Houston County, Minnesota - Chapter 30: Louts Hennepin's Visit to the Upper Mississippi in 1680 - Captain Jonathan Carver Visits the, 1882

Louts Hennepin'S Visit To The Upper Mississippi Treaties With Sioux Indians From 1812 To

LOUTS HENNEPIN'S VISIT TO THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI IN 1680 - CAPTAIN JONATHAN CARVER VISITS THE COUNTRY IN 1766 - THE NAMES OF THE TRIBES - TREATIES WITH SIOUX INDIANS FROM 1812 TO 1859 THEIR RESERVATIONS - CIVILIZATION EFFORTS SETTLEMENTS OF THE WHITES CONTIGUOUS TO THE RESERVATIONS.

The first authentic knowledge of the country upon the waters of the Upper Mississippi and its tributaries, was given to the world by Louis Hennepin, a native of France. In 1680 he visited the Falls of St. Anthony, and gave them the name of his patron saint, the name they still bear.

Hennepin found the country occupied by wild tribes of Indians, by whom he and his companions were detained as prisoners, but kindly treated, and finally released.

In 1766, this same oountry was again visited by a white man, this time by Jonathan Carver, a British subject, and an officer in the British army. Jonathan Carver spent some three years among different tribes of Indians in the Upper Mississippi oountry. He knew the Sioux or Dakota Indiana as the Naudowessies, who were then occupying the country along the Mississippi, from Iowa to the Falls of St Anthony, and along the Minnesota river, then called St. Peter's, from its source to its mouth at Mendota. To the north of these tribes the oountry was then occupied by the Ojibwas, commonly called Chippewas, the hereditary enemies of the Sioux.

Carver found these Indian nations at war, and by his commanding influence finally succeeded in making peace between them. As a reward for his good offices in this regard, it is claimed that two chiefs of the Naudowessies, acting for their nation, at a council held with Carver, at the great cave, now in the corporate limits of St. Paul, deeded to Carver a vast tract of land on the Mississippi river, extending from the Falls of St. Anthony to the foot of Lake Pepin, on the Mississippi; thence east one hundred English miles; thence north one hundred and twenty miles; thence west to the place of beginning. But this pretended grant has been examined by our government and entirely ignored as a pure invention of parties in interest, after Carver's death, to profit by his Indian service in Minnesota.

There can be no doubt that these same Indians, known to Captain Carver as the Naudowessies, in 1767, were the same who inhabited the country upon the Upper Mississippi and its tributaries when the treaty of Traverse des Sioux was made, in 1851, between the United States and the Sisseton and Wapaton bands of Dakota or Sioux Indians. The name Sioux is said to have been bestowed upon these tribes by the French; and that it is a corruption of the last syllable of their more ancient name, which in the peculiar gutteral of the Dakota tongue, has the sound of the last syllable of the old name Naudoweea&s, Sioux.

The tribes inhabiting the Territory of Minnesota at the date of the massacre, 1862, were the following: Medawakontons (or Village of the Spirit Lake); Wapatons (or Village of the Leaves); Sissetons (or Village of the Marsh); and Wapakutas (or Leaf Shooters). All these were Sioux Indians, connected intimately with other wild bands scattered over a vast region of oountry, including Dakota Territory, and the country west of the Missouri, even to the base of the Rocky Mountains. Over all this vast region roamed these wild bands of Dakotas, a powerful and warlike nation, holding by their tenure the country north to the British Possessions.

The Sissetons had a hereditary chief, Ta-tanka Mazin, or Standing Buffalo; and at the date of the massacre his father, "Star Face," or the "Orphan," was yet alive, but superannuated, and all the duties of the chief were vested in the son, Standing Buffalo, who remained friendly to the whites and took no part in the terrible massacre on our border in 1862.

