Chippewa River

“ Yet from the Falls all along the shores of the Lake Erie to the Grand River and far beyond it, the only place we have approaching to a town is Chippewa, just above the rapids, as yet a small village, but lying immediately in the road from the Western States to the Falls. From Buffalo to this place the Americans run a steam-boat daily; they have also planned a suspension bridge across the Niagara river, between Lewiston and Queenston. Another village, Dunnville, on the Grand River, is likely to be the commercial depôt of that part of the province ”

“ No persons are now living who were contemporary with the victims. And it may be regarded as one of the occurrences which marked the Chippewa conquest of this portion of the country.
About eighteen miles below the junction of the Piniddiwin, we debarked for the purpose of cooking supper, and preparing our canoes for a night descent, as the channel of the river was now sufficiently broad, deep, and equable to justify it. An Ocaut Ekinabic, was killed at this place. Lieut. Allen, wish67ing day light, to finish tracing the river to its junction with the east fork, encamped here. ”

“ He said the chief of Leech Lake was wrong to appeal to me to wipe the blood off his medal. He ought to be able to wipe it off himself. It was pitiful to make this appeal, for men who were able to do a thing themselves. He referred to the late Chippewa war-party, and said that a relative of his had been killed. Blood would call for blood. He did not rule the Lessitons. He thought they would repay the blow.
His own advice had been pacific. He had received my wampum last year, and smoked the pipe with the St. Croix Chippewas. They were their neighbours. They were now at peace. ”

“ Just below Navy Island are Chippewa on the British shore, and Fort Schlosser on that of the United States.
Chippewa is a village, situated at the mouth of a river or creek of that name. It is within the range of guns or mortars from Navy Island. Close to this place, a battle was fought in the summer of 1814, which, like all the American engagements where the rifle was used, was severe. Both sides claimed victory, but the Americans had rather the advantage. ”

“ This river is a post of trade, containing a population estimated at three hundred and eighty-two souls. The lands are fertile, and afford in connection with Ottawa Lake, and the adjacent country, a good location for a mission and school. The river originates near the head of Long River of the Red Cedar Fork of the Chippewa, to which there is a canoe portage. It expands at unequal distances, beginning at its source, into Lac Vaseux, Rice Lake, and Yellow Lake. Wild rice is one of its productions, and is among the means of subsistence on which the natives rely. ”

“ Wisconsin.—Like the Chippewa, this stream brings down in its floods, vast quantities of loose sand, which tend to the formation of bars and temporary islands. It originates in the same elevated plains, and bespeaks a considerable area at its sources, which must be arid. It is a region, however, in which lakes and rice lands abound, and it may, in this respect, be geologically of the same formation as the higher plateaux of the Mississippi, above the Sandy Lake summit. Its sides produce many species to enrich our fresh-water Conchology. ”

“ To-day the expedition may be considered fairly under way. Lieutenant Grover started at 7.30 A.M. The main party, under my own direction, moved forward at about the same time. In ten miles reached the Chippewa River. The india-rubber boats did good service, carrying over each time more than half a wagon-load. The whole train was all well encamped two miles further on at a fine lake by sunset. ”

“ I believed that inside a month the river would be back to normal conditions. "Let the Chippewa magic be ever so strong, there is no medicine as strong as the white man's. But there must be no fighting with the Chippewas. If any blows are struck, the Voice will refuse to return."
My bold assurance seemed to put a little heart in them, although White Buffalo was curious to know why it took a moon for my strong medicine to work. ”

“ To the west the barrier extends from Brock's Monument to the ridge which bounds the westerly side of the valley of the Chippewa Creek, and thence around the head of Lake Ontario into the Simcoe Hills.
At that period all the islands in the Niagara River valley were submerged. The lower sections of the valleys of the Chippewa, Cayuga, Tonawanda, and Buffalo creeks [Pg 36] were also submerged. The site of Buffalo was, probably, a small island, and many other similar islands were scattered over the broad expanse of water. ”

