USA > Wisconsin > Buffalo County > History of Buffalo County, Wisconsin > Part 12
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In their first encounters with Europeans the Indians were armed with bows and arrows, hatchets or small axes, and knives.
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War-clubs may have been common, but seem to have been the weapon of the strongest and most dexterous. That they were thrown at an enemy, sometimes for a considerable distance, there is no doubt, but the chances to dodge, were probably even with those to hit. Hatchets and axes were also used as missiles, often with great accuracy. Some tribes had learned to poison the points of their arrows. Spears, too, may have formned weapons of some tribes, but their transportation being unsuited to the skulking mode of hunting and warfare of the savages, they were probably used for the defense of the fortifications only. All the points and blades of weapons must at that time have consisted of flinty stones. Specimens are found in abundance in some localities in mounds and graves, and sometimes on the surface. Wounds in- flicted with such instruments must have presented ragged edges, and were difficult of healing.
It was not long, however, until the Indians, at first frightened by the firearms of the whites, became in a manner reconciled to them, and very anxious to avail themselves of the superiority de- pendent upon their use. The oldest arm of this kind was the arquebuse, heavy and strong, usually loaded with two or more bullets and requiring a heavy charge. It must have been fired off by a lighted match and from a rest. That this sort of weapon was still in use at the battle of Luetzen (1632) where Gustavus Adol- phus was killed, is a matter of history. The invention of the flint- lock, 1650, was the first step to a lighter and more serviceable gun, which was not so heavy, but longer and surer of aim. It was not long until the French were furnished with the musket, for we find that LaSalle's expedition was furnished with them. For a long time there was little or no improvement, but the war of the Revo- lution developed the fact that the Americans were practised sharp- shooters. This shows that rifles had become the firearm of the hunters. The Indians acquired all these portable firearms in suc- cession and became, on account of the natural sharpness of their sight and the constant practice, dangerous experts in the use of the same. It appears that even during Champlain's time (1608-1635) the Dutch at Fort Orange furnished the Mohawks, and occasion- ally some others of the Iroquois tribes, with some firearms, such as they were. During the governorship of Frontenac (1672- 1682) and 1689 -- 1699) the English at Albany continued the prac-
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tice of the Dutch, and the Iroquois were almost all armed with guns. In the meantime the English at Hudson's Bay had armed the Knisteneaux in the same way, and the possession of guns and ammunition had become what every savage coveted. It was dan- gerous to furnish him with it; almost equally dangerous to deprive him of this safe-guard against those of his enemies, who possessed it already, and who might exterminate him, and then attack his European friends. Hunting, too, had become very difficult with- out this new instrument for killing. The possession of guns did not make much difference in the system of Indian warfare; tactics in a more precise sense they never had, and their strategic move- ments had always a close resemblence to those of a hunting party. In the course of time a new element entered into savage warfare and life, which was bidding fair to change both. This was the introduction of the horse. The supply for the Indians came at first from the Spaniards, and at later times from the wild stock, originating in animals that ran away, and multiplied in a wilder- ness seemingly created for such a purpose. The introduction of horses by the French and English for the purpose of agriculture and transportation may have furnished a few of the northern In- dians with these animals at intervals by raids and general stealing, but the numbers cannot have been very considerable. It does, however, not appear that the Indians, even those first in possession of horses, and who soon had an abundance of them, ever formed any cavalry, that is they never trained their horses to military evolutions. They became daring and accomplished horsemen, ranged over an immense expanse of country, executed unexpected attacks and surprises, fought sometimes in a scattered or running fight with the Whites, or among themselves, but never actually and intentionally used the horse itself as a means of attaek. They valued it for its speed and endurance, nothing more. The posses- sion of the horse brought with it the use of the lasso and the lariat, at first for hunting, then for war. The northern Indians were never so well supplied both as to the number and the quality of their horses, as the Indians of more southern climes, with the un- bounded range of pasturage almost all the year round. We can not enter upon further particulars of Indian warfare, but we must yet say something of their way of treating prisoners taken in actual fight or by surprise. We see that these were either killed or
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adopted. The mode of killing was various. In a situation where there was danger of escape or rescue, the killing may have been sudden, followed by scalping. Some tribes never scalped women , though some killed them occasionally, with or without the cus- tomary preliminaries of torture. In some cases a few of the pri- soners were tortured and killed soon after capture, while the remainder were reserved for the women to exercise their cruel ingenuity upon them, in which, according to the testimony of the men, they excelled the latter, both in tenacity and refinement . This torture, which almost always resulted in death, and som e- times in the flesh of the victim being eaten, was at other times terminated by an adoption into the tribe. In the course of time through the influence of civilized people much of it was aban- doned, but.during the earlier times even women were subjected to it, as, for instance, in the raid of the Iroquois upon the Illinois. Adoption into a family, and hence into the tribe, began to be the more frequent, the greater were the losses by fights, by sickness and other causes, and it has been computed, that of the Iroquois in the beginning of their decline nearly one-half of the fighting men were adopted. Torture and abuse seem to have been more fierce and frequent among the eastern than among the western tribes.
