Houston County, Minnesota - Chapter 4: Reign of the Indians, 1919

From the days of the early explorers, the Root River Valley, and its adjacent territory in Houston county, was ranged by the M'dewakanton band of the Dakota Indians. Many a murderous foray was made against them by the Sauk and Fox Indians, who used this county as a pathway to the Dakota village at Winona. Later the Winnebago were temporary occupants.

The Dakota were the principal division of the Siouan family, and are more commonly called by their family name of Sioux, rather than by their individual name of Dakota. The Siouan family consists not only of the Dakota proper, but also of the Winnebago, the Assiniboin, the Minnetare group, and the Osage and southern kindred tribes.

The word Sioux, now applied to the whole linguistic family, though by the early settlers applied to the Dakota alone, is a corruption of the word Madouessi or Nadouescious, the French rendering of a word meaning literally "the snake-like ones," or figuratively "the enemies," the name by which the Chippewa and other Algonquin Indians called the Dakota. Dakota, variously spelled, was applied by this branch for the Siouan family to themselves, and means "joined together in friendly compact," an unconscious prophecy of the "E. Pluribus Unum" which was to become the motto of the United States of America.

An important division of the Dakota were the M'dewakanton tribe, who ranged the Mississippi as far south as the Illinois River country. At one time the M'dewakanton had their headquarters about the Mille Lacs region in northern Minnesota, hence their name which means "The People of the Spirit Lake." Evidently driven out by the Chippewa, who had obtained arms from the whites, they established themselves in seven villages along the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers.

The Wabashas were the head chiefs of the M'dewakanton. Their immediate band, in which was probably a mingling of the former Mantanton, became the buffer band between the other Dakota and their enemies on the south. From Mille Lacs they moved to the mouth of the Rum River, near Anoka, Minn., then to the mouth of the Minnesota River, not far from St. Paul, Minn., then to Red Wing, Minn., and then to Winona, Minn., where they established themselves permanently. With headquarters at Winona, which they called Ke-ox-ah, and where the annual games of all the M'dewakanton were held, they had at different times, temporary villages on the Upper Iowa, on the Root River, at Trempealeau, and at Minnesota City.

quarter of the eighteenth century a powerful Dakota chief married a beautiful Chippewas princess, and by her had two sons, both of whom were raised as Dakotas. The eldest was Wabasha 1. Later, returning to her own people, the Chippewa princess married a noted Chippewa brave. One of the children bom to this union was Mamongazida, a famous Chippewa chief, who was the father of the still more famous Wabajeeg. Thus thf princess became the ancestress of two royal houses, one ruling the M'de wakanton Dakota and the other the Chippewa. Wabasha I was probably bom about 1720. In spite of his traditional Chippewa blood, he frequently engaged in fierce warfare against the people of that nation.

Our first real knowledge of Wabasha I (then rendered by the French, Ouabashas) dates from March 9, 1740, when he is recorded as having met Pierre Paul, the Sieur Marin (afterward commander of a Lake Pepin stockade in 1750-52) on the Rock River, in Wisconsin. At that time Wabasha I and those with him offered to surrender themselves and to submit to punishment for the slaughter by some Dakota warriors of several Chipi)ewa who had been under the personal protection of the French.

After France, by the treaty of 1763, relinquished its titles in North America to England and Spain, the French traders began to withdraw from the Sioux country. The English were slow to take their places because they feared the Indians. The Sauk and other Algonquin leaders continued their fight against the English. The French had withdrawn their authority, and the British had not yet time to look after the Indians of the west. Passage through the Indians of the Wisconsin country was fraught with the greatest danger. And the attitude of the Sioux themselves was suspected by reason of a murder which had taken place about 1761, when a trader, called by the Indians, Pagonta, or the Mallard Duck, was shot while smoking in his cabin at Mendota by Ixkatapay, a Sioux Indian with whom he had quarreled.

The absence of the traders worked a great hardship on the Indians. They had degenerated by contact wtih the whites. No longer were they the noble lords of the wild who had been able to wrest their living from the forests and plains and streams. They had lost their skill with the spear and with the arrow. They had been taught to depend on the whites for ammunition and provisions. Now they could no longer obtain these articles, and as the result they were reduced to absolute want.

