SIOUX
18
SIOUX
the Mississippi and Missouri, to beyond the Black
Hills, and from the Canada boundary to the North
Platte, including all of Southern Minnesota, with
considerable portions of Wisconsin and Iowa, most
of both Dakotas, Northern Nebraska, and much of
Montana and Wyoming;. The boundaries of all
that portion lying east of the Dakolas were defined
by the great inter-tribal treaty of Prairie du Chien in
1S25 and a sujiplemental treaty at the same place in
1830. At this period the Minnesota region was
held by the various Santee bands; Eastern Dakota
and a small part of Iowa were claimed by the Yankton
and their cousins the Yanktonai; while all the Sioux
territory west of the Missouri was held by bands of
the great Teton division, constituting three-fifths
of the whole nation.
Under the name of Naduesiu the Sioux are first mentioned by Father Paul le Jeune in the Jesuit Relation of 1640, apparently on the information of that pioneer western exi)lorer, Jean Nicolet, the first white man known to have set foot in Wisconsin, Iirobably in 1634-5. In 1655-6 two other famous French explorers, Radisson and Groseilliers, spent some time with them in their own country, about the western border of Wisconsin. At that time the Sioux were giving shelter to a band of refugee Hurons fleeing before the Iroquois. They were rated as possessing thirty villages, and were the terror of all the surrounding tribes by reason of their number and prowess, although admittedly less cruel. Fathers AUouez and Marquette, from theii- mission of St. Esprit, established at Lapointe (now Bayfield, W'is.) on Lake Superior in 1665, entered into friendly rela- tions with the Sioux, which continued until 1671, when the latter, provoked by insults from the eastern tribes, returned Marquette's presents, declared war against their hereditary foes, and compelled the abandonment of the mission. In 1674 they sent a delegation to Sault Ste. Marie to arrange peace through the good offices of the resident Jesuit mission- ary. Father Gabriel Druillettes, who already had several of the tribe under instruction in his house, but the negotiations were brought to an abrupt end by a treacherous attack made upon the Sioux while seated in council in the mission church, resulting in the massacre of the ambassadors after a desperate encounter, and the burning of the church, which was fired over their heads by the Ojibwa to dislodge them.
The tribal war went on, but the Sioux kept friend- ship with the French traders, who by this time had reached the Mi.-^sissippi. In 1680 one of their war parties, descending the Mississippi against the Illi- nois, captured the Recollect Father Louis Hennepin with two companions and brought them to their villages at the head of the river, where they held them, more as guests than prisoners, until released on the arrival of the trader, Du Luth, in the fall. While thus in custody Father Hennepin observed their cusloms, made some study of the language, bapl ized a child and attempted some religious instruc- tiot\, explored a part of I^Iinnesota, and discovered and named St. Anthony's Falls. In 1683 Nicholas Perrot established a post at the mouth of the Wis- consin. In 1689 he established Fort Perrot near the lower end of Lake Pepin, on the Minnesota side, the first i)ost within the Sioux territory, and took formal I)ossessi()n of their country for France. The Jesuit Father Josejih Marest, officially designated "Mis- sionary to the Nailouesioux", was one of the witnesses at the ceremony and was again with the tribe some twelve years lalier. Another post was built by Pierre LeSueur, n<'ar the present Red Wing about 1693, anil in 11)95 a principal chief of the tribe accompanied him to Montreal to me<'t the governor, Frontenac. By this time the Sioux had a number of guns and were beginning to wage aggressive warfare toward the
west, driving the Cheyenne, Omaha, and Oto down
upon the Missouri and pushing out into the buffalo
plains. During Frontenac's administration mission
work languished owing to his bitter hostility to mis-
sionaries, especially the Jesuits.
About the year 1698, through injudiciously assist- ing the Sioux against the Foxes, the French became involved in a tedious forty-years' war with the latter tribe which completely paralyzed trade on the upper Mississippi and ultimately ruined the Fo.xes. Before its end the Sioux themselves turned against the French and gave refuge to the defeated Foxes. In 1700 LeSueur had built Fort L'Huillier on the Blue Earth River near the present Mankato, Minn. In 1727, an ineffective peace having been made, the Jesuit Fathers, Ignatius Guignas and Nicolas de Gonnor, again took up work among the Sioux at the new Fort Beauhamais on Lake Pepin. Although driven out for a time by the Foxes, they returned and continued with the work .some ten years, until the Sioux themselves became hostile. In 1736 the Sioux massacred an entire exploring party of twenty- one persons under command of the younger Veren- dryeattheLakeof the Woods, just beyond the north- ern (international) Minnesota boundary Among tho.se killed was the Jesuit father, Jean-Pierre Aul- neau. In 174.5-6, the Foxes having been finally crushed, De Lusignan again arranged peace with the Sioux, and between them and the Ojibwa, and four Sioux chiefs returned with him to Montreal. On the fall of Canada the Sioux, in 1763, sent dele- gates to the English post at Green Bay with proffers of friendship and a request for traders. They were described as "certainly the greatest nation of In- dians ever yet found", holding all other Indians as "their slaves or dogs". Two thousand of their war- riors now had guns, while the other and larger portion still depended upon the bow, in the use of which, and in dancing, they excelled the other tribes.
In the winter of 1766-7 the American traveller, Jonathan Carver, spent several mf)nths with the San- tee visiting their burial-ground and sacred cave near the present St. Paul, and witnessing men and women gashing themselves in frenzied grief at their bereave- ment. Soon after this period the eastern Sioux defin- itively abandoned the Mille Lac and Leech Lake country to their enemies the Ojibwa, with whom the hereditary war still kept up. The final engagement in this upper region occurred in 1768 when a great canoe fleet of Sioux, numbering perhaps five hundred warriors, while descending the Mississijjpi from a successful raid upon the Ojibwa, was ambushed near the junction of Crow ^\'ing River and entirely defeated by a much smaller force of the latter tribe. In 1775 peace was again made between the two tribes through the efforts of the Engfish officials in order to secure their alliance in the coming Revolutionary struggle. The peace lasted until the close of the Revolutionary War, in which both tribes furnished contingents against the American front ior, after which the warriors returned to their homes, and the old feud was resumed. In the meantime the Teton Sioux, pressing westward, were gradually pushing the Arikara (Ree) up the Missouri, and by acquiring horses from the plains tribes had become metamorphosed from canoe men and gatherers of wild rice into an equestrian race of nomad buffalo hunters.
Some years after the close of the Revolution, per- haps about 1796, French traders in the American interest ascended the Missoiu'i from St. Louis and established posts among the Yankton and Teton. In 1804 the first American exploring expedition, under Captains Lewis and Clark, ascended the river, holding councils and securing the allegiance of the Sioux and other tribes, ami then crossing the moun- tains and descending the Columbia to the Pacific, returning over nearly the same route in 1S06. As a
