The heretofore mentioned treaties include all the lands within the state of Minnesota originally owned by Indian tribes, except the Red Lake reservation, and for its cession a treaty was negotiated in 1886, which to this date, April, 1888, has not been ratified.
GEN. PIKE AND THE INDIANS.
Gen. Zebulon M. Pike, United States Army, was sent by the government in 1805-6 on a tour of inspection, to select sites for forts, and to treat and hold councils with the various Indian tribes of the Upper Mississippi. He met the Sioux in council at the junction of the St. Peter's and Mississippi rivers, Sept. 23, 1805, and informed them that he came to purchase lands for government forts, and to tell them what the Great Father at Washington desired them to know about his people and their government. A part of his speech we subjoin:
"Brothers: You old men probably know that about thirty years ago we were subject to the king of England, and governed by his laws. But he not treating us as children we refused to acknowledge him as father. After ten years of war, in which he lost 100,000 men, he acknowledged us as a free and independent nation. They knew that not many years since we received Detroit, Michilmackinac, and all the ports on the lakes from the English, and now but the other day, Louisiana from the Spanish; so that we put one foot on the sea at the east, and the other on the sea at the west, and if once children are now men; yet I think that the traders who come from Canada are bad birds amongst the Chippewas, and instigate them to make war on their red brothers, the Sioux, in order to prevent our traders from going high up the Mississippi. This I shall inquire into, and so warn those persons of their ill conduct.
"Brothers, I expect that you will give orders to all your young warriors to respect my flag and protection, which I may send to the Chippewa chief who may come down with me in the spring; for was a dog to run to my lodge for safety, his enemy must walk over me to hurt him.
"Brothers, I am told that the traders have made a practice of selling rum to you. All of you in your right senses must know that this is injurious and occasions quarrels, murders, etc., amongst yourselves. For this reason your father has thought proper to prohibit the traders from selling you rum.
"Brothers, I now present you with some of your father's tobacco, and some other trifling things, as a memorandum of my good will, and before my departure I will give you some liquor to clear your throats."
At this conference the Sioux granted to the United States government a tract nine miles square at the mouth of the St. Croix, and a similar tract at the mouth of the St. Peter's, lying on both sides of the Mississippi and including the falls of St. Anthony. Pike says: "They gave the land required, about 100,000 acres of land (equal to $200,000), and promised me a safe passage for myself and any chief I might bring down. I gave them presents to the amount of about two hundred dollars, and as soon as the council was over allowed the traders to present them with liquor which, with what I gave, was equal to sixty gallons." Pike in his journeying through the territory ordered Dickson and others to haul down the British flag. It is on record that the flags were hauled down, but also that they were hoisted again after Pike's departure.
From Pike's own account of one of his inland tours he was hospitably entertained by his red brothers, as the following paragraph from his journal will show:
"After making this tour we returned to the chief's lodge and found a berth provided for each of us, of good soft bear skins nicely spread, and on mine there was a large feather pillow. I must not here omit to mention an anecdote which serves to characterize more particularly their manners. This, in the eyes of the contracted moralist, would deform my hospitable host into a monster of libertinism; but by a liberal mind would be considered as arising from the hearty generosity of the wild savage. In the course of the day, observing a ring on one of my fingers, he inquired if it was gold; he was told it was the gift of one with whom I should be happy to be at that time; he seemed to think seriously, and at night told my interpreter, 'that perhaps his father (as they all called me) felt much grieved for the want of a woman; if so, he could furnish him with one.' He was answered that with us each man had but one wife, and that I considered it strictly my duty to remain faithful to her. This he thought strange (he himself having three) and replied that 'he knew some Americans at his nation who had half a dozen wives during the winter.' The interpreter observed that they were men without character; but that all our great men had each but one wife. The chief acquiesced; but said he liked better to have as many as he pleased."