The Spirit Lake Massacre Part 1

The Spirit Lake Ma.s.sacre.

by Thomas Teakle.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

It is probable that no event in the history of northwestern Iowa has aroused more popular interest than that of the Spirit Lake Ma.s.sacre of March, 1857. Not alone in northwestern Iowa but also in the adjacent sections of Minnesota and South Dakota is the story of its events and a.s.sociated incidents well known.

The Spirit Lake Ma.s.sacre came as the culminating episode in a long series of incidents intimately connected with the settlement of northern and western Iowa. For years previous to 1857 the Indians of the Siouan tribes had obstinately resisted white settlement and had succeeded in a marked degree in r.e.t.a.r.ding the movement. It may be said with a reasonable degree of certainty that if the events of March, 1857, had not occurred the settlement of this region would have been postponed for some years: the Ma.s.sacre not only aroused the authorities of the State of Iowa to the necessity of exerting the force of military pressure upon the Indians to discourage or end their forays, but it also enlisted the efforts of the Federal authorities in the same direction. This joint interest and protection could have only one result--the retirement of the Sioux to the region of the Missouri and the rapid influx of white settlers. The Ma.s.sacre definitely settled the Indian question for Iowa: henceforth the red man ceased to play any important part in the history of this Commonwealth.

While the following pages are, as far as practicable, based upon primary materials, the writer acknowledges his obligation to many other sources in the notes and references which follow the text. Since no adequate history of the Spirit Lake Ma.s.sacre can be written wholly from primary materials, considerable reliance upon secondary sources has been found necessary in this work. Furthermore, the writer is well aware that he has taken a number of new positions concerning causes and incidents of the Ma.s.sacre; but in this he feels well sustained by the preponderance of authority.

Without the unflagging interest and the tireless enthusiasm and encouragement of Dr. Benj. F. Shambaugh the more than four years of research involved in this work would never have been undertaken or carried through to its close. To many others the author also feels himself obligated for invaluable a.s.sistance. Among these may be noted Curator E. R. Harlan, Librarian Alice Marple, a.s.sistant Editor Ida M.

Huntington, and Superintendent of Archives C. C. Stiles, all of the Historical Department of Iowa. Dr. Dan E. Clark, a.s.sociate Editor in The State Historical Society of Iowa, a.s.sisted in editing and verifying the ma.n.u.script; and to him the author is indebted for the index.

THOMAS TEAKLE

THE NORTH HIGH SCHOOL DES MOINES IOWA

I

THE ADVANCING FRONTIER

Clothed in myth and legend and held in sacred awe by the Siouan Indian, Lake Okoboji and Spirit Lake had rested in seclusion for ages at the headwaters of the Little Sioux. To the red men these lakes had been a sort of Mecca, second only to the red pipestone quarry to the northwest, for the silent adoration and worship of the Spirit.[1]

Although the region had been little disturbed by the whites the Sioux were becoming uneasy as the frontier continued its westward advance.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the meeting and clashing of the two races became more frequent.

This rivalry of the races was engendered by the white man's disregard of what the Indian held as sacred: it was embittered by the unstable policies of the government. Finally, in the early days of March, 1857, came one of those tragic events in the long series of misguided attempts to deal with the Indian and solve the problem of the frontier. In this terrible tragedy in the pioneer history of northwestern Iowa, the lives of more than forty white people were sacrificed. The Spirit Lake Ma.s.sacre was the result of an Indian policy which has been characterized as "vacillating, full of inconsistencies and incongruities, of experiments and failures."[2]

For the Sioux this policy had been the cause of frequent humiliation.

It must be frankly admitted that in dealing with the Indian the whites too often lost sight of the fact that the red man was really a human being, seeking to have his person as well as his rights respected. To compel the respect which his proud spirit demanded, he frequently resorted to ma.s.sacre. In fact, an Indian was open to insults and abuse from his fellow tribesmen until he had killed a foe.[3]

To some extent the Indian appreciated his own inferiority, and he was expectantly on the alert to prevent being over-reached and deceived by the whites. Suspicious by nature, he became doubly so when his activities brought him into relation with another race. Unhappily he was not always wrong in his suspicions of the white man's deception, and many unpleasant border difficulties sprang from his attempts to match deception with deception. Physically superb, he too often had recourse to those physical means of redress that have marked the history of the frontier with tales of tragic revenge.[4]

Accustomed to the matching of intellects, the whites frequently resorted to the stilted verbiage of treaties in their efforts to push the Indian farther toward the setting sun. In these treaties the red man found much cause for complaint--not so much in the strict wording of the doc.u.ments themselves as in the management of affairs they induced. This too often exasperated and provoked the Indian.[5] To him the Iowa country was a paradise. Not only was it his home and hunting ground, but here centered much of the traditional lore of his tribe and race. Thus Iowa was doubly dear to him and worth his most determined effort to hold. As the wave of settlements advanced, the Indian was induced to sell--sometimes under circ.u.mstances provoking a strong suspicion of compulsion rather than voluntary agreement in the transfer. He felt instinctively that he had to retire, but in his racial pride he resented the necessity. He knew well the later traditions of his race, in the light of which he could foresee that in a very brief time force, which "comprises the elements of all Indian treaties",[6] would be used to drive him from his domain.

As tract after tract was ceded, lands that the Indian did not want were given to him in exchange--lands devoid of good camping places and wanting in such game as was essential to his very existence. Moreover, the very lands the Indians prized most were the most sought for by the whites. The qualities causing them to be prized by the one made them desirable for the other. Thus the Indian's subsistence became so precarious that often he was on the verge of starvation. Coupled with this deprivation of favorite pleasure and hunting grounds was the white man's idealistic dream of civilizing the Indian by making him work at tilling the soil or at the various trades. This seemed to the haughty red man a real degradation. He could die fighting, if need be; but work he would not. His steadfast refusal to work or become civilized could only end in banishment from the lands he valued so highly. In view of this policy of forcing him into an involuntary exile, one ceases to wonder that he grew discontented and rebelled rather than submit.[7] He could not have done otherwise and retain his pride of race.

Forcible dispossession of his ancestral hunting ranges, however, would not have provoked in him an overweening hatred for the white man if it had not been so often coupled with a show of military force. The sole purpose of such military campaigns seems to have been to frighten the Indian in order that he might learn to be peaceful and pliant through fear of punishment.

These campaigns--of which the one by General Harney against the Sioux ending in the affair of Ash Hollow on September 3, 1855, is the most cruel example--sometimes ended not in pacification but in ma.s.sacre in which the ferocity of the white man vied with that of the Indian.

Harney had been recalled from Europe and sent into the West against the Indians for no other purpose than that of terrifying them.[8] Such affairs as this were most unworthy of the American soldier. Nor did the Indian soon forget these atrocities: thereafter he seldom let an opportunity pa.s.s which offered revenge.

The military expeditions referred to were frequently followed by the making of treaties providing for land cessions and the consequent westward recession of the Indians. Moreover, these treaties, the making of which was stoutly resisted, were usually acknowledged only by a tribal remnant; and so they were not deemed as binding by the widely scattered major portion of the tribe. Their provisions were not always observed, and often blood had to flow to secure