History of Buffalo County Wisconsin 10847607, Part 11

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Having said so much about Indians in general, I can not omit a trait, which has been observed by many officers and traders, es- pecially in the Great West, which usually means that part of the United States between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean. It is the supposed common sign-language. That such a sort of communication existed, and that most Indians of the Plains and the Rocky Mountains readily fell into the interpretation of signs made by them mutually, need not be disputed. The Kiowas and tribes in frequent contact with them are said to have had a system of such signs almost equivalent to spoken language. Tribes farther distant were naturally not proficient in it, and in some cases the old men were the only ones that remembered any consi. derable part of it. Some signs were so expressive as to be under- stood everywhere, as laying down weapons as a sign of peaceable

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intentions, and a few others of similar effect. The presentation of the peace-pipe, also, was regarded in the same way, whether accepted or not. Many of the supposed signs were preconcerted signals, and the paucity of most of their languages was a natural inducement to the use of gestures. It is hardly necessary to say more about the matter.

In the special relation of matters concerning the three tribes of our neighborhood, I intend to follow the arrangement of Judge Gale in his book on the " Upper Mississippi," without going any further than mentioning the names of kindred tribes. His ar- rangement is thus: 1. The Winnebago Confederacy; 2. The Da- kota Confederacy ; 3. The Ojibwa Confederacy.

1. THE WINNEBAGO CONFEDERACY.

It consisted of the following tribes: Winnebagoes, Menome- nees, Iowas, Missourias, Osages, Kansas, Quapas, Otoes, Omahas, Ponkas and Mandans, and perhaps some others. None of these tribes, however, lived in our neighborhood except the Winne- bagoes. Some mention has been made of these casually at differ- ent other places, and need not be repeated here. Their name, in their own language, was O-chunk-o-raws, and although some au- thors have classed them among the Dakota family, it is not pro- bable that they really belonged to it. Direct testimony against that supposition is given by Schoolcraft; who quotes the Rev. Wm. Hamilton, previously a missionary among the Iowas and author of a grammar of their language, who wrote as follows: There is no more difference between the language of the Iowas, Otoes and Winnebagoes, than between the language of a New Englander and a Southerner.

A few words are common to one tribe, and not to the other. They say the Winnebago is the first language. In the same volume J. E. Fletcher, Esq., Indian agent to the Winnebagoes, writes: The Winnebagoes claim that they are an original stock; and that the Missourias, Iowas, Otoes and Omahas sprung from them. These Indians call the Winnebagoes their elder brothers, and the similarity of their languages renders it probable, that they belong to the same stock. Even in 1670 the Winnebagoes told Rev. Father Allouez that " there were only certain people of the south- west who spoke as they did."-It may at this place be proper to remark, that we have a right to conclude, that the name of the

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Menomonees does not belong into the roll of this confederacy, in- asmuch as the Menomonees were at the time of the residence of Father Allouez among the Winnebagoes the nearest known neigh- bors to the east of the latter, and the missionary had formerly been among the former, and was well aware of the difference of the two languages .- To the two former testimonies we must add that of Saterlee Clark, an old Winnebago trader, and one of the few who ever learned that language, that he could converse with and understand the Iowas, and that the Iowas called themselves O-chunk-o-raws; the statement of Gen - Sully, that they spoke the same language as the Omahas; and the statement of James Reed, Esq., of Trempealeau County, to Judge Gale, that he had not been able even to learn the Winnebago language, on account of its be- ing so deeply guttural, notwithstanding he had many years spoken Sioux, been a farmer and trader amongst them, and had a cousin of the Chief Wabasha for his wife. This we imagine makes a strong case against the assertion that the Winnebago is only a dialect of the Sioux.

The Winnebagoes made their entrance into the annals of civil- ized men by the visit made to them by Jean Nicolet under the order of Gov. Champlain of New France in 1634. Judge Gale and some others put the date at 1639, but Prof. C. W. Butterfield in his work: " History of the Discovery of the Northwest by John Nicolet in 1634," proves it to have been five years earlier. (See "Jean Nic -: ) olet " in this work.) For about thirty-eight years we hear but little of them, and when Joliet and Marquette came among them they still occupied the country in which they had been found by Nicolet. It appears, however, from subsequent events that they retreated from Green Bay and the lower part of the Fox River and were succeeded by the Outagamies or Foxes, with whom they seem to have been on terms of amity and peace. The Sacs ap- pear to have been either a clan or gens of the Foxes, or their close allies. It is erroneous to suppose that the Winnebagoes continued to occupy as their own territory, the country in which the French had to carry on war with the Foxes. But that they continued friendly to the French may be true. At least we have sufficient? evidence, that de Caurey or de Carry, a Frenchman, either a trader or coureur de bois was married to Ho-po-ko-e-kaw, the Morning Glory, and that he died in one of the different battles around Que.

