Edward Duffield Neill

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Perceiving a canoe of Sioux coming up the river from Kaposia, they hurried to the neighborhood of Third and Jackson Streets, and saw the Sioux land from their canoe, walk up Jackson Street, and go into a trading house, which stood at the southeast corner of those streets. As they entered, the Ojibways fired and mortally wounded a Sioux woman. A Sioux, who had lost a leg in a fight several years before, seizing a gun in the store, pursued the foe a short distance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was now necessary for the English to assert their power in the northwest, and conciliate the tribes. During the spring of 1764, Match-e-ke-wis, the leader of the assault on Mackinaw, came to the house of J.B. Cadot, [4] the Canadian trader at Sault Ste. Marie, in a canoe full of warriors, with evil intent towards Alexander Henry, an English trader, who was at the house on a visit, but while there a messenger, and some other Indians, arrived with a request that they should meet Sir William Johnson, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, in council at Niagara. ”

“ After a great medicine dance, the sacred men had, as they alleged, a communication from the Great Turtle, one of their mightiest spirits, who said that, "Sir William Johnson would fill their canoes with presents; with blankets, kettles, guns, gunpowder, and shot, and large barrels of rum, such as the stoutest of the Indians would not be able to lift; and that every man would return in safety to his family." ”

“ A noted Sandy Lake chief, Curly Head or Ba-ba-see-keen-dase as his Indian name appears in the treaty, on his way home from Prairie du Chien was taken sick and died; the wife of the old Hole-in-the-Day also died at Sauk River. During Curly Head's sickness he called two brothers who as young men had been his pipe bearers, and committed to them the care of the Mississippi Ojibways. ”

“ He also sent agents to trade with distant tribes, one of whom was Jonathan Carver, who visited the Sioux. In the spring of 1767, Nathaniel Potter, who had been two years at Mackinaw, was sent to trade, and confer with the Ojibways of Lake Superior. Upon his return therefrom, Rogers disclosed to him a plan he had devised to make the region around the lakes a separate province, with himself the Governor, and wished Potter to go to England in the interest of the project. He also said if he could not carry out his plan, he would retire among the French and Spanish on the Mississippi. ”

“ In September, Henry built a trading post in the Red River Valley, within a short distance of Little Park River.
A STRANGE FREAK.
On the 2d of January, 1801, Beardash the son of Sucre, the Ojibway chief, visited him, and he is thus described in his journal: "This person is a curious compound. He is a man in every respect, both as to carriage, dress, and manners. His walk and mode of sitting down; his manners and occupations, and language are those of a woman. All the persuasiveness of his father, who is a great chief among the Saulteaux [Ojibways] , cannot induce him to behave like a man. ”

“ During the summer of 1837, Charles Vineyard, a sub-agent, was sent to invite the Ojibways to a council at Fort Snelling, with the United States commissioner Gov. Henry Dodge. Twelve hundred assembled in July, and a treaty was concluded on the 29th of the month, under some excitement, caused by the custom which had grown up within a few years, of holding a whole tribe responsible to the traders for the bad debts of individuals. ”

“ By the third article, the United States was given "the right to search for and carry away any metals or minerals from any part of their country."
CHIEF SHINGABA WOSSIN.
Shingaba Wossin, of Sault Ste. Marie, then the head chief, was the principal speaker. In council he said: "My relatives! our fathers have spoken to us about the line made at the Prairie [du Chien] . With this I and my band are satisfied. You who live on the line are most interested. . . . . My friends! our fathers have come here to embrace their children. Listen to what they say. It will be good for you. ”

“ TRADER KILLED AT RED LAKE.
In the spring of 1805, a trader named Hughes was killed at Red Lake by an Ojibway. Henry, under date of 28th of May, writes in his journal: "Le Grande Noir arrived from Red Lake, and his son-in-law, who last spring, at Red Lake, killed an American, by the name of Hughes. The deceased standing by the door, and observing the Indian with a gun, caught a tent-pin, and gave him a blow on the head. ”