The four tribes named, the Medawakontons, Wapatons, Sissetons and Wapakutas, comprised the entire "annuity Sioux" of Minnesota; and in 1862 these tribes numbered about six thousand and two hundred persons. All these Indians had from time to time, from the 19th day of July, 1815, to the date of the massacre of 1862, received presents from the Government, by virtue of various treaties of amity and friendship between us and their accredited chiefs and heads of tribes.

Soon after the close of the last war with Great Britain, on the first day of June, 1816, a treaty was concluded at St. Louis between the United States and the chiefs and warriors representing eight bands of the Sioux, composing the three tribes then called the "Sioux of the Leaf," the "Sioux of the Broad Leaf," and the "Sioux who Shoot in the Pine Tops," by the terms of which these tribes confirmed to the United States all cessions or grants of lands previously made by them to the British, French, or Spanish governments, within the limits of the United States or its Territories. For these cessions no annuities were paid, for the reason that they were mere confirmations of grants made by them to powers from whom we had acquired the territory.

From the treaty of St. Louis, in 1816, to the treaty ratified by the United States Senate in 1859, these tribes had remained friendly to the whites, and had by treaty stipulations parted with all the lands to which they claimed title in Iowa; all on the east side of the Mississippi river, and all on the Minnesota river, in Minnesota Territory, except certain reservations. One of these reservations lay upon both sides of the Minnesota, ten miles on either side of that stream, from Hawk river on the north, and Yellow Medicine river on the south side, thence westerly to the head of Big Stone Lake and Lake Traverse, a distance of about one hundred miles. Another of these reservations commenced at Little Rock river on the east, and a line running due south from opposite its mouth, and extending up the river westerly to the easterly line of the first-named reservation, at

The Indians west of the Missouri, in referring to those of their nation east of the river, called them Isanties, which seems to have been applied to them from the fact that, at some remote period, they had lived at Isantamde, or "Knife Lake," one of the Mille Laos, in Minnesota.

These Indian treaties inaugurated and contributed greatly to strengthen a custom of granting, to the pretended owners of lands occupied for purposes of hunting the wild game thereon, and living upon the natural products thereof, a consideration for the cession of their lands to the Government of the United States. This custom culminated in a vast annuity fund, in the aggregate to over three million dollars, owing to these tribes, before named, in Minnesota. This annuity system was one of the causes of the massacre of 1862.

Indian Life. - Before the whites came in contact with the natives, they dressed in the skins o* animals which they killed for food, such as the buffalo, wolf, elk, deer, beaver, otter, as well as the small fur-bearing animals, which they trapped on lakes and streams. In later years, as the settlements of the white race approached their borders, they exchanged these peltries and furs for blankets, cloths, and other articles of necessity or ornament. The Sioux of the plains, those who inhabited the Goteau and beyond, and, indeed, some of the Sisseton tribes, dress in skins to this day. Even among those who are now called "civilized," the style of costume is often unique. It is no picture of the imagination to portray to the reader a "stalwabt Indian" in breech-doth and leg gins, with a calico shirt, all "fluttering in the wind," and his head surmounted with a stove-pipe hat of most surprising altitude, carrying in his hand a pipe of exquisite workmanship, on a stem not unlike a cane, sported as an ornament by some city dandy. His appearance is somewhat varied, as the seasons come and go. He may be seen in summer or in winter dressed in a heavy cloth coat of coarse fabric, often turned inside out with all his civilized and savage toggery, from head to foot, in the most bewildering juxtaposition. On beholding him, the dullest imagination cannot refrain from the poetic exclamtion of Alexander Pope,

Efforts Of Civilization

Efforts to Civilize these Annuity Indians. - The treaty of 1858, made at Washington, elaborated a scheme for the civilization of these annuity Indians. A civilization fund was provided, to be taken from their annuities, and expended in improvements on the lands of such of them as should abandon their tribal relations, and adopt the habits and modes of life of the white race. To all such, lands were to be assigned in severalty, eighty acres to each head of a family. On these farms were to be erected the necessary farm-buildings, and farming implements and cattle were to be furnished them.

