Edward Duffield Neill

“ Here were gathered all the chiefs of the Outawas du Sable, Outawas Sinagos, Kiskakons, Sauteurs, D'Achiliny, some Hurons and Oumamens, the chief of the Amikoues, and Du Luth announced that the Frenchmen had been killed, and it had been decided that two of those engaged in the murder should be put to death, and left the council. The Jesuit missionaries now baptized the culprits, and Du Luth writes: "An hour after I put myself at the head of forty-two Frenchmen, and in sight of more than four hundred savages, and within two hundred paces of their fort, I caused the two murderers to be shot." ”

“ I am come with this belt, from our great Father, Sir William Johnson. He desired me to come to you, as his ambassador, and tell you that he is making a great feast, in common with your friends, the Six Nations, who have all made peace with the English. He advises you to seize this opportunity of doing the same, as you cannot otherwise fail of being destroyed; for the English are on their march, with a great army, which will be joined by different nations of Indians. ”

“ The "Relation of 1670–71," alluding to the mission at the extremity of Lake Superior, describes a difficulty with the Dakotahs or Sioux: “Our Outaonacs and Hurons of the Point of the Holy Ghost have to the present time kept up a kind of peace with them, but affairs having become embroiled during last winter, and some murders even having been committed on both sides, our savages had reason to apprehend that the storm would soon burst upon them, and judged that it was safer for them to leave the place, which in fact they did in the spring, when they retired to the Lake of the Hurons." ”

“ On the afternoon of the 15th of May, naked and painted Sioux warriors were seen in Saint Paul much excited. A few hours before the Ojibway chief, young Hole-in-the-Day, had secreted his canoe in a gorge near the western suburbs, and with two or three associates crossed the river, attacked a small party of Sioux, and killed one man. To adjust the difficulties Gov. Ramsey held a council on the 12th of June, and the contending parties, as they had often done before, promised to live in peace. ”

“ When you command, all the French obey you and go to war. But I shall not be heeded, and obeyed by my nation in like manner. Therefore I cannot answer, except for myself, and those immediately allied or related to me. Nevertheless I shall communicate your pleasure to all the Sauteurs, and in order that you may be satisfied of what I say, I will invite the French who are in my village to be witnesses of what I shall tell my people in your behalf."
Two days after this the Ojibways left for Lake Superior. ”

“ After the execution, the Ojibways entered the fort, and the same day a deputation of Sioux warriors arrived to express sorrow for the act of their young men, and to deliver two more of the assassins.
The Ojibways under a son of Flat Mouth met the Sioux on the prairie, near where the Indian agent resided, and with much solemnity two more of the guilty were delivered. One was fearless, and with firmness stripped himself of his clothing and ornaments, and distributed them. The other could not face death with composure. [26] He was disfigured by a hare-lip and begged for life. ”

“ The entrance to Lake Superior is obstructed by a succession of rapids, first called by traders Sault, or in modern French, Saut du Gaston, in compliment to Jean Baptiste Gaston, [1] the younger brother of Louis the Thirteenth, but in 1669, named by Jesuit missionaries, Sault de Sainte Marie. Here, the French traders arrived in the days of Champlain, and found a band of Indians, who largely subsisted upon the white fish of the region, and were known among the Iroquois, as Estiaghicks or Ostiagahoroones. ”

“ Marie, accompanied by the trader Alexander Henry, and by way of Lake Simcoe and Toronto, reached Niagara and attended the grand council. On the 6th of August, Henry and his Ojibway companions, accompanied General Bradstreet's army on the way to Detroit. At this point Bradstreet, on the 7th of September, made a treaty with the Ojibways and some other tribes. The principal speaker of the Indians was Wasson, an Ojibway chief, who said to Bradstreet, "My brother, last year God forsook us. God has now opened our eyes, and we desire to be heard. It is God's will, our hearts are altered. ”

“ In 1641, the Hurons, then living on the east side of the lake which bears their name, gave a great feast, at which several tribes were present, and there the Jesuit missionaries saw for the first time the Ojibways.
Year after year, the adventurous fur traders became better acquainted with the tribes of the Upper Lakes. Father Le Mercier, [7] in a letter dated at Quebec, the 21st day of September, 1654, alludes to a flotilla of canoes guided by traders, loaded with furs belonging to friendly Indians, who came from the west, a distance of four hundred leagues. ”

“ On Monday, three young men left in a canoe, to go to the west shore of the lake, and from thence to Mille Lacs, to give intelligence to the Ojibways there resident. They took in the canoe two girls about twelve years of age, pupils of the mission school, for the purpose of bringing the canoe back to the island. Just as the three were landing, twenty or thirty Sioux with a war-whoop emerged from their hiding place and fired into the canoe. The young men instantly jumped into the water, which was shallow, returned the fire, and ran into the woods. ”

“ When night came the parent went to the spot where he had seen his daughter, found the pieces of scalp, and by the blood on the snow reached the place to which she had crawled. The daughter survived and lived to have three husbands, all of whom were unkind, and to be the mother of ten children. Her son Okeenakeequid appeared at the council in a Sioux dress, which he obtained at the treaty of Prairie du Chien in 1825, where the Sioux and Ojibways smoked together. ”

