South Wennock

“ Among the Indian tribes there were generally one or two Sachems who controlled all the others. These were known as Chief or Head Sachems, and they exercised absolute control. Such in Nantucket were Wanackmamack and Wauwinet or his son and successor, Nicornoose.
According to Zaccheus Macy, Wanackmamack’s territory represented the southeast of the island and was bounded by a line running from Toupchue pond in the south, northward, roughly to Gibbs’ pond, and so over toward Podpis swamp, and then eastward to Sesacacha pond. ”

“ That's why I'm so annoyed with Hancock. I don't mind his calling himself a priest, though clergyman was always good enough for dear old Weeks—who, after all, was a canon—and I don't mind his vestments. He can wrap himself up in a Union Jack if he likes—it doesn't worry me. But when it comes to having old Burdock put on trestles in the south aisle, with candles round him, and Hubbard from the 'Red Cow' and Duggins's boy praying over him half the night, I think it's time to draw the line. The people don't like it, you know—as least, the older generation don't. ”

“ Few features of the far west are more widely known, or more characteristic than the prairie schooner. In parts of South Africa the same pioneer conditions exist that prevailed in our western states until a few years ago. The climate and nature of the country are much the same. It is interesting to notice that the same conditions, ten thousand miles [Pg 54] away, and untouched by American western influence, have produced the same prairie schooner that we see winding the dusty trails of Bannock county today. ”

“ To hold the Southern Colonies and give the cause a show of reason before the world, an aristocrat with something to lose, and without a personal grievance, must be chosen, and the man must be from the South. To get Hancock in a position where his mouth would be stopped, he was placed in the chair. It was a master move.
Colonel George Washington was already a hero; he had fought valiantly for England. His hands were clean; while Hancock was openly called a smuggler. Washington was nominated by John Adams. The motion was seconded by Samuel Adams. Hancock turned first red and then deathly pale. ”

“ The same holds good regarding conditions in the North and in the South. In the South it is not the custom for colored and white people to be entertained at the same hotel; it is not the custom for black and white children to attend the same school. In most parts of the North a different custom prevails. I have never stopped to question or quarrel with the customs125 of the people in the part of the country in which I found myself."
And so he acted in the case of the Wanamaker dinner. He accepted Mr. Wanamaker's invitation because he was in the North and his host was a Northerner. ”

“ The midsummer of the year 1862 came on with a bountiful harvest, and every prospect was most pleasing in the young settlements along the Missouri and on the Sioux. New settlers had come to them, new homes were springing up on every hand, the flocks were thriving, and every one indulged in rosy dreams of a bright and prosperous future ”

“ The captains, therefore, sent messengers to the Indians inviting them to a convenient point a few miles up the Missouri. They proceeded up the stream and made their camp on Green Island, on the Nebraska shore, near the site of Yankton. There they remained from Tuesday the 28th until Saturday, September 1, enjoying a grand council, powwow, and carousal with the Yanktons. They set up a tall flag pole over their camp and raised a beautiful American flag upon it. ”

“ But you could stand and mourn with Wyanokee over the ashes of her fathers' wigwam, when you had just come from ordering these to carry her into captivity. They told me themselves that they acted by your orders. Oh how cruel, how deceitful is the white man! He gladdens the poor Indian's eyes with his glittering toys, till he cheats him of all the corn laid up for his squaws during the winter. He smokes the calumet with the chiefs, while his own followers are burning down the houses of their nation. You, sir, redeemed Wyanokee from captivity, to carry her into a more galling bondage. ”

“ They stopped with the Rees for a short visit, but hastened by the Teton country without attracting attention. They had no desire to meet Black Buffalo, fearing that he would again attempt to detain them. The Yanktons were friendly, but they spent little time with them, being in great haste to reach civilization again. ”

