A SIOUX WAR PARTY
A little more than seven months before the Iroquois drove the Illinois
tribes out of their river valley, a band of Tamaroas were paddling in
wooden dugouts upon the Illinois River not far from the place where
later occurred the massacre of so many of their tribes. It was early in
March, and throughout the land parties of Indians of every tribe were
still roaming about on their winter hunt. That they should meet other
wanderers along the streams and trails was therefore not surprising.
This day they chanced upon a single canoe coming down the river. It was
not one of the wooden pirogues so common among their tribes, but a small
canoe of birch bark, and in it were three white men. Two of them were
bearded and brown with wind and weather; while the third was smooth of
face and large of frame, and was clothed in a long gray robe.
The Tamaroas had seen few white men, but like most of the tribes of the
Upper Mississippi Valley they had heard of the French fort near the
village of their brother tribe, the Peorias; and they had a keen desire
to have the whites settle near their own town and bring them presents of
iron weapons and bright-colored pieces of cloth. So now they stopped the
canoe and begged the three men to come home with them and pay a visit to
the village of their tribe on the western shore of the Mississippi a
little way below the mouth of the Illinois.
One of the bearded voyagers, Michael Ako, answered with an excuse, the
big gray friar nodding pompous approval as the canoe slipped on
downstream. Although the time of their parley was brief, the Indians had
observed that the canoe of the whites was loaded not only with
provisions, but with furs and merchandise, and, most important of all,
with guns and powder and ball. They were going, not down the Mississippi
to the village of the Tamaroas and their southern neighbors, but up the
Great River to the land of the Sioux, their enemies.
Quickly the Tamaroas resolved that the Sioux warriors should never lay
hands on the white men’s guns. Already, armed only with arrows and
clubs, they were a foe to be held in no light esteem. As countless as
the trees in the woods and swift enough in their bark canoes to far
outstrip the clumsy Illinois pirogues, what could the Northern braves
not do with guns? There was still a chance to prevent such a
catastrophe.
The Tamaroas could not overtake on the water the swift-paddling white
men. They tried it and the men in the canoe only laughed at them. But
there was a place downstream quickly reached on foot and well fitted for
an ambuscade. The fleet young Tamaroas braves darted across country and
were soon lying in wait on a narrow point jutting out into the river.
Unfortunately, however, for the plans of the Tamaroas, they were not
careful enough with their camp-fire, and the white men, seeing the
smoke, stole quietly by near the opposite shore. And so the little bark
canoe continued its way to the mouth of the Illinois River; and before
the end of the month its occupants, the friar Hennepin and his two
companions, were well on their way up the Mississippi.
While they were pushing their bark with difficulty against the current
of this strange new stream, there was great excitement in the Sioux
villages toward which they were journeying. Parties of Indians had
gathered in the war dance, and painted savages, stripped and ready for
battle, were leaving the towns of the Sioux for the south. They soon
reached the waters of the great river not far from the Falls of St.
Anthony, and from this point thirty-three bark canoes, manned by more
than a hundred men, swept swiftly downstream. The Sioux were embarked
upon a war against the Miamis and the Illinois; and bitter with the
desire for revenge was their leader, the old chief Aquipaguetin, for it
was not long since that the Miamis had killed one of his sons.
They had not traveled many days when, early one April afternoon,
Aquipaguetin and his Sioux warriors, skimming swiftly over the waters,
saw on the bank ahead of them three strange men. One of them, long of
body and long of robe, was busily gumming a bark canoe which lay upon
the shore. The other two men were engaged in boiling some meat in a
kettle over a camp-fire. The three men looked up and saw the swarm of
Indians coming down upon them. Hastily they threw away the fowl they
were cooking, tossed the canoe into the water, jumped to their places,
and began to paddle upstream to meet the Sioux braves.
Here was adventure already for the eager Sioux. The young braves drew
back their bows, and arrows sped through the air. While they were still
some distance off, they could hear the men calling out to them in words
of a strange tongue. At last the older men, having caught sight of the
upraised calumet of peace, held back the young braves with their too
impetuous weapons.
In a few moments the Sioux had reached the canoe of the white men. Some
of the Indians leaped into the water and some on shore, completely
surrounding the three strangers. Quickly the canoes all came to land,
and Aquipaguetin and his fellow-chiefs made the prisoners sit down upon
skins on the river bank. They were Frenchmen—two bearded traders and a
big gray-robed friar—and around them in circles the Indians sat. True,
the Sioux had seized the pipe of peace; but they would not smoke it, for
they were not yet ready for peace. Michael Ako understood the
significance of this conduct and was troubled.
Ordinarily Father Hennepin might have been glad to omit the smoking
ceremony, for ever since his boyhood he had detested tobacco smoke. As a
young Recollet friar he had many years before been sent to the seacoast
town of Calais, where he heard the stories of sailors just home from the
seas. Indeed, so keen was his desire to hear accounts of travel and bold
deeds that he would hide himself behind the doors of taverns, where the
sailors came to smoke and drink, listening (in spite of the odor of
tobacco which made him sick) to the tales of their voyages. But now,
disagreeable as was the smoke of tobacco, he no doubt would have gladly
drawn deep upon the pipe of peace if only he could see these Sioux put
the calumet to their lips and thus banish the fear of an ever-ready
tomahawk.
“The Miamis! The Miamis! Where are they?” cried the Sioux in words which
even Ako, the man learned in Indian tongues, did not understand at
first. At length he caught their meaning; and with a paddle he drew on
the sand a diagram to show that the Miamis had moved over to the land of
the Illinois and were out of reach of the Sioux warriors. This was
bitter news to the war party. Three or four of the old men laid their
hands upon the heads of the white men and burst into weeping and
lamentations. Then with loud cries they leaped into their canoes, forced
their captives to take up their paddles, and crossed the river to
another landing-place. Here they held a council as to what they should
do with the prisoners.
The Sioux party decided to give up their expedition against the Miamis,
but the disappointed Aquipaguetin seemed bent upon the killing of the
whites. Two of the chiefs went to inform the captives by signs that they
were to be tomahawked. The white men replied by heaping axes, knives,
and tobacco at the feet of the crafty leader of the Indians, and,
satisfied with the ransom, he said no more for a while of slaughter.
That night the Indians gave back to the white men their calumet, still
unsmoked. The captives divided the hours into three watches lest they be
massacred in their sleep. Hennepin was resolved to let himself be killed
without resistance, all for the glory of his faith; but Ako and the
Picard slept with their weapons close to their hands.