In June of the following year a large party of Chippeways from the upper Mississippi, from Mille Lacs and the St. Croix valley, assembled at Fort Snelling. For some days they were feasted and entertained by the resident Sioux, and agent Taliaferro got them started homewards. Two Chippeway warriors, related to the tribesmen killed by the Sioux the previous summer, remained behind, and went into hiding near the large Sioux village on Lake Calhoun. At daybreak, Nika (the badger), a warrior much respected, was shot in his tracks as he was going out to hunt, and the assassins made their escape. As the Sioux could easily surmise that they belonged to Hole-in-the-day’s band, they decided not to retaliate on it, because they would be watched for. Two war-parties were immediately formed, the one to follow the Mille Lacs band, the other that from the St. Croix. It was lawful to retaliate on any Chippeways. The Mille Lacs Indians were overtaken in their bivouacs on the Rum River at daylight on July 4. Waiting until the hunters had gone forward, the Sioux fired on the women, children, and old men, and harvested some seventy scalps, but they lost more warriors in the action than the Chippeways. The war-dance of the exulting Sioux went on for a month on the site of Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis. Little Crow and his Kaposia band gave their attention to the St. Croix Chippeways, who returned, as they had come, by canoe down the Mississippi and up the St. Croix. Little Crow marched overland and got into position at Stillwater, where he lay in ambush for the retreating foe, who he knew would bivouac on the low ground near the site of the Minnesota state prison. A daybreak assault killed twenty-five of the Chippeways, but they made so good a defense that the Sioux were glad to retire. The mortality in the so-called “battles” of Rum River and Stillwater was exceptionally great.
In the middle of the period now in view, a new influence, not heartily welcomed by the traders, came over the Minnesota Indians,—that of the missionaries, mostly Protestant. The first efforts at evangelization were made for the Chippeways and probably at the instance of Robert Stuart, the principal agent of the American Fur Company at Mackinaw, an ardent Scotch Presbyterian. In 1823 a boarding-school was opened at that place and flourished for some years. In 1830 a mission was opened at La Pointe, Wisconsin, on the spot occupied by the Jesuit fathers one hundred and fifty years before. From this place as a centre mission work was extended into Minnesota. In 1833 the Rev. W. T. Boutwell proceeded to Leech Lake, built a log cabin, and began work. The Rev. Frederick Ayer opened a school at Yellow Lake, on the Wisconsin side of the St. Croix, and the Rev. E. E. Ely began teaching at Sandy Lake. Three years later all of these were removed for more concentrated, coöperative effort to Lake Pokegama in Pine County. This mission was carried on with much promise for five years, when it was interrupted by a descent of a large war-party of Sioux led by Little Crow. Among the killed were two young girls, pupils of the mission school. The Chippeways abandoned the place for homes farther from the danger line, and this mission came to an end. The Chippeways had their revenge a year later (1842), when they came down to the near neighborhood of St. Paul and got in the so-called battle of Kaposia the scalps of thirteen Sioux warriors, two women, and a child.
The missions to the Sioux were begun in the spring of 1834 by two young laymen from Connecticut, who appeared at Fort Snelling without credentials from any synod or conference, but with abundant faith and zeal. They were brothers, Samuel William and Godwin Hollister Pond, then twenty-six and twenty-four years of age respectively. Although they had entered the Indian country without leave or license, they secured at once the confidence of Agent Taliaferro and Major Bliss, commander of Fort Snelling. With their own hands they built a log cabin on the east shore of Lake Calhoun, on the edge of Cloudman’s village. That chief selected the site. Established in this “comfortable home,” they devoted themselves to learning the Dakota language. Within a few weeks they adapted the Roman letters to that language with such skill that the “Pond alphabet” has with slight modification been ever since used in writing and printing it. A Dakota child can begin to read as soon as it has “learned its letters.” The zealous brothers made the first collections for the dictionary, later enlarged by others, prepared a spelling-book, and formulated a rude grammar. Mr. Sibley, who came in the fall of the same year, became a warm friend of the Ponds.
