History of the Ojibway Nation/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII.
OCCUPATION OF THE ST. CROIX RIVER COUNTRY BY THE OJIBWAYS.
After the sanguinary battle which resulted in the total evacuation of Mille Lacs by the Dakotas, the ancient feud between them and the Ojibways raged with great fury, and it is at this period that the latter tribe first began to beat the Dakotas from the Rice Lakes of the St. Croix River region which they had long occupied in conjunction with the Odug-am-ees. The pipe of peace was not again smoked between the two belligerent tribes, till the old French traders had obtained a firm foothold among the Dakotas, and commenced an active trade.
According to the Indian mode of counting time, this event occurred four generations ago, or about the year 1695. It was brought about only through the most strenuous efforts of the French traders who resided among the Ojibways on Lake Superior, and those who had at this time built a post among the Dakotas near the mouth of the St. Croix River.[1]
The ill-will between the two tribes had risen to such a pitch that it required every persuasion, and the gift of large presents, to effect a reconciliation. The French, during the course of the bloody warfare between these two powerful tribes, while travelling through their country on their trading and exploring expeditions, had often suffered death indiscriminately with Dakota or Ojibway, at the hands of their blood-seeking war parties.
The interests of the fur trade had also severely suffered, for the warriors of either tribe, neglected their hunts to join in the more favorite pastime of war and bloodshed, and their continually prowling war parties prevented the more peaceful-minded and sedate hunters from seeking the beaver in the regions where they abounded in the greatest plenty.
Peace being once effected, this deplorable state of affairs ceased to exist, and once more these two people hunted on their richest hunting grounds without fear and trembling, and plenty reigned in their lodges. On the St Croix the two tribes intermingled freely, being more immediately under the supervision of their traders. They encamped together, and intermarriages took place between them. It is at this time that a few lodges of Ojibways first located themselves in a permanent village on the waters of the St. Croix River. They chose Rice Lake, the head of Shell River, which empties into the St. Croix, for their first permanent residence and it remains an important village of their tribe to this day.[2]
The principal chief of this band, belonging to the Awause or Catfish Totem family, is said to have died without male issue, and his only daughter married a Dakota chief who belonged to the Wolf Clan of his tribe. He resided among the Ojibways at Rice Lake during the whole course of the peace, and begat by his Ojibway wife, two sons who afterward became chiefs, and who of course inherited their father's totem of the wolf. In this manner this badge became grafted among the Ojibway list of clans.
At this day, Ojibways of the Wolf Totem are numerous on the St. Croix and at Mille Lac, and they are all descended from this intermarriage, and are therefore tinged with Dakota blood. I-aub-aus, present chief of Rice Lake, Shon-e-yah (Silver), chief of Po-ka-guma on Snake River, and Na-guon-abe (Feathers end), chief of Mille Lacs, are direct descendants from the two sons of the Dakota chief and the Ojibway chieftainess.
In like manner Ojibways of the Merman, or Water-spirit Totem, which is a branch of the Awause, married Dakota women, and begat by them sons, who, residing among the Dakotas, introduced in this tribe the badge of their father's totem, and all of this totem among the Dakotas are of Ojibway extraction, and ever since the period of these intermarriages, at every peace meeting of the two tribes, all persons of the Wolf and Merman Totem, in each tribe, recognize one another as blood relations.
The peace on this occasion lasted for several years, and to some extent they learned to speak each other's language. The intermarriages which had taken place between them, proved the strongest link of good-will between them, but the love of war and bloodshed was so inherent in their nature, and the sense of injuries inflicted on one another for centuries past rankled so deep in the breasts of many in each tribe, that even these ties could not secure a long continuance of this happy state of peace and quiet. From a comparative slight cause, the flames of their old hatred again broke forth with great violence. It originated at a war dance which was being performed by the Dakotas on Lake St. Croix, preparatory to marching against some tribe of their numerous enemies toward the south.
On occasions of this nature, the warriors work themselves by hard dancing, yelling, and various contortions of the body, into a state of mad excitement; every wrong which they have suffered at the hands of their enemies, is brought fresh to their remembrance for the purpose of "making the heart strong."
