THE OUTBREAK OF THE SIOUX
While the whole people of Minnesota were striving night and day to fill
up the new regiments with volunteers to reinforce the national armies,
there was trouble brewing within their own boundaries. The reader will
have observed that small garrisons had been and were still maintained
on the Indian frontiers. There was one at Fort Ripley, below Crow Wing,
to protect the Chippeway agency; there were two on the borders of the
Sioux reservations. Of these one occupied Fort Ridgely, situated on the
north bank of the Minnesota River in the extreme northwest corner of
Nicollet County. It was begun in 1853 when the lower Sioux were
arriving on their reservation. The garrison had for its purpose the
support of the authority of the government agents thereon. Another post
had previously been established on the west bank of the Red River, some
fifteen miles north of Breckenridge, chiefly for the purpose of
protecting the Red River trade, carried in hundreds of single ox carts,
from depredations of both Sioux and Chippeways, whose hunting parties
waylaid not only one another, but the white man’s caravans. Fort
Abercrombie, although at some distance from the upper reserve, was near
enough to keep the upper Sioux aware of the Great Father’s power.
Although called forts, no one of the three was in any sense a strong
place. Each consisted of a group of detached buildings standing on the
open prairie. The lapse of years in quiet seemed to justify the
assumption that it would be a useless thing to form a proper inclosure
and fortify it.
The Minnesota Sioux betook themselves to the reserves designated in the
treaties of 1851 in no comfortable frame of mind. They believed that
they had been obliged to abandon their ancient homes for an inadequate
compensation, and that government agents had conspired with the traders
and half-breeds to cheat them of money promised to be paid to their
chiefs. Two years passed before they were assured by act of Congress
that they would be allowed to remain in Minnesota and not sent to some
far-off unknown country. The treaty commissioners of 1851 congratulated
the government on the establishment of a policy of “concentration,”
under which the Indian would be induced to abandon the chase and get
his living from the soil. The Pond brothers, foreseeing that this
policy was premature, decided not to follow the tribes among whom they
had labored to the reservations. Concentration of wild Indians averse
to cultivation only gave opportunity for unceasing grumbling in council
over the general rascality of the white man, the tyranny of the agent,
the immorality of his employees, the extortions of the traders, and the
imbecility of the missionaries, who worked for nothing.
In the buffalo season these Sioux swarmed out into the Missouri valley
to make boot upon the still countless herds. At times some wandered
back to their old homes below. The reservations, while ample in area
for eight thousand Indians, were in shape ridiculously ill-adapted for
concentration. Originally they formed a “shoestring” one hundred and
fifty miles long and twenty miles wide. That width had been reduced by
the treaties of 1858 to ten miles. There was no privacy for the Indian.
An easy morning walk took him to the boundary, where the accommodating
white man met him with a keg of illicit whiskey. This opportunity for
“business” doubtless had no little effect in attracting settlers to the
lands fronting on the reservations. The citizens of Brown County in
1859 publicly denounced the criminal practice, and the county
commissioners offered a reward of twenty-five dollars for evidence
leading to conviction in any prosecution. While generally harmless, the
Indians annoyed the settlers by untimely visits for food, and
occasional thefts of horses and cattle.
The treaties of 1858, already mentioned, ceding those parts of the two
reservations lying north of the Minnesota River, were negotiated with a
few selected chiefs carried to Washington so that they might not be
restrained by the discussions of the braves in council. This was a
source of suspicion, which turned out to be well grounded. The
consideration for the ceded lands was in part additions to annuities,
in part moneys to be paid as the chiefs in open council should direct.
There was long delay in securing the ratification of the treaties by
the Senate, and necessary ancillary legislation from Congress. Three
years passed before the final payments. The lower Sioux found but
$880.68 coming to them from their “hand money,” instead of $40,000. The
consent of the chiefs to this division of moneys to traders and others
was obtained in a surreptitious, not to say dishonest, manner. The
upper Sioux were sufficiently, but not so extensively, plundered. From
the time of their removal to the reservations up to the opening of the
Civil War, the annuity Sioux were nursing their wrath against the
deceitful and greedy white man. At the same time they were becoming
distrustful of the power of which he boasted. When the Great Father had
no cavalry to chase Inkpaduta, but was obliged to hire Indians to make
that fruitless pursuit, the Sioux inferred that while he had a great
multitude of people he could not make soldiers of them. A veteran
missionary recorded the opinion that the failure of the government to
pursue and capture Inkpaduta was the “primary cause” of the uprising
which came five years later.
