McLeod County, Minnesota - Chapter 3: Indian Occupancy and Ownership, 1917

So far as is definitely known the first human occupants of McLeod county were the Red Indians. There are no evidences that the mysterious people known as the Mound Builders were ever here. At the least, they left no undoubted evidences behind them. Not a stone ax, a stone hammer, a flint arrow-head or lance head, or other weapon belonging to historic times, or especially to the prehistoric Mound Builders, aS ever been found near the very faint and imperfect. outlines of what Some have called "artificial mounds" on Brewster lake, (sec. 29) in Glencoe township; on section 34, North Hutchinson, and on sections 33, 34, in Helen. And these are

only elevations in the county classed as "artificial" or prehistoric, Yet the geological surveyor of 1879 Says in his re- Port, of these mounds:

"Artificial mounds were noted at the northeast side of the ake (Brewster's) in the south part of section 29, Glencoe. They are much Scattered - probably numbering 15 or 20 - on an area of Several acres, extending 50 rods from northwest to Southeast. "They vary from one foot to two and one-half feet high, One of them, a foot and a half high, was situated pee the middle of the road in 1879, Another group of aboriginal of section 34, in North Hutchinson, about three miles east of the Village, These are on the edge of the prairie, and are noticeable from having a thicker and taller growth of grass and other plants than the adjoining acres, Some 30 or more

These elevations are perhaps now obliterated. They were never built by the Mound Builders and never "aboriginal." 18 extremely improbable that they were the work of human ands, The mounds and other earth elevations built by the

Mound Builders were of noticeable height; after ages, the lowest sepulchral or burial mounds were at least three feet high. Often the temple or observation mounds were 30 or 40 feet high. Those now at St. Paul are from 20 to 30 feet. An earth elevation only 24 inches high is not a mound built by men. It is an elevation formed naturally by the washing and drifting of the soil or other physical causes due to the action of the natural forces. Where vegetation is "thicker and taller" on a little elevation it is often the ease that the elevation itself was caused by the carcass of a dead buffalo which manured the soil so that the grass and weeds grew luxuriantly, and the fallen vegetation, uniting with the decayed matter of the animal, formed an elevation a little higher than the surrounding area,

The Mound Builders always left indubitable evidences of their occupation of a country. They built mounds for sepulchral or burial purposes, and these were commonly about four or five feet high; other mounds containing the bodies of important personages were of greater elevations and proportions. Then they manufactured pottery, pieces of which, generally fragments, were found on or near the probable sites of their towns and villages. In various localities they made stone and flint implements, such as axes, hammers, knives, arrow heads, lance or spear heads, mortars, pestles, spades and shovels, etc. These things were probably made near the quarries where the material was obtained. In Minnesota there is only one place where what is commonly called flint is found, and this place is near Little Falls, in Morrison county, on the Upper Mississippi. This material is probably white quartz, but arrow points and other articles were made from it, and myriads of chippings are yet at the quarry.

Primeval implements and articles of flint are picked up in many portions of Minnesota and perhaps some have been found in McLeod county. But in almost every instance these articles are made of flint found in other states and brought hither and lost or dropped by the users. They are not entitled to the distinction of having been "made in Minnesota." They are of pink, bluish, gray, and other colored flints and stones not found in Minnesota; some come from West Virginia. Only the Mound Builders made them; the Red Indians picked them up and used them, but they could not make them and said they never knew who did.

