brother, being ennning and quarrelsome. He married tho danghter of Bi-ans-wah, the great chief who had received a British medal at Niag-
ara, about the year 1763, from Sir William John- son, the English Superintendent of Indian Affairs. The traders Ermatinger and Ashmun lived with sisters of his wife.
While on a visit to Fort Snelling in 1827 he was wounded by the Sioux, a bullet passing through his breast, and his daughter, seven years of age, was shot through both thighs, who, notwithstand- ing the care of the surgeons of the Fort, died.
In the spring of 1838 a party of Sioux with their families, accompanied by the missionary. Gideon HI. Pond, left Lae-qui-parle to hunt on the upper part of Chippewa River, near the site of the modern town of Benson in Swift County. The number of lodges was six, but one Thursday in April Mr. Pond with three lodges of Sioux were separated a short distance from the others. That evening there arrived at the remaining lodges Hole-in-the-Day, his young son, and nine Chippe- ways. The Sionx in these lodges were three men and ten or eleven women and children. The Chip- peways said they had come to smoke the peace- pipe, and were cordially received. Two dogs werd killed, und they were treated to the Indian delica- ey of dog-meat. All lay down at length, but all did not sleep. At midnight Hole-in-the-Day and parly arose and massacred all the fourteen Sions, with the exception of a woman and wounded boy, who escaped, and a girl, who they carried off. It is said that it was arranged for each to lie down by a Sioux, and at a signal cach was to draw his knife and thrust it into the heart of his sleeping neighbor.
In the month of June Miles Vineyard, Sub- Agent of the Chippeways, left Fort Snelling with Peter Quinn as interpreter, aud at a short distance above Little Falls, on an island, held a council with Hole-in-the-Day, and other Chippeways, and demanded that the Sionx woman should be sur- rendered. While the council was in session Rev Alfred Brunson, a Methodist Missionary, arrived,
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HIOLE-IN-THE-DAY AT FORT SNELLING.
who has written the following description: "I had heard so much of Hole-in-the-Day that I was anxious to see him. The conneil was in a thicket on an island. The underbrush had been ent ont and piled in the center, and perhaps fifty braves seated on the ground in the cirele. The Agent and his attaches were seated in like manner under a tree. * *
* I enquired of my inter- prefer, 'Which was the great chief? and he pointed to the dirtiest and most scowling and savage looking man in the crowd, who was lying on the pile of brash in the center, as if, as I found to be the fact, he was alone on his side of the question to be settled. All others had agreed be- fore my arrival to release the prisoner.
" As they resumed business a dead silence oc- enrred of some minutes, waiting for his final an- swer. At length he arose with impetnosity, as if shot out of a gun. His blanket, innocent of water sinee he owned it, was drawn over his left shoulder and around his body, his right arm swinging in the air, his eyes flashing like lightning, his brow scowled as if a thunder gust had settled on it, and his long hair literally snapping in the air from the quick motion of his head. I thought of Her- enles, with every hair a serpent, and every serpent hissing. He came forward, as is their custom, and shook hands with the Agent und all the whites present, and then stepped back a short distance to give himself room for motion, and sweeping his arm said, addressing the Agent: 'My Father! I don't keep this prisoner out of any ill-will to you; hor ont of ill-will to my Great Father at Washing- ton; nor out of ill-will to these men (gracefully waving his hand back and around the circle); but I hate the Sionx. They have killed my relatives und I'll have revenge. You call me Chief, and so I mm, by nature as well as office, and 1 challenge any of these men to dispute my title to it. If I am Chief then my word is law, otherwise you might as well put this medal (showing the one he received from Governor Cass) upon an old woman.' He then threw himself upon the pile of brush, and all was again silent for some moments, no one
daring to dispute him. *
* Finally * * he rose again, but a little milder in manner, and said: 'My Father! for your sake, and for the sake of these men, I'll give up the prisoner, and go myself and deliver her at the Fart.'"
Hle, at length, consented to deliver the woman to the Agent, who took her to the Fort and deliv- ered to her friends.
On the 2d of August, to the regret of Major Plympton, The officer in command, Hole-in-the- Day visited Fort Snelling. The next evening, the missionary Samuel Pond met Taliaferro, the Indian Agent, nt Lake Harriet, and told him that a number of armed Sionx, from Mud Lake, had gone to Baker's Stone trading house, which was near the Fort, to attack the Chippeways. The agent immediately hastened to the spot, and reached the honse just as the first gun was tired. An Ottowa - half-breed of Hole-in-theD-ay party was killed, and one was wounded. Of the Sionx, Tokalis' son was shot by Obequette, of Red Lake, just as he was sealping the dead man.
