While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
The line established between the Sioux and
the Chippewa by the treaty of 1825 ran in a south-easterly
direction across what is now the State of Minnesota, from a
point near where Fargo now stands, crossing the Mississippi
River at St. Cloud. Below this line were the four bands of
the Eastern division of the Sioux. With the exception of a
tract set apart for Fort Snelling by treaty made with
Lieutenant Pike, there was until 1837 no authority for white
settlement within the region. Yet settlers had come; at
first the French traders, later Americans from the east. By
1849 the population was deemed sufficient to justify the
organization of a Territorial Government; but their first
census mustered fewer than five thousand non-Indians with
the extent of the Territory. The general estimate of the
numbers of the Sioux within the same section was then about
eight thousand.
Apparently the first function
and possibly even the purpose of
establishment of this Territory was the
negotiation of a treaty which should
extinguish the Indian title to as large a
portion of the land as possible. During two
or three years of parleying, it became
apparent that back of the Indians' desire
for a treaty lay the power of the trader and
the half-breed. Lewis and Clark had found
the trader at the mercy of the wild Indian
tribes, hampered by a system of "credits" by
which the superior numbers of the natives
enabled them to help themselves to the
entire remaining store of the dealer at the
close of a hunting season, under promise to
bring him furs and peltries by way of
recompense the following spring. So long as
the Indian was more powerful these debts did
not disturb him; and if next year he failed
to produce the skins, or bartered them to
some other trader whose goods were more
attractive, there was little recourse.
But with the treaties that brought the
Indian money and the trader the possibility
of cash payment, the situation changed. The
merchants, with the half-breeds who were
their friends and interpreters, and in very
many cases their sons and relatives, were
enabled to wield a power in Indian councils.
And in the making of a treaty they could and
did insist upon cash payments that would
permit the Indians to "comply with their
engagements." In other words, the United
States assured the payment of the trader's
accounts. In dealing with the lands of the
tribe as a whole the nation was called upon
also to bind itself to pay the debts of
individual Indians.
It was
this situation which led to the cession of a
half-breed tract in the treaty of 1830. The
hopes of profit through the sale of this
land and the timber upon it were defeated by
the fact that, contrary to the expectation
of the beneficiaries, the cession was
decided to convey only the same title as the
given to other Indians by treaty in their
reservations; and this did not include the
right to alienate their land. So the
expectation of realizing goodly sums through
the sale of tracts of land was defeated.
The evils inherent in this state of affairs,
whereby the Indians and the United States
were both forced to rely upon the assistance
of a body of men whose interests were
antagonistic to both, are only too clear. In
order to dispose of the land and secure the
annuities which he coveted, the Indian must
promise a reward to the traders and their
adherents. In order to secure the consent of
the Indians to land cessions, the United
States must carry on its negotiations
through the men on the ground, who held the
Indians in fealty by ties of blood,
language, debt and daily dependence. One
need not wonder that most Indian treaties
afforded scandal and abuse.
The treaties of 1821 did more than that.
They led directly to the outbreaks of ten
years later. But their immediate result was
the removal of the Sioux tribes of Minnesota
to a reservation which was a strip twenty
miles wide along the valley of the Minnesota
River, from the Yellow Medicine River to the
shores of Lake Traverse. In return for the
cession of the remainder of the territory up
to the Chippewa line the Sioux Indians were
to receive cash, annuity payments of $68,000
for fifty years, and other appropriations,
the whole amounting to $1,665,000. This
included an allowance of $210,000 to enable
them to "settle their affairs and comply
with existing engagements." It is not
difficult to see where the traders were to
reap their harvest.
White
population began to pour in; from the 4,80
of 1849 the numbers grew to a hundred
thousand in 1856. The land-hungry white man
learned quickly what abundant harvest this
fresh soil would bear. Meanwhile the Indian,
on his narrow reservation, nursed his
resentment and awaited an opportunity to
gratify it by action.
Little crow was a chief of the Kaposia
division of the Mdewakanton Sioux. His
Indian name is affixed to the treaty which
ceded the Minnesota lands; but he lost no
opportunity of fostering dissatisfaction
with the results of the treaty among the
warriors of his tribe. Toward the white man,
however, he maintained an apparent
friendliness. He was accounted a force for
temperance, an adherent of the missionary
who had, indeed, been sent to his village at
his request. Under this pacific cloak he
remained the hostile," and in 1862 led his
people into a war that spared neither man,
woman nor child.
To the south
and east of the nation was in the grip of a
deadly war and rumors of battles in which
the southern forces were victor were eagerly
passed around in the Indian camps and
villages. The time for the annuity payment
came and passed with the distribution of
accustomed thousands. The feeling that the
Government was going to be unable to pay
gained strength. And did not the traders
show their belief in the failure of the
Government, by refusing further credit? More
and more the able-bodied men are being
withdrawn from the white settlements, from
the agencies themselves. Clearly it was time
to shake off the yoke of the oppressor.
Little Crow had made careful plans and was
waiting for allies from other Sioux bands.
