Mr. Schoolcraft makes a visit to the lead mines of Dubuque--Incidents
of the trip--Description of the mines--The title of occupancy, and
the mode of the mines being worked by the Fox tribe of
Indians--Who are the Foxes?
I solicited permission of Gov. Cass to visit the lead mines of Dubuque,
which are situated on the west bank of the Mississippi, at the computed
distance of twenty-five leagues below Prairie du Chien. Furnished with a
light canoe, manned by eight voyageurs, including a guide, I left the
prairie at half past eleven A. M. (6th). Passed the entrance of the
Wisconsin, on the left bank, at the distance of a league.[108] Opposite
this point is the high elevation which Pike, in 1806, recommended to be
occupied with a military work. The suggestion has not, however, been
adopted; military men, probably, thinking that, however eligible the
site might be for a work where civilized nations were likely to come
into contact, a simpler style of defensive works would serve the purpose
of keeping the Indian tribes in check. I proceeded nine leagues below,
and encamped at the site of a Fox village,[109] located on the east
bank, a mile below the entrance of Turkey River from the west. The
village, consisting of twelve lodges, was now temporarily deserted, the
Indians being probably absent on a hunt; but, if so, it was remarkable
that not a soul or living thing was left behind, not even a dog. My
guide, indeed, informed me that the cause of the desertion was the fears
entertained of an attack from the Sioux, in retaliation for the massacre
lately perpetrated by them on the heads of the St. Peter's, which was
alluded to in the speech of the Little Crow, while we were at his
village (_ante_, p. 160).
[108] It was at this spot, one hundred and thirty-seven years ago,
that Marquette and M. Joliet, coming from the lakes, discovered the
Mississippi.
[109] Now the site of Cassville, Grant County, Wisconsin. It is a
post town, pleasantly situated, with a population of 200.
It was seven o'clock P. M. when I landed here, and having some hours of
daylight, I walked back from the river to look at the village, and its
fields, and to examine the geological structure of the adjacent cliffs.
In their gardens I observed squashes, beans, and pumpkins, but the
fields of corn, the principal article of cultivation, had been nearly
all destroyed, probably by wild animals. I found an extensive field of
water and musk melons, situated in an opening in a grove, detached from
the other fields and gardens. None of the fruit was perfectly ripe,
although it had been found so at Prairie du Chien; some of it had been
bitten by wild animals.[110] The cliffs consisted of the same horizontal
strata of sandstones and neutral colored limestone, prevailing at higher
positions in this valley. Returning to the river beach, I perceived the
same pebble drift which characterizes higher latitudes. This seems the
only difference in its structure or form, namely, that the pieces of
quartz pebble, limestone, and other fragments brought down, become
smaller and smaller, as they are carried down.
[110] Fondness for melons, and annual vine fruits of the garden, is a
striking trait of the Indians. Some curious facts on this head are
published in the statistics.--_Indian Information_, vol. iii. p. 624,
1853, Philadelphia, Lippincott & Co.
There were frequent thunders, and a rain-storm, during the night, which,
with a slight intermission, characterized the morning until noon. I
embarked at half past three A. M. (7th), and landed at the Fox village
of the Kettle chief, at the site of Dubuque's house,[111] at ten
o'clock; a moderate rain having continued all the way. It ceased an hour
after my arrival.
[111] This is now (1854) the site of the city of Dubuque, State of
Iowa, which is reputed to be the oldest settlement in that State.
This city is eligibly situated on a broad plateau, between limestone
cliffs. The soil rests on a rock foundation, which renders it
incapable of being undermined by the Mississippi. Its streets are
broad and laid out at right angles. It has several Protestant
churches, a Catholic cathedral, a public land office, two banks, four
printing offices, and by the last census contains a population of
7,500, the county of which it is the seat of justice, has 10,840. Two
railroads have their terminal points at this place. At the time of my
visit, in 1820, the house which had been built by Mr. Dubuque, had
been burnt down; and there was not a dwelling superior to the Indian
wigwam within the present limits of Iowa. The State of Iowa was
admitted into the Union in 1837. By the 7th U. S. census, the
population of this State, in 1850, is shown to be 192,214. The number
of square miles is 50,914. No Western State is believed to contain a
less proportionate quantity of land unsuited to the plough, and its
population and resources must have a rapid development.
