[I-73] Jean Baptiste Faribault, b. Berthier, Lower Canada, 1774, d. Faribault, Minn., Aug. 20th, 1860, being at the time the oldest white resident of the present State. Jean Baptiste was the youngest one of 10 children of Bartholomew (who was b. in Paris and came to Canada in 1754); he was in business in Quebec 1790-97, at the latter date entered the employ of J. J. Astor as an agent of the N. W. Co., and was engaged in the Indian trade at various points in the Mississippi region for about 50 years, for the most part on his own account. One of the posts he established was at the mouth of the Minnesota r., where Pike found him. In 1814 he married a half-breed daughter of Major Hause (then Superintendent of Indian Affairs), by whom he had eight children. His Indian name was Chahpahsintay, meaning Beaver Tail. His eldest son, Alexander, founded the present town of Faribault, Minn. Mr. J. B. Faribault "espoused the cause of the U. S. during the war of 1812, and lost many thousand dollars thereby, as well as narrowly escaping with his life on several occasions. He labored all his life to benefit the red man, teach him agriculture and the arts of industry, and protect his interests. He had an unbounded influence over them; his advice was never disregarded. He was prominent at all treaties, and rendered the U. S. many valuable services," says J. F. Williams, Minn. Hist. Coll., I. 2d ed. 1872, p. 377: see also ibid., p. 468. An extended memoir of Faribault, by General H. H. Sibley, occupies pp. 168-79 of III. of the Minn. Hist. Coll., 1874.
[I-74] The history of the discovery of St. Peter's r., off the mouth of which Pike is now camped, is involved in some obscurity, which modern research has not wholly cleared up, though the main facts have probably been certified. (1) It has been conceded since Carver's time that Hennepin missed the river. Discovery has not been traced back of Lesueur's time. Lesueur was first on the Mississippi hereabouts in 1683; next in 1695, when he built on Pelée isl., just below the St. Croix; and again in 1700; both these rivers are noted in the treatise of Nicolas Perrot, and before 1700 the river of St. Pierre had been so named. (2) Charlevoix's account, Hist. N. Fr., Paris, 1744, IV. pp. 165, 166, is in substance: In 1700 Lesueur, sent by D'Iberville to establish himself in the Sioux country and take possession of a copper-mine que le Sueur y avait découverte, had already discovered there, some time before; ascended St. Peter 40 leagues to Rivière Verte (now Blue Earth r.) which comes in on the left hand as you go up; ascended this Green r. 1 league; built a fort and wintered there, 1700-1; in April, "1702," for which read 1701, went up Green r. ¾ league to his mine and in 22 days got out over 30,000 lbs. of ore, of which 4,000 selected lbs. were sent to France; there was a mountain of this mineral 10 leagues long, etc. (3) The Amer. Philos. Society's copy of the MS. of Bénard de la Harpe is carefully digested by Keating in Long's Exp., I. pp. 317-322. This MS. is entitled: "Journal historique concernant l'établissement des Français à la Louisianne, tiré des mémoires de Messrs. d'Iberville et de Bienville, etc., par M. Bénard de la Harpe." The original of this copy was in the hands of Dr. Sibley, who certifies to the correctness of the copy in a note annexed, dated Natchitoches, Oct. 29th, 1805. Some of the contents of this MS. are: (a) Lesueur and d'Iberville, with 30 hands, reached the mouth of the Mississippi Dec., 1699. Lesueur was sent there by M. l'Huillier, fermier général, under orders to establish himself at a place near the sources of the Mississippi, where he had previously discovered a green ore, i. e., in 1695. The substance of the 1695 discovery is: Lesueur built a fort on an island (Isle Pelée, now Prairie isl.) in the Mississippi over 200 m. above the Illinois, by order of Count Frontenac; and the same year he went to Montreal with the Chippewa chief Chingouabé and the Sioux chief Tioscaté, the latter the first of his nation that ever was in Canada, and received very kindly by the authorities in view of what they hoped to make out of his country. With this Sioux chief Lesueur had intended to reascend the Mississippi in 1696; but the former died at Montreal after 33 days' illness. Lesueur, thus released from an obligation to go back with the chief to the country where he had discovered the ore, determined to go to France to ask leave to open mines; this voyage he made, and had his permit in 1697. June, 1697, he embarked at La Rochelle for Canada; was captured by the British on the Newfoundland banks and