Under a state of excitement, such as is here described, a distinguished Dakota warrior shot a barbed arrow into the body of an Ojibway who was dancing with the Dakotas, intending to join them on the war trail against their enemies. Some of the old men who relate this tradition, assert that the Ojibway was part of Dakota extraction, and the fierce warrior who shot him, exclaimed as he did so, that "he wished to let out the hated Ojibway blood which flowed in his veins." Others state that he was a full-blood Ojibway who had married a Dakota woman, by whom he had a large family of children; that he resided with her people, and had become incorporated amongst them, joining their war parties against the different tribes with whom they were at enmity.
The ruthless shot did not terminate his life, and after a most painful sickness, the wounded man recovered. He silently brooded over the wrong so wantonly inflicted on him, for the warrior who had injured him was of such high standing in his tribe, that he could not revenge himself on him with impunity. After a time he left the Dakotas and paid a visit to his Ojibway relatives on Lake Superior, who received him into their wigwams with every mark of kindness and regard. He poured into their willing ears the tale of his wrong, and he succeeded in inducing them to raise a war party to march against the Dakota encampment on Lake St Croix.
While this party was collecting at the Bay of Shaug-a-waum-ik-ong, the avenger returned to his home and family amongst the Dakotas, and amused their ears with accounts of his visit to his people's villages. He told them that a large party would soon arrive to smoke the pipe of peace with them. Fully believing these tales, the Dakotas collected their scattered hunters, and sent runners to their different villages to invite their people to come and camp with them, in order to receive the expected peace party of the Ojibways, and join in the amusements which generally ensued whenever they thus met in considerable numbers. The tribe (being the season of the year which they generally passed in leisure and recreation), gathered in large numbers, and pitched their camp on the south shore of Lake St. Croix, near its outlet into the Mississippi.
The centre or main portion of their camp (which stretched for a long distance along the shore of the lake), was located at Point Prescott. A few lodges also stood on the opposite shore of the lake, and at Point Douglas.
The Dakotas, believing the reported peaceable disposition of their former enemies, became careless, and hunted in apparent security; they did not (as is usual when apprehensive of a sudden attack), send scouts to watch on the surrounding hills for the approach of an enemy, and the Ojibways arrived within a close vicinity of their camp without the least discovery. During the night, the leaders of the war party sent five young men who could speak the Dakota language most fluently, to go and spy the lodges of the enemy, note their situation, and find out their number. The five scouts entered the encampment at different points, and drawing their robes closely over their heads they walked about unsuspected by the young Dakota gallants or night walkers, who were out watching the lodge fires to flicker away in embers, in order to enter and in the darkness court their sweet hearts.
After having made the rounds of the almost endless rows of lodges, the scouts returned to their party, and informed their leaders that they had counted three hundred lodges, when they became confused and could count no more. Also, that from the different idioms of their language which they had heard spoken in different sections of the camp, they judged that the distant bands of the Sisseton and Yankton Dakotas were represented therein in considerable numbers; they also told of the general carelessness, and feeling of security which prevailed throughout the camp.
Having obtained this information, the Ojibways being strong in the number of their warriors, prepared themselves for battle, and at the earliest dawn of morning, they marched on the sleeping encampment of the Dakotas. They made their approach by a deep ravine which led through the high bluffs (which here bound the shores of the lake) on to the narrow prairie which skirts the water side, and on which was pitched the leathern lodges of the enemy. It is said that through the dim twilight, the advancing warriors saw a woman step out of the nearest lodge to adjust the door covering which a sudden gust of the rising east wind had thrown up; she stood as if a sound had caught her ear, and she listened anxiously, looking up the dark ravine, when she again entered her lodge. She must have heard the measured tread of the advancing warriors, but mistook it for the moaning of the rising wind, and the dashing of the waves on the sandy beach.
Once fairly debouched on the narrow prairie, the Ojibways lost no time in extending their wings and enveloping the encampment on the land side. When this movement had been completed in perfect silence, they gradually neared the lodges of their sleeping enemies, and as they arrived within the proper distance, and the dogs of the encampment began to snuff the air and utter their sharp quick yelp, the shrill war whistle was sounded by the leaders, and suddenly the dread and fear-striking war-whoop issued from the lips of hundreds of blood-thirsty warriors. Volley after volley of bullets and arrows were fired, and discharged into the frail and defenceless tepees, and the shrieking and yelling of the inmates as they became thus suddenly startled from their sleep, made the uproar of the attack truly deafening.
