Old Fort Snelling Part 18

[314] Renville to Sibley, August 21, 1840.--_Sibley Papers, 1830-1840_.

[315] Quoted in Neill's _The History of Minnesota_, pp. 338, 339. The two men murdered on the Missouri River in 1820 were Isadore Poupon, a French half-breed, and Joseph F. Andrews, a Canadian.

[316] Quaife's _Chicago and the Old Northwest, 1673-1835_, p. 283.

[317] Snelling to Taliaferro, March 19, 1822.--_Taliaferro Letters_, Vol. I, No. 32. The quotation is taken from this letter. See also Calhoun to Snelling, September 18, 1822.--_Taliaferro Letters_, Vol. I, No. 40.

[318] Letter of George Johnson, November 2, 1825.--_Indian Office Files_, 1825-1826, No. 4.

[319] Taliaferro to Harris, September 10, 1838.--_Indian Office Files_, 1838, No. 663.

CHAPTER VIII

[320] Morse's _A Report to the Secretary of War of the United States on Indian Affairs_, p. 28.

[321] Kellogg's _Early Narratives of the Northwest, 1634-1699_, p. 50.

[322] _Minnesota Historical Collections_, Vol. VI, p. 209.

[323] Baker to Taliaferro, May 19, 1829.--_Indian Office Files_, 1829, No. 64.

[324] Speech of Flat Mouth, May 27, 1827.--_Indian Office Files_, 1827, No. 14.

[325] _Indian Office Files_, 1827, No. 9.

[326] From Mrs. Van Cleve's reminiscences in the _Minnesota Historical Collections_, Vol. III, p. 80.

[327] The information upon which the entire incident is built is contained in the letter of Snelling to Atkinson, May 31, 1827, in _Indian Office Files_, 1827, No. 10; the letter of Taliaferro to Clark, May 31, 1827, in Indian Office Files, 1827, No. 12; Neill's _The History of Minnesota_, pp. 391-394; _Reminiscences of Mrs. Ann Adams_ in the _Minnesota Historical Collections_, Vol. VI, pp. 107-110; _A Reminiscence_ _of Ft. Snelling_, by Mrs. Charlotte O. Van Cleve, in the _Minnesota Historical Collections_, Vol. III, pp. 76-81; _Running the Gantlet_ by William J. Snelling (the son of Colonel Snelling) in the _Minnesota Historical Collections_, Vol. I, pp. 439-456.

The last mentioned account was originally published as a magazine article, and much of it is undoubtedly the product of the author's imagination. It is from this that the writer drew the story of Toopunkah Zeze. The article by Mrs. Van Cleve is full of errors and there are some mistakes in Mrs. Adams's reminiscences. For the facts of the attack the writer depended upon the two reports in the _Indian Office Files_. In a letter written from Prairie du Chien the next winter Joseph Street says that a hostage, an innocent man, was among the Sioux who were executed.--Street to Dr. Alexander Posey, December 11, 1827, in the _Street Papers_, No. 7.

Of those who were shot, says Sibley in his reminiscences, all recovered.--_Minnesota Historical Collections_, Vol. I, p. 475. On the other hand Flat Mouth complained to Schoolcraft in 1832 that four of the number died.--Schoolcraft's _Narrative of an Expedition through the Upper Mississippi to Itasca Lake_, p. 85.

[328] _Indian Office Files_, 1829, No. 63.

[329] _Minnesota Historical Collections_, Vol. II, p. 135. As here given the mother's speech is partly direct, and partly indirect discourse. The writer has changed it all to the direct discourse.

[330] The attack on Hole-in-the-Day's band is narrated in the letter of Plympton to General Jones, August 13, 1838.--_Indian Office Files_, 1838, No. 618. See also _Minnesota Historical Collections_, Vol. II, pp.

134-136; Pond's _Two Volunteer Missionaries among the Dakotas_, pp. 136, 137.

[331] The particulars of the encounter in 1839 are given in a letter written by the Right Reverend Mathias Loras in July 1839, and published in _Acta et Dicta: A Collection of historical data regarding the origin and growth of the Catholic Church in the Northwest_, Vol. I, No. 1, pp.

18-21; and Pond's _Two Volunteer Missionaries among the Dakotas_, pp.

139-147.

[332] "Instead of lessening the disasters of Indian warfare, the building of Fort Snelling in the heart of the Indian country and upon the line dividing the ranges of the Dakotas and the Chippewas, had the direct effect of vastly increasing the horrors of that warfare.

Depending upon the protection of the military, both tribes brought their women and children into the disputed territory, where before the coming of the soldiers they would never have dared to expose them, and it soon developed that the fort afforded no protection to the children of the forest against the savagery of their hereditary enemies, who made treaties of peace only to thereby gain better opportunity for butchery."--Robinson's _A History of the Dakota or Sioux Indians_, p.

154. This is Part II of the _South Dakota Historical Collections_, Vol.

II.

[333] At the forks of the Chippewa River in 1838, eleven Sioux were killed while asleep, by Chippewas whom they were entertaining. The mission at Lake Pokegama was attacked in 1840. In 1842, a battle was fought at Pine Coulie near the Indian village of Kaposia. In 1850, on Apple River in Wisconsin, fourteen Chippewas were scalped. See the article by Rev. S. W. Pond on _Indian Warfare in Minnesota_ in the _Minnesota Historical Collections_, Vol. III, pp. 129-138. As late as 1854, D. B. Herriman, the Chippewa agent, reported that during the preceding year nearly one hundred Chippewas had been killed and scalped by the Sioux. But none of these ma.s.sacres took place at the fort.--_Executive Doc.u.ments_, 2nd Session, 33rd Congress, Vol. I, Pt. 1, Doc.u.ment No. 1, p. 260.

[334] _Executive Doc.u.ments_, 1st Session, 31st Congress, Vol. VIII, Doc.u.ment No. 51, p. 31.

[335] _Taliaferro's Diary_, January 23, 1831.

[336] _Taliaferro's Diary_, June 4, 1831. For other occasions during the winter and spring of 1831 when the agent records the presence of both Sioux and Chippewas see the diary under date of January 31, March 5, May 2, June 15.

[337] Taliaferro to Clark, July 6, 1831.--_William Clark Papers, Correspondence, 1830-1832_, p. 231.

[338] Speech of Taliaferro to the Sioux.--_Taliaferro's Diary_, February 19, 1831.

[339] Report of J. N. Nicollet in _Executive Doc.u.ments_, 2nd Session, 28th Congress, Vol. II, Doc.u.ment No. 52, p. 66.

[340] _Taliaferro's Diary_, January 10, 18, 26, 1831.

[341] Taliaferro to Clark, February 8, 1831.--_William Clark Papers, Correspondence, 1830-1832_, p. 121.

[342] The text of the treaty is printed in Kappler's _Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties_, Vol. II, pp. 250-255. The treaty was signed on August 19, 1825.

[343] _Missionary Herald_, Vol. x.x.x, p. 223, June, 1834. Reverend W. T.

Boutwell accompanied Mr. Schoolcraft on this journey, and his account of it is published in the religious paper.

[344] Schoolcraft's _Narrative of an Expedition through the Upper Mississippi to Itasca Lake_, p. 265.

[345] _United States Statutes at Large_, Vol. IV, p. 684.

[346] Taliaferro to William Clark, May 31, 1835.--_Taliaferro Letters_, Vol. III, No. 234.

[347] Taliaferro to Herring, July 16, 1835.--_Taliaferro Letters_, Vol.

III, No. 238.

[348] Taliaferro to William Clark, September 2, 1835; Taliaferro to E.

Herring, September 20, 1835.--_Taliaferro Letters_, Vol. III, Nos. 251, 252.

[349] Taliaferro to William Clark, May 26, 1831.--_William Clark Papers, Correspondence, 1830-1832_, p. 195.

[350] _Taliaferro's Diary_, January 25, 1831.

[351] _Senate Doc.u.ments_, 1st Session, 28th Congress, Vol. I, Doc.u.ment No. 1, p. 269.

[352] _Senate Doc.u.ments_, 1st Session, 29th Congress, Vol. I, Doc.u.ment No. 1, p. 490.

[353] _The Minnesota Pioneer_, January 2, 1851.

[354] Snelling to Atkinson, May 31, 1827.--_Indian Office Files_, 1827, No. 10.

[355] _The Minnesota Pioneer_, May 16, 1850. Other occasions when Indians were imprisoned for similar causes are mentioned in _The Minnesota Pioneer_, September 23, 1852, April 20, 1854.