carried to Portsmouth; after peace, returned to Paris for a new commission, which was issued to him in 1698; went to Canada with this; various obstacles threw him back to Europe; and meanwhile part of the men whom he had left in charge in 1695 abandoned their posts and proceeded to Montreal. Thus operations on the mines were suspended from 1695 to 1700, for Lesueur and d'Iberville, with their 30 workmen, as we have seen, only reached the mouth of the Mississippi in Dec., 1699. (b) The MS. we are following states, under date of Feb. 10th, 1702, that Lesueur was that day come to the mouth of the Mississippi with 2000 quintaux of blue and green earth. This he certainly had got on his tour of Dec., 1699-Feb., 1702, from and back to the mouth of the Mississippi, and he had got it from the mine he opened and worked on Rivière Verte or Blue Earth r., the principal branch of St. Peter's. The MS. contains a narrative of this tour from July 12th to Dec. 13th, 1700. It appears that Lesueur moved as follows: July 13th, mouth of the Missouri; Sept. 1st, mouth of the Wisconsin; Sept. 14th, mouth of the Chippewa (on one of whose branches he had found a 60-lb. mass of copper during his previous journey); same day, Lake Pepin, so designated in the MS.; 16th, passed La Croix r., so called from a Frenchman wrecked there; 19th, entered St. Peter's r.; Oct. 1st had ascended this for 44¼ leagues, and then entered Blue r., so called for the color of the earth on its banks; started an establishment at or more probably near the mouth of Blue r., at what the MS. gives as lat. 44° 13´ N.; Oct. 14th, finished the works, which were named Fort L'Huillier; Oct. 26th, went to the mine with three canoes, which he loaded with colored earth taken from mountains near which were mines of copper, samples of which L'Huillier had assayed at Paris in 1696. Lesueur wintered there, 1700-1, and, as we have seen, was back to the mouth of the Mississippi Feb. 10th, 1702. (c) From these historical data Keating in Long, 1823, I. p. 320, infers that St. Peter's and the Blue (Blue Earth) rivers were those streams which Lesueur had ascended in 1695, which date is consequently assigned to the discovery, without reference back to 1683. This inference is made "from the circumstance that they are mentioned as well known, and not as recently discovered; and more especially from the observation of la Harpe, that the eastern Sioux having complained of the situation of the fort [L'Huillier], which they would have wished to see at the confluence of the St. Peter and Mississippi, M. le Sueur endeavoured to reconcile them to it. 'He had foreseen,' says la Harpe, 'that an establishment on the Blue river would not be agreeable to the eastern Sioux, who are the rulers of all the other Sioux, because they were the first with whom the French traded, and whom they provided with guns; nevertheless, as this undertaking had not been commenced with the sole view of trading for beavers, but in order to become thoroughly acquainted with the quality of the various mines which he had previously discovered there [italics Keating's], he replied to the natives that he was sorry he had not been made sooner acquainted with their wishes, &c., but that the advanced state of the season prevented his returning to the mouth of the river.' No mention is made in this narrative of the stream being obstructed with ice, a circumstance which, had it really occurred, would, we think, have been recorded by de la Harpe, who appears to have been a careful and a curious observer, and who undoubtedly saw le Sueur's original narrative." (4) On the foregoing data Nicollet, Rep. 1843, p. 18, has some judicious remarks in fixing Lesueur's locality with precision: "On the left bank of the Mankato [Green, Blue, or Blue Earth r.], six miles from its mouth, in a rocky bluff composed of sandstone and limestone, are found cavities in which the famed blue or green earth, used by the Sioux as their principal pigment, is obtained. This material is nearly exhausted, and it is not likely that this is the spot where a Mr. Lesueur (who is mentioned in the Narrative of Major Long's Second Expedition, as also by Mr. Featherstonhaugh) could, in his third voyage, during the year 1700, have collected his 4000 pounds of copper earth sent by him to France. I have reason to believe that Lesueur's location is on the river to which I have affixed his name, and which empties into the Mankato three-quarters of a league above Fort L'Huillier, built by him and where he spent a winter. This location corresponds precisely with that given by Charlevoix, whilst it is