In addition to these favors the government offered them pay for such labors of value as were performed, in addition to the crops they raised. Indian farmers now augmented rapidily, until the appalling outbreak in 1862, at which time about one hundred and sixty had taken advantage of the munificent provisions of the treaty. A number of farms, some 160, had good, snug brick houses erected upon them. Among these civilized savages was Little Crow, and many of these farmer-Indians belonged to his own band.

The Indians disliked the idea of taking any portion of the general fund belonging to the tribe for the purpose of carrying out the civilization scheme. Those Indians who retained the "blanket," and hence called "blanket Indians," denounced the measure as a fraud upon their rights. The chase was then a God-given right; this scheme forfeited that ancient natural right, as it pointed unmistakably to the destruction of the chase.

But to the friends of Indian races, the course inaugurated seemed to be, step by step, lifting these rude children of the plains to a higher level. This scheme, however, was to a great degree thwarted by the helpless condition of the "blanket Indians" during a great portion of the year, and their persistent determination to remain followers of the chase, and a desire to continue on the warpath.

When the chase fails, the "blanket Indians" resort to their relatives, the farmers, pitch their tepees around their houses, and then commence the process of eating them out of house and home. When the ruin is complete, the farmer Indians, driven by the law of self-preservation, with their wives and children, leave their homes to seek such subsistence as the uncertain fortunes of the chase may yield.

In the absence of the family from the house and fields, thus deserted, the wandering "blanket Indians" commit whatever destruction of fences or tenements their desires or necessities may suggest. This perennial process goes on; so that in the spring when the disheartened farmer Indian returns to his desolate home, to prepare again for another crop, he looks forward with no different results for the coming winter.

It will be seen, from this one illustration, drawn from the actual results of the civilizing process, how hopeless was the prospect of elevating one class of related savages without at the same time protecting them from the incursions of their own relatives, against whom the class attempted to be favored, had no redress. In this attempt to civilize these Dakota Indians the forty years, less or more, of missionary and other efforts have been measurably lost, and the money spent in that direction, if not wasted, sadly misapplied.

The treaty of 1858 had opened for settlement a vast frontier country of the most attractive character, in the Valley of the Minnesota, and the streams putting into the Minnesota, on either side, such as Beaver creek, Sacred Heart, Hawk and Chippewa rivers and some other small streams, were flourishing settlements of white families. Within this ceded tract, ten miles wide, were the scattered settlements of Birch Coolie, Patterson Rapids, on the Sacred Heart, and others as far up as the Upper Agency at Yellow Medicine, in Renville county. The county of Brown adjoined the reservation, and was, at the time of which we are now writing, settled mostly by Germans. In this county was the flourishing town of New Ulm, and a thriving settlement on the Big Cottonwood and Watonwan, consisting of German and American pioneers, who had selected this lovely and fertile valley for their future homes.

Other counties, Blue Earth, Nicollet, Sibley, Meeker, MoLeod, Kandiyohi, Monongalia and Murray, were all situated in the finest portions of the state. Some of the valleys along the streams, such as Butternut valley and others of similar character, were lovely as Wyoming and as fertile as the Garden of Eden. These counties with others somewhat removed from the direct attack of the Indians in the massacre, as Wright, Stearns and Jackson, and even reaching on the north to Fort Abercrombie, thus extending from Iowa to the Valley of the Red River of the North, were severally involved in the consequences of the war- fare of 1862. This extended area had at the time a population of oyer fifty thousand people, principally in the pursuit of agriculture; and although the settlements were in their infancy, the people were happy and contented, and as prosperous as any similar community in any new country on the American continent, since the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers.

We have in short, traced the Dakota tribes of Minnesota from an early day, when the white man first visited and explored these then unknown regions, to the time of the massacre. We have also given a synopsis of all the most important treaties between them and the government, with an allusion to the country adjacent to the reservations, and the probable number of people residing in the portions of the state ravaged by the savages.