The exchange of the garrisons of regular troops at the forts for raw
volunteers was to the Sioux a sign that the Great Father was in
trouble, and the dispatch of raw men to help defend his country
confirmed this view. Through the traders and half-breeds the Indians
were kept informed of the repulses suffered by his warriors at Bull
Run, Ball’s Bluff, and elsewhere. Nowhere could gossip spread more
speedily than in an Indian village, where gossip was the business of
the braves when in camp. It is in evidence that the strong “Copperhead”
element among the traders and half-breeds did not conceal their
satisfaction over the defeat of loyal troops and their belief that the
Great Father was going to be “cleaned out.”
The winter of 1861-62 was unusually severe. When spring opened food was
scarce in all the villages. The Sissetons had eaten all their horses
and dogs. The farmer Indians had in the previous summer been so
badgered by the unregenerate of their own bands, and by the visiting
Yanktonnais of the plains, that their industry had relaxed, and they
had but little food to spare. The “payment” was accordingly looked to
with unusual eagerness. According to custom it should come as soon as
the grass of the prairies should be fit for pasture. Spring ripened
into summer, but the agents’ runners did not bring the welcome summons
to the villages. The upper Sioux, tired of waiting, came in to the
agency at Yellow Medicine in the middle of July to the number of four
thousand, and with them came one thousand Yanktonnais, literally on the
edge of starvation. The agent supplied some flour, pork, lard, and
sugar and told them to go home. He would call them when he was ready.
But the savages did not depart. In a fortnight they had consumed the
rations and were again hungry. The agent declining to furnish more, an
armed mob of several hundred warriors surrounded the government
storehouse, surprised the little guard of infantry, broke the locks and
bolts, and carried off one hundred sacks of flour. Making a virtue of
necessity, the agent, after a talk in council, agreed to issue all the
provisions and annuity goods, on condition that the Indians would
depart and stay away till called. Trouble with the upper Sioux was thus
tided over, but their respect for the Great Father’s power was not
increased by the forced compliance of his agent.
There was less want of food in the villages of the lower Sioux, but
there was enough to cause distress and desire for an early payment. The
agent had no advices. He could give no reasons for the delay of the
money. The traders assumed to know more than he, and with a fatal
blindness teased the Indians with suggestions that the Great Father had
spent all his money and had none left for his red children. As the
Indians were heavily in debt to them, they began refusing further
credits. Among the rumored reasons for the delay of the money, the one
most accepted was that the government officials were allowing friends
to use it in speculations on supply contracts. The fact was that the
Indian appropriation of 1862 was not passed in Congress till July 5.
The gold was drawn from the treasury on August 11, and was at once
dispatched to the west. It was brought to Fort Ridgely at noon on
August 18.
The lower Sioux did not assemble and raid the warehouses, but resorted
to a less riotous procedure. On the warpath or the hunt it was Indian
law that a kind of provost guard composed of active warriors should
maintain order on the march and in bivouac. It was called the
Ti-yó-ti-pi, or “Soldiers’ lodge,” had a large discretion, and exacted
instant obedience. A modified soldiers’ lodge was now set up (June,
1862) on the lower agency, attended by one hundred and fifty warriors.
In its frequent councils all the grievances of the past and present
were rehearsed, and schemes for redress broached and discussed.
Evidence is wanting to support the assertions of contemporaries that in
this soldiers’ lodge there was concocted a definite scheme of murder
and pillage to be carried out later. Possibly some braves, more
patriotic than judicious, pictured the consequences to the cowardly
white man if the great Sioux nation should launch its hosts against his
undefended farms and villages. But the oratory of the lodge fed fat the
ancient grudge of the red men and added to their chronic exasperation.
The dog days drew on, but there was no outward sign of insurrection.
Although he felt that the Indians were in an evil and turbulent state,
Agent Galbraith did not think it injudicious for him to leave his
people in charge of his assistants and go off to New Ulm with a batch
of forty-nine volunteers for the army on the afternoon of August 15.