The Kettle chief's village is situated fifteen miles below the entrance
of the Little Makokety River, consisting of nineteen lodges, built in
two rows, pretty compact, and having a population of two hundred and
fifty souls. There is a large island in the Mississippi, directly
opposite this village, which is occupied by traders. I first landed
there to get an interpreter of the Fox language, and obtain some
necessary information respecting the location of the mines, and the best
means of accomplishing my object. Meantime the rain had ceased. I then
proceeded across the Mississippi to the Kettle chief's lodge, to solicit
his permission to visit the mines, and obtain Indian guides. I succeeded
in getting Mr. Gates, as interpreter; and was accompanied by Dr. S.
Muir, a trader, who politely offered to go with me. On entering the
lodge of Aquoqua, the chief, I found him suffering under a severe attack
of bilious fever. As I approached him, he sat upon his pallet, being
unable to stand, and bid me welcome; but soon became exhausted by the
labor of conversation, and was obliged to resume his former position. He
appeared to be a man of eighty years of age, had a venerable look, but
was reduced to the last stage of physical debility. Yet he retained his
faculties of sight and hearing unimpaired, together with his mental
powers. He spoke to me of his death with calm resignation, as a thing to
be desired. On stating the object of my visit, some objections were made
by the chiefs who surrounded him, and they required further time to
consider the proposition. In the mean time, I learned from another
source, that since the death of Dubuque, to whom the Indians had
formerly granted the privilege of working the mines, they had manifested
great jealousy of the whites, were afraid they would encroach on their
rights, denied all former grants, and did not make it a practice even to
allow strangers to view their diggings. Apprehending some difficulties
of this kind, I had provided myself with some presents, and concluding
this to be the time, because of the reluctance manifested, directed one
of my voyageurs to bring in a present of tobacco and whiskey; and in a
few moments I received their assent, and two guides were furnished. One
of these was a minor chief, called Scabass, or the Yelling Wolf; the
other, Wa-ba-say-ah, or the White Foxskin. They led me up the cliff,
where I understood the Indian woman, Peosta, first found lead ore; after
reaching the level of the river bluffs, we pursued a path over
undulating hills, exhibiting a half prairie, and quite picturesque rural
aspect. On reaching the diggings, the most striking part of them, but
not all of them, exhibited excavations such as the Indians only do not
seem persevering enough in labor to have made.
The district of country called Dubuque's Mines, embraces an area of
about twenty-one square leagues, commencing at the mouth of the Little
Maquaquity River, sixty miles below Prairie du Chien, and extending
along the west bank of the Mississippi River, seven leagues in front by
three in depth. The principal mines are situated on a tract of one
square league, beginning immediately at the Fox village of Aquoqua, or
the Kettle chief, and extending westwardly. This is the seat of the
mining operations carried on by Dubuque, as well as of what are called
the Indian Diggings.
Geologically it is the same formation that characterizes the mines of
Missouri; but there are some peculiarities. The ore found is the common
sulphuret of lead, with a broad foliated, or lamellated structure, and
high metallic lustre. It occurs massive and disseminated, in a red loam,
resting on a horizontal limestone rock. Sometimes small veins of the ore
are seen in the rock, but it has been generally explored in the soil. It
generally occurs in narrow beds, which have a fixed direction; these
beds extend three or four hundred feet, when they cease, or are traced
into crevices in the rock. At this stage, the pursuit of ore, at most of
the diggings, has been abandoned, frequently with small veins of the
metal in view. No matrix, so far as I observed, is found with the ore
which is dug out of the soil, unless we may consider such an ochery
oxide of iron, with which it is slightly incrusted. Occasionally, pieces
of calcareous spar are thrown out with the earth in digging after ore. I
picked up from one of these heaps of earth a specimen of transparent
crystallized sulphate of barytes; but this mineral appears to be rare.
There appears to be none of the radiated quartz, or white opaque heavy
spar, which are so abundantly found at the Missouri mines.[112]
[112] _Vide_ my View of the Lead Mines of Missouri, &c., New York,
1819.
The ore at these mines is now exclusively dug by the Indian women. Old
and superannuated men also partake in the mining labor, but the warriors
and men hold themselves above it. In this labor, the persons who engage
in it employ the hoe, shovel, pick-axe, and crow-bar. These implements
are supplied by the traders at the island, who are the purchasers of the
crude ore. With these implements they dig trenches, till they are
arrested by the solid rock. There are no shafts, even of the simplest
kind, and the windlass and bucket are unknown to them--far more so the
use of gunpowder in the mining operations. Their mode of going down into
the deepest pits, and coming up from them, is by digging an inclined
way, which permits the women to keep an erect position in walking.[113]
I descended into one of these inclined excavations, which had probably
been carried down forty feet, at the perpendicular angle.
