At this time, a translation of the first part of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim, which I had prepared, was printed by the American Tract Society, and at once became a popular and profitable reading-book for the Dakotas.
CHAPTER X.
1857-1862.—Spirit Lake.—Massacres by Inkpadoota.—The Captives.—Delivery of Mrs. Marble and Miss Gardner.—Excitement.—Inkpadoota’s Son Killed.—United States Soldiers.—Major Sherman.—Indian Councils.—Great Scare.—Going Away.—Indians Sent After Scarlet End.—Quiet Restored.—Children at School.—Quarter-Century Meeting.—John P. Williamson at Red Wood.—Dedication of Chapel.
By the northern line of Iowa, where the head-waters of the Des Moines come out of Minnesota, is a lake, or group of lakes, called the “Minne Wakan,” Mysterious Water, or, as the name goes, Spirit Lake. Sometime in 1855, this beautiful spot of earth was found and occupied by seven or eight white families, far in advance of other white settlements. In the spring of 1857, there were in this neighborhood and at Springfield, ten or fifteen miles above on the Des Moines, and in Minnesota, nearly fifty white persons. During the latter part of that winter the snows in Western Iowa and Minnesota were very deep, so that traveling on the prairies was attended with great difficulty.
It appears that during the winter a few families of annuity Sioux, belonging to the somewhat roving band of Leaf Shooters, had, according to their habit, made a hunting expedition down into Iowa, on the Little Sioux. Inkpadoota, or Scarlet End, and his sons were the principal men. The deep snows made game scarce and hunting difficult, so that when, in the month of March, this party of Dakotas came into the Spirit Lake settlement, they were in a bad humor from hunger, and attempted at once to levy blackmail upon the inhabitants. Their wishes not being readily complied with, the Indians proceeded to help themselves, which at once brought on a conflict with the white people, and the result was that the Indians massacred almost the entire settlement, killing about forty persons and taking four women captive.
Some one carried the news to Fort Ridgely, and a company of soldiers was sent out to that part of the country, but with small prospect of finding and punishing the Indians. The deep snows prevented rapid marching, and the party of Scarlet End, who were still in the Spirit Lake country, managed to see the white soldiers, albeit the soldiers could not discover them.
Soon after this event, we, at the Yellow Medicine, heard of it by a courier who came up the Minnesota. It proved to be quite as bad as represented. But nothing could be done at that season of the year, either to obtain the captives or punish the perpetrators. So the spring passed. When the snows had melted away, and the month of May had come, there came a messenger from Lac-qui-parle to Dr. Williamson and myself, saying that Sounding Heavens and Gray Foot, two sons of our friend Spirit Walker, had brought in one of the captive women taken by Scarlet End’s party, and asking us to come up and get her that she might be restored to her friends.
We lost no time in going up to Lac-qui-parle. At the trader’s establishment, then in the keeping of Weeyooha, the father of Nawangmane win, who was the wife of Sounding Heavens, we found Mrs. Marble, rather a small but good-looking white woman, apparently not more than twenty-five years old. She was busily engaged with the aforesaid Mrs. Sounding Heavens, in making a calico dress for herself. When I spoke to her in English, she was at first quite reserved. I asked if she wanted to return to her friends. She replied: “I am among my friends.”