Something remains to be said about the general character of Indians. That they were arrant thieves, there is no use denying. They were dangerous foes, but very unreliable friends. The solemnity displayed in making treaties of peace served but too often to hide for the time their insincerity and treachery. We must not forget the sins of White Men towards the Indians, and the imperfect knowledge of the savages in regard to the ultimate power of the white race to crush them, If an intuitive dread of such a power often exasperated the savage heart, this dread was finally the only thing that made them adhere to the most solemn agreements. Considering how little of provocation it usually needed to cause an outbreak of savage fury, and how often for some wrong actually inflicted upon some member of a tribe re- taliation was executed by individuals of the same, that were not at all concerned, upon white persons, who most probably were ignorant even of the supposed injury, we might almost agree with Gen. Sherman, that the only good Indian is a dead one. It has been customary with some people to make heroes of Indian war-
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riors indiscriminately, but facts do not warrant such a transforma- tion. Exceptions do certainly not make a rule, though they are said to confirm it.
The question, whether the character of the Indians has im- proved or deterioriated by reason of their contact with civilization and the attempts at conversion and civilizing made at different times and for sometimes conflicting reasons, often under condi- tions most favorable, is connected with Indian history and the fu- ture of that people. The first attempts at conversion and civiliza- tion were scarcely more than pretensions for the opening up of commercial resources. The fur-trader was not an instrument of civilization. The greatest inducement for an Indian to trade was fire-water, and the first care of most traders was to provide a suffi- cient quantity of the intoxicant, the next to render the Indian as helpless, and himself and his goods as safe as possible. This was openly confessed by Canadian council in their address to the king of France relative to the proposition, made by the Jesuits, to pro- hibit the importation of brandy into trading establishments. The excuse of the council was probably as true as anything they could hit upon. They said that the sale of brandy was the only thing by which the fur-trade could be prevented from leaving the French and the St. Lawrence, and going to the English and the Hudson. Nor was the zeal of the Jesuits in this matter entirely sincere. It is notorious that they trafficked in beaver as much as they could, openly under the plea that this was all they could do for the sup- port of the missions, and in secret partnership with some traders who were, or were not, lay-members of their order. The charge of their selling brandy was made by an employee of theirs, who was dismissed, because of his alleged falsehoods, but the charge of their trafficking was made openly by Frontenac and his council, by La Salle and his officers, and even the Indians, one of whom, a chief, is said to have remarked in open council, that he had been willing enough to act the part of a Christian as long as the mis- sionaries had been in his neighborhood, but since there were no more beavers, the missionaries, also, had disappeared. This im- putation however was not made until the second attempt at con- verting the Indians, in the latter half of the seventeenth century It was the same order, and there was no less zeal for the establish- ment of missions than before, but it was less a zeal for the conver-
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sion of the Indians than for the glory, power and influence of the order. Missionaries and fur-traders were equally averse to coloni- zation. The latter overlooked the fact that they were slaughtering the goose that laid the golden eggs. The former could not expect to retain and exercise the same power over colonists, as they would be able to wield over converted savages. Thus the Indians were deprived of the chance of bettering their condition permanently, which could only have come by acquiring agriculture and the rudiments of the common trades or arts, which had become the indispensable concomitants of all colonization. With the reign of William and Mary the struggle between France and England for the supremacy in North America commenced; seventy years of continuous strife, terminating in the final overthrow of the French power in the New World. Poor Indian! Both parties solicited, employed and corrupted him, only to cast him off, when they had to interrupt their quarral, and again to call on him as soon as they were ready to begin anew. What a school to form a character in! Fortunately he had not much to lose in the way of character, and if he was no worse than those who corrupted him, he was perhaps no better.