The next missionary effort was by appointees of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, best known by the short title “American Board.” These were the Rev. Thomas S. Williamson, missionary and physician; the Rev. Jedediah D. Stevens, missionary; Alexander Huggins, farmer; their wives, and two lady teachers. These arrived at Fort Snelling in May, 1835. Mr. Stevens, who had made a tour of exploration in the country six years before, at once established himself on the northwest margin of Lake Harriet, now in the city of Minneapolis. He built two considerable log houses near the site of the street railroad station, in one of which he opened a school. The nucleus was a number of half-breed daughters of traders and military men, some of whom became highly respected Minnesota women. This school, however, was not the first in Minnesota, if the collection of Indian boys and men gathered by Major Taliaferro on the east bank of Lake Calhoun in 1829, and put to learning the art and mystery of agriculture, may be called a school. Philander Prescott was the teacher, and his pupils numbered twelve; the next year he had one hundred and twenty-five “different scholars.” Within a few days after the arrival of these missionaries a Presbyterian church was organized at Fort Snelling, June 11, the first in Minnesota, with the Rev. Mr. Stevens in charge.
The American Fur Company had an important stockaded post on Lac qui Parle in Chippeway County. The trader there was Joseph Renville, who had been captain in the British frontier service in the War of 1812. He had married a woman of the Sioux by Christian rite, and had a large family growing up. Although Catholic by birth and education, he invited Dr. Williamson to come and establish his mission near him, so that his children might be taught. The mission at Lac qui Parle was thus promptly opened. Dr. Williamson has recorded that this school, begun in his house in July, was the first in Minnesota outside of Fort Snelling. It was continued for many years by his sister, Miss Jane Williamson, who perhaps rendered more lasting service than any of the noble band to which she belonged. After some two years’ study of the Dakota language Dr. Williamson set about what became his life work, the translation of the Holy Scriptures into that tongue. The Rev. Stephen Return Riggs joined the Lac qui Parle mission in 1837, after having studied the Dakota under Samuel Pond. He soon became expert, prepared text-books for the schools, and later edited the Dakota dictionary and grammar, to which all the Sioux missionaries contributed. Mission work begun in 1837 at Kaposia (now South St. Paul) by Methodist preachers, and at Red Wing in 1839 by Swiss Presbyterian evangelists, however praiseworthy for intention, was too early abandoned to have permanent results. Equally transient was the ministration of the Catholic father Ravoux, at Lac qui Parle and Chaska, in 1842. The missions of the American Board to the Minnesota Sioux were maintained until that nation was removed to the Missouri in 1863. The results were sufficient to encourage persistence, in hope of future success, but the great body of the Indians was not affected. For a time this was due to suspicion on the part of the Indians of the sincerity of the missionaries. They could understand the soldier and the trader, but the missionary was a puzzle. He had nothing to sell, he asked no pay for teaching the children, caring for the sick, or preaching the word. Why he should teach a religion of brotherhood, and still keep to himself his household stuff, his little store of food, and his domestic animals, was beyond the comprehension of savages accustomed to communistic life. A greater obstacle lay in the fact that the missionary had first to break down faith in an ancient religion, and the dominance of a body of medicine-men who maintained their cult by a ceremonial interwoven with the whole life and habits of the people. Not less obstructive was the example of most white men known to the Indians,—greedy, dissolute, and licentious.