Therefore, the Indians of the neighborhood of Winona, Red Wing, South St. Paul and the Minnesota River held a conference, as the result of which they resolved to surrender Ixkatapay, to promise peace, to beg the traders to retum, and to implore the protection of the British. The council selected a delegation of nearly 100 to go to Quebec on this mission, with Ixkatapay as a prisoner. Wabasha I was leader of this party. They went by way of the Wisconsin and Fox Rivers, but before they reached Green Bay one after another deserted. There all but six had turned back, taking Ixkatapay with them. The chief Wabasha I and five others, tme to their trust, kept on their way.

trader, in the place of Ixkatapay, but implored the British to take his people under their protection and to send ammunition and goods at once to his suffering tribes in exchange for the furs that they had on hand. Struck with his noble character the English granted all he asked, and gave him seven medals for the seven bands of his tribe, one of which medals was hung about Wabasha's own neck. It is said that Wabasha I was also presented with a red cap and gaudy uniform.

It was natural that Wabasha I having been signally honored by the British, and having received succor at their hands, should side with the English against the colonists in the Revolutionary war. The British traders were active in instigating the Indians to hostility against the Americans. Wabasha I was recognized as a leading chief. He was directed in his movements by the English commander at Mackinac. In 1779 Wabasha I and his warriors were at Prairie du Chien, awaiting instructions as to whether he should attack the Sauk and Fox for favoring the Americans. In 1780 Wabasha I was the leader of a thousand Sioux, designed to reinforce the British at Kaskaskia and attack the settlements at St. Genevieve, Mo. Wabasha I, who in the official reports is called General Wabasha, was highly commended by the British officers for his discipline, valor and uncommon abilities, and was mentioned in the war correspondence of the time as commanding a force of Indians in no way inferior as soldiers to the regulars of the British army. Wabasha I was at Prairie du Chien at the conclusion of the peace between Great Britain and the colonies, and promised to respect the fact that war had ceased. During the revolution Wabasha I made several trips to Montreal, and it was especially stipulated that on account of his position as commander of so large a force, his visits to ^4^o^nT^^ were always to be welcomed by the British with a salute of the camion, the cannon to be loaded with solid shell instead of with blank cartridges.

Wabasha I died of cancer of the neck on the Root River in Houston county, January 5, 1806. There is a traditional story that he had been exiled from the main body of the band by the murderous hate of his brothers, but as he had been in public life sixty-six years, and must have been considerably more than eighty years of age, it seems more probable that he had gradually committed the chieftainship to his son.

Some time before the death of his father Wabasha II became nominal chief of the band. He was low of stature, was not a warrior, and is said to have hated war. He was a wise and prudent man, especially in council, and was a strict abstainer from whiskey. He highly admired and appreciated the arts of civilization and desired that his people should be profited by them. He was called The Leaf, La Feuille, corrupted to Lafoy and to La Fye. Unless there is a mistake in Pike's map the Wabasha band in 1805 was located on the upper Iowa River, though possibly this was a temporary camp for that year. It was evidently during the early years of the reign of Wabasha II that the band moved its headquarters to the present site of Winona, though probably the Indians had used the prairie site of the city for various purposes long before that date.

1812. Wabasha H himself was opposed to war, but was sometimes led into it by his hot-headed soldiers. He was with the other Indians at the unsuccessful siege by the British, in 1813, of Ft. Meigs, on the Maumee River, in northwestern Ohio. The fort was then held by the Americans under William Henry Harrison, later president of the United States. The Winnebago having killed an American soldier, appointed a feast at which each guest was to eat a morsel of the soldier's body. One of the Dakota, being invited to partake, said: "We came here, not to eat the Americans, but to wage war against them." Then Wabasha II said to the Winnebago: "We thought that you, who live near to the white men, were wiser than we who live at a distance ; but it must, indeed, be otherwise if you do such deeds." The result was that the feast was not held.