[113] This is believed to be an oriental mode of excavation, which
appears to have been practised in digging wells.
When a quantity of ore has been got out, it is carried in baskets to the
banks of the Mississippi, by the females, who are ferried over to the
island. They receive at the rate of two dollars for a hundred and twenty
pounds, payable in goods. At the profit at which these are usually sold,
it may be presumed to cost the traders at the rate of seventy-five cents
or a dollar, cash value, per hundred weight. The traders smelt the ore
on the island, in furnaces of the same construction which I have
described, and given plates of, in my treatise on the mines.[114] They
observe that it yields the same per centum of metallic lead. Formerly,
the Indians were in the habit of smelting the ore themselves on log
heaps, by which an unusual proportion of it was converted into
lead-ashes and lost. They are now induced to search about the sites of
these old fires to collect these lead-ashes, which consist, for the most
part, of desulphuretted ore, for which they receive a dollar per bushel.
[114] New York, 1819.
There are three mines in addition to those above mentioned, situated
upon the Upper Mississippi, which are worked by the Indians. They are
located at Sinsinaway, at Rivière au Fevre, and at the Little Makokety.
1. Sinsinaway mines. They are situated fifteen miles below Aquoqua's
Village, on the east shore of the Mississippi, at the junction of the
Sinsinaway River. 2. Mine au Fevre. Situated on the River au Fevre,
which enters the Mississippi on its east banks, twenty-one miles below
Dubuque's mines. The lead ore is found ten miles from its mouth. At this
locality, the ore is accompanied by the sulphate of barytes, and is
sometimes crystallized in cubes or octohedrons.[115] 3. Mine of the
Makokety, or Maquoqueti. This small river enters the Mississippi fifteen
miles above Dubuque's mines. The mineral character and value of the
country has been but little explored.
[115] The city of Galena has subsequently been built on this river,
at the distance of six miles from the Mississippi. The river is,
indeed, thus far, an arm of the Mississippi, which permits steamboats
freely to enter, converting the place into a commercial depot for a
vast surrounding country. Not less than 40,000,000 pounds of lead
were shipped from this place in 1852, valued at one million six
hundred thousand dollars. It is the terminus of the Chicago and
Galena Railroad, connecting it by a line of 180 miles with the lakes.
It contains a bank, three newspaper offices, and several churches of
various denominations, and has, by the census of 1850, a population
of 6,004.
The history of the mines of Dubuque is brief and simple. In 1780, a
discovery of lead ore was made by the wife of Peosta, a Fox Indian of
Aquoqua's Village. This gave the hint for explorations, which resulted
in extensive discoveries. The lands were formally granted by the Indians
to Julien Dubuque, at a council held at Prairie du Chien in 1788, by
virtue of which he permanently settled on them, erected buildings and
furnaces, and continued to work them until 1810. In 1796, he received a
confirmation of his grant from Carondelet, the governor of Louisiana, in
which they are called "the mines of Spain." By a stone monument which
stands on a hill near the mines, Dubuque died on the 24th March, 1810,
aged forty-five years and six months. After his death, the Indians burnt
down his house and fences--he leaving, I believe, no family[116]--and
erased every vestige of civilized life; and they have since revoked, or
at least denied the grant, and appear to set a very high value on the
mines. Dubuque's claim was assigned to his creditors, by whom it was
presented to the commissioners for deciding on land titles, in 1806. By
a majority of the board it was determined to be valid, in which
condition it was reported to Washington for final action. At this stage
of the investigation, Mr. Gallatin, who was then Secretary of the
Treasury, made a report on the subject, clearly stating the facts, and
coming to the conclusion that it was not a perfect title, stating that
no patent had ever been issued for it, at New Orleans, the seat of the
Spanish authority, from which transcripts of the records of all grants
had been transmitted to the Treasury.[117]
[116] There is believed to be no instance, in America, where the
Indians have disannulled grants or privileges to persons settling
among them, and leaving families founded on the Indian element.
[117] For the facts in this case, see _Collection of Land Laws of the
United States_, printed at Washington, 1817.
