Freeborn County, Minnesota - Chapter 2: The Original Inhabitants, 1911

From the first existence of the earth to the time of the coming of man many icons passed, and after countless ages this locality awaited human habitation. Primeval nature reigned in all her beauty.

"The buffalo, the elk, and the deer for centuries roamed the wild prairies and woodlands; fishes basked undisturbed in its rippling streams ; the muskrat, the otter, and the mink gamboled upon the ice in winter with no man to molest them. Ducks, geese, and other aquatic fowls, in countless numbers, covered the streams in summer, and chattered and squawked and frolicked in all their native glory and happiness. The prairie wolves howled upon their little hillocks, and, cowardlike, were always ready to attack and destroy the weak and defenseless. Pocket gophers went on with their interminable underground opera¬ tions, all unconscious of the inroads later to be made upon their dominions by the husbandman. Grouse and prairie chickens cackled, crowed and strutted in all their pride. Blizzards and cyclones swept unheeded across its domains.

"The autumnal prairie fires, in all their terrible grandeur and weird beauty, lighted the heavens by night and clouded the sun by day. Age after age added richness to the soil and prepared it to be one of the most productive fields of the world for the abode of the husbandman and for the uses of civilized man."

At some period of the earth's history, mankind in some form took up its abode in the area that is now Freeborn county. The origin of human life in Minnesota has been made a subject of special study by Dr. Warren Upham, secretary of the Minnesota Historical Society, and the thoughtful student is referred to his various articles on the subject, a detailed discussion being beyond the scope of this work.

The original inhabitants of Freeborn county were doubtless the Mound Builders. Evidences of the occupancy of this race are found in several places within the present limits of the county, and several residents have excellent collections of arrow- heads, implements, and the like. A large mound some forty feet across, but only twelve or fifteen inches high, was found by. the early settlers in about the middle of what is now Broadway, between 'William and Main streets, Albert Lea. On this mound on July 4, 1856, the first public flag raising in Freeborn county was held. In 1909 two skulls were unearthed in about. the same locality, and those Avho examined them declare that they were not those of modern Indians. Other mounds and other relics have been found in various places in the county at various times.

No scientific investigation, however, has been made of mounds in Freeborn county, but studies that have been made of these mounds to the north and east, inside of a radius of 100 miles, would seemingly form the premises of a fairly safe conclusion, that the mound-building race ranged the prairies of Freeborn county. Scholars at one time held to the belief that the Mound Builders were a distinct race of a now exterminated people, much superior to the Indians in intelligence and habits and related closely, indeed, in civilization to the highly cultured Aztecs of Mexico. Present-day scholars, however, are of the belief that the Mound Builders of North Amercia were the ancestors of the Indians found here by the early explorers, and differing from them in no important characteristic of intelligence, habits, morals or education. The Mound Builders of this immediate vicinity were, doubtless, the ancestors of the Sioux and the Iowa Indians, it being well konwn that these two races were branches of the same great family.

None of the early explorers mention any permanent Indian villages within the present limits of Freeborn county, and, although the Sioux Indians claimed this stretch of land, this prairie was doubtless crossed from time immemorial by bands of the Sioux, Iowas, Sacs (Sauks) and Foxes.

The vague traditions of the Sioux having been driven out of Wisconsin by the Chippewas, their settlement about Mille Lacs, and their gradual distribution along the west banks of the upper Mississippi, as well as their alleged concpiest of the Iowas, who, according to tradition, formerly occupied the latter locality, is beyond the scope of this work. The words Dakota and Sioux, though exactly opposite in meaning, are applied to the same race of Indians. Dakota (variously spelled) is the name applied by the race themselves, and means friendly or joined together in friendly compact, the Sioux nation being a confederation of tribes. The word Sioux comes from the word Nadowayscioux, applied by the Chippewas, and meaning enemies. The diaries of the early hunters along the west bank of the Mississippi lead us to believe that the vicinity embraced in Freeborn county was familiar to all the Sioux Indians living along that river, as well as to those whose headquarters wrere along the Minnesota river and about the headwaters of the Blue Earth and Cannon rivers, and that annual hunting parties visited the region. Many san¬ guinary wars were also fought here, for the Sacs (Sauks) and the Foxes were not far away, and even the Chippewas occasion¬ ally braved the wrath of their enemies and came here after game.

With the coming of the white settlers, the Sioux Indians became rather plentiful in Freeborn county, although at that time the treaties which relinquished the Indian right of title had already been signed. The Winnebago Indians, from their reservation near Mankato, also traversed this county in the days of early settlement, and a party of them on the way to their reservation spent all of one winter in Geneva in the early days. Ballard's point at Albert Lea was a favorite camping ground of the Indians, and a well-defined trail led along the south shore of what is now Fountain lake.