After the treaty of peace made at Ghent, December 24, 1814, the British agents in Canada sent invitations to the Dakota chiefs to attend council to be held at Drummond Island, about fifty miles east of the Straits of Mackinac. Wabasha II, Little Crow and others attended. The agents explained to them that the king across the waters had made peace with tne Americans and that hostilities must cease. After lauding the valor of the Indians, the British offered them blankets, knives and other goods as presents, but they were rejected. The paltry presents so aroused the indignation of Wabasha II that he addressed the English officer as follows :

"My Father, what is this I see before me ? A few knives and blankets. Is this all you promised at the beginning of the war? Where are those promises you made at Michilimackinac, and sent to our villages on the Mississippi? You told us that you would never let fall the hatchet until the Americans were driven beyond the mountains ; that our British father would never make peace without consulting his red children. Has that come to pass? We never knew of this peace. We are told it was made by our Great Father beyond the water, without the knowledge of his warchiefs; that it is your duty to obey his orders. What is this to us? Will these paltry presents pay for the men we have lost, both in the battle and in the war? Will they soothe the feelings of our friends? Will they make good your promises to us ? For myself, I have always found means of subsistence, and I can do so still."

Beginning with Pike, Wabasha II met all the early explorers who came up the river in the next twenty years. He signed the treaties of 1816, 1825 and 1830. He visited Washington in 1824. He was at the head of his tribe during the Red Bird War and the Black Hawk War and at the time of the bringing in of the Winnebago. Every white who came in contact with him spoke most highly of his worth and character. He died about 1836 of small-pox. He was probably at that time about sixty-three years old. Many of his band perished at the same time. The Wabasha band thus reduced in numbers, faded in influence and importance, though its head continued to be recognized as the nominal head chief of all the seven bands of the M'dewakanton.

Several white people lost their lives in the Red Bird War, so-called, which had its climax in the Mississippi channel adjacent to Houston county.

of the origin of his name, one being that he wore on each shoulder the plumage of a red bird in imitation of the epaulettes which he had seen worn by the American officers. He is described as being a man of splendid proportions, six feet high, and with a noble countenance. Until the Red Bird outbreak, he had the confidence of the whites to the extent that his presence at Prairie du Chien was considered a guarantee of Indian peace. But after learning of what he believed to be the basest treachery and cruelty to some of his people by the officers at Fort Snelling he sought the most terrible revenge.

In 1826 there was considerable unrest among the Dakota, Winnebago and Chippewa Indians, of the Upper Mississippi region. In October, 1826, by orders from Washington, Fort Crawford, at Prairie du Chien was abandoned, and the troops were transferred to Fort Snelling. Many of the Indians believed that the move had been made because of cowardice. Their increasing arrogance caused considerable apprehension on the part of the white settlers, but these fears were quieted by the realization that Fort Snelling was well manned, and the number of whites along the river constantly increasing.

The trouble was finally precipitated by the action of the officers at Fort Snelling. In the early spring a band of Chippewa had been fired upon by a band of Dakota, near the fort, and several killed and wounded. Two of the oflFending Sioux were captured by the soldiers and two were surrendered by their chiefs. The four were handed over for execution to the Chippewa, who killed them in a most revolting manner. At this time two Winnebagos were in confinement at Fort Snelling for trivial offenses, and the rumor spread that these two were among the four Indians whom the whites had delivered to the savage Chippewas.

Red Bird decided upon retaliation. With two companions, We-Kau and Chic-hon-sic, he went to the house of Rijeste Gagnier, two miles southeast from Prairie du Chien, killed Gagnier, scalped and wounded an infant girl, who afterward recoverd, and killed a boarder, Soloman Lipcap.

In the meantime demonstrations had been made against the government employees. In the middle of June, 1827, two keel boats from St. Louis, commanded by Captain Allen Lindsay, passed up the river en route for Fort Snelling with military stores. When they reached the present site of Winona, a band of young Dakota warriors requested the crew to come ashore. When they complied they were surrounded by a mob of angry Indians, who jumped aboard the boats and expressed their indignation at the Fort Snelling affair. The members of the crew, however, succeeded in gettinfiT aboard their boats, and ridding themselves of the threatening redmen.