The influence of the French indirectly brought on the conspi- racy of Pontiac, but traders and half-breeds finally submitted to and attached themselves to the British, who certainly held the key to the supplies of trade. Scarcely had these events passed and some sort of order and authority been restored, when the war of American Independence began, and when the Indians again were tempted by both parties. The war being finally over, British obstinacy and secret influence again embroiled the Indians in war with the United States. All these wars meant at the same time wars among the different tribes. Colonization progressed, but was seldom friendly to any tribe, and provocation made it agressive. When in 1816 the United States resumed possession and having in 1803 purchased Louisiana, was acknowledged owner of both sides of the Mississippi, it might have dawned upon the understanding of the dullest, that the only safety of the Indians could be found in submission and adaptation to the ways of living practiced by Whites, but the Indians were too much embittered and excited to see it. Nor were the pretended arrangements of the government for inducing them to another mode of life always judicious and
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honest, much less the greater majority of the men to whom such a task was entrusted. If under all these circumstances the character of the Indian was not improved, if they had adopted new vices, especially of drunkenness and idleness, and if they had grown still more suspicious and vengeful, we ought not to be surprised. One of the phenomena growing out of the character of the Indians are the numerous treaties and landsales concluded between them and the government of the United States. They go to show that for capriciousness the Indians can not easily be surpassed, and that they were at all times keen traders and greedy of large prices. But they were at best very improvident, and always sure to ex- haust their resources prematurely. They were clamorous of their wants, but careless of the provisions made to meet them. A curi- osity in their treaties are the descriptions of land pretended to be in their possession, and a map of Indiana, which delineates in va- rious colors the boundaries of their land sold with extra grants and reservations is as gay as a man could but imagine, if he had never seen it. The delineation of the boundaries is a desperate task even for a person well informed on such matters, but I will try to give at least one specimen of such in the history of those tribes who used to be domiciled in our neighborhood. That they were but little inclined to respect boundary lines, even if they had agreed to them, we may readily imagine. The game they had to live upon did not always remain inside of such lines, how then could the Indians ?
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 alinost 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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bec, that resulted disastrously to the French, the last of which was that on the Plains of Abraham. About seven years after that event Capt. Carver visited the widow, who was then considered the superior chief of the Winnebagoes, and who treated him with great kindness. After the downfall of the French power, the Win- nebagoes adhered to the British interest until 1816, when the Americans returned and took possession of the forts and of the country. In the same year the Portage band, under the chief Choo-ke-kaw, the Ladle, commonly called De Carry, concluded a peace with the United States, and agreed to separate themselves from the balance of the tribe until it, also, would make a treaty and deliver up their prisoners. Soon after the withdrawal of Brit- ish forces and influence the Americans began to flock into the lead region, which the Winnebagoes considered as their own territory. Julien Dubuque had explored the region as early as 1804, for the purpose of working the lead mines, and even Capt. Carver as early as 1766 mentions that he saw great quantities of lead lying about the streets of the Mascoutin village. So far, however, the Indians had managed to hold a monopoly of the production of the metal, and as they were slow and unskilful in the working of the mines, they could and did expect, that these would remain for an inde- finite time very profitable to them.
With all their natural jealousy of the intrusion of the white miners,they were in 1822 induced to allow Col. Johnson of Kentucky to work certain mines with the assistance of his slaves. The dis- satisfaction was growing, but the O-chunk-o-raw joined in the great council at Prairie du Chien, held by Gen Lewis Cass on the 19th of August 1825. With regard to this treaty, which was not inten- ded to be observed by the Winnebagoes,the only point relating to them, of any consequence, is the definition of their boundaries as follows:
Beginning at the source of the Rock River near the southern end of Lake Winnebago, and following down the river to the Win- nebago village about forty miles above its mouth, thence West to the Mississippi, thence up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Upper Iowa River, thence along the the high bluffs on the east- side of the Mississippi to Black River; thence up Black River, thence, probably on the watershed, to the source of the loft fork of the Wisconsin, Lake Vieux Desert; thence down the Wisconsin to
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the Portage, thence across the Portage to Fox River, thence down Fox River to Lake Winnebago and the grand Kau-Kaulin, 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 hini 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 thein. 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.
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