“ FRENCH TRADERS PUSH WESTWARD.
Owing to the hostility of the Sacs and Foxes, for some time after the year 1700, the French had little intercourse with the Ojibways. By the Treaty of Utrecht, concluded in 1713, the French relinquished all posts on Hudson's Bay to the English, and it was necessary to check Indians disposed to go there to trade. In 1716, therefore, the Canadian authorities decided to open the Lake Superior trade, and seek for a sea toward the west. ”

“ Flat Mouth, the chief of Leech Lake, and suite, ten in number, are with me. The day before yesterday, I met them again at Swan River, where they detained me one day. I had to bear a new harangue and gave answer. All terminated, by their own resolution, that they ought to give you the hand, as well as to the Guinas of the fort (Colonel Davenport) . I thought it my duty to acquaint you with it beforehand. Peace or war are at stake of the visit they pay you. ”

“ A Miami Indian having brought the intelligence that the fort at Niagara had been demolished by order of the Governor of Canada, on the 27th of August, he burned Fort St. Joseph, and retired to Mackinaw.
Lahontan mentions that when he was at Sault Ste. Marie there was no permanent Indian village on the banks of Lake Superior. The first trading post of Du Luth at Kaministigoya was given up, while a post existed at Chagouamigon, Lemipiscki (Nepigon) , and at the River Bagouache, on the north shore, a short distance east of the outlet of Lake Nepigon. ”

“ HOLE-IN-THE-DAY, THE YOUNGER, UNRULY.
On the eighteenth of August, 1862, the uprising of the Sioux against the whites began at Red Wood agency, on the Minnesota River, and led to the massacre of more than five hundred of the defenceless men, women, and children of the frontier. It is worthy of note, that on that very day, the Ojibways at Gull Lake arrested several white persons, and talked about attacking the agency, then in charge of Major L.C. Walker. ”

“ After 1689, the trading post and mission house was abandoned at Sault Ste. Marie, and Mackinaw became the central point for traders and missionaries.
In May, 1690, Governor Frontenac sent M. de Louvigny, a half-pay captain, to relieve Sieur du la Durantaye, at Mackinaw, and Nicholas Perrot accompanied him, with presents and messages for the upper nations. As a result of this visit, in August, five hundred of the upper Indians arrived at Montreal to trade, and the merchants rejoiced, as so large a number had not appeared for a long time. ”

“ An uncooked dog was hung upon a stake, and each dancer came up and took a bite. Seven days afterwards twenty-two bark canoes filled with Ojibways from Sandy Lake, Gull Lake, and Rum River arrived, and on Sunday, the last day of May, the Sioux and Ojibways danced together before Agent Taliaferro's house. Then the Sioux crossed the river and danced before the Ojibway lodges, and to return the compliment, the next day the Ojibways went to Black Dog's, a Sioux village four miles above the fort, on the Minnesota River, and danced. ”

“ While twenty-one of Véranderie's party, in June, 1736, were camped upon an isle in Lake of the Woods, they were surprised by a band of the Sioux, and among the killed were five voyageurs, a priest, and a son of Véranderie. [48] Four years after this attack, Joseph Le France, a half-breed born at Saut St. Marie, whose mother was an Ojibway, in 1740, by the north shore of Lake Superior and the chain of lakes to Winnipeg, reached the Hudson Bay Company posts, and in his narrative he mentions the tribes he found. ”

“ Not a year has passed but some of our young men, our wives, and our children have fallen, and the blood that has begun to flow will not soon stop. I do not expect this year will close before more of my young men will fall. ”

“ In June, 1842, an Ojibway war party of about forty was formed at Fond du Lac in the valley of the St. Louis River, and appeared at the marsh below what is now the city of Saint Paul, and opposite to the Kaposia village of Sioux, of which Big Thunder was chief, and killed a Sioux, the wife of Gamelle a Canadian, and another woman and child. The Sioux warriors came over from the other side, and they lost ten men, and one known as the Dancer was horribly mutilated, while the Ojibways had only four killed. ”

“ Marie, the number of traders increased around Lake Superior. Frontenac, Governor of Canada, sent his engineer Raudin to the extremity of the lake with presents, to conciliate the Sioux and Ojibways, and on the 1st of September, 1678, Du Luth who had been a gendarme in his French majesty's guard, at the battle of Seneffe in 1674, left Montreal for Lake Superior, with three Indians and three Frenchmen. ”

“ Gallinée, a Sulpitian priest, who had been with La Salle on Lake Erie in May, 1670, visited the post, [18] and thus described the Ojibways: "The Saulteux, or in the Algonquin, Paouitikoungraentaouak, or the Outchipoué, where the Fathers are established, from the melting of the snow until the commencement of winter, dwell on the banks of a river about a half league in breadth, and three leagues in length, where the Lake Superior empties into Lake Huron. Here the river is abundant in fish, called white, in the Algonquin, Attikamegue." ”