At Fort Snelling the thirty-two men of the two crews were armed with muskets, and a barrel of ball cartridges provided. On the downward trip Winona was passed on June 26, the same day on which Red Bird and his companions had attacked the Gagnier family. The Dakotas at Winona again made hostile demonstrations, but not a shot was fired on either side. This danger passed, the boats separated, there being no apprehension of harm from the Winnebagoes.

But the Winnebagoes had not yet taken their full revenge. Thirtyseven of them concealed themselves on an island in the Mississippi, adjacent to Houston county, near the mouth of the Bad Axe. As the first boat, the "O. H. Perry," swung within thirty yards of the shore to take advantage of the deep water, the concealed Winnebagoes opened fire, A negro fell, wounded with a shattered leg, and afterward died. The crew seized their guns and fortified themselves behind the gunwales. At the second volley from the Indians a member of the crew fell dead, his musket protruding from a loophole in the gunwales furnishing the target for a Winnebago marksman.

The boat grounded on a sand bar, and the Indians rushed to their canoes, intending to board it. By this time the crew had opened fire, and were maintaining a vigorous defense. The foremost canoe of the onrushing savages met with a broadside volley, which killed two of the Indians almost instantly. Their dying struggles upset the canoe. Still intent upon revenge, the Indians in the other canoes attempted to board the boat. Two succeeded. John Beauchamp, commander of the crew, rushed to the side of the boat at the head of his men to frustrate this attempt. He was killed by the first savage, but the murderer was in turn killed by John Mandeville, a gallant sailor, commonly called "Saucy Jack." The other savage was also killed. The rest of the Indians, several of whom were wounded, retreated to the shore.

The Winnebagoes on the island now resumed their murderous fire. Mandeville assumed command of the crew, which now numbered but ten effective men. With great courage, under a heavy fire he sprang onto the sand bar, followed by four of his men, for the purpose of pushing the boat from its perilous position. The balls flew thick and fast, some passing through their hats and clothes, but they persisted and the boat was soon afloat.

Seeing their prey escaping, the Winnebagoes increased their efforts. But the craft was now free, and before the guns could be reloaded the boat had been carried by the swift current out of shooting distance from the island. The casualties of the whites consisted of two men killed, two mortally wounded and two slightly. The Indians possibly lost ten or twelve killed and quite a number wounded.

The boat arrived at Prairie du Chien about sunset of the next day, June 27. The other keel boat, in which was Captain Lindsay and William J. Snelling, a son of Colonel Josiah Snelling, the commander at Fort Snelling, passed Houston county about midnight. The Indians near the mouth of the Bad Axe opened fire on her, which was promptly returned. No damage was done on either side, and the boat continued on its way, reaching Prairie du Chien on June 28.

The white settlers at once took measures of protection. Those about Prairie du Chien left their houses and farms and crowded into the abandoned Fort Crawford. Word was sent to Colonel Snelling who soon arrived with two companies of infantry. Civilian military companies were also raised. The Winnebago were finally found several hundred strong, camped near what is now Portage City. To save his people Red Bird and his two com- panions surrendered. Red Bird died in prison at Prairie du Chien, and in September, 1828, his accomplices, We-kau and Chic-hon-sic, were indicted, tried and convicted, and sentenced to be hanged December 26. But the day before the date set for the execution, a pardon arrived from President John Quincy Adams, and the prisoners were released.