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the Portage, thence across the Portage to Fox River, thence down Fox River to Lake Winnebago and the grand Kau-Kanlin, includ- ing in their claim the whole of Lake Winnebago. Within this a tract was secured to the Ottawas along the watershed of the Black River and the Mississippi, about the sources of the small streams running west.

In spite of the solemn promise to maintain eternal peace the Winnebagoes were restless and discontented. In October 1826 Fort Crawford at Prairie du Chien was abandoned and the troops transferred to Fort Snelling. The foolish pride of the Winnebagoes ... made them believe that this move had been made out of fear of themselvelves. Fort Winnebago on the Wisconsin was not yet. built. When the troops left Prairie du Chien the Commandant took with him two Winnebago prisoners, who were detained for some trifling offence. After a while it began to be talked about among the Indians that the two prisoners had been killed. The war. party among the Winnebagoes used this rumor as a pretext for revenge, and it subsequently leaked out that an alliance had been made with the Pottawatomies east of Rock River, and a gen- eral outbreak arranged for during Spring 1827. Judge Gale says that some Winnebagoes had killed eight Chippewas near Fort Snel- ling and that the commandant, Colonel Snelling, had seized four Winnebagoes and delivered them over to the Chippewas, who instantly killed them. Fort Snelling being above St. Paul, and within the Sioux country, it is scarcely probable that this hap- pened, though the Winnebagoes were bold enough. The first out- rage committed was early in spring, during the maple-sugar sea- son. The victims were a Frenchman by the name of Methode, his wife and five children. This was done on Painted Rock Creek or Yellow Creek, about twelve miles from Prairie 'du Chien, and only found out, when Methode after the sugar-season failed to return. One Indian was charged with the outrage, and admitted his own guilt, charging others with participation.

Among the inhabitants of Prairie du Chien the chief Red Bird had been regarded as a protector and the utmost confidence reposed in him. When the rumor of the killing of the aforementioned prisoners had been spread among the Winnebagoes, they did not stop to ascertain whether it was true or not, but their leading chiefs held a council and resolved upon retaliation. Red Bird was

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called upon to go out and "take meat" as they phrase it. Accor_ dingly he and two others went to the house of Jas . H. Lockwood, who happened to be absent. The Indians loaded their guns in pres- ence of the servant girl, and then entered the bedroom of Mrs. Lockwood, who escaped from them into the store of her brother. There she found Duncan Graham, an old trader, known as an Eng- lishman to all the Indians, and during the British occupation of 1812-16 commandant of Prairie du Chien. The Indians had fol- lowed her into the store, but Mr. Graham succeeded by some means to make them leave. Red Bird and his savage accomplices then went the same day to McNair's coulee, about two miles south- east of the village, to the house of Rijeste Gagnier, inhabited by Gagnier and his wife, one boy three years and a girl about eleven months old, their children, and an old soldier named Solomon Lipcap. The Indians were received with customary civility and asked whether they wanted anything to eat. They said they wanted milk and fish, and Mrs. Gagnier turned to get it for them, when she heard the click of Red Bird's rifle, which was instantly followed by the discharge of it, the body of her murdered husband falling at her feet. Chi-hon-sic, the second Indian, had at almost the same instant shot Lipcap. Mrs. Gagnier grasped the rifle of We-kau, the third Indian, wrenched it from him, and being from trepidation and excitement unable to use it, took her oldest child, and still holding the rifle, ran to the village to give the alarm. Several armed men went out with her, and brought away the bodies of the two murdered men, and the little girl, who had been scalped by the cowardly We-kau, who probably was enraged at having been deprived of his gun by the mother. The girl recov- ered and lived to be the mother of a numerous family.