Leod county. It is probable that no permanent residences in Villages, or even individual homes, were ever made here. The Big Woods were occupied, in early Indian days, only on or near the Minnesota. There was an lowa Indian village at Chaska in the long ago (probably about 1770) until the Sioux came down from the north and drove its oceupants away, Ages before, there had been a Mound Builders' village at Chaska, and the mounds are still to be seen in the court house Square. But it is hardly possible that either Mound Builders or Iowas even lived, for any considerable time, in this county. So far as there is certain knowledge of the subject, the first Indian visits to McLeod county were made by the Sioux and the Cheyennes, The latter never had their homes east of the mouth of the Blue Earth; at least, there is no evidence that they had. The old missionary, Dr, T. S. Williamson, has recorded that 1837 the Sioux of the Upper Minnesota told him that when, in about 1770, their ancestors came to the lower Minnesota valley "they found the Cheyennes in it." But the mouth of the Blue Earth, or Mankato, is considered in the Ower Minnesota country. The doctor also Says that as late 48 1877 the walls of an earthen fortification, built by the Cheyenneg near the Yellow Medicine, were "plainly visible." Vol. 3 Minn. Hist. Soe'y. Coll., pp. 283-84.) The Sioux came down to the Minnesota in 1769-70, from the Mille Lacs region, having been driven out by the Chippewas by the aid of fire arms furnished them by the French of Lake Superior. The Sioux, in their turn, drove out the Iowas and Cheyennes, the former going down into Iowa and the latter into North Dakota, settling upon the river which still bears the pronunciation ut not the correct spelling of their tribal name. (Part 1 Smitsn, Inst, ed of Handbook of Amey, Inds., Art, Cheyennes.) ; he Cheyennes doubtless visited the country now embraced eae McLeod county on hunting and trapping excursions, ke these were generally made in the Big Woods; the hunting YIDS were always made in that region. Only buffalo and deer Were to be found on the prairies and they could not be hunted Successfully with bows and arrows and spears, and the Chey~ far then had no other Weapons. Neither had the Sioux at : at time, but not long after the English traders came (1765 0 1800) they gradually began to acquire fire-arms and am- Munition for then. t the right Seasons the buffalos grazed upon the prairies and drank from the lakes, but they could not well be killed come close upon them; and he could not come within arrowshot or spear-thrust distance of them unless on horseback - and the Indians of that period had no horses. There were buffalos here in plenty, and Buffalo creek was named for the presence on its banks of so many of them. Otter creek, in Hale and Winsted townships, and Bear creek, in Hutchinson and Rich Valley, were named because there were plenty of otters in the one and many bears on the banks of the other. So there was good hunting in the woods and good trapping in the streams, and the red hunters and white trappers of the early days did very well at their vocations in McLeod county, especially after traders came to the Minnesota river region and established posts at Chaska, at the Little Rapids, and at the Traverse des Sioux.

The Sioux nearest McLeod county country were at the present sites of Chaska and Shakopee, 30 miles east of Glencoe, and near Traverse des Sioux, 30 miles southward from the present county seat. In later years the former band was Chief Shakopee's and the latter Chief Rattling Moccasin's. There were four main bands of the Sioux in Minnesota, Shakopee's sub-band belonged to the M'de-wah-kan-ton main band, whose head chief was Wabasha, but Rattling Moccasin's belonged to the Wah-pay-ton main band, whose chief was The Orphan. Shakopee's people were the more frequent visitors to this county both before and after the first white settlers came. Mrs. Margaret A. Snider, who came to Glencoe in 1856, mentions, on another page, a friendly visit to her house of twelve of them. In 1862 a visiting party headed by Little Crow came to Hutchinson and were not so very friendly !

The nearest Chippewas were at Mille Lacs a hundred miles to the northward. They seldom passed through McLeod county; when they did, it was usually as they were going upon or returning from a hostile expedition against their hereditary and implacable enemies, the Sioux.

On one occasion, in 1846, when Sleepy Eye's Sioux village was at Swan Lake, in what is now Nicollet county, 35 miles south of Glencoe, a party of Chippewas took the war path through this county in a foray upon their foes. They expected to surprise Sleepy Eye and his warriors, but the Sioux had discovered their approach and were ready for them, The Chippewas themselves were surprised and driven back with some loss. One of their wounded warriors died on the retreat and, according to one tradition, his body was thrown into the Crow in the eastern part of Bergen township, to prevent the

Sioux from scalping it. Another account is that two Chippewas died and were buried on the south bank of the Crow, east of St. George, and that the place, with its grave mound, was known to early settlers as "the old Indian grave,"

When in the course of events it came about that claims to the ownership or control of territory by the Indians were recognized, the country now included in McLeod county was considered Sioux territory. For a long time prior to 1825 the Sioux and Chippewas quarreled and fought over the country extending to the British line. Each side wanted to be considered its absolute owner, and denied that the opposite side had any rights that were to be respected.