CHAPTER V
EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS
To discover the true source of any of the great rivers of the world, that is, that one of all sources which measured along the axis of its channel is farthest from its mouth, has ever been an alluring problem to the exploring geographer. David Thompson, geographer of the Northwest Company, in the course of a journey of exploration lasting a year and extending to the Missouri River, on April 23, 1798, reached Turtle Lake, four miles north of Lake Bemidji, and believed himself the discoverer of the true source of the Mississippi. Lieutenant Pike was confident that when on the 12th day of February, 1806, he reached the upper Red Cedar (Cass) Lake he was at the “upper source of the Mississippi.” These claims were either not known or not trusted, and a series of expeditions to reach the “true source” of the Mississippi was begun, soon after the military occupation in 1819. Lewis Cass, known best in American history by his national employments as senator, cabinet officer, and foreign minister, had cut such a figure as colonel of an Ohio regiment and brigadier-general in the War of 1812 that the President made him governor of the Territory of Michigan; an office which he held for seventeen years. That territory in 1819 was extended to the Mississippi River. Its governor was naturally curious to see something of this immense addition to his jurisdiction and the great river forming its western bound. He sought and obtained leave to conduct an expedition. An engineer officer, Captain Douglass, was ordered to join it, and Governor Cass employed Henry R. Schoolcraft, of whom we are to hear later, as mineralogist at one dollar and a half a day. Leaving Detroit late in May, 1820, with ten Indians and seven soldiers, in three birch-bark canoes, Cass was at the American Fur Company’s post at Fond du Lac (of Superior) on the 6th of July. He ascended the St. Louis River and took the Savanna portage to Sandy Lake. With a reduced party he pushed up stream through Lake Winnebigoshish to that upper Red Cedar Lake which Pike had seen fourteen years before. Assured that this was the true source of the Mississippi, he ended his journey. Mr. Schoolcraft doubted, but he was too polite to differ openly with his chief. Captain Douglass on his map gave the lake the name “Cassina,” which, shorn of two superfluous syllables, has remained in use. Mr. Schoolcraft wrote a narrative of the expedition which is very pleasant reading. The return journey, beginning July 22, was down the Mississippi to Prairie du Chien and thence to Green Bay by the Fox-Wisconsin portage. At Fort Snelling the party were feasted with fresh vegetables from the post garden. At the Sioux agency, then on the Mendota side of the Minnesota, some chiefs of the Sioux and Chippeways were got together in council and a reluctant consent was obtained to cease from troubling one another. The high contracting parties were content to gratify the white man, but they understood the farcical nature of the convention. Governor Cass reported the cost of the expedition at $6156.40¼.
It seems proper to interpolate here some account of the expedition conducted by Major Stephen H. Long of the topographical engineers of the army, in 1823, to the valleys of the Minnesota and Red rivers. Six years before, that officer had made an uneventful journey to St. Anthony’s Falls, of which he left a graphic and appreciative description. His party, escorted by a detail of soldiers, left Fort Snelling on July 9 with Joseph Renville as interpreter and guide. At Traverse des Sioux, Long abandoned his canoes and set out overland by the well-worn trail for Lake Traverse, where he was welcomed at the headquarters of the Columbia Fur Company. On August 2 Long reached Pembina, where he established a monument to mark a point astronomically determined in the international boundary. His instructions had been to strike east from Pembina and trace the boundary to the Lake of the Woods. This he found to be impracticable. Putting his people into bark canoes, he descended the Red River past Fort Garry to Lake Winnipeg, traversed the south arm of that water, and ascended the Winnipeg River to Rat Portage on the Lake of the Woods.
The homeward journey by the old Dawson route to Lake Superior, along the north shore to the Sault Sainte Marie and thence by the lower lakes and the Erie Canal, was rapidly made without notable incident. Professor William H. Keating of the University of Pennsylvania, who was geologist of the expedition, published a narrative abounding in varied and interesting knowledge. It will ever remain indispensable to the historian of the period and region.
Major Long had been accompanied from Fort Snelling to Pembina by an Italian gentleman of a romantic and enterprising nature, Giacomo Constantino Beltrami by name. Little is known of his early life beyond the facts that he had held military and civil appointments, and had, for reasons not revealed, found it desirable to absent himself from Italy. He came to America full of zeal to be the discoverer of the true source of the Mississippi, and thus place himself in the company of great Italian explorers. Agent Taliaferro came upon him in Pittsburg and offered to further his ambition. They reached Fort Snelling on the 10th of May, 1823, by the steamboat Virginia, the first steam vessel to reach that post. The crowd of wondering Indians gathered on the levee were sufficiently impressed by the bulk of the white man’s fire canoe; but the scream of her steam whistle, opportunely let out, sent them scampering far off on the prairie.