On the same day (June 26th) two keelboats commanded by Capt. Allen Lindsay, which a few days before had ascended the river laden with provisions for the troops at Fort Snelling, passed the mouth of the Bad Axe on their way back to St. Louis.

On the way up some hostile demonstrations had been made by the Dakotas, which induced Capt. Lindsay to ask that his crew should be furnished with arms and ammunition. Col. Snel- ling, the commanding officer, complied with this request, and the thirty-two men of the crew were provided with thirty-two muskets and a barrel of ball cartridges. The Dakotas occupied the right

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bank of the river, and Capt. Lindsay and his men were on their guard against any attack from them; but they had no apprehen- sion of any attack from the Winnebagoes, who occupied the left bank of the Mississippi.

The village of Wabasha, the site of the present city of Winona, was the lowest point on the river at which they expected to encounter the Dakotas. Having passed this point in safety, and a strong wind having sprung up, the boats parted com - pany, and one of them, the O. H. Perry, by the time it reached the mouth of the Bad Axe, was several miles in 'advance of the other.

In the mean time thirty-seven Winnebagoes, inspired by the same common feelings of vengeance, cruelty and hate, which had led to the murder of Methode and his family, and which had on that very day instigated the invasion of the peaceful home of Gag- nier and the murder of its inmates by Red Bird, Chi-hon-sic, and We-kau, had, in pursuance doubtless of a common purpose to ex - terminate the whites, concealed themselves upon an island in the Mississippi near the mouth of the Bad Axe, between which and the left bank of the river, it was known, that the two keel-boats would pass on their return from Fort Snelling.

These boats, in model and size, were similar to ordinary canal boats, and furnished considerable protection from exterior attacks; with small arms, to those on board, who concealed themselves below the gunwales. As the "Perry" approached the island where these hostile savages were concealed, and when within thirty yards of the bank, the air suddenly resounded with the blood- chilling and ear-piercing cries of the war-whoop, and a volley of rifle balls rained across the deck. Of the sixteen men on board either from marvelous good luck, or because they were below deck, only one man fell at the first fire. The crew now concealed themselves in the boat below the waterline, suffering it to float. whithersoever the current and the high east wind might drive it. The second volley resulted in the instant death of one man, an American named Stewart, who had risen to return the first fire, and his musket protruding through a loophole, showed some Win- nebago where to aim. The bullet passed directly through his heart, and he fell dead with his finger on the trigger of his undis- charged gun.

The boat now grounded on a sandbar, and the Indians rushed

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bago Outbreak of 1827 " of which Mr. Wm. J. Snelling, a son of Col. Snelling, who had come down from the fort with Capt. Lind- say on this trip, is supposed to have been the author.

The inhabitants in and about Prairie du Chien were generally and greatly alarmed. They left their farms and houses and crowded into the old dilapidated fort, where, however, they speedily established a very effective discipline, and organized a force of about ninety effective men and women. They repaired fort and block- house as well as they could, brought out and mounted a swivel-gun and the wall-pieces left by the troops, and all the blacksmiths were brought in requisition to repair the condemned muskets. Judge Lockwood fortunately had plenty of powder and lead, which he liberally furnished, so that matters began to look like defense. An experienced voyageur crossed the Mississippi and succeeded in reaching Fort Snelling, whence, upon the report of the situation Col. Snelling, after some delay, came down with two companies of U. S. infantry. An express having been sent to Galena, the people there were greatly alarmed and confused, but no attack followed. On the fourth of July Gov. Cass arrived at Prairie du Chien. Having ordered into the service of the United States the company organized by McNair, the governor hastened in his canoe to Ga- lena. Here a company of volunteers was raised under Capt. Abner Fields, to whom the command of Fort Crawford was assigned, and who proceeded to Prairie du Chien in a keel-boat and took posses- sion of the barracks. The two companies were mustered into ser- vice by Martin Thomas, Lieutenant of the U. S. army. On the arrival of Col. Snelling he assumed command of the post. In the meantime Gov. Cass proceeded to St. Louis and conferred with Gen. Atkinson, the commander of Jefferson Barracks and of the western military department. Gen. Atkinson moved at once with all his disposable force up the Mississippi. During the interven. ing time the miners in the lead region had organized a company of mounted volunteers, which numbered over one hundred men, well mounted and armed, commanded by Col. Henry Dodge. Their peculiar duty being the protection of the settlers in their own region against any attack of the savages, they were also ready to pursue them and to give battle.