totally inapplicable to the former. Here the blue earth is abundant in the steep and elevated hills at the mouth of this river, which hills form a broken country on the right side of the Mankato. Mr. [J. C.] Fremont and myself have verified this fact: he, during his visit to Lesueur river; and I, upon the locality designated by Mr. Featherstonhaugh, where the Ndakotahs formerly assembled in great numbers to collect it, but to which they now seldom resort, as it is comparatively scarce—at least so I was informed by Sleepy-eye, the chief of the Sissitons, who accompanied me during this excursion." (5) Featherstonhaugh's remarks, Canoe Voyage, etc., I. p. 280 and p. 304, seem to me less judicious than likely to make the judicious grieve; in fine, they are singularly obtuse to have come from so British a man and so clever a story-teller. He heads a page in caps, "The Copper-mine, a Fable;" he has in text, "finding the copper-mine to be a fable"; again: "that either M. le Sueur's green cupreous earth had not corresponded to the expectations he had raised, or that the whole account of it was to be classed with Baron Lahontan's" fables, etc. This sort of talk would befog the whole subject, were it not obvious that it has no bearing whatever upon the historico-geographical case we are discussing. The question is where Lesueur went, and when he got there—not at all what he found there. It is obtuse, I say, because unintentionally misleading, for F'gh to say that, when he reached the bluff whence the pigment had been taken, "Le Sueur's story lost all credit with me, for I instantly saw that it was nothing but a continuation of the seam which divided the sandstone from the limestone ... containing a silicate of iron of a blueish-green color." In the first place, F'gh was not at exactly the right spot, which Nicollet has pointed out. Secondly, though Lesueur should have been mistaken or mendacious about any copper-mine being in that region—though he should not have collected 30,000 lbs. of ore in 22 days, or even a gunny-sack full of anything in a year—though the mountains should shrink to bluffs, and the whole commercial features of the case turn into the physiognomy of the wild-cat—that would not affect the historical and geographical facts, viz.: Lesueur ascended the St. Peter's to the Mankato, and this as far at least as its first branch, thus exploring both these rivers in 1700. Item, he had been to if not also up the river of St. Pierre in 1695; and it had been known since his first voyage in 1683. (6) As to the name Rivière St. Pierre, or de St. Pierre, which we have translated St. Peter, or St. Peter's r., the former obscurity of its origin has, I think, been almost entirely cleared up. Keating's Long, 1824, I. p. 322, has: "We have sought in vain for the origin of the name; we can find no notice of it; it appears to us at present not unlikely that the name may have been given by le Sueur in 1795 [slip for 1695], in honor of M. de St. Pierre Repantigni, to whom La Hontan incidentally alludes (I. p. 136) as being in Canada in 1789 [i. e., 1689]. This person may have accompanied le Sueur on his expedition." Keating does not cite in this connection the remark of Carver, ed. 1796, p. 35: "Here [at Lake Pepin] I discovered the ruins of a French factory, where it is said Captain St. Pierre resided, and carried on a very great trade with the Naudowessies [Sioux], before the reduction of Canada." This person was Jacques Le Gardeur St. Pierre, who in 1737 commanded the fort on Lake Pepin (Fort Beauharnois). One Fort St. Pierre was built at Rainy l. late in 1731; J. Le G. St. Pierre was there in 1751: for extended notice of him, see Neill, Macalester Coll. Cont., No. 4, 1890, pp. 136-40. His father was Captain Paul St. Pierre, who was sent to the French post (Maison Françoise) at La Pointe (Chaquamegon bay) in 1718. Nicollet, Rep. 1843, p. 68, cites Carver, and states: "I have no hesitation in assigning its [the name's] origin to a Canadian by the name of De St. Pierre, who resided for a long time thereabouts." The name appears for the first time in Perrot's report, of the date 1689, which is also the most probable date of naming the St. Croix r. and Lake Pepin. The only question left is, whether the river was not named to compliment Pierre Lesueur himself. Whoever the St. Pierre whose name the river bears may prove to be, the name is a personal one, which we should not have translated into English St. Peter; for it certainly has nothing to do with the legendary saint so styled, whose career is connected with the crowing of cocks three times more than