Major Plympton had Hole-in-the-Day and party taken under the protection of the Fort, and at nine o'clock at night one Sioux was confined to the guard house, as a hostage.
The next day Major Plympton and the Indian Agent determined to hold a council with the Sioux. The principal men of the neighboring villages soon assembled. Several long specches, as usual, were made, when Major Plympton said : "It is unnecessary to talk much. I have de- manded the guilty, they must he brought."
They replied that they would. The Council broke up, and at 5:30 P. M. the' party returned to the Ageney with Tokalis' two sons. With mich ceremony they were delivered. The mother, in surrendering her sons, said : "Of seven sons, three only are left ; one of them was wounded, and soon would die, and if the two now given up were shot, her all was gone. I called on the head men to follow me to the Fort. I started with the prisoners, singing their death song, and have delivered them at the gates of the Fort. Have merey on them for their folly and youth."
Notwithstanding the murdered man of Hole-in- the-Day's party had been buried in the military grave yard for safety, an attempt was made on the night of the Council, on the part of some of the Sionx, to dig up his body.
On the evening of the sixth, Major Plympton sent Hole-in-the-Day and party home, furnishing them with provisions, and sending them across the river.
In June, 1839, Hole-in-the-Day ngain deter- mined to visit Fort Snelling. The Indian Agent, on the 18th of the month, sent Stephen Bonga, or Bingo, of African and Chippeway descent, with a letter to him. Five hundred Chippeways had on the 20th reached the Fort, nd Hole-in the-Day
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HISTORY OF THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.
asked permission to stay three days. The next day under a canopy near the walls of the Fort, the Chippeways held a council with the Sioux, Stephen Bonga acting us interpreter for tho former. On Sunday, the 23d, there were at the Fort eight hundred and forty-six Chippeways, and twelve hundred and fifty Sioux. They passed the day in dancing together and in running foot races. The next day, Monday, they held a coun- cil with Plympton, the commander of the Fort.
On the 24th of June a man by the name of Libbey came on the steamboat Ariel, who sold thirty-six gallons of whisky to the interpreter Scott Campbell, and the next night many of the Sionx and Chippeways were drunk.
On Sunday, tho last day in June, Hole-in-the- Day mmomeed his intention to return to his country.
On the first of July, the Sioux and Chippeways at the Falls of Saint Anthony smoked the pipe of peace, and Hole-in-the-Day ascended the Missis- sippi.
Some of the Pillager band of Indians remained near the Fort, and passing over to Lake Harriet, about sunrise the next day, they killed Badger, a Sioux Indian, who was on his way to hunt. The excitement was intense among the Sionx and resulted in the battles described on the 103d page, but Hole-in-the-Day had gone ahead before tho conffiet on Rim River began.
During the winter of 1843 the Indian Agent at La Pointo had heard of a conspiracy to capture a vessel on Lake Superior, that was expected with goods for the Indians, and annuity money. The : plan was, to surround the vessel in canoes when it was becalmed, confine tho crew, then run the vessel to the north shore, divide the money and goods, liberate the erew, und escape to tho wilderness.
The prospect was frustrated, but on the day of payment at the Agency, the conspirators wero on the ground " fit for treason, strategom and spoils."
About midnight of the second day Hole-in-the- Day saw some of them holding a conference in a tent, and crawling up, heard their plans. Agent writes " The goods had been landed and stored in the warehouse of the Fur Company, but the money was in the stern of the vessel, for safo keeping, till needed for distribution. The soldiers were quartered on board. The vessel was moored to tho wharf. The only way to which, from the fand, was through a warehouse in which a lamp was hung by night, and a sentinel placed both
day and night. Their plan of attack was by ca- noes, to overawe the guard and sioze the vessel, hoist sail, and avail themselves of tho land breeze, which always blows in the night, in calm or mod- erate weather, and put for Canada with the money.
"On being informed of this, I roused up the office- ers, who donbled tho guard, and I found that Hole-in-the-Day before he informed me of the affair, had one hundred of his men under arms, and had surrounded the warehouse containing the goods, and was guarding the way to the vessel. Finding themselves thus headed off, the conspira- tors desisted from their piratical purpose.