“ Terror-stricken, the settlers left their homes, their ungathered crops, their cattle, swine, and poultry, and in white-faced, panting panic flew for their lives.
Governor Jayne sent a detachment of soldiers to conduct the settlers of Sioux Falls to Yankton, leaving all of their property unprotected, to be immediately stolen, wrecked, and burned by the savages; and so ended the ambitious dreams of the empire builders who had settled upon the Big Sioux. ”

“ Yankton, of course, gave up the capital reluctantly and made a hard fight for its retention. Southern Dakota was much more populous than northern Dakota, and had the larger delegation in the legislature; and the leaders were determined to remove the territorial capital back into southern Dakota at the next session. Pierre, Huron, and Mitchell were leading candidates for the honor, and in each session of the legislature of the territory, except the last one, the matter was vigorously fought, but without success, because the southern Dakota men could not all agree upon one town. ”

“ The animosities inflamed by a four years' war, and its distressing incidents, cannot be easily overcome. But they extend beyond the limits of the army, to the people of the north. I have read in southern papers bitter complaints about the unfriendly spirit exhibited by the northern people—complaints not unfrequently flavored with an admixture of vigorous vituperation. But, as far as my experience goes, the "unfriendly spirit" exhibited in the north is all mildness and affection compared with the popular temper which in the south vents itself in a variety of ways and on all possible occasions. ”

“ The dissatisfied Indians had been invited by the Indian agent to meet Hancock in council at Fort Larned, and had agreed to do so; but as they failed to appear at the appointed time, Hancock started for a village of Sioux and Cheyenne Indians, distant some 30 miles from the fort. On the way he met several of the chiefs, and they agreed to hold a council at Hancock's camp on the next day, April 14th. As none of the chiefs came, as promised, Hancock again started for their village, and soon came upon several hundred Indians drawn up in battle array directly across his path. ”

“ In April, 1858, the Yankton Sioux Indians, who claimed all the land between the Big Sioux and Missouri rivers, as far north as Pierre and Lake Kampeska, made a treaty with the whites, by which they gave up all their lands except four hundred thousand acres in what is now Charles Mix County. ”

“ To the people of southern Dakota, after the long years of dreary struggle through Indian troubles, grasshoppers, and bad crops, the Black Hills gold excitement seemed a godsend. The settlements along the Missouri were thronged with determined strangers waiting for an opportunity to slip into the Hills. ”

“ After being thus inhumanely expelled by the government and people from Missouri, we found an asylum and friends in the state of Illinois. Here, in the fall of 1839, we commenced a city called Nauvoo, in Hancock County, which in December, 1840, received an act of incorporation from the legislature of Illinois, and is endowed with as liberal powers as any city in the United States. Nauvoo, in every respect, connected with increase and prosperity, has exceeded the most sanguine expectations of thousands. It now contains near 1,500 houses, and more than 15,000 inhabitants. ”

“ Captain Hancock not only volunteered to take me as his guest to Matamoros, but also to take a Texan merchant, whose acquaintance I had made in the Atrato. This gentleman's name is M'Carthy. He is of Irish birth—an excellent fellow, and a good companion; and when he understood my wish to see the "South," he had most good-naturedly2 volunteered to pilot me over part of the Texan deserts. I owe much to Captain Hancock's kindness.
23d March.—Left Havana in H.M.S. Immortalité, at 11 a.m. Knocked off steam when outside the harbour. ”

“ Wovoka's teachings spread rapidly among the Indians of North America, and as they spread they were given new significance. Wovoka was an Indian Messiah, who had come to restore the dead to life, bring back the buffalo and other game to the prairie, drive away the whites, and cause the Indians to live a life of ideal happiness. In a few months the Sioux at Pine Ridge agency had learned of this wonderful Messiah, and so interested were they that a great council was held to discuss the matter, in which all the leading men, including Red Cloud, took part. ”

“ When white men first had knowledge of the Dakota country, the Omaha Indians occupied the Big Sioux valley and the Missouri valley as far as the mouth of the James River, while at that time, or very soon thereafter, a settlement of Sisseton Sioux was made at Big Stone Lake, and the Kiowas occupied the Black Hills. All of these tribes, unlike the Rees, were nomadic ”