with the course of any river. Had the stream been named by some priest for such a sadly overworked patron as the apocryphal first Bishop of Rome, we should have heard all about it in the Jesuit Relations or elsewhere. (7) The suggestion that the name St. Pierre is a perversion of sans pierres ("without stones"), may be dismissed as too good to be true; for it is a settled principle of sound philology that the easiest etymologies are the most likely to have been invented to fit the case, ex post-facto. (8) As to native names, Nicollet says, l. c.: "The name which the Sioux give to the St. Peter's river is Mini-sotah; and to St. Peter's, as a station [Mendota], Mdote-mini-sotah. The adjective sotah is of different translation. The Canadians translate it by a pretty equivalent French word, brouillé—perhaps most properly rendered into English by blear; as, for instance, mini sotah, blear water, or the entrance of blear water. I have entered into this explanation, because the word sotah really means neither clear nor turbid, as some authors have asserted; its true meaning being readily found in the Sioux expression ishta-sotah, blear-eyed.... The Chippeways are more accurate; by them, the St. Peter's river [is called] Ashkibogi-sibi, the Green Leaf river." It occurs to me that the distinction Nicollet draws would correspond to translucent, as distinguished on the one hand from colorless or transparent water, and on the other from opaque or turbid water. I may also refer to the old medical term, gutta serena, for forming cataract of the eye, when clear vision is obscured by a degree of opacity that does not entirely exclude light. As applied to water, Sioux sotah may be about equivalent to Greek γλαυκός, Latin glaucus, variously rendered "gray," "bluish-green," etc., and Nicollet's "blear-eyed" be equivalent to what was called glaucoma (γλαύκωμα). Notice what Pike says above of the color of the water; but it must be added that, when he speaks of the Mississippi as "remarkably red," we must understand only a reddish-yellow hue of its shoal portions, imparted by its sands; and by "black as ink," only the darker color of deeper places where the sands do not show through. The name Mini-sota has a number of variants: for example, Carver, who wintered on it Nov., 1766-Apr., 1767, has "the River St. Pierre, called by the natives the Waddapawmenesotor"; with which compare Watapan Menesota of Long, Watpàmenisothé of Beltrami, and the title of Featherstonhaugh's diverting book, "A Canoe Voyage up the Minnay Sotor," etc. It has become fixed of late years, since an Act of Congress, approved June 19th, 1852 (Stat. at Large, X. p. 147), decreed that the noble river should bear the name of the State through which it flows. (9) The Minnesota r. appears on various old maps of Louisiana (not on Hennepin's, 1683). Franquelin's, 1688, traces it without any name, but letters it with the name of the Indians, "Les Mascoutens Nadouescioux," i. e., Sioux of the Prairie, Gens du Large of the French, collectively, as distinguished from Gens du Lac. De L'Isle's map, 1703, has "R. St. Pierre."
[II-1] The village which Pike visited is marked on his map on the west, upper, or left bank of the Minnesota r., which here runs little E. of N. into the Mississippi. The hill on the point whence the Sioux saluted him so savagely was the scene of many a more warlike demonstration in after-years; for here was built Fort St. Anthony, later known as Fort Snelling, one of the most important and permanent military establishments in the United States, and for nearly half a century the most notable place on the Mississippi above Prairie du Chien. It was erected on the land which Pike secured by the transaction his text is about to describe, and which extended thence up the river to include the falls of St. Anthony, and thus the site of the present great city of Minneapolis, with St. Paul the twin metropolis of the Northwest. The location of Fort Snelling is in Nicollet's opinion "the finest site on the Mississippi river"; and I should be the last to dissent from this judgment, after my enjoyable visit to the fort in 1873, at the invitation of General Alexander. The bluff headland is about 105 feet above the water; the two rivers separated by this rocky point are respectively over 300 and nearly 600 feet broad. The height of Pilot Knob, across the Minnesota r., is about 250 feet. The plateau on the point of which the fort is situated stretches indefinitely S. W.; 8 m. direct N. W. are Minneapolis and the falls. The Mississippi receives the Minnesota at the point of greatest convexity of a