One of the final chapters in the Black Hawk War of 1832 was enacted in Houston county. The story of that uprising is beyond the scope of this work. Black Hawk set out with a band of Sauk and a few Foxes, to recover the valley of the Rock River in Illinois and Wisconsin. Before the uprising was put down it had cost the lives of some fifty whites and nearly exterminated the Black Hawk band. The final battle was fought on Aug. 2, 1832, at the mouth of the Bad Axe, opposite Houston county, the soldiers there encountered the entire body of Indians. A steam boat, the "Warrior," participated in the battle. Nearly all of the Indians were killed. General Henry Atkinson sent Wabasha's band of Dakota after the men, women and children who had escaped to Houston county. With their powder wet from the swim across the river, the worn out followers of Black Hawk fell easy victims to the fresh Dakota, and a terrible slaughter took place, only a few escaping. Neopope, Black Hawk's chief advisor, was spared on account of his rank, and taken to Prairie du Chien, where the Dakota received their reward. Black Hawk did not flee into Houston county with his followers, but escaped with his chief soldier, the Prophet, hoping to find refuge with the Winnebago. But they refused him refuge, and the two fugitives pursued their way to the Dalles of the Wisconsin River where they were captured about two miles above Kilboum City by Cha-e-tar and One Eyed Decorah, who, on August 27, delivered them up to the Indian agent at Prairie du Chien. In April, 1833, Black Hawk and the Prophet and other prisoners were taken East, were interviewed by President Andrew Jackson, and confined in Fortress Monroe. June 4, 1833, they were released, and were escorted by army ofiScers through the principal cities of the East, in order that they might fully realize the power and number of the whites. Black Hawk spent his remaining years in quiet. He died Oct. 3, 1838, and was buried near the village of Montrose in Iowa.

Both the whites and the Dakota have been severely blamed for the massacre of the Black Hawk fugitives in Houston county. The slaughter was not in keeping with the character of Wabasha II, but many reasons may be assigned for the act. The Sauk had for many years made murderous raids on the women and children left in the Sioux villages while the Sioux warriors were away hunting, and the Sauk war whoop was one greatly to be dreaded. Thus with the remembrances of murders committed, acting under orders from the white commander, and goaded by taunts of cowardice, Wabasha and his men committed this act of extermination against the band whose uprising had proven so disastrous to the whites.

A short time before the breaking out of this Black Hawk War, Wabasha's band had been greatly alarmed by an attack the Sauks had made on a Sioux camp on Money Creek, in Houston county. The Dakota had repulsed them and rescued Witoka, the daughter of the head warrior, Wah-kon-de-o-tah. The danger, indeed was so great that the main band

The year after the Black Hawk War marked the beginning of the occupancy of parts of Houston county by the Winnebago, from 1833 to 1848 and later.

The Winnebago were an outlying tribe of the Siouan family, believed by some writers to be an older branch than the Dakota themselves. They were visited at Green Bay by Jean Nicolet as early as 1634. He knew them as the Men of the Sea or the Men of the Salt Water, from the aboriginal name, Ouinipegou, which appears in modem name of Winnebago. Literally the word ouinipeg means "ill smelling or dirty water," and the early French called the Winnebago, "Puants," or "Stinkards." In the early fur trading days the Winnebago were ranging as far westward as the Mississippi River.

For some two centuries thereafter central Wisconsin continued to be their home. The treaty of Prairie du Chien, signed Aug. 19, 1825, already mentioned, located the boundary between the Winnebago and the Sioux on a line starting in Wisconsin on the Mississippi River opposite the mouth of the Iowa River, then running back two or three miles to the bluffs, thence along the crest of the bluffs to the mouth of the Bad Axe River and thence to the mouth of the Black River.

By the treaty signed at Fort Armstrong, Rock Island, Illinois, Aug. 25, 1828, and proclaimed Feb. 13, 1833, the Winnebago relinquished their claim to much of their Wisconsin land and agreed to move to the neutral strip in southeastern Minnesota and northeastern Iowa. A portion of the tribe moved to their new possession in 1833-34.

Wabasha II, at his death in 1836, was succeeded by his son, Wabasha III. whose original name was Tahtapesaah, the Upsetting Wind. Wabasha III is the Wabasha best known to the whites. He signed the treaties of 1836, 1837, 1851 and 1858. Like the two Wabashas who came before him he was shrewd and cautious. He was friendly to the whites, but from a sense of justice upheld the Winnebago in their opposition to their removal to the inhospitable Long Prairie country in central Minnesota, By the treaties of 1851 he relinquished his title to all his remaining lands in Houston county, but he and his band continued to hunt here at least until 1860. Wabasha III led his warriors in the Sioux Uprising of 1862, bat he was opposed to it, and was the first to make proposals of peace even while his nation were still in arms. He finally withdrew his followers from Little Crow's camp, and in his new camp of some 100 lodges, protected many whites and mixed bloods. Before this he had been in friendly communication with the white commanders for some months. He died April 23, 1876, at the Santee agency in Nebraska. With profound grief he has seen the gradual degeneration of his people at the whim of the whites, and well realized the duplicity and theft that the Dakota suffered from all the white men with whom they came in contact. The descendant of an ancient line whose empire had once been larger and richer than many a European nation, he spent his latter years as a lonely old man, refusing to join in