"The next morning they were summoned to meet the charge, but they, of course, denied it. But Hole-in-the-Day confronted them; told what they said and who said it; and others also affirmed the truth of his story. Finding they were detected, and convicted, they confessed, and begged for merey, assigning as the reason for their conduet, their exclusion from the payment, and hoped their friends would remember them with presents, when they received their payment. Under these cir- enmstanecs, and their promises to behave, they wero allowed to remain on the island. They had no earthly right to share in the payment. They lived in Canada, and had no claim weatever npon the land sold."
In the spring of 1847, while intoxicated, Hole- in-the-Day fell from a Red River cart, in which he was riding, near Platte River, in Benton County, and died. He was buried upon a high bluff not far distant.
THIE JUNIOR HOLE-IN-THE-DAY.
The son of Hole-in-the-Day bore the same name as his father. While a boy, he was with his father, in April, 1837, when he slaughtered a party of unsuspecting Sioux, and it is said on that ocea- sion the lad was ordered to lie by a girl, and at a signal kill her. His father said, "If you are afraid, I'll whip you," but he said he was not, and true to his instructions he killed and sealped the girl, and from that period wore the eagle's feather, as a symbol that he had sealped an enemy.
When about twenty years of age, living near Watab, he determined to come down to the vici- nity of the site of Saint Paul to obtain a medal which belonged to his lately deceased father.
On his way down he was met by a messenger, sent by the Indian Agent at Fort Snelfing, to tell him he must not come to the Ageney. He said he would heed the advice, and go and stop at the
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HOLE-IN-TIIE-DAY'S SON AT FOND DU LAC.
house of a half-breed upon the east side of the Mississippi. The person who had been traveling with him went to the trading post at Mendota, passed the night, and next day crossed over to Fort Snelling, and was astonished at finding there Hole-in-the-Day alone, walking in front of the gates of the Fort. "Why are you here?" was asked. He answered, "My father -walked here, and I like to do the same!" During his visit the Sionx of the vicinity held a council, and he in- sisted on being present.
The editor of the Saint Paul Press writes: "The first appearance of the younger Hole-in-the-Day, in public council, was at Fond-du-Lac (of Lake Superior). The Chippewas of the Mississippi, headed by Hole-in-the-Day, owing to the great distance they had to travel, had but a small dele- gation in attendance. Hole-in-the-Day was late in reaching the council ground. Prior to his coming, several talks were held with the Indians, in which they admitted that they had allowed Hole-in-the-Day's father to take the lead in their councils, but said that were he then alivo they would make him take a back scat; that his son was a mere boy, and were he there he would have nothing to do with it; consequently it was useless to wait for him. The Commissioners, who were our fellow-citizens, Hon. Henry M. Rice and Isaac A. Verplanck, of Buffalo, however, thought ditfer- ently, and waited.
After the arrival of Hole-in-the-Day, the coun- cil was formally opened. The Commissioners stated their business, and requested a reply from the Indians. Hole-in-the-Day was led up to the stand by two of his braves, and made a speech, to which all the Indians present gave hearty and aud- ible assent. Here were powerful chiefs of all the Chippewa tribes, some of them seventy or eighty years old, who, before his coming, spoke sneer- ingly of him, as a boy who had no voice in the council, saying there was no use in waiting for him, but when he appeared they became his most submissive and obedient servants, and this is a treaty in which a million of acres of land were erded.
The terms of the treaty were conelnded between the Commissioners and young Hole-in-the-Day alone. The latter, after this, withdrew and sent word to the chiefs of the Mississippi and Lake Superior bands to go and sign it. After it had Ix en duly signed by the Commissioners, the chief, head men and warriors, and witnessed by the inter-
preter, and other persons present, Hole-in-the-Day, who had not been present at those little formali- ties, called upon the Commissioners, with two of his attendant chiefs, and had appended to the treaty the following words:
" Fathers: The country our Great Father sent you to purchase, belongs to me. It was once my father's. He took it from the Sioux. He, by his bravery, made himself the head chief of the Chip- pewa nation. I am a greater man than my father was, for I am as brave as he was, and on my mother's side I am hereditary head chief of the nation. The land you want belongs to me. If I say sell, our Great Father will have it. If I say, not sell, he will go without it. These Indians that you see behind me, have nothing to say about it. "I approve of the treaty and consent to the same. Fond du Lac, August 3d, 1847.
PO-GO-NE-SHIK, OF' HOLE IN THE DAY, his mark."
By this treaty, they ceded the land bounded as follows: Beginning at the mouth of the Crow Wing, and up that stream to the junction with Long Prairie River, thence up that river to the boundary between the Sioux and the Chippeways, thence sontherly along said boundary Ihre to a lake at the head of Long Prairie River, thence in a direct line to the sources of the Watab River, thenee down the Watab to the Mississippi, and thence up the Mississippi to place of begining."
