USA > North Dakota > Early history of North Dakota: essential outlines of American history > Part 13
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In February, 1816, selection was made by the Bishop of Quebec of the person to establish the mission requested by Selkirk, and for which his colonists had petitioned. July 16, 1818, Father Joseph Provencher and his companion, Father Joseph Severe Dumoulin, arrived at Fort Douglas, and established a mission which thereafter was known as St. Boniface. Soon after their arrival grasshop- pers visited the Red River country, and completely destroyed the crops of the settlers, forcing the new colonists, who arrived that year, also to go to Pembina, where there was already a considerable settlement.
Father Dumoulin went to Pembina the latter part of August, and Septem- ber 8, 1818, celebrated mass at Pembina, the first Christian service within the limits of what is now North Dakota.
He founded a school, which was placed in charge of William Edge, and when the Vicar General (Provencher) arrived in January, 1819, there were sixty pupils in the school, and 300 people in the parish, while at St. Boniface, the foun- dation of Winnipeg, there were about fifty. The first teachers in the school at St. Boniface were the two Misses Nolen, Pembina girls and daughters of the trader.
Of the commercial advantages of Pembina, the Vicar General thus wrote to the bishop :
"That post is for the present very important. From there I. with all of the colony, receive all of my provisions. I shall continue to build there."
He spoke of his chapel at St. Boniface, 80x35 feet, and his "shop" at Pem- bina, 24x18 feet, with a presbytery, 60x30 feet. He was disquieted by the infor- mation that Pembina was on the American side of the international boundary line, and admitted that his plan had been disarranged by the information, but he intended "to continue to build, for Father Dumoulin must spend the winter there."
In 1819 and 1820, the grasshoppers again destroyed the crops, leaving the colonists entirely dependent upon Pembina for subsistence. Provencher spent the winter of 1819-20 at Pembina. Almost every one had left St. Boniface for the winter.
In 1820 Provencher was appointed coadjutor bishop of Quebec with the title of Bishop of Juliopolis, and May 12, 1822, was consecrated. He returned to St. Boniface in August, 1822, after an absence of two years from the colony, to find that the Hudson's Bay Company had insisted upon the withdrawal of the priests from Pembina, for the reason that it was on the American side. This was determined by observations made by David Thompson for the North-West Com- pany in 1798, and confirmed in August, 1823, by Maj. Stephen H. Long, the priests having withdrawn the previous January.
Some of the settlers after the withdrawal of the priests founded the parish of St. Francis Xavier, and others went to Fort Snelling, and various points in the United States, the colonists generally returning to St. Boniface, as they had Vol. 1-7
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been in the habit of doing, each spring. Father Dumoulin was heart-broken over the destruction of the interests he had built up at Pembina, and returned to Canada, where he died in 1853.
HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY AND NORTH-WEST COMPANY AMALGAMATED
Regarding the amalgamation of the Hudson's Bay and North-West com- panies; the following letter was written by Alexander Lean to Peter Fidler, both members of the Hudson's Bay Company, at London, May 21, 1821 :
"I received your esteemed favor of the 14th August last from Norway House. I thank you much for the information it contained. I shall now, in return, give you such intelligence as will, I trust, not only be agreeable to you but to every individual in the service.
"In the first place, all misunderstanding between the honorable company and the North-West Company is totally at an end. You are to know that the honorable company caused it to be announced in the Gazette and daily papers, that a general board of proprietors would be held at their house on Monday, the 26th March last. It was so held and many of the Hudson's Bay and North-West proprietors attended. Tendency of this meeting was to promulgate that a union between the two companies had taken place. I cannot enumerate the resolutions which unanimously passed on the occasion, let it suffice for me to acquaint you that it appears to have been a well-digested plan, which eventually will tend to the advantage of both companies.
"Mr. Garry, a gentleman of the honorable committee, accompanied by Mr. Simon McGillivray, has embarked for New York, from thence to Montreal in order to proceed to the company settlements, the North-West stations and Red River. If you should see Mr. Garry you will find him a gentleman in every respect, and deserving respectful attention. The whole concern will be appor- tioned into shares to which the North-West agent will be entitled.