Red Bird and the other Winnebagoes having fled up the Wis- consin, Gen. Atkinson moved his army up that river in boats,

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being flanked on either shore by a detachment of Dodge's mounted men, who drove the Indians out of every hiding place.

Major Whistler, in command of Fort Howard moved up Fox River with his force, being joined at Little Butte des Morts by about sixty Oneida and Stockbridge Indians under Capt. Ebenezer Childs and Joseph Dickinson. His force arrived on the 1st day of September on the high bluff, on which in the following year the erection of Fort Winnebago was commenced, where he encamped by order of Gen. Atkinson to await the arrival of the General and the forces with him. .

The Winnebagoes were now in a desperate plight, being con- fronted with such forces and Col. Snelling being in command with another strong force at Prairie du Chien. There was no alternative but to appeal to the mercy of their pursuera.

Mr. Strong devotes nearly three pages to the description of the ceremonies, but the facts were, that Red Bird and his accomplices were surrendered to Major Whistler by an unarmed deputation of about thirty Indians led by Car-i-mau-nee, a distinguished chief Soon after the surrender of these captives Gen. Atkinson and the force of Col. Dodge arrived in the camp. The prisoners were de- livered over to Gen. Atkinson, who sent them to Fort Crawford. He met the gray-headed De Kau-ray, who, in presence of Col. Dodge disclaimed for himself and the other Winnebagoes any un- friendly feelings against the United States, and disavowed any con- nection with the murders on the Mississippi. Gen. Atkinson then discharged the volunteers, assigned two companies of regulars to the occupation of Fort Crawford, and ordering the other regulars to their respective posts, he returned to Jefferson Barracks. Thus ended the Winnebago outbreak.

It might be said that an extraordinary display had been made to put down a rather insignificant ebullition, made by a part of an insignificant tribe, yet, when we reflect on the Indian mode of warfare, on the cause of this outbreak, which rooted in the contempt of the forces among the Winnebagoes, and on the fact, that since the evacuation of the country by the British in 1816 no actual dis- play of the forces of the United States in the West had been made, we cannot but bestow merited praise upon the action of General Cass, Gen. Atkinson and all other commanders in this war. This was the last open outbreak of the Winnebagoes, although their

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loyalty was more than suspected in the Black Hawk war in 1832, and they were actually compelled to surrender eight of their war- riors for having killed white men in the last named war.

I have in the above delineated the boundaries claimed by the Winnebagoes, but it must not be supposed that they respected them very closely. It seems that most of the time they were on unfriendly terms with the Sioux, but from a note I found in the old Minnesota Atlas it appears that they often crossed the Missis- sippi, and roved about in northern Iowa and southern Minnesota and even asserted their supposed rights by molesting white settlers ,

In a treaty concluded at Prairie du Chien August 1st, 1829 the tribe ceded their land south of the Wisconsin and west of a line running south from Lake Puckaway by Duck Creek, Fourth Lake near Madison, Sugar river, and Pee-kee-tol-a-ka, by which the United States secured the Winnebago interest in the lead mines. By the treaty of September 15th 1832, after the Black- Hawk war, the Winnebagoes ceded to the United States all their land south of the Wisconsin and Fox River, for which, besides the consideration expressed in money, the tribe received an interest in the neutral land beyond the Mississippi. In the next treaty they surrendered all their land in Wisconsin and their claims in Minne- sota, for which they received land on the Minnesota river.

Owing to injudicious selections, to remonstrances by the people of Minnesota, and other obstacles, they did not settle down in any permanent location until spring 1855, when their chiefs had sel- ceted land on the Blue Earth River, south of the Minnesota River. Here they did extremely well in agriculture, had comfortable houses and prospered generally, until the Sioux outbreak in 1862, in which, however, as a tribe they did not participate, though in- dividuals may have been involved. This event, however, was of very serious cousequences to the Winnebagoes, as the people of the state, after the disastrous experiences they had had with Indi- ans in the midst of the white population, naturally objected to the presence of any of the race among them. So the government transported Winnebagoes as well as Sioux to a desert on the Mis- souri, above Fort Randall. They suffered greatly and very un. justly. In their new reservation on Crow Creek, Dakota, they could not practice agriculture, because the ground was a barren waste; they could not hunt for fear of the other tribe. They left

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was domiciled within one hundred miles of the boundaries of our county and a very short mention of them is sufficient iu this place.