In a portion of this country the Winnebagoes dwelt, after their removal from Iowa.
On the 15th of May, 1850, with two or three associates, he came down to the cave in the west- ern suburbs of St. Paul, crossed the river in a canoe, and meeting some Sionx from Kaposia, killed and sealped one of them. "The St. Panl Pioncer" of the 23d of May has the following par- agraph: " A gentleman just down From Fort Gaines [afterwards called Ripley ] says that ou his way down he met the Chippeway Chief, Hole- in-the-Day, with the scalp of the young Sioux In- dian which the brave took last week in this neighborhood, divided into quarters. He was in tine feather. At night he and his followers had a scalp dance. In his descont on the Sions, in the short space of twenty-four hours he marched eighty miles, committed the murder, and started home again."
About the time of the close of the war he hap- pened to be in Washington on business, und by his boldness and vanity impressed a servant girl
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HISTORY OF THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.
at the National Hotel, where he stopped. The girl went to her sister's, in the suburbs of Washington, and obtained a Saratoga trunk which belonged to her, and told her sister that she was going with a lady to the sea-side.
The next day a sensational paragraph appeared, mentioning that Hole-in-the-Day, a wealthy Chip- peway Chief, had married a white girl. She, how- ever, eloped with him, and he brought her to his home near the Chippeway Ageney, where he had several Indian wives, and treated her with uni- form kindness.
In the afternoon of the 27th of June, in eom- pany with another Indian, he left his home in a one-horse buggy for the Chippeway agency, and from thence to Crow Wing. Some Chippeways from Leech Lake, not long aftre he left, came to the Ageney, and finding that Hole-in-the-Day had gone to Crow Wing, they seercted themselves in a copse, near the road by which he would return.
As he was riding by, one of the Indians seereted fired both barrels of a shot-gun, and he fell dead from the buggy. His body was dragged to the side of the road and, after taking his gold watel and some of his clothing, the murderer, with a companion, jumped into the buggy and rode to the chief's log-house, where they told his wives that Hole-in-the-Day was killed. The house had a half story above the main room, and there the infant, a boy by the white wife, was sleeping on their arrival. As one of the Indians went up the steps the mother feared the child would be killed, but the Indian soon returned, with some articles he had taken, and departed.
The murderer was said to have been a relative of Hole-in-the-Day, and was angered because he was not recognized as a sub-chief. The body of the Chief was buried in the Roman Catholic Church of Crow Wing. His white widow, with her child, afterwards went to Minneapolis, where she married a respectable white man.
STATE EDUCATION.
201
STATE EDUCATION. .
BY CHIARLES S. BRYANT, A. M.
CHAPTER XLI.
EDUCATION - DEFINITION OF TIIE WORD-STATE EDUCATION-CHURCH AND STATE SEPARATED- SEPARATION BENEFICIAL -- STUDIES NOT LIMITED -RIVALRY FRIENDLY.
Ax a word, education is of wide application and may convey but an indefinite idea. Broadly, it means to draw out, to lead forth, to train up, to foster, to enable the individual to properly use the faculties, mental or corporal, with which he is endowed; and to use them in a way that will accomplish the desired result in all relations and in any department of industry, whether in the domain of intellectual research, or confined to the fields of physical labor.
State Education points at once to a definite field of investigation; an organization which is to have extensive direction and control of the subject mat- ter embraced in the terms chosen. It at onee excludes the conclusion that any other species of education than scenlar education is intended. It excludes all other kinds of education not included in this form, without the slightest reflection upon parochial, sectarian, denominational, or individual schools; independent or corporate educational organizations. State Education, then, may cm- brace whatever is required by the state in the due execution of its mission in the protection of indi- vidual rights, and the proper advancement of the citizen in material prosperity; in short, whatever may contribute in any way to the honor, dignity, and fair fame of a state; whose sovereign will dircets, and, to a very great extent, controls the destiny of its subjects.
A reason may be given for this special depart- ment of education, without ignoring any others arising from the necessity of civil government, and its necessary separation from ecclesiastical
control. It must be observed by every reasoning mind, that in the advancement and growth of social elements from savagery, through families and tribes to civilization, and the better forms of government, that in the increasing growth, multi- plied industries continually lead to a resistless demand for division of labor, both intellectual and physical. This division must eventually lead, in every form of government, to a separation of what may be termed Church and State; and, of course, in such division, every separate organization must control the elements necessary to sustain its own perpetuity; for otherwise its identity would be lost, and it would cease to have any recognized existence.
