Fig. 781.
Fig. 781. United States troops fought Ree Indians. The-Swan’s Winter Count, 1823-’24.
This and the preceding figure are signs of a specially interesting expedition, a condensed account of which follows taken from the annual report of J. C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, November 29, 1823:
Gen. William H. Ashley, a licensed trader, was treacherously attacked by the Arickaras at their village on the west bank of the Missouri river, about midway between the present Fort Sully and Fort Rice. Twenty-three of the trading party were killed and wounded, and the remainder retreated in boats and sent appeals for succor to the commanding officer at Fort Atkinson, the present site of Council Bluffs. This officer was Col. H. Leavenworth, Sixth United States Infantry, who marched June 22, with 220 men of that regiment, 80 men of trading companies, and two 6-pound cannon, a 5½-inch brass howitzer, and some small swivels, nearly 700 miles through a country filled with hostile or unreliable Indians, to the Ree villages, which he reached on the 9th of August. The Dakotas were at war with the Arickara or Rees, and 700 to 800 of their warriors had joined the United States forces on the way; of these Dakotas 500 are mentioned as Yanktons, but the tribes of the remainder are not designated. The Rees were in two villages, the lower one containing seventy-one dirt lodges and the upper seventy, both being inclosed with palisades and a ditch and the greater part of the lodges having a ditch around the bottom on the inside. The enemy, having knowledge of the expedition, had fortified and made every preparation for resistance. Their force consisted of over 700 warriors, most of whom were armed with rifles procured from British traders. On the 9th of August the Dakotas commenced the attack and were driven back until the regular troops advanced, but nothing decisive resulted until the artillery was employed on the 10th, when a large number of the Rees, including their chief, Gray Eyes, were killed, and early in the afternoon the survivors begged for peace. They were much terrified and humbled by the effect of the cannon, which, though small, answered the purpose. During the main engagement the Dakotas occupied themselves in gathering and carrying off all the corn to be found.
See also the record of Lean-Wolf’s expedition in Fig. [452].
SECTION 2.
RECORD OF BATTLE.
Lafitau (b) gives the following account, translated with condensation, of the records of expedition, battle, etc., made by the Iroquois and northeastern Algonquins:
The designs which the Indians have tattooed on their faces and bodies are employed as hieroglyphics, writing, and records. When an Indian returns from war and wishes to make his victory known to the neighboring nations through whose country he passes, when he has chosen a hunting ground and wishes it to be known that he has selected it for himself and that it would be an affront to him for others to establish themselves there, he supplies the lack of an alphabet by those characteristic symbols which distinguish him personally; he paints on a piece of bark, which is raised on a pole by a place of passage [trail], or he cuts away some pieces from a tree trunk with his hatchet, and, after having made a smooth surface, traces his portrait and adds other characters, which give all the information that he desires to convey.
When I say that he draws his portrait, it will be understood that he is not skillful enough to delineate all the features of his face in such a manner that it would be recognized. They have, indeed, no other way of painting than that monogrammatic or linear painting, which consists of little more than the mere outlines of the shadow of the body rather than of the body itself—a picture so imperfect that it was often necessary to add below the name of the object which was intended to be represented in order to make it known.