The same day he had passed through some of the villages and had
conferred with Little Crow about the brick house he was to build for
that chief. Two days after that, Crow attended morning services in the
Episcopal mission chapel, and gave no sign of excitement or enmity.
But for an unforeseen incident the peace might have lasted another day,
and lasting that other day, on which the annuity gold arrived, might
not have been broken by one of the bloodiest Indian wars of the
continent. On Sunday, August 17, 1862, a party of Sioux from Rice Creek
were hunting in Meeker County for deer, and, if chance should offer,
for Chippeway scalps. Early in the afternoon, in Acton Township, Meeker
County, a detachment of these hunters, four or more in number, coming
to a settler’s cabin, where three families were assembled, wantonly
murdered five out of eleven persons. The motive for this crime is not
easy to conjecture. The houses were not plundered nor fired. The
evidence that the savages were drunk has not been found. There may be
some value in the story that the first shot was fired by a young man
who, having been twitted by his companions with cowardice, wished to
show them that he dared shoot a white man.
Seizing a team and wagon of a neighboring farmer, the scoundrels drove
furiously to Shakopee’s village, some ten miles above the lower agency.
Upon their arrival late at night a council of warriors was called. The
high connections of the murderers did not relish the idea of turning
them over to white man’s justice to suffer a death signally ignominious
to Indians. There was but one alternative, to treat the killing of the
afternoon as an act of war, and call the nation to arms. After an
outburst of patriotic eloquence this course was resolved on, and as
soon as the braves could arm and mount, they moved toward the agency
under the lead of Shakopee, who was no lover of the whites. The party
arrived at Little Crow’s village, two miles above the lower agency, at
daybreak, and arousing that chief from sleep, explained the situation.
Little Crow was the fifth Medawakanton chief who had borne that name,
given in French (Le Petit Corbeau) to an ancestor who wore on his
shoulders the skin and feathers of a crow. Although in temporary
disgrace for connivance in the extortions of the traders under the
treaties of 1858, he was still the most experienced, virile, and
eloquent of the chiefs. White men who knew him still praise his good
sense and kindness of heart in ordinary relations. It seems to be true
that in the soldiers’ lodge he had counseled against anything like war
on the white man, whose resources his journeys to Washington had
revealed to him. But Little Crow was a heathen Indian. The dogs of war
were loose, and the leadership was his if he would have it. He could
recover his lost prestige, and show his people that he was as brave in
war as he was eloquent in council. Vanity and ambition triumphed. “It
must come,” he said. “Now is as good a time as any. I am with you. Let
us kill the traders and divide their goods.” By seven o’clock Little
Crow had possibly two hundred warriors, armed and painted, surrounding
the agency, with small parties distributed about the warehouses and
dwellings. Upon signal, fire was opened on all the whites in sight.
Five fell dead and many others were wounded. Fortunately the eagerness
of the savages to loot the stores distracted them from killing, and
gave opportunity for the survivors to gain the cover of the thickets in
the river-bottom. So soon as the plunder of the traders’ goods was
done, small parties of warriors were detached to raid the neighboring
farms and settlements. These, on that day and the next, spread
themselves over the parts of Brown and Nicollet counties next to the
river. The white men encountered were mostly killed, and the women
taken captive with their children; but some of these were butchered
when they delayed the march. The dwellings and grain stacks were fired,
the farm wagons seized and loaded with plunder were driven into Little
Crow’s village. By ten o’clock in the forenoon refugees from the lower
agency had reached Fort Ridgely. That work was garrisoned by Company B
of the Fifth Minnesota Infantry, commanded by Captain John S. Marsh,
who had been promoted out of a Wisconsin regiment which he had joined
because too late to be enlisted in the First Minnesota. His first act
was to send a mounted man to overtake and recall Lieutenant Timothy I.
Sheehan, who had at an earlier hour marched for Fort Ripley with a
detachment of C Company of the same regiment. Putting forty-six of his
men in wagons, mounting himself and his interpreter, Peter Quinn, he
took the road to the agency. Six miles out from the fort he came to
burning houses and mutilated corpses by the roadside. Refugees warned
him that there was trouble ahead. Pushing on, he reached the ferry
abreast of the agency, and formed his men in line in readiness to
cross. A signal shot rang out and a volley of bullets laid several of
the soldiers low. A moment later another volley came from Indians
concealed on the right of the road by which the detachment had arrived.