“ Governor Cass learned that Leech Lake, Sandy Lake, and Fond du Lac were the chief places of residence of the Ojibways. At Leech Lake, Flat Mouth was chief, and it was estimated there were two hundred men, three hundred and fifty women, and about eleven hundred children; at Sandy Lake, the chief was Bookoosaingegum, by the French called Bras Casse, by the English, Broken Arm. At this point were eighty-five men, two hundred and forty-three women and children, and thirty-five half-breeds ”

“ The subject of vaccination was now presented to the chief, with which he was pleased, and ordered his people to assemble for that purpose. I stood by the doctor, and kept the minutes while he performed the business.
"Preparations were now making for taking our leave when the chief arose, and, giving his hand to each, spoke as follows, in reply to Mr. Schoolcraft, who had addressed them as 'My children.'
FLAT MOUTH'S SPEECH.
"'You call us children. We are not children, but men. When I think of the condition of my people I can hardly refrain from tears. ”

“ The Kaposia band of Sioux pursued the Saint Croix Ojibways, and on the third of July found them encamped with their trader Aitkin, in the ravine at Stillwater, where the Minnesota Penitentiary is now situated, quite intoxicated. The sight of the Sioux tended to make them sober, but in the fight twenty-one of their number were killed, and twenty-nine were wounded.
OJIBWAYS RECEIVED BY QUEEN VICTORIA.
The United States government has always frowned upon the attempts of speculators to exhibit Indians for the purpose of gain. ”

“ They have only shaken the trees, but have not stopped to break them down, nor even to make the rough places smooth.
"'It is not that we wish to be at war with the Sioux, but when they enter our country and kill our people, we are obliged to revenge their death. ”

“ The occupation of Mackinaw in 1761, by English soldiers, was neither agreeable to the French Canadian traders, nor to the Indians. The conspiracy of Pontiac extended from Lake Erie to Lake Superior, and on the 4th of June, the Ojibways under the leadership of Match-e-ke-wis, a bold young warrior, surprised the fort. ”

“ On the 15th of September, 1801, Henry arrived at his post on Pembina River near its junction with the Red River, from his annual trip to the Grand Portage of Lake Superior, and here he found sixty Saulteaux camped, anxiously waiting to taste some new milk, as rum was called, and the next month the chief Le Sucre, and ten other Ojibways from Leech Lake arrived. In January, 1804, Cameron, Cotton, Hesse, and Stitt were trading with the Red Lake Ojibways. ”

“ On the 14th of December he was at Porter's tavern in Medford, Mass., and wrote a letter to General Washington asking for a pass to go unmolested, and in it used this language: "I love North America, it is my native country, and that of my family, and I intend to spend the evening of my days in it." ”

“ The father, as soon as he received the intelligence, went to Leech Lake for assistance, and in a little time twenty half-breeds, with Francis Brunette, at the head, oftered their assistance. With the father they went to the camp where the murderer was, beyond Cass Lake, determined to cut off the whole band, should they attempt to rescue him.
William Aitkin, in a letter to H.R. Schoolcraft, Indian agent at Sault Ste. Marie, wrote: "Our friend Mr. Boutwell joined the party with his musket on his shoulders, as a man and a Christian, for he knew it was a righteous cause." ”

“ Sherman Hall, was the first of pure white parentage born on the shores of Lake Superior, and west of Sault Ste. Marie. ↑ Robert Dickson, known to Indians as "Red Head," with Archibald Campbell, Duncan Graham, and F.M. Dease, were traders on the Minnesota and the Upper Mississippi before the year 1802. Dickson during the war of 1812 was British Superintendent of Indians. Capt. Anderson in a speech to the Indians at Prairie du Chien in 1814 said, "My brethren! you must not call me father. ”

“ Before the close of the "War of the Revolution," in 1783, the Ojibways were occupying Sandy, Leech, and Red Lake, and Kay, Harris, Default, Perrault, and others had trading posts in northern Minnesota; and there was not left a Sioux village above the Falls of St. ”