Completely taken by surprise, the warriors of the Dakotas fought at a disadvantage; their women and children ran shrieking to the water's side, and hastily jumping into their narrow wooden canoes, they attempted to cross to the opposite shores of the lake. The wind, however, had increased in force, and sweeping down the lake in a fearful gale, it caused the waves to run high, and in many instances the crowded and crank canoes filled with water or upset, launching the fleeing women and children into a watery grave.
After a long and unavailing defence, such of the Dakota warriors as had stood their ground, were obliged to retreat. Thirty of their number are said to have fled under a ledge of rock, where, being entirely surrounded, they were shot down one after another.
This is one of the most successful war parties which the Ojibways tell of. It is said that at each encampment on their return homeward, the scalps which they had taken, being each tied to the end of a stick three or four feet long, were planted close together in a single row, and an arrow shot by a strong arm, from one end of this row of human scalps, fell short of reaching the other extremity. One of their story tellers, who in his youth had long remained a captive among the Dakotas, states explicitly, that on this occasion, the Ojibways secured three hundred and thirty-five scalps, and many more than this are thought to have perished in the water. But one captive is mentioned as having been taken, and the circumstances of his capture are such that the fact is always mentioned, in connection with the tale relating the above important event in their history.
It appears that during the heat of the battle, two young Ojibway lads who had accompanied their fathers on the war trail, entered a Dakota lodge which they supposed had been deserted by the fleeing enemy. They, however, found it to be occupied by a stout and full-grown Dakota warrior; he sat in the lodge in an attitude of sorrow, holding his head between his hands, and his elbows resting on his raised knees, his unstrung bow and full quiver of arrows lay at his feet, and his war spear stood planted before him. He did not even lift his head as the two lads entered, the youngest of whom immediately rushed on him, and being unarmed, he attempted to secure him as a captive. The Dakota took him by the arm and gently pushed him aside. The brave little lad, however, persisted, and calling on his older comrade to help him, they both fell on the Dakota and attempted to secure his arms. He pushed them easily away, and quietly resumed his former position, and remained thus till a number of Ojibway warriors attracted by the calls of the young lad, entered the lodge and secured him captive. He was given to the boy who first assaulted him as his prisoner.
When asked by an Ojibway who could speak his language, the reason why he had acted so strangely, he replied that the evening before, his father had scolded him without cause, and had heaped shameful epithets on him, under which he felt that he could not survive, and be a tenant of his lodge. During the night he had dreamed of living amongst the Ojibways, and early that morning he was preparing to leave his people forever and seek for a new home among their villages, when the attack commenced and he determined to risk the chances of neutrality. He became a great favorite with the family into whose hands he fell, and who adopted him as a relative, and when some time afterwards, when he was ruthlessly killed by a cowardly Ojibway, blood was nearly shed on his account, and with great difficulty a fierce family feud prevented from ensuing in consequence.
After the battle of Point Prescott (by which name we may designate the event related in this chapter), it may well be imagined that the war was renewed with great fury by these two powerful tribes, and fights of various magnitude and importance took place along the whole country which lay between them.
Ojibways who had intermarried among the Dakotas, were obliged to make a sudden and secret flight to their former homes, leaving their wives and children. Dakotas were obliged to do likewise, and instances are told where the parting between husband and wife was most grieving to behold.
After the first fury of the renewed feud had somewhat spent itself, it is related that the ties of consanguinity which had existed between the Rice Lake or St. Croix Ojibways, and the Dakotas were such, that peace again was made between them, and though the war raged between their tribes in other parts of their extensive country, they harmed not one another.
When the two sons of the Dakota chief, by the chieftainess of Rice Lake, had grown up to be men, the eldest, named O-mig-aun-dib (or Sore Head), became chief of the Rice Lake band of Ojibways, and he afterwards appointed his younger brother to be chief of a branch of his village, which had at this time located themselves at Yellow Lake.
These are the first two permanent villages which the Ojibways made in the St. Croix country. Rice Lake was first settled about a century and a half ago, during the peace brought about by the French traders. Yellow Lake was settled about forty years after. Po-ka-gum-a on Snake River, and Knife Lake have been the sites of Ojibway villages only within a few years past—within the recollection of Indians still living.[3]
Omig-aun-dib, the chief of Rice Lake, had half brothers among the Dakotas, who after the death of their common father became chiefs over their people; through the influence of these closely related chieftains, peace was long kept up between their respective villages. Ill-will, however, gradually crept in between them, as either party continually lost relatives, in the implacable warfare which was now most continually carried on between other portions of their two tribes. At last they dared no longer to make peace visits to one another's villages, though they still did not join the war parties which marched into the region of country which they respectively occupied.