"I was present at the general board (being a proprietor) and after the busi- ness was concluded a mutual congratulation passed between the governor, etc., and myself, and I sincerely wish every individual, a fellow laborer in the same vineyard in which I was till lately, joy on the happy event."
Peter Fidler was a surveyor and a very well-known officer in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company; John Wills, the Pembina manager of the North- West Company, is mentioned in the will of Mr. Fidler, dated August 16, 1821.
CHAPTER VIII
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY
VINCENNES THE KEY-CLARK AND HAMILTON-WAYNE AND THE TREATY OF GREEN-
VILLE-POST VINCENTS OR VINCENNES-JOHN TANNER, THE WHITE CAPTIVE -AT OLD PEMBINA- PE-SHAU-BA'S RECOLLECTIONS AND DEATH-LORD SELKIRK AND TANNER-THE SHAWNEE PROPHET-MESSENGER AT PEMBINA-THE SIOUX AT THE GATES-JEFFERSON TO ADAMS-DRAWING THE LINE-HARRISON AND TECUMSEH-BATTLE OF TIPPECANOE-THE PASSING OF TENKSWATAWA.
"For one by one, the scattered race Hath slowly dropped from time and space. All silently they slipped away, As shadows pass at close of day. So vanish like the morning dew, The older clans before the new." -Susan H. Wixon, "Indian Town."
VINCENNES THE KEY
The country north of the Ohio River had come into the possession of the United States through the capture of Post Vincents, or Vincennes, by Col. George R. Clark, with the co-operation of Patrick Henry, who was the first governor of Virginia and held the office by successive re-elections until 1779, and was again elected at the close of the Revolutionary war.
The post, which was of great importance for trade, was located on the east bank of the Wabash River, in Indiana, 150 miles above its junction with the Ohio River, and was taken from the British, who had acquired the territory in 1763, and had held it for a period of nineteen years.
The fort was built by Francois Morganne de la Vincenne, an officer in the service of the King of France, in the fall of 1702, on the site of the present City of Vincennes. The plot of ground was held until 1839, when it was divided and sold in lots. It owed its origin to military necessity for protecting French possessions, and was one of a contemplated chain of forts to connect Canada with Louisiana. It was built of logs, and when it was torn down in 1820, the logs were used in the construction of private houses.
The Indians were friendly and assisted in building the fort, and among the tribes surrounding the location was the Shawnee. It was one time called "Fort Sackville" by the British, in honor of Sir Thomas Sackville, earl of Dorset, and prime minister of Great Britain when that government assumed possession of the territory, but the change was never acknowledged by the citizens of the
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town. Colonel Clark changed the name to "Fort Patrick Henry," but it did not stand. The founder of the fort was burned at the stake after a battle with the Chickasaws, on Easter Sunday, 1736. He refused to join in the retreat, and remained with his wounded and dying soldiers in the hands of the Indians.
The British commander, Henry Hamilton, lieutenant governor and superin- tendent, held the fort when besieged by Colonel Clark, and notes of capitulation between officers were exchanged February 24, 1779, Great Britain surrendering to Virginia for the following reasons :
"The remoteness from succor, the state and quantity of provisions; unanimity of officers and men in its expediency; the honorable terms allowed, and, lastly the confidence in a generous enemy." During the siege one of Clark's men was wounded, and in the fort seven men were badly wounded out of a garrison of seventy-nine men.
The most powerful Indian in the country was "Tobacco's Son," who was friendly to Clark.
IMPORTANCE OF THE SURRENDER
This was one of the most important periods in its consequences in the history of the American Revolution, for the reason that owing to this conquest, and the consequent civil and military control of the Northwest, we were able to secure in the Treaty of Paris, made by representatives of Great Britain and the United States after the close of the war, the concession of the Mississippi River for our western boundary.
The land lay between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, embracing the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. The states of Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut, claimed a portion of this country by virtue of their charters from the king, but each, in turn, surrendered, New York, Virginia and Maryland not yielding until 1781.