“ A small Chippewa village, under the chieftainship of Tshwee-tshweesh-ke-wa, or the Plover, and Kundekund, the Net Buoy, was found on the west bank of the river, near its mouth, the chiefs and warriors of which received us in the most friendly manner. If not originally a people of a serene and placid temperament, they have been so long in habits of intercourse with the white race that they are quite familiar with their manners and customs, and mode of doing business. ”

“ It was reported that the king was only resting, and that the Americans yet had no right to any land west of the Ohio River.
So the Miamis, the Potawatomis, the Ottawas, the Shawnees, the war Delawares, the Chippewas, the Kickapoos, the Wyandots, the Senecas, refused to meet the Americans in council or to bury the hatchet. They formed a league of defense.
The Miamis were the central nation. "People who live on the peninsula" was their Chippewa name—for they were Algonquins from the Chippewa and Ottawa country north of the Great Lakes. ”

“ This band appear to have separated themselves from the other Chippewas, at an early day, and to have taken upon themselves the duty which Reuben, Gad, and Menasseh assumed, when they crossed the Jordan. They have “passed armed before their brethren,” in their march westward. Their geographical position is one, which imposes upon them the defence of this portion of the Chippewa frontier. And it is a defence in which they have distinguished themselves as brave and active warriors. ”

“ The correct translation of a Connecticut or Narragansett name is not likely to be attained by searching for its several components in a Chippewa vocabulary; or of the name of a locality near Hudson's River, by deriving its prefix from an Abnaki adverb and its ground-word from a Chippewa participle,—as was actually done in a recently published list of Indian names. ”

“ Only [239] foolish white men paddle out on the Big Lake in a canoe.”
After this discovery there was no holding the boys in camp any longer. Within a few days they had carried everything to the nearest point on the Michipicoten River, and with Ganawa in the stern they glided down the swift stream, in which the water was running so high that most of the dangerous rocks and rapids were covered with a swift gliding current. So rapidly did they travel that they reached their old camp above the big falls in less than a day. ”

“ The line may be commenced where it crosses the Mississippi, at the Peace Rock, and extended to the St. Croix, the falls of which are on the trap-rock, to the sources of the Chippewa at Lac du Flambeau, and the Wisconsin near Plover Portage. The source of Fox River runs amid uprising masses of sienite, and this formation appears to pass thence northeasterly, across the [335] Upper Menominee, to the district of the Totosh and Cradle-Top Mountains, west of Chocolate River, on the shores of Lake Superior. ”

“ It was not until the summer of 1860 that the extreme upper river was found to be navigable, and on July 2 of that year the Chippewa and the Key West arrived at Fort Benton.
A keel-boat was lying at Fort Union when we arrived there; it was waiting for part of the Chippewa's cargo of ammunition, guns, and various trade goods, mostly tobacco, red and blue cloth, brass wire for jewelry, Chinese vermilion, and small trinkets. These were soon transferred, and we resumed our voyage, Uncle Wesley in charge of the boat and crew. The Minnie was sixty feet long, ten feet wide, and was decked over. ”

“ A doubtful sort of philanthropy, methinks! but it shows how one-sided a life's devotion to one particular object will make even a benevolent and a just man.
THE CHIPPEWAS.
Higher up, on the river Thames, and above the Moravian settlements, a small tribe of the Chippewa nation has been for some time located. They have apparently attained a certain degree of civilisation, live in log-huts instead of bark wigwams, and have, from necessity, turned their attention to agriculture. I have now in my pocket-book an original document sent up from these Indians to the Indian agency at Toronto. ”

“ It is said in the traditions related to me by the Chippewas, that the Outagamies, or Foxes, had preceded them into that particular section of country which extends in a general course from the head of Fox River, of Green Bay, towards the Falls of St. Anthony, reaching in some points well nigh to the borders of lake Superior. They are remembered to have occupied the interior wild rice lakes, which lie at the sources of the Wisconsin, the Ontonagon, the Chippewa, and the St. ”