deep bend to the S., duplicating that bend to the N. on which St. Paul is situated, the two together forming quite a figure of s. Nothing came of Pike's recommendation of this site for a military post till a report to the same effect was made by Major Long, after his expedition of 1817, during which he reached the place at 2 p. m., Wednesday, July 16th. On Feb. 10th, 1819, the Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun, ordered the 5th infantry to proceed to the Mississippi and establish regimental headquarters at the mouth of St. Peter's r. A detachment of troops, mustering 98 rank and file, under Colonel Henry Leavenworth, who had become lieutenant-colonel of that regiment Feb. 10th, 1818, was first cantoned at New Hope, near Mendota, Sept. 24th, 1819, and preparations were begun at once for a permanent structure. The winter of 1819-20 was disastrous from scurvy. On May 5th, 1820, camp was shifted to a place near a spring, above the graveyard, and was thereupon named Camp Coldwater. In the spring of 1820 Jean Baptiste Faribault located himself in the vicinity; Governor Lewis Cass came from his exploration of the upper Mississippi during the summer, and Lawrence Taliaferro's Indian agency was established as Camp St. Peter's. As usual, the colonel commanding and the Indian agent clashed, notably in the matters of medals and whisky. In August, 1820, Colonel Josiah Snelling, who had become colonel of the regiment June 1st, 1819, arrived and relieved Colonel Leavenworth of the command. He determined to build on the point originally selected by Pike. The corner-stone of Fort St. Anthony is supposed to have been laid Sept. 10th, 1820; and the building was so far forward in the autumn of 1822 that the troops moved in, though it was not completed. It is traditional that a tree on which Pike had cut his name was ordered to be spared in the process of construction; but, if so, it soon disappeared. On May 10th, 1823, the first steamboat, the Virginia, reached the fort. It brought among other notables the Chevalier Beltrami. On July 3d, 1823, Major Long arrived, en route to his exploration of St. Peter's r. In 1824 General Winfield Scott visited the fort on a tour of inspection. It does not appear to have struck anybody before that the name of a professional saint of the Prince of Peace was absurdly inapplicable to any military establishment. General Scott very sensibly reported that the name was "foreign to all our associations," besides being "geographically incorrect," and recommended the post to be named Fort Snelling, in well-deserved compliment to the distinguished officer who had built it. The story of Fort Snelling, from its inception to the end of all Indian collisions, is an integral and very prominent part of the history of Minnesota; it is an honorable record, of which citizens and soldiery may be equally proud—one replete with stirring scenes and thrilling episodes, which in the lapse of years tradition has delighted to set in all the glamour of romance. But the most sober historians have found a wealth of material in the stern actualities of Fort Snelling. The facts in the case need no embellishment. The following are some of the many references that could be given to the early history of Fort Snelling: Occurrences in and around Fort Snelling from 1819 to 1840, E. D. Neill, M. H. C., II. Part 2, 1864; 2d ed. 1881, pp. 102-42. Early Days at Fort Snelling, Anon., M. H. C., I. Part 5, 1856; 2d ed. 1872, pp. 420-438 (many inaccuracies in dates, etc.). Running the Gauntlet, ibid., pp. 439-56, Anon., believed to be by W. J. Snelling, son of Josiah Snelling. Reminiscences of Mrs. Ann Adams, 1821-29, M. H. C., VI. Part 2, 1891, pp. 93-112. Autobiography of Maj. Lawrence Taliaferro, written in 1864, M. H. C., VI. Part 2, pp. 189-255 (specially interesting, as he was Indian agent, 1819-40).
[II-2] Pike's speech at this memorable conference, the treaty itself, and a long letter which Pike addressed to Wilkinson in this connection on the 23d, 24th, and 25th, formed Docs. Nos. 4 and 5 of the App. to Part 1 of the orig. ed. These are given in full beyond, Chap. V. [Arts. 4], [5], and [6], where the text of the treaty is subjected to a searching criticism in the light of subsequent events. Here we may conveniently note the names of the chiefs concerned in the transaction. The best article I have seen upon this subject is that by Dr. Thomas Foster of Duluth, in the St. Paul Daily Democrat of May 4th, 1854, as cited by J. Fletcher Williams in Minn. Hist. Coll., I. 2d ed. 1872, p. 379; this, however, requires some additions and corrections.