On the arrival of Lieut. Pike at Mr. Dubuque's on the 1st of September,
1805, he endeavored to obtain information necessary to judge of the
value and extent and the nature of the grant of the mines; but he was
not able to visit them. To the inquiries which he addressed to Mr.
Dubuque on the subject, the latter replied in writing that a copy of the
grant was filed at the proper office in St. Louis, which would show its
date, together with the date of its confirmation by the Spanish
authority, and the extent of the grant to him. He states the mine to be
twenty-seven or twenty-eight leagues long, and from one to three leagues
broad. He represents the per centum of metal to be yielded from the ore
to be seventy-five, and the quantity smelted per annum at from 20,000 to
40,000 pounds. He stated that the whole product was cast into pig lead,
and that there were no other metals at the mines but copper, of the
value of which he could not judge.
Having examined the mines with as much minuteness as the time allowed me
would permit, and obtained specimens of its ores and minerals, I
returned to the banks of the Mississippi, before the daylight departed,
and, immediately embarking, went up the river two leagues and encamped
on an island.
It may be proper to add to this narrative of my mineralogical visit to
these mines, a few words respecting the Fox Indians, by whom the country
is owned. The first we hear of these people is from early missionaries
of New France, who call them, in a list drawn up for the government in
1736, "Gens du Sang," and Miskaukis. The latter I found to be the name
they apply to themselves. We get nothing, however, by it. It means
Red-earths, being a compound from _misk-wau_, red, and _auki_, earth.
They are a branch of the great Algonquin family. The French, who formed
a bad opinion of them, as their history opened, bestowed on them the
name of Renouard, from which we derive their long-standing popular name.
Their traditions attribute their origin to eastern portions of America.
Mr. Gates, who acted as my interpreter, and is well acquainted with
their language and customs, informs me that their traditions refer to
their residence on the north banks of the St. Lawrence, near the ancient
Cataraqui. They appear to have been a very erratic, spirited, warlike,
and treacherous tribe; dwelling but a short time at a spot, and pushing
westward, as their affairs led them, till they finally reached the
Mississippi, which they must have crossed after 1766, for Carver found
them living in villages on the Wisconsin. At Saginaw, they appear to
have formed a fast alliance with the Saucs, a tribe to whom they are
closely allied by language and history. They figure in the history of
Indian events about old Michilimackinac, where they played pranks under
the not very definite title of Muscodainsug, but are first conspicuously
noted while they dwelt on the river bearing their name, which falls into
Green Bay, Wisconsin.[118] The Chippewas, with whom they have strong
affinity of language, call them Otagami, and ever deemed them a
sanguinary and unreliable tribe. The French defeated them in a
sanguinary battle at Butte de Mort, and by this defeat drove them from
Fox River.
[118] This name was first applied to a territory in 1836.
Their present numbers cannot be accurately given. I was informed that
the village I visited contained two hundred and fifty souls. They have a
large village at Rock Island, where the Foxes and Saucs live together,
which consists of sixty lodges, and numbers three hundred souls.
One-half of these may be Saucs. They have another village at the mouth
of Turkey River; altogether, they may muster from 460 to 500 souls. Yet,
they are at war with most of the tribes around them, except the Iowas,
Saucs, and Kickapoos. They are engaged in a deadly, and apparently
successful war against the Sioux tribes. They recently killed nine men
of that nation, on the Terre Blue River; and a party of twenty men are
now absent, in the same direction, under a half-breed named Morgan. They
are on bad terms with the Osages and Pawnees of the Missouri, and not on
the best terms with their neighbors the Winnebagoes.
I again embarked at four o'clock A. M. (8th). My men were stout fellows,
and worked with hearty will, and it was thought possible to reach the
Prairie during the day, by hard and late pushing. We passed Turkey River
at two o'clock, and they boldly plied their paddles, sometimes animating
their labors with a song; but the Mississippi proved too stout for us;
and some time after nightfall we put ashore on an island, before
reaching the Wisconsin. In ascending the river this day, observed the
pelican, which exhibited itself in a flock, standing on a low sandy spot
of an island. This bird has a clumsy and unwieldy look, from the
duplicate membrane attached to its lower mandible, which is constructed
so as when inflated to give it a bag-like appearance. A short sleep
served to restore the men, and we were again in our canoes the next
morning (9th) before I could certainly tell the time by my watch.
Daylight had not yet broke when we passed the influx of the Wisconsin,
and we reached the Prairie under a full chorus, and landed at six
o'clock.