In these divisions of labor, severally organized for different and entirely distinet objeets, mutual benefits must result, not from any invasion of the separate rights of the one or the other, by hostile aggression, but by reason of the greatest harmony of elements, and hence greater perfec- tion in the labors of each, when limited to the promotion of each separate and peculiar work. In the division, one would be directed towards the temporal, the other towards the spiritual advance- ment of man, in any and all relations which he sustains, not only to his fellow-men, but to the material or immaterial universe. These depart- ments of labor are sufficiently broad, although intimately related, to require the best directed energies of each, to properly cultivate their sepa- rate fields. And an evidence of the real harmony existing between these organizations, the Church and State, relative to the present investigation, is found in the admitted fact, that edneation, both temporal and spiritual, secular and sectarian, was a principal element of the original organization, and not in conflict with its highest duty, or its most vigorons growth. In the division of the
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HISTORY OF THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.
original organization, that department of educa- tion, which was only spiritual, was retained with its necessary adjuncts, while that which was only temporal was relegated to a new organization, the temporal organization, the State, The separate elements are still of the same quality, although wiekled by two" instead of one organization. In this respect, education may be compared to the diamond, which, when broken and subdivided into most minute particles, each separate particle retains not only the form and number of facets, but the brilliancy of the original diamond. So in the case before us, though education has suffered division, and has been appropriated by different organisms, it is nevertheless the same in nature, and retains the same quality and Inster of the parent original.
The laws of growth in these separate organiza- tions, the Church composed of every ereed, and the State in every form of government, must deter- mine the extent to which their special education shall be carried. If it shall be determined by the Church, that her teachers, leaders, and followers in any stage of its growth, shall be limited in their nequisitions to the simple elements of knowl- edge, reading, writing, and arithmetie, it may be determined that the state should limit education to the same simple elements. But as the Church, conscious of its immature growth, has never restricted her leaders, teaeliers, or followers, to these simple elements of knowledge; neither hns the State seen fit to limit, nor ean it ever limit education to any standard short of the extreme limits of its growth, the fullest development of its resources, and the demands of its citizens. State Education and Church Ednention are nlike in their infancy, and no one is able to prescribe limits to the one or the other. The separation of Church and State, in matters of government only, is yet of very narrow limits, and of very recent origin. And the separation of Church and State, in mat- ters of education, has not yet elearly dawned upon the minds of the accredited leaders of these elear- ly distinct organizations. .
It is rational, however, to eonelude, that among reasonable meu, it would be quite as easy to deter- mine the final triumph of State Ednention, as to determine the final success of the Christian faith over Buddhism, or the final triumph of man, in the subjugation of the earth to his control. The
deerce has gone forth, that man shall subdue the earth; so that, guided by the higher law, Educa- tion, under the dircetion or protection of the State, must prove a final success, for only by organic, scientifie, and human instrumentality can the pur- pose of the Creator be possibly accomplished on curth.
If we have found greater perfection in quality, and better adaptation of methods in the work done by these organizations sinee the separation, we must eonchide that the triumphs of each will be in proportion to the completeness of the separa- tion; and that the countries the least shackled by entangling alliances in this regard, must, other things being equal, lead the van, both in the ad- vancement of science and in the triumphs of an enlightened faith. And we can by a very slight comparison of the present with the past, deter- mine for ourselves, that the scientific curriculum of state schools has been greatly widened and en- riehed, and its methods better adapted to proposed ends. We ean as easily ascertain the important fact that those countries are in advance, where the two great organizations, Church and State, are least in conflict. We know also, that from the nature of the human movement westward, that the best defined conditions of these organizations should be found in the van of this movement. On this continent, then, the highest development of these organizations should be found, at least, when time shall have matured his natural results in the growth and polish of our institutions. Even now, in our infancy, what country on earth can show equal results in either the growth of general knowl- edge, the ndvanee of odneation, or the triumphs of Christian labor at home and abroad? These are the legitimate fruits of the wonderful energy given to the mind of man in the separate labors of these organizations, on the principle of the division of labor, and consequently better dircet- ed energies in every department of industry. This movement is onward, across the continent, and thence around the globe. Its foree is irresist- able, and all efforts to reunite these happily di- vided powers, and to return to the culture of past times, and the governments and laws of past ages, must be as unavailing ns an attempt to reverse the laws of nature. In their separation and friend- ly rivalry, exists the hope of man's temporal and spiritual elevation.
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