Menomonees. The eastern neighbors of the Winnebagoes, though not of their race, being Algonkins. Even their name, which in the Algonkin means " Wild Rice", indicates that.

Iowas. A small tribe, although the state of Iowa took its name from them. They are now in Kansas. They furnished 43 soldiers.

Akansea or Quapaws. I have my doubt about the propriety of including this tribe in the O-chunk-o-rah family or Winnebago Confederation. They are also in Kansas.

Osages or Wa-saw-see. They were located on the Osage river before the rebellion, and some sympathized with it, but the majo- rity remained loyal. They are now in the Indian Territory.

Missourias and Ottoes. They were neighbors to the Iowas, and may be so now on their reservation.

Kansas or Kaws. They are down in Indian Territory. Some traits in their history induce a lingering doubt whether this tribe is not descended from the remnant of the Kaw-Kaws or Neutrals, of the Iroquois relationship, but exterminated, or at least nearly so by the latter. They furnished about eighty soldiers for the Union.

Omahas. This is the tribe with whom 'the Winnebagoes are now united on the same reservation. They are similar in language and habits, and I think they have given up tribal organization.

Ponkas. They are on the Missouri River in the state of Nebraska.

Mandans. They are on the Missouri, associated with Aricka- rees and Gros-Ventres, but it is doubtful, whether they belong to them, or to the O-chunk-o-raws.

This finishes what I thought proper to relate about Winne- bagoes and their relations. Like all Indian history theirs is in- volved in doubts and contradictions, which to clear away or dis- solve requires much time, patience, and ethnological research, which can not be expended in a local history.

2. DAKOTA OR SIOUX CONFEDERACY.

If I begin the history of this powerful confederacy, or rather extensive and numerous ethnological family, with the outlines of the territory claimed or possessed by them at the time of the treaty of Prairie du Chien in the year 1825, it is not because they entered

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history first at that time, but to establish their claim to our atten- tion, and to a place in this book. We have seen that the boundary between them and the Winnebagoes, as established by the afore- said treaty, ran along the bluffs on the east side of the Mississippi river as far as Black River. From that point the boundary be- tween them and the Chippewas began, and ran in an indefinite, though probably intended to be direct, line, to a point on the Chip- pewa River, half a day's march below Chippewa Falls, a point not very far from Eau Claire, thence to the Red Cedar River immedi- ately below the falls; thence to the St. Croix River, which it strikes at a place called the Standing Cedar, about a day's paddle in canoe above the lake; thence passing between two lakes, called by the Chippewas " Green Lakes ", and by the Sioux "the lakes they bury the eagles in "; thence to the standing cedar that "the Sioux split," thence to Rum River, crossing it at the mouth of a small creek called "Choking Creek ", a long day's march from the Mississippi; thence to a point of woods that propels into the prairie, half a day's march from the Mississippi ; thence in a straight line to the mouth of the first river which enters the Mississippi on its west side above the mouth of Sac River; thence ascending the said river (above the mouth of Sac River) to a small lake at its source; thence in a direct line to a lake at the head of Prairie River, which is supposed to enter the Crow Wing River on its south side; thence to Ottertail Lake Por- tage; thence to said Ottertail Lake and down through the middle thereof to its outlet; thence in a direct line so as to strike Buffalo River, half way from its source to its mouth, and down said river to Red River thence descending Red River to the mouth of Outard or Goose Creek. The southern boundary line, between the Sioux and Sacs and Foxes, was at the same time established as follows: Commencing at the mouth of the Upper Iowa River, on the west bank of the Mississippi, and ascending the i river to its left fork; thence up that fork to its source; thence crossing the fork of Red Cedar River (in Iowa) in a direct line to the second or upper fork of the Des Moines River; thence in a direct line to the lower fork of the Calumet River, and down that river to the Missour1. Within the first boundary lines were included in Wisconsin the western part of La Crosse county, the southern part of Jackson county, and a great part of Eau Claire county, all of the counties

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History of Buffalo County Wisconsin 10847607, Part 11

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