After a brief contest, in which half of his men had fallen, Marsh led
the remnant to the cover of the thicket on his left. Observing a body
of Indians moving to intercept his party, he decided to cross the
river, supposing it to be fordable at that point. Wading into deep
water he was drowned, in spite of the efforts of three brave men to
rescue him. This was the “Battle of Redwood Ferry.” Twenty-three
soldiers were killed and five wounded. Captain Marsh had been drowned,
and Interpreter Quinn’s body had been riddled with bullets at the first
fire. The survivors straggled into Fort Ridgely in the course of the
following night.
Tuesday the 19th was occupied by the savages in other and more distant
raids for robbery and slaughter. In the afternoon a demonstration by a
body of one hundred and fifty Indians, more or less, was made on New
Ulm. This was successfully resisted by the organized townsmen commanded
by Captain Jacob Nix. One young woman was killed by a random shot, and
a few other persons, including Captain Nix, were wounded. A few
buildings were fired. Later in the afternoon, in the evening, and in
the night, help came from St. Peter, Mankato, and other towns.
The “outbreak” was begun and mainly carried on by the lower tribes, the
Medawakantons and Wah-pé-ku-tes, in spite of the fact that the Acton
murders were done by members of an upper band. It was late in the
afternoon of Monday the 18th when the upper Indians, the Sissetons and
Wahpetons, hearing of the news, went into council on a hill near the
Yellow Medicine agency, twenty-five miles distant northwest of the
scene of the morning carnage. John Other Day, a Christian Indian, and
Joseph La Framboise, a half-breed, informed the white people resident
at and about the agency, already wondering over the mysterious council,
of the outbreak below and collected them, to the number of sixty-two,
in the government stone warehouse.
There they passed an anxious night. After midnight a trader’s employee
came in mortally wounded. At daylight a bookkeeper of another was
killed and a clerk painfully wounded. The upper Indians were keener for
plunder than for blood. Collecting wagons for the women and children
and the wounded, the party left their shelter, forded the river, and
under the faithful guidance of Other Day made their way across country
to Hutchinson. Friendly warning given late on Monday to the
missionaries, Williamson and Riggs, residing a few miles above the
agency, enabled them to escape with their families and assistants,
forty-five in number, to safe hiding in the river-bottom, from which
they began the next day their journey to Henderson.
Sporadic killing, plunder, and devastation in the regions adjacent to
the agencies mostly ceased by Tuesday night. Small parties of savages,
however, escaping from the control of the chiefs, spread themselves to
distant settlements to revel in carnage and fire. Within a week there
were murder and pillage in Meeker County, forty miles to the northwest
of the agencies, in Murray County, fifty miles to the southwest. Two
persons were killed at Sioux Falls, one hundred miles away, and four
near Breckenridge, one hundred and sixty miles as the crow flies. Fort
Ridgely, Hutchinson, Forest City, Glencoe, and even St. Peter were
threatened, but not attacked.
These forays had their natural and intended effect. As the tidings of
Indian butchery spread, the settlers loaded what furniture and
provisions they could in their wagons, and driving their stock before
them, made their way to the “river towns.” An area two hundred miles
long from north to south and fifty miles in breadth was depopulated,
while the harvest awaited the reapers. Their flight was all the more
precipitate because of rumors that the Winnebagoes had broken out along
with the Sioux, and that the Chippeways were to close in from the
north. No small number of persons went back to their former homes in
other states. The occasional appearance of small parties of Indians out
for cattle-stealing and other robberies for a month after the outbreak
justified all the fears of the fugitives. On September 22 two children
were killed within fifteen miles of St. Cloud, and the little village
of Paynesville was fired. A small number of persons ignorant of the
country, and not way-wise, wandered about for weeks before finding
settlements. Hundreds of settlers in the Missouri valley went to Sioux
City and other towns.
To what extent the upper Indians participated in these raids and in the
several battles it is difficult to determine. They were quite as much
exasperated and were more turbulent than the lower bands. That some of
their leading chiefs and braves sympathized is known to be a fact, and
it cannot be doubted that many individual members participated in the
murders and the war which ensued.