THE TREATY OF PARIS, 1783
The definitive treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain was signed at Paris on September 3, 1783, by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and John Jay, on the part of the United States, and David Hartley for Great Britain, between Prince George III, by the grace of God, king of Great Britain, France and Ireland, defender of the faith, etc., and the United States of America, con- sisting of the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, acknowledged by his Britannic Majesty to be free, sovereign and independent states.
After the conquest by Clark the country around Vincennes became a part of the Commonwealth of Virginia. In 1784 Thomas Jefferson proposed that Congress should divide the domain into ten states, but the proposition failed. In 1786 the Northwest Territory treaties were made by the United States with the Shawnees.
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THE ORDINANCE OF 1787
In 1787, a bill was passed by Congress entitled "An Ordinance for the Gov- ernment of the Territory of the United States Northwest of the River Ohio."
The ordinance was modeled after the constitution accepted by the people of the State of Massachusetts in 1780, and Daniel Webster said of it: "No single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character, than the Ordinance of 1787."
It forever prohibited slavery or involuntary servitude, "otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted; pro- vided, always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original states, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or services as aforesaid."
It declared that "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."
Relative to the treatment of the original owners of the soil it clearly sets forth that : "The utmost good faith shall always be observed toward the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and in their property rights, and liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity shall from time to time be made, for preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them."
The movement for the organization of this territory had been initiated by an organization of the officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary war, to whom land scrip had been issued which had little value, and it was hoped that the sale of the fertile lands in this region would enable them to use or dispose of their holdings. Soldiers, trappers, hunters, and others who had passed beyond the Alleghanies, had excited an interest in the country which demanded its develop- ment. Further treaties with the Indians were necessary, however, in order to develop the country.
WAYNE AND THE TREATY OF GREENVILLE
An important movement having been decided upon by the United States Government, which Gen. Anthony Wayne was commissioned to lead, he passed the spring and summer of 1793 at Fort Washington (now Cincinnati, Ohio) in recruiting and drilling his men, proceeding on October 7th of that year to the region now designated as Darke County, where he erected Fort Greenville, passing the winter there.
After repeated failures to negotiate treaties of peace with the Indians, he gave them fair warning and then declared war, which ended August 20, 1794, in a victory for Wayne. The result was that on June 10, 1795, a council of delegates from the Indian nations convened at Greenville and on August 3, 1795, the Treaty of Greenville was signed by Maj .- Gen. Anthony Wayne, commanding the armies of the United States, commissioner on behalf of the United States for the occasion ; and ninety chiefs and delegates of twelve tribes of Indians, viz.,
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the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnees, Ottawas, Chippewas, Potawatamies, Miamis, Eel River, Weeas, Kickapoos, Piankashaws and Kaskaskias, yielded to the United States their rights to all the territory south and east of the line then fixed. The line passed up the Cuyahoga and across the Tuscarawas Portage to the forks of the Tuscarawas near Fort Lawrence, and then south of west to Laramie's Store, thence west by north to Fort Recovery, and thence southwest- wardly to the Ohio River, opposite the mouth of the Kentucky.
The lands north and west of the point named were conceded to be Indian lands excepting 150,000 acres granted to George R. Clark and his warriors, the post at Vincennes, and the lands adjacent thereto and the lands at other places in possession of the whites and six miles square at Chicago, Fort Wayne, Defiance, Sandusky and other points forming a complete chain of forts from the mouth of the Illinois and along the great lakes and a considerable tract at Detroit, the Indians agreeing to allow the free use of harbors, mouths of rivers and of the streams and portages throughout their vast domain and in addition to benefits received under former treaties they were to receive $20,000 in goods and presents and $9,500 annually forever for the surrender of their advantages; injuries and expenses sustained in the Indian wars by the United States being taken into con- sideration. As small as these annuities were they were divided among the sev- eral tribes and to each a certain portion.
JOHN TANNER, THE WHITE CAPTIVE
Among the characters who left their mark on the early days of the Red River was John Tanner, son of a clergyman who emigrated to the Ohio River in 1789, and with his family had been settled but a few days, when John, then a lad of twelve years, was captured by an Indian from Lake Huron.