But the precipitance of some of his young
men brought the matter to a head sooner than
he had designed. Four young braves started
out to murder families of settlers and
pillage their homes on the very day, August
15, 1862, when the diplomatic Little Crow
was consulting with the agent about a new
brick house which the Government was to
build for him at his request. On Sunday
morning Little Crow attended the services at
the Episcopal mission; that very afternoon
the slaughter began. Learning of it at
daybreak the next morning, Little Crow and
the chiefs of the tribe realized that they
must give up the young men for the ignominy
of trial and punishment, or declare the
warfare general. The decision of the astute
leader was for war.
"It must
come," he said, "Now is as good a time as
any. I am with you. Let us kill the traders
and divide their goods."
By
seven in the morning two hundred painted
warriors surrounded the agency and at a
signal opened fire, killing five white men
at once and wounding many others. The
"Minnesota Massacre" had begun. The official
report reads:
"And now
followed a series of cruel murders,
characterized by every species of atrocity
and barbarity known to Indian warfare.
Neither sex, age nor condition were spared.
It is estimated that from eight hundred to
one thousand quiet, inoffensive and unarmed
settlers fell victims to savage fury are the
bloody work of death was stayed. The
thriving town of New Ulm, containing from
fifteen hundred to two thousand inhabitants,
was almost destroyed. Fort Ridgely was
attacked and closely besieged for several
days, and was only saved by the most heroic
and unfaltering bravery on the part of its
little band of defenders until it was
relieved by troops raised, armed and sent
forward to their relief.
"Meantime the utmost consternation and alarm
prevailed throughout the entire community.
Thousands of happy homes were abandoned, the
whole frontier was given up to be plundered
and burned by the remorseless savage, and
every avenue leading to the more densely
populated portions of the state of crowded
with the now homeless and impoverished
fugitives."
And while the
savages were surrounding Fort Ridgely,
within its wall were the sacks of gold with
which the annuity payments were to be made.
Delayed through the tardiness of Congress in
passing the usual appropriation bill, the
shipment had reached the fort on August 18,
the very day when Little Crow made his
decision. A day or two earlier, and the
history of that harvest season might have
read very differently.
Relentless hostilities raged for more that n
month. The few soldiers sent at first proved
inadequate to control the situation. The
Indians crossed the Minnesota border and
attacked Fort Abercrombie in Dakota. Finally
the white man mustered sufficient force to
meet the emergency; and in a battle at Wood
Lake, Minnesota, on September 22, Little
Crow and his forces met defeat. Five hundred
Indians were taken prisoner. The chief
himself, with some of his braves, fled for
shelter to the Yankton Sioux in Dakota.
Depredations did not entirely cease. Little
Crow, the following year, was killed by a
settler who was defending his home. The old
chief was not without a successor to carry
on his work. His six wives had borne him
twenty two children, so Little Crow the
Younger succeeded to command.
The Army court-martialed some three hundred
of the Indian braves captured at Wood Lake
and sentenced them to be hanged. President
Lincoln's clemency reduced the number to
thirty-eight, who met their fate on one
scaffold on February 26, 1863. The
remainder, whose sentence had been commuted,
were confined for a year on an island down
the Mississippi.
But the real
sequel of the uprising was the driving of
all the Sioux, hostile or friendly, from the
borders of Minnesota. Public feeling had
risen too high, public fear was too acute,
to permit them to remain. "The Indians must
be sent out and kept out of the State, or
for years and years to come there can be no
peace or security," wrote Thomas Galbraith,
who was the agent for Little Crow's band.
In the summer of 1863 the Santee Sioux and
the Winnebago Indians of Minnesota, the
latter quite innocent of the uprising but
forced to share in its consequences, were
removed by the military to Crow Creek
agency, about a hundred and fifty miles
north of Yankton, on the Missouri River.
This removal was attended by cruelties that
later led to a congressional investigation.
Many of the hostile Sioux made their escape
to Canada, which as years went on became
more and more a refuge for enemy bands.
The Sioux to the West were no less turbulent
during this time; but they had no large body
of settlers upon whom to wreak their
vengeance; and they lived in a country so
vast that they could scarcely be brought to
account for their depredations. Passing
parties of emigrants felt their enmity,
however, and travel across the plains lost
whatever vestige of security it might once
have possessed. The seven Sioux tribes of
the Upper Missouri declared general war and
death to all whites in 1863; pursued by
General Sully, they retreated toward the
Yellowstone, burning the prairies as they
went, and thus effectively cutting off the
pursuit.
So the story went;
an unceasing record of depredations and
retaliations, of attacks and retreats. With
the close of the Civil War, a large body of
white men trained in fighting were available
for the troubles in the West. The year 1865
witnessed the making of nine treaties with
nine different bands of Sioux, and the
general war of the Indian tribes was thought
to be over. Hostilities of one sort or
another, however, were to last a full decade
longer. One chapter had closed; but another
began almost at once.
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includes some historical materials that may imply negative stereotypes
reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. These
items are presented as part of the historical record and should not be
interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes
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