“ Sending his cousin, D'Iberville, to the mouth of the Mississippi with a ship, Le Sueur came west of the Mississippi, collected a large amount of furs among the Omaha Indians on the Big Sioux River, and sent them on a flatboat down the Big Sioux and Missouri to the Mississippi, where D'Iberville took them aboard his ship and carried them to Europe, selling them at great profit. Le Sueur himself returned to the Mississippi, where he gathered a small quantity of furs, and taking them back to Canada, dutifully paid the tax upon them, as a good citizen should do. ”

“ In 1745 De Lusigan, a courier in the employ of the Canadian government, visited Big Stone Lake and other points in western Minnesota to call in the Canadian coureurs de bois, or unlicensed traders who were living with the Indians. This fact is evidence that several white men were probably at this time in the Dakota country, but they left no record of their doings or of the localities they visited. ”

“ De l'Isle's Map, made from Information supplied by Le Sueur
that Le Sueur was the first white man to enter the South Dakota country, but if he did not come here himself, it is quite certain that other white men in his employ did do so, at or before the beginning of the eighteenth century.
The first white man that we know certainly to have visited South Dakota was a young man named Verendrye, in the year 1743. Verendrye was employed, as had been his father before him, by the Canadian government, to explore the American continent westward to the Pacific Ocean. ”

“ Lisa kept his Indians busy hunting and trapping and gave them good trade so that they were generally prosperous, while the Mississippi Sioux, between their expeditions to help the English, and their fear of trouble from the Tetons, neglected their hunting; the British found it very difficult to bring goods to them for trade, owing to the war, and they were thus left very poor and in a miserable condition. ”

“ On the other hand North Dakota was in the beginning chiefly settled by bonanza farmers, captains of industry, who came with large means, buying great areas of land and farming upon extensive lines. They and their camp followers were adventurous men whose traditions were entirely at variance with those of the homesteaders of the South, and the result was constant friction between the two elements. ”

“ Wyanokee will never see this place more—never again be near the bones of her fathers, until she meets them all at the hunting ground of the Great Spirit. Farewell, home and country and friends, and fare thee well, ungrateful man; when next the Indian maiden steps between thee and the tomahawk of her countrymen repay not her kindness with the torch to her wigwam and the long knife to her heart. ”

“ Why—Oh, Wenna, I do hate being a girl so, for you're not allowed to swear! If I were a man now! To Jamaica! Why don't you know that there are hundreds of people always being killed there by the most frightful hurricanes and earthquakes and large serpents in the woods? To Jamaica! No, you are not going to Jamaica just yet. I don't think you are going to Jamaica just yet."
"No, indeed, I am not," said Wenna with a quiet decision. "Nor could I think of getting married in any case at present. But then—don't you see, Mabyn?—Mr. Roscorla is just a little peculiar in some ways—"
"Yes, certainly." ”

“ After this refusal to meet him, Hancock marched on to the village, in front of which he found some three hundred Indians drawn up in battle array. Fighting seemed imminent, but at last Roman Nose, Bull Bear, and other chiefs met Hancock between the lines and agreed upon an evening conference. It developed that the men alone were left at the Indian camp. Women and children, with all the movables they could handle, had fled out310 upon the snowy plains at the approach of the troops. Fear of another Sand Creek had caused it, said Wynkoop. ”

“ It seemed as if these warriors who remained loyal to the English attempted, at Fort Stephenson, to make up for the desertion of their countrymen; they fought with extraordinary bravery, but no one of them so distinguished himself as did Dickson's nephew, the Flathead young boy from South Dakota. He fought like a tiger, and, forgetting the Indian cunning and custom of concealing one's self from the enemy, he charged again and again in the open, and his relatives at once named him Waneta, which means "the charger." ”