His mother died in his early childhood. His father married again, and feeling himself aggrieved he fancied he would prefer living with the Indians. Accord- ingly when he was punished for a misdemeanor by being confined to the house, he slipped out unnoticed and ran to the woods where there was a favorite walnut tree, and being found there was carried away by Manito-o-geezhik "to make his wife's heart glad," for she mourned a son lost by disease.
The child was adopted into the family, but Manito-o-geezhik becoming dis- satisfied with him tomahawked him, and threw him into the bushes for dead, but his wife, when he told where he was, hurried to the spot, found him still alive and nursed him back to health.
Later, Manito-o-geezhik sold him to Net-no-kwa, a noted woman, who was a wise and influential chief of the Ottawas. She gave Manito-o-geezhik two ten gallon kegs of whisky, a number of blankets, and other presents, for the boy.
Manito-o-geezhik had treated him cruelly, telling him he was going back to his home to kill his people, and after an absence of three weeks brought him his brother's hat which had a bullet hole in it, and told him he had killed the whole family. Recognizing his brother's hat, Tanner believed him, but nearly thirty years after, he found that the Indian had captured his brother and tied him to a tree for the night, but he managed to escape and returned to his home.
Net-no-kwa was always very good to Tanner, and he learned to love her as he would a mother. She dressed him well, allowed him to play with other children and gave him enough to eat.
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In 1792, Net-no-kwa had moved from her home on Lake Huron to the Red River country to hunt beaver, and on her way her husband was killed, and her son and son-in-law died, and to drown trouble she resorted to indulgence in liquor, contrary to former temperate habits, and thereafter she had occasional periods of intoxication, when she would give nearly all she possessed for liquor for herself and companions whom she treated as royally as her means would permit.
Tanner remained with his foster-mother, and cared for her, until long after he became a man. He grew into a mighty hunter, so great that the Indians became jealous of him. One tomahawked him when he was asleep in his tent, and another shot him, but, in each case, although severely wounded, he recovered.
Although taken away from his home when so young, and entirely forgetting his mother tongue, having been trained in Indians ways of thought and expres- sion, he stated that he had always been conscious of his entire dependence upon a superior being and invisible power, but that he had felt this conviction much more powerfully in time of distress and danger, and knew that the Great Spirit saw and heard, when he called on him to pity the distress of himself and family.
Tanner was noted for his integrity and bravery, and it is related of him that he once brought two parcels of fur to the Red River trading post, one of which he sold to pay a debt to the North-West Company trader, intending to use the other to settle with the Hudson's Bay Company, but in that he was violently opposed by the trader of the former company, who when persuasion failed to change his purpose, threatened him with bodily injury, and Tanner still per- sisting in having his own way, the trader placed a pistol to his breast, when Tanner, undaunted, pointing to his bare bosom, told him to "fire away." declaring that though he was a stranger in a strange land, a captive and a slave, he would not raise a weapon against any man and then refrain from killing him because he was afraid.
This exhibition of courage gained him the liberty to dispose of his furs to suit himself, and pay his just debt to the rival company.
AT OLD PEMBINA
Net-no-kwa, accompanied by Tanner, arrived at Pembina the day before the advent of Chaboillez in 1797, and found no indications of whites ever having been there.
Tanner was among the Indians then hunting in that region, trapping along all of the streams emptying into the Red River as far north as the Bois des Sioux where he spent one winter, often killing as many as 100 beaver in a month. He took that number one month on the Bois des Sioux, without the aid of a gun, and in his hunting he sometimes killed as many as twenty animals with a single ball, using it over and over again.
In Mr. Tanner's "Narrative," he states that about the year 1800, it was no uncommon thing for an Indian to give five or six prime beaver skins for a quart of Saulteur liquor,-a gill or two of alcohol, the rest water.
On the Mouse River, in the course of a single day, Net-no-kwa sold 120
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beaver skins, with a large quantity of other furs, for rum, at the price of six skins for a quart.