“ Anthony (Snelling) was built in 1819. Fort St. Antoine appears in earliest connection with the river. Its own mouth has no doubt been fixed since prehistoric times by the solid Alma bluffs around which it sweeps into the Mississippi. But the delta of Chippewa r., whose main discharge is by a contracted opening 91⁄2 direct miles above the mouth of Buffalo r., extends between these two points, and is meandered by the intricacies of Beef slough, which such competent professional opinion as Warren's pronounces to have once divided the main Chippewa: Ex. Doc. No. ”

“ Fill your dish and eat, for I know you must be very hungry.”
Ray was indeed very hungry, and as he began to eat he found that the meat was good, although it had been boiled without salt or other seasoning.
Ganawa learned from the men in this camp that the brave young trader of last spring had sailed his wooden boat along the eastern shore of the Big Lake, that he had reached Michipicoten Bay, which is sheltered from all winds except those that come from the southwest. They had also heard that he had paddled up the Michipicoten River as far as the rapids below the big falls. ”

“ The Chippewas are extensively intermarried with the Ottawas, and are thrifty and worthy citizens of the United States, as are also those of Saginaw, and of Keewenaw Bay in Michigan. The Bad River, Red Cliff, Red Lake, and Mississippi bands are likewise making rapid progress in civilization. Of those which have made but little or no progress are the Leech Lake, White Earth, Mille Lac, and other scattered bands in remote and inaccessible regions of Minnesota and Wisconsin, the older chiefs resolutely opposing any attempt on the part of the younger men to begin a civilized life. ”

“ This wide section, which includes the wooded Turtle Mountains and the level bottom of another glacial lake, Lake Souris, was once a hunters' paradise—a prize which involved the Chippewa Indians, who long held it, in frequent conflict with their enemies the Sioux. With the coming of the whites the region saw new rivals, as the XY, North West, and Hudson's Bay Companies struggled savagely and often bloodily for domination of the fur trade. Most of the Chippewa in the State now live on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation, through which the route passes. ”

“ At this island, story says, formerly lived the noted warrior and meta, Sagima; and it was also, according to Indian mythology, the residence of Mishosha, who owned a magic canoe, that would shoot through the water by uttering a charmed word.
22d. I have heard much of the ancient Chippewa capital of La Pointe, as the French call it, or Chegoimegon, in Lake Superior, situated near its west end, or head. The Chippewas and their friends, the old traders and Boisbrules, and Canadians, are never tired of telling of it. All their great men of old times are located there. ”

“ The advance of the Chippewas had landed at the upper end of the portage, intending to encamp there. The Sioux and their allies had just preceded them, from the lower part of the stream with the same object. The Foxes or Outagamies immediately fired, and a battle ensued. It is a spot indeed, from which a retreat either way is impracticable, in the face of an enemy. It is a mere neck of rugged rock. The river forces a passage through this dark and solid barrier. It is equally rapid and dangerous for canoes above and below. ”

“ For a minute, while our two boats plowed along through the water, which, with the sunlight shining on the moving waves, looked like a great big lakeful of live silver, my thoughts took a hop, skip and a jump out across the lake to the shore, leaped over the Chippewa forest, and high up over a lot of other lakes, like I was Paul Bunyan himself; and all of a sudden I landed right inside our kitchen at Sugar Creek, where I knew I’d be in just a few days. ”

“ VALUE OF THE FOLLEAVOINE FORK.--The name by which this tributary of the Chippewa is called, on the Lake Superior side, namely, Red Cedar, is quite inappropriate. Above Rice Lake it is characterized by the wild rice plant, and the name of Folleavoine, which we found in use on the Mississippi border, better expresses its character. The lower part of the stream appears to be not only more plenteous in the class of resources on which an Indian population rely, but far better adapted to the purposes of agriculture, grazing, and hydraulics. ”