As a proof of the tenacity with which they held on to one another even amidst the bloodshed which their respective tribes continued to inflict on them, the following tale is related by the descendants of Omig-aun-dib.
After the war between them had again fairly opened, a Dakota war party proceeded to Rice Lake and killed three children who were playing on the sandy shores of the lake, a short distance from the Ojibway village. One of these murdered children belonged to Omig-aun-dib, who was away on his day's hunt at the time they were fallen upon and dispatched.
When, on his return, he had viewed the mangled remains of his child, he did not weep and ask his fellows to aid him in revenging the blow, but he silently buried his child, and embarking the next morning alone in his birch canoe, he proceeded down the river toward the Dakota country.
At Point Douglas he discovered the Dakotas collected together in a large camp; their war party had just arrived with the three children's scalps, and he heard as he neared their village, the drums beating, accompanied with the scalp songs of rejoicing, while young and old in the whole encampment were dancing and yelling in celebration of the exploit, and the discomfiture of their enemies.
Omig-aun-dib paddled his light canoe straight towards the centre of the long rows of lodges which lined the water-side: he had covered his face and body with the black paint of mourning. The prow of his canoe lightly struck the beach, and the eyes of the rejoicing Dakotas became all bent on the stranger who so suddenly made his appearance at their water-side: some ran to see who it could be, and as he became recognized, his name passed like wildfire from lip to lip—the music and dancing suddenly ceased, and the former noisy and happy Dakotas spoke to one another in whispers.
Omig-aun-dib sat quietly in the stern of his canoe smoking his pipe. Soon a long line of elderly men, the chiefs of the village, approached him; he knew his half brothers, and as they recognized him and guessed the cause of the black paint on his body, they raised their voices and wept aloud. No sooner was the example set, than the whole encampment was in tears, and loud was the lamentation which for a few moments issued from lips which, but a moment before, had been rejoicing in the deed of blood.
They took the canoe wherein the bereaved father was still sitting, and lifting it off the ground, they carried it on to the bank where stood their lodges. Buffalo robes, beautifully worked with quills and colored with bright paints, were then brought and spread on the ground from the canoe reaching even to the door of the council lodge, and the Ojibway chieftain was asked to walk thereon and enter the lodge.
During the performance of these different acts he had kept his seat in the canoe calmly smoking his pipe; he now arose, and stepped forth, but as he approached the council lodge, he kicked the robes to one side, saying, "I have not come amongst you, my relatives, to be treated with so much honor and deference. I have come that you may treat me as you have treated my child, that I may follow him to the land of spirits."
These words only made the sorrow of the Dakotas still more poignant; to think that they had killed the child of one who was their relative by blood, and who had never raised his arm against their tribe.
Omig-aun-dib repeated his offer of self-sacrifice in public council, but it was of course refused, and with great difficulty he was at last induced to accept presents as a covering for his child's grave, and a child was given to him to adopt instead of the one which had been killed. With this reparation he returned to his village . . . .
The breach between the two tribes became widened by almost daily bloody encounters, and the relationship existing between them became at last to be almost forgotten, though to the present day the occasional short terms of peace which have occurred between the two tribes, have generally been first brought about by the mixed bloods of either tribe who could approach one another with greater confidence than those entirely unconnected by blood.
- ↑ Bernard de la Harpe writes that in 1695 "Mr. Le Sueur by order of the Count de Frontenac, Governor General of Canada, built a fort on an island in the Mississippi more than 200 leagues above the Illinois, in order to effect a peace between the Sauteurs natives who dwell on the shores of a lake of five hundred leagues circumference, one hundred leagues east of the river, and the Scioux on the Upper Mississippi."
Bellin, the Geographer, mentions that this trading post was upon the largest of the islands between Lake Pepin and the mouth of the St. Croix River.—E.D.N. - ↑ A.D. 1852.
- ↑ The Snake River Ojibways in 1836 were divided into two bands, and numbered about forty men. One band spent the summer at Lake Po-ka-gum-a; the other, on a small lake twenty miles higher on the river. About this time some of the Ojibways of Yellow Lake, Wisconsin, joined them.—E.D.N.