"Of all of our large load of peltries, the produce of so many days toil, of so many long and difficult journeys, one blanket and three kegs of rum only remained besides tlie poor and almost worn out clothing on our backs," was Tanner's sorrowful reflection.
The price they paid per quart was, fairly, the equivalent of $18, and, as Tanner says, "They put a great deal of water in that."
PE-SHAU-BA'S RECOLLECTIONS AND DEATH
Among the Ottawa friends of Net-no-kwa, was an unusually bright and good Indian Chief named Pe-shau-ba. He was good to every one, and especially to young Tanner. He always gave of his substance to help others, and often interfered to stop trouble, and no matter how freely he gave, he always had, if not an abundance, enough to supply his own wants and to divide with his intimate friends, but he became very ill, and calling Tanner to him, addressed to him the following words, as related in Tanner's "Narrative":
"I remember before I came to live in this world I was with the Great Spirit above, and I looked down and saw men upon the earth. I saw many good and desirable things and, among others, a beautiful woman, and as I looked down day after day at the woman, He said to me:
"'Pe-shau-ba, do you love the woman you are so often looking at?' I told Him I did. He then said to me: 'Go down and spend a few winters on earth. You cannot stay long, and you must remember to be always kind to my children whom you see below.' So I came down, but I have never forgotten what He said to me. When my people have fought with their enemies, I have not struck my friends in their lodges. I have disregarded the foolishness of young men who would have offended me, but have always been ready and willing to lead our brave men against the Sioux. I have always gone into battle painted black, as I am now, and I now hear the same voice that talked to me before I came into this world. It tells me I can remain here no longer. To you, my brother, I have been a protector and you will be sorry when I leave you, but be not like a woman. You will soon follow in my path."
He then put on the new clothes Tanner had given him, walked out of the lodge, looked at the sun, the sky, the lake and the distant hills, then came in and lay down composedly, and in a few moments ceased to breathe.
"Farewell, sweet lake, farewell, surrounding woods. To other groves, through midnight glooms, I stray, Beyond the mountains, and beyond the floods, Beyond the Huron Bay- Prepare the hollow tomb, and place me low, My trusty bow and arrows by my side,
The cheerful bottle and the venison store, For long the journey is that I must go Without a partner, and without a guide. He spoke, and bade the attending mourners weep,
Then closed his eyes and sunk to endless sleep." -Philip Freneau, "The Dying Indian."
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LORD SELKIRK AND TANNER
In 1816, Thomas Douglas, fifth Earl of Selkirk, Baron Daer and Shortcleugh, while visiting this country became much attached to John Tanner and located his family on the banks of the Ohio River. Tanner, when Lord Selkirk found him, had grown to manhood, and had married an Indian woman and after being recognized by his family through the exertion of Lord Selkirk, brought several of his half-blood children into the United States. Returning afterwards for , his two daughters, he found that their mother, believing he was about to desert her, had given one of their daughters to an Indian, who had agreed to murder Tanner, and in the attempt shot him, but not with fatal effect. He was found by Maj. Stephen H. Long, the explorer, and his party, in 1823, on the Rainy River, alone and uncared for, having been abandoned by his wife and daughters.
Dr. Edward James, of the Long Expedition, reduced his life and adventures to writing and published them in 1830, under the title of "Tanner's Narrative." This production confirms much that was written by Alexander Henry.
THE SHAWNEE PROPHET
The Indians of America, no less than the white men of Europe, and the brown men of Asia, have had many prophets and messiahs, who have taught them spir- itual things.
In November, 1805, there arose a prophet among the Shawnees of Ohio, who called himself Tenskwatawa (the "Open Door"). He was twin brother of Tecumseh, conspicuous in American history immediately before the War of 1812, by reason of the setting on foot of an Indian confederacy to hold the Ohio River as a boundary beyond which white settlement should not be advanced.
The Shawnee Prophet, at the height of his popularity was about thirty years of age, and is said to have possessed a magnetic personality of extraordinary power, notwithstanding the physical drawback of the loss of one eye.
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