1. Little Crow and Little Raven are English equivalents of Petit Corbeau, which latter is a French version of the name of the hereditary chiefs of the Kapoja band, borne by successive individuals through several generations. Pike's Little Crow is said by Long to have been son of Little Crow, who was himself son of Little Crow; and Foster identifies Pike's Little Crow "as the grandfather of the present chief, Little Crow," i. e., of one of this name who was chief in 1854, adding neatly that "he was the Great Crow of all," i. e., the most celebrated of all those who bore the name. This reference would seem to cover five generations, from Pike's Little Crow backward to his grandfather and forward to his grandson. Riggs renders Pike's Little Crow's name Chatanwakoowamani, Who-walks-pursuing-a-hawk; says that his son's name was Wamdetanka, or Big Eagle, who flourished in the thirties; and adds that the dynasty became extinct with Taoyatidoota (or Towaiotadootah), who was the Little Crow of the Sioux outbreak of 1862. He was a very black crow indeed, this last of the Corvidæ, and was killed by a Mr. Lamson in 1863. Confining attention now to the one who seems by this reckoning to have been Little Crow III. of the series I.-V., we find him tabulated by Pike as Chatewaconamini. We have already found him cited by Long as Chetanwakoamene, rendered Good Sparrow Hunter. Beltrami, II. p. 191, presents Chatewaconamani, or the Little Raven, as the chief in 1823. Featherstonhaugh has a chief he calls Tchaypehamonee, or Little Crow, living in 1835. Rev. Dr. Neill has in one place Chatonwahtooamany, Petit Corbeau. Dr. Foster gives the Dakota name as Tchahtanwahkoowahmane, or the Hawk that Chases Walking. Pike's Little Crow lived many years after he "touched the quill" (signed his x mark) to the cession, and was in Washington in 1824. Schoolcraft, who held a council with the Wahpeton Sioux at Fort Snelling, July 25th, 1832, says, Narr., etc., 1834, p. 146: "The aged chief Petite [sic] Corbeau uttered their reply. I recognized in this chief one of the signers of the grant of land made at this place 26 years ago, when the site of the fort was first visited by the late General Pike." The death of this good man (in 1834?) occurred from a mortal wound he accidentally inflicted upon himself in drawing his gun from a wagon, at his village of Kaposia. The circumstances are narrated with interesting particulars by General H. H. Sibley, Minn. Hist. Coll., III. 1874, pp. 251-54.
2. The chief here and consistently throughout Pike's book of 1810 called Fils de Pinchow appears in the 1807 text as Fils de Penichon, Penechon, or Pinechon; but nowhere are we told of whom this eminent individual was the son. The name seems to have been one to conjure with; and our curiosity is excited to discover Pinchow I., who was such a personage that Pike's Fils de Pinchow, or Pinchow II., needed no other title to glory. On looking up this subject, I find, first, that "Pinchow," as rendered in the above text, and the three forms given in the 1807 print, are four variants of a word which is also written Pinichon, Pinchon, Penition, Pinneshaw, etc., in French or English; and that these are corruptions of a Dakota word. Thus Beltrami, II. p. 207, introduces us to one Tacokoquipesceni, or Panisciowa, as being in 1823 chief of the old village on the St. Peter's, three miles above its mouth. The shorter name which Beltrami uses is obviously the same as Pinchow, etc., while the longer one he uses is the same as that Takopepeshene of which we read in Keating's Long, I. p. 385: "Wapasha formerly lived in that [old] village, but having removed from it with the greater part of his warriors, a few preferred remaining there, and chose one of their number as a leader. His son Takopepeshene, (dauntless,) now [1823] rules over them." We read further in Keating's Long, I. p. 419, of the Nanpashene, or "Dauntless Society," as an association of young braves who feared nothing: see further in this matter, Lewis and Clark, ed. 1893, p. 96. So the connection of all these words is obvious, though the genetic relationships of the individuals bearing the name is not so clear. I suppose that Pike, Beltrami, and Long all refer to one and the same individual, i. e., to the son of that individual whom the warriors who preferred to remain at the said village chose as their leader. Dr. Foster, as above cited, says that Pinchon, or Pinichon, etc., was the grandfather of one Good Road, and in his tribe the most noted chief of the eastern Sioux; the name conferred upon this chief being Tahkookeepayshne, or "What is he afraid of?" implying the affirmation that he was afraid of nothing. This having been corrupted by the French to Pinchon, etc., and taken up in English as Pinneshaw, etc., was readopted by the Sioux themselves as a common noun, rather than a proper name, to designate a very brave man; so that they would speak of such or such a one as a pinneshaw. Recurring now to the individual whom Pike names Fils de Pinchow, we elsewhere find him listed by Pike under the name of Wyaganage, as a chief of the Gens du Lac and head of the village Pike visited at the mouth of the St. Peter's; this is the Way Ago Enagee whose name appears above as that of a signer by his x mark of the grant of land; and such appears to be the only name by which he became officially known to us. It is spelled differently in every one of the several places where I have found it in print or in manuscript; but in no case irrecognizably.
3. We know no more of the Grand Partisan than this name or title. Dr. Foster supposes him to have been only a principal soldier—certainly not a chief.