The espousal of the cause of the Winnebago by Wabasha HI, when the people of that tribe objected to being exiled to central Minnesota, placed him in disfavor with the whites. By a treaty signed at Washington, Nov. 1, 1837, and proclaimed June 15, 1838, the Winnebago had ceded all their remaining lands east of the Mississippi River, and those who still remained agreed to join their fellow tribesmen in the neutral strip. It was further agreed that the eastern portion of the neutral strip, for a distance of twenty miles back from the Mississippi, should be used exclusively for hunting. Thus the land which the Winnebago were to be allowed to actually occupy in what is now Houston county was Umited practically to Spring Grove and Black Hammer townships, and a corner of Yucatan.

By a treaty signed Oct. 13, 1846, the Winnebago agreed to relinquish their rights to the neutral strip, and to remove to a tract assigned them in Morrison, Todd and Steams counties in central Minnesota. Henry M. Rice was appointed agent for the removal, and in the spring of 1848 the Winnebago, most of whom were then living on the Turkey River in northeastern Iowa, were notified to prepare themselves for the journey. But in the meantime there had been a growing dissatisfaction on the part of the Indians. They did not fancy the country to which they were to be sent, which in fishing, hunting, climate and natural attractions could in no way compare with the country over which they had been roaming in northeastern Iowa and southeastern Minnesota. They suspected that the purpose of the whites was to make the Witinebago a buffer band between the Dakota and Chippewa tribes, and thus endanger them almost to the point of extermination. They were frightened, too, by a belief in the unhealthfulness of the new region. An epidemic of bilious fever and cholera morbus among the adults, the whooping cough among the children, was sweeping the Minnesota Dakota. The Wabasha band had escaped, though many even of them were suffering with intermittent fever. In addition to all these causes for apprehension on the part of the Winnebago, enemies of Mr. Itice, in order to make him trouble, were urging the Indians to resist the removal.

At once they began to desert. Some returned to their ancient hunting grounds in Wisconsin. About a hundred made their way to southeastern Nebraska and joined the Otoes. Others announced that they would rempjn where they were. But the whites continued their preparations. It w^ arranged that one party under Henry M. Rice should go up the river in boats and canoes, and that the other party should go by land under the direction of Major J. E. Fletcher. June 6, 1848, Major Fletcher announced that both parties were to start, and in order to hurry the hesitating Indians, had their belongings loaded onto the wagons. But the angry Indians at once unloaded the vehicles, and prepared to resist by cleaning their guns and moulding bullets. Thoroughly alarmed, Major Fletcher sent to Fort Atkinson for troops, and Capt. John Parker responded in person with his dragoons, a company of mounted volunteers who were garrisoning the fort in the absence of the regulars who were fighting in Mexico. Soon afterward a company of infantry arrived from Fort Crawford. All that day and night and the next day and night the tension was almost at breaking point, the soldiers constantly on the alert with drawn sabers and pistols, and the Indians carrying their loaded guns and going about scowling and muttering. But nature was fighting for the whites, as the Indians, without provisions, and prevented by the soldiers from deserting the camp and going hunting, began to feel the demands of hunger. Promised provisions as the price of their acquiesence in the removal plans, they agreed to submit as soon as they had been fed. Fresh beef was issued in bountiful rations, and amicable relations were soon restored.

The cavalcade set out in two parties, one party going by water in charge of Mr. Rice and the other by land in charge of Major Fletcher. The dragoons from Fort Atkinson accompanied Major Fletcher, while the company of infantry from Fort Crawford went with Mr. Rice. There were also many white helpers with both parties. It was agreed that both parties should meet at the present site of Winona, where lived Wabasha III, the head of the M'dewakanton Dakota.