The great treaty made at Prairie du Chien, August 19, 1825, between and among all the Indian tribes of this region of the Northwest, established on paper the boundary between the Sioux and Chippewa country. The line began on the Red river, where Georgetown now stands, and then ran in a southeast direction to the Black river, in Wisconsin, and then down that river to the Mississippi. All north of the line was Chip- Pewa country ; all south belonged to the Sioux. But how many times each tribe trespassed and forayed upon the other, notwithstanding the boundary, cannot here be stated. The nearest point on this Indian boundary from the northern line of McLeod county was at the mouth of the Sauk river, or St. Cloud, 45 miles to the northward; so that our county was well within the recognized Sioux territory.

In 1843, by the terms of what is called the Doty Treaty (because made on the part of the United States by Hon. James D. Doty, of Wisconsin) the Sioux sold nearly all of their land im Minnesota, the Dakotas and Northeastern Towa, to the General Government for a great Indian reservation. Into this reservation all of the Indians north of the Ohio, and of Mason & Dixon's line, and all east of the Mississippi above the mouth of the Ohio, were to be dumped and the country was to become an Indian reservation forever - the same as the Southern Indian Territory, now a part of Oklahoma. This treaty was the Sioux in this county was acquired by averse des Sioux, July 23, 1851. The Sioux that time, were composed of four principal ands, called the Lower and the Upper Bands. The Lower baci the Meda-wa-kan-tons (pro. M'day-wah-kan-tons, accent on "wah,") and the Wa-pa-kootas, (pro. Wah-pay-kootas, ac- cent on "pay,") and the Upper band was composed of the Sis-se-tons, (accent on "se"') and Wa-pa-tons (pro. Wah-paytons, accent on "pay") with a few in the Lake Traverse region called the Cut-Heads, The country including McLeod county was claimed by the Upper Indians, the Sissetons and Wapatons, but chiefly by the latter, who made especial claim to the lower part of the upper division, which extended down to Traverse des Sioux. The chief's of the Wapatons that signed the treaty, were Running Walker, The Orphan, Lame Devil, Sleepy Eye, Extends His Head Dress, Walking Spirit, Red Lron, and Rattling Moccasin. The last two and Sleepy Eye were the chiefs whose bands had most frequently visited this county. The head chief of the Wapatons was The Orphan, who was a man of but little force and not well known.

The treaty of Mendota was made by the Lower Sioux and signed August 5, 1851, by the chiefs and principal warriors or head men. By the terms of both treaties the Sioux ceded all their lands in Minnesota east of lake Traverse and the Sioux and Red rivers to the Mississippi, excepting a reservation running southeasterly from the west line of the ceded territory to the mouth of the Yellow Medicine river and Hawk creek ; this reservation was to be ten miles wide on either side of the Minnesota, or, as the treaty reads, "ten miles on each side from the general course of said river'' In addition to their lands in Minnesota, the Indians ceded a strip off of the eastern side of what is now South Dakota and all of their lands in Northwestern Iowa, in all about 23,750,000 acres. The price to be paid them was a little more than 121% cents an acre or $3,075,000, part cash and part supplies. The cash, $2,520,000, was to be paid in fifty annual payments. (See any volume of U.S. Indian treaties; also Minn. in Three Centuries, Vol. 2, Chap. 25),

The treaties were radically amended by the Senate and were not fully confirmed, ratified, and proclaimed by Pyesident Fillmore until February 24, 1853. They were finally abrogated, and the lands and annuities of the Indians confiscated, by Congress in 1863, because of their participation in the great Sioux rebellion of 1862. Forty years later Congress restored a portion of their annuities to the Sissetons and Wapatons, and the old Lower Sioux bands are still striving to have similar benevolent legislation enacted for their benefit, or rather for the benefit of the descendants of those who signed the treaty, since there is not one of these signers now (1916) living.