4. "Le Original Leve" is decidedly original! The queer phrase stands for L'Orignal Levé, given in the text of 1807 as Le Orignal Levé, and thus nearly right. The individual thus designated is listed on Pike's [tabular exhibit] as Tahamie, Orignal leve, and Rising Moose; he is also mentioned in Pike's letter to Wilkinson of Sept. 23d-26th, 1805, as Elan Levie. There is no doubt about the meaning of these phrases; for orignal, orignac, oriniac, orenac, etc., are Basque forms of a name of the moose, which animal, as well as the elk, is also called élan, while levé certainly implies that the animal had arisen, and was standing on his legs, not that he was in the act of rising. Dr. Foster evidently did not know what the French phrase should be, for he presents Pike's peculiar cacographies, and is brought to book about it by Mr. Williams; but he gives us some interesting particulars of the chief who bore these names, and I transcribe his remarks in substance. Tah'amie, L'Orignal Levé, or Standing Moose is believed to be identical with an aged Indian whom most old Minnesotians knew by the name of Tammahhaw, who had but one eye and always wore a stove-pipe hat. He used to boast that he was the only "American" Sioux—by which he meant that in the war of 1812, when the Sioux sided with the British, and Little Crow and Joseph Reinville led a war-party against the Americans, he refused to join them and went to St. Louis, where he entered the service of the Americans in the employ of General William Clark. In 1854 he still treasured a commission he had received in 1814 (or May 6th, 1816?) from General Clark. Dr. Foster remarks that if there is no mistake in the identity, the friendship Tahamie conceived for Pike stood the test of time, and the two fought together against our common enemies—a fact which our government should not overlook. One Joseph Mojou, an old Canadian of Point Prescott, told Dr. Foster that Tamahaw was called by the voyageurs "Old Priest," because he was such a talker on all occasions; and Dr. Foster remarks that the Sioux word tamwamda, which resembles this Indian's name, means to vociferate, reiterate, harangue, etc. Mr. E. A. C. Hatch informed Dr. Foster that when he traded with the Winnebagoes, and with Wabasha's band of Sioux, he knew the Indian and had seen the commission issued by General Clark; also, that the Winnebagoes, who were acquainted with this Indian, translated his name Nazeekah in their language—this being their word for the pike, a fish, and tammahhay being the Dakotan word for that fish. According to J. F. Williams, Minn. Hist. Coll., III. 1874, p. 15, Tahama or Tahamie was called by the French Le Bourgne (Borgne), and by the English One-eye, or the One-eyed Sioux, and that the loss of the eye occurred by accident in a game during his boyhood. He was born at Prairie à l'Aile, the present site of Winona, and died in April, 1860, "at least 85 years old, though some who knew him well place his age at nearly 100." A daguerreotype likeness of him, procured at Wabasha in 1859 by Hon. C. S. Bryant, is in the possession of the Minnesota Historical Society.
5. "Le Demi Douzen" is not named elsewhere in this book, and does not appear at all in the 1807 edition. If the phrase which represents his name means Half Dozen, or Six, it would be better written Demie Douzaine, or Demi-douzaine; but we have seen enough of Pike's French to be already satisfied that he always saluted the letters of the French alphabet with blank cartridges. The Indian he calls Demi Douzen is thoroughly identified by Dr. Foster as the father of the present (1854) chief Little Six, and the chief of the large Sioux village which was situated 28 m. up the St. Peter's, 3 or 4 m. this side of the modern Indian village of Shakopee. The father—the one who attended Pike's conference—was known as Shahkpay, Half Dozen, and Six; his son as Shahkpaydan, or Little Six, the former being the second of the name, or Six II., and the latter the third of the name, or Six III.; but who was the original Half Dozen, or Six I., founder of this dynasty, we are not informed. Long speaks of Six II. as Shakpa, chief of the village Taoapa; and Forsyth calls this one "Mr. Six, a good-for-nothing fellow."
6. "Le Beccasse" of the above text was a stumbling-block. In the 1807 edition the term appears as Le Bucasse. It looks as if it were meant for La Bécasse, meaning Woodcock. But Dr. Foster (whose text as cited by Mr. Williams has Le Boccasse) informs us that the phrase should be written Bras Casse—by which he evidently means Bras Cassé, as he translates Broken Arm. (Pike's [tabular exhibit] presents a certain Bras Casse; but this was a Sauk chief, otherwise Pockquinike.) Broken Arm's Sioux name is believed by Dr. Foster to have been Wahkantahpay; "and as late as 1825 he was still living at his small village of Wahpaykootans, on a lake near the Minnesota [river] some five or six miles below Prairie La Fleche, now Le Sueur."