That city was reached without mishap. There the whites and Little Hill's band encamped on the river bank, but the rest of the Indians encamped across the prairie under the shadows of the bluffs, where they began to fraternize with the M'dewakanton Dakota of Wabasha's Band, who there had their home. When the Winnebago expressed their fears of the new country into which they were being taken, Wabasha took pity on them, and agreed to sell them the portion of his possessions which embraced the present site of Winona, where they would be in a rich hunting country, adjacent both to their recently abandoned home in Iowa and Minnesota, and to their former home and the graves of their ancestors in Wisconsin. Plans were made for a close alliance between Wabasha's band and the Winnebago.

Realizing that a crisis had been reached, Mr. Rice boarded a steamboat and went to Fort Snelling for assistance. Captain S. H. Easton hastened to Winona with a company of infantry, and a band of Dakota Indians from the Minnesota River. These Indians, carefully coached, were to constitute a reception committee, who were to express their joy that the Winnebago were to be their northern neighbors, and to paint to them in the most glowing language the advantages of the country to which they were to be removed. When Captain Eastman arrived he took command of the infantry company from Fort Crawford and the dragoons from Fort Atkinson, and in addition to this some sixty white teamsters and helpers were armed and equipped. After a short parley, it was arranged that at 10 o'clock the next morning a council should open between the Dakota of the Minnesota River and the Winnebago. That night the whites maintained a strong picket force and sent friendly Indians as spies into the Winnebago camps.

The morning of June 12 dawned in splendor and clearness. Early in the morning the whites formed in battle array, and two six-pound cannon were heavily loaded with grape. At 10 o'clock a cavalcade of mounted Indians, painted and decked with all their war ornaments approached the camp of the whites. A mile away they halted and sent a deputation forward to the soldiers. The leader, an imposing figure on a white horse, rode forward and called out in broken English: "What do these shining guns mean? We thought we were coming to council, not to fight." Captain Eastman replied : "You can have whatever you want. If you want to fight, we are prepared; if you want a council you will not be molested." The Indians declared that they wanted only a council, but asked permission to ride around the white men's camp. Permission was granted, and after riding around the camp the Indians retreated toward their own camp. Suddenly they halted and wheeled about. Quickly forming into a column twelve abreast they started on a wild charge against the whites, yelling and shouting and many sounding the war whoop. The whites prepared for the worst. The cannons were ready and the gunners stood with lighted port fires, while the dragoons were ready to charge and the infantry and the wagonmen to fire. It was a thrilling and perilous moment. But when the Indian cavalry was within a hundred feet from the line of the whites, it broke away to the right and left, and the riders set up a wild shout of laughter. It had been but a demonstration to show their horsemanship and gratify their vanity.

The Indians then went into conference, the Minnesota River Indians urging the Winnebago to move to the new lands, and Wabasha and his braves urging them to be firm in their determination to make Winona their home.

While the council was in session, an irresponsible soldier and a hotheaded young Indian began to quarrel and were about to fight. Each had a gun and prepared to use it. Both Indians and whites realized that a single shot would precipitate a bloody battle in which hundreds might be killed and wounded. Mr. Rice and others ran between the two disputants, disarmed them, and led them away.

Chief Little HiD had not sympathized with the other Winnebago in their resistance. He now led his band aboard the steamboat, which was soon on its way up the river, followed by the hootings and bowlings of their dissatisfied tribesmen.

The sudden departure of Little Hill and his band disconcerted the rebellious Indians. Mr. Rice, E. A. C. Hatch, S. B. Lowry, George Culver and others argued with them to accept the inevitable and give in. While the young braves still wanted to fight it out, the older heads realized that the Indians could not successfully oppose the whites. One Eyed Dacorah, Little Decorah, Winnishiek, Big Canoe, Good Thunder and Carimona, all prominent chiefs, announced that they and their bands would no longer resist. When the steamboat returned, some seventeen hundred were ready to embark.

But not all the Indians could be induced to go. Chief Dandy and his band returned to their old homes on the Black River in Wisconsin. Another band marched through Iowa, and joined the members of their tribe who had sought refuge with the Otoes in Nebraska. A few mingled with the Wabasha band.

Dakota warriors were inclined to resist this arrest, but Wabasha only laughed. After being detained for about two weeks, he was severely lectured and released.

Thus the Winnebago passed from the history of Houston county. Their subsequent story will be told but briefly. The Long Prairie country in Minnesota to which they were removed from Houston county never satisfied them. Gradually they worked southward into the Big Woods in Wright county, Minnesota. In 1855 the Winnebago agency was transferred under the terms of the treaty signed February 27 and proclaimed March 23 to Blue Earth county near Mankato, Minnesota, but the Sioux Massacre caused the whites to be apprehensive of the Winnebago, so under an act of Congress approved Feb. 21, 1863, they were removed to Crow Creek, on the Missouri River in North Dakota. In 1865 they agreed to move to a tract in Nebraska purchased from the Omaha Indians. The removal of the Winnebago to this Nebraska tract, known as the Black Bird Reservation, was accomplished in 1866. There a part of the tribe is still located. But in the meantime there had been constant desertations from the tribe by homesick Indians who longed for their old homes in Wisconsin. Bands were frequently rounded up by the whites and taken to the reservation, but the returning trail was constantly thronged. As late as 1854 there were small villages of Winnebago in Houston county, one in the vicinity of the present village of Houston being still well remembered by the whites. An Indian grave yard in Yucatan, fenced and decorated, remained for some years after the arrival of the settlers.

But it was toward Wisconsin for the most part that the Winnebago turned their homeward footsteps. Finally, in 1875, the Government gave them certain homestead rights in Wisconsin which enabled them to gain homes of their own by building houses and doing a certain amount of improving on their land. The larger part of the Winnebago are now scattered through a territory in Black River Valley and to the westward. The land they live on is of little value, with sandy poor soil among the scrub oaks and jack pines. Some little corn is raised, as well as potatoes, and a few of the Indians raise chickens. They do some hunting and trapping, and pick blueberries and cranberries, gaining a living as best they can.

Thus live the descendants of a race that once had at its command the unmeasured sweeps of nature, and the boundless wealth of forest and plain, lake and river.

The series of treaties by which Houston county passed from the Indians to the whites present an interesting subject for study. The first Indian treaty which affected Houston county was that signed at Prairie du Chien, Aug. 19, 1825, and proclaimed Feb. 6, 1826. It was participated in by the Sioux (Dakota), Chippewa, Sauk, Fox, Menomonie, Iowa and Winnebago, and a portion of the Ottawa, Chippewa and Potawattomie tribes. It provided for peace between the Indians and the whites and among the Indians themselves, and also laid down several boundaries. The treaty definitely placed Houston county in the possession of the Dakota. To the south were the Sauk and the Fox, the dividing line starting at the mouth of the Oneota River aijd extending in a general southwestern direction. To the

But the boundary lines and the peace provisions were little respected. Raiding parties were soon crossing Houston county again, the Sauk and the Fox against the Wabasha Village, and the Wabasha braves in retaliatory raids against the Sauk and Fox.

Another treaty was signed at Prairie du Chien, July 15, 1830, by deputation of the Sauk and Fox, several bands of the Dakota, the Omaha, the Iowa, the Ottoes and the Missouri. One of the provisions of this treaty was the ceding of a strip of land forty miles wide lying largely in Iowa, but partly in southeastern Minnesota. This strip, which came to be known as the Neutral Strip, took in a large part of what is now Houston county, the northern line extending, generally speaking, from the northeast comer of La Crescent to the northwest comer of Black Hammer township.

The Neutral Strip was ceded to the Winnebago by the Treaty of Fort Armstrong, Rock Island, lU., signed Aug. 25, 1828, and proclaimed Feb. 13, 1833. The Winnebago re-ceded the strip to the whites by a treaty signed at Washington, Oct. 13, 1846, and were removed in June, 1848.

The Dakota ceded to the whites vast tracts of land in Iowa and Minnesota by the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux, signed July 23, 1851, and the Treaty of Mendota, signed Aug. 5, 1851. These tracts included all of Houston county not embraced in the Neutral Strip, and thus was the last vestige of Indian sovereignty removed.