CHAPTER XI.
Treaties of 1822-24-25–Winnebago Outbreak–Attack on the Boats–Arrest and Discharge.
The Sacs and Foxes were also trespassers upon Illinois soil, dispossessing by conquest, after the manner just related, the Santeaux, who claimed the soil from which they were driven.[[54]] Black Hawk was always strenuously insistent for the principle that land could not be alienated, therefore his nation could not, by treaty, legally have alienated their lands. If lands were inalienable by grant, how, then, could they have been alienated by conquest? The difference was in instance and not principle with Black Hawk, and he no doubt argued that the case was different with Santeaux and Iowas, because his was a party in interest. And so with the treaty of 1804; it was good if it helped Black Hawk and very bad if it contained anything good for the Americans.
That the Americans were intent on doing the best for the Indians which then could be done under all circumstances is everywhere apparent in the several treaties with the Sacs and Foxes. On September 3d, 1822,[[55]] another treaty was negotiated with them, which also recognized the 1804 compact, and doubtless Black Hawk thought this all right, because it gave to them an additional $1,000.00 for the privilege of being relieved from the obligation of building a factory as that treaty had provided. This 1822 affair bears the signature of Black Hawk.
Again on August 4th, 1824, a treaty was made between the Sacs and Foxes recognizing the former treaties.[[56]]
On August 19th, 1825, another treaty for the purpose of suspending the constant internecine wars of the Indians was made at Prairie du Chien, wherein all former treaties were recognized.[[57]] With all these various ratifications one would naturally infer that the treaty of 1804 was pretty thoroughly understood by the Indians, and particularly by Black Hawk, yet in the face of them all he continued his hostility to the Americans whenever the possibility of making them trouble arose, and if it did not arise from the efforts of others, he was ever alert to set it in motion on his own account. The Winnebago outbreak, coming along in 1827, afforded him the next opportunity to display his genius for war, and he was quick to place himself against his ancient foe, the Americans. The unfriendly attitude of certain unruly Sioux, sometimes called or classed as the Dakotas in the prints of those days, was quickly brought to his attention, and without delay he was on the road north to find trouble in which to participate.
In those days there were good and bad Dakotas, as with the Sacs, and the malcontent element of the former was generally finding itself in trouble. Upon two notable occasions parties of Dakotas wantonly murdered unoffending Chippewas, the latest offense being under the very walls of Fort Snelling and at a time when the Chippewas were dispensing a liberal hospitality to them–a most atrocious crime![[58]]
These deeds were so revolting that Col. Josiah Snelling, the commandant, very properly applied the custom prevalent among the Indians by turning the four captured culprits over to the injured Chippewas for punishment. Each Dakota was given thirty paces law, and a chance to run for his life; but Chippewa bullets were swifter, and four vicious Dakotas were speedily forwarded to their fathers. Revenge toward the whites for the part they played in that affair rankled within the breasts of the friends of the dead Dakotas and they diplomatically set about settling the grudge in a most civilized and sensible manner, at the expense of their friends, the Winnebagoes. Red Bird, a Winnebago chief of note, contemporaneously, or soon thereafter,[[59]] led a losing enterprise against the Chippewas, returning to his camp crestfallen and sullen. It was at this fecund moment that emissaries from the Dakotas fell upon him with all manner of adroit badinage for his fallen estate, impressing upon his mind, with much innuendo, to what belittled influence his parts had been reduced in the estimation of his people and to what distressing ridicule he was being subjected by the laughter of the Americans. While in the receptive mood to which these tactics had driven his mind, he was in the same perverted manner made to believe that the four guilty Dakotas turned over to the Chippewas and killed were Winnebagoes. Thus was the foundation laid for the “Winnebago war” of 1827! The murder of one Methode, with his wife and five children, was discovered. Following this, on the 26th of June, 1827, Red Bird, with We-kau and Chic-hon-sic, called at various places in Prairie du Chien (the garrison and its stores having been removed just previously to Fort Snelling), obtained from a trader ammunition and, as some have said, whisky, and left for the cabin of one Registre Gagnier, who resided with his wife, young son, baby daughter and an old discharged American soldier named Solomon Lipcap some two miles from the village. The three entered, begged and received food, and, taking advantage of their entertainers’ unguarded condition, shot down and instantly killed Gagnier and Lipcap. Madam Gagnier, in the frenzy of her excitement, seized the gun of her dead husband, and while protecting her son finally drove the savages into the yard, where they scattered. She then ran to the village with her boy, forgetting the infant daughter, which had been lying upon the bed when the Indians entered. The posse which immediately returned found Gagnier and Lipcap scalped, but the girl baby, alive, was discovered under the bed, though scalped and savagely cut in the neck. Stranger yet, she recovered and grew to woman’s estate.
Thomas L. McKenney, who gained the woman’s story from her own lips, has narrated it in a manner worthy so illustrious a writer, disclosing a heroism sufficient to warrant the erection to her memory of a monument more than a little pretentious. In the order of mundane things, however, heroines fare very badly when burly heroes can be found or manufactured to consume the contributions of a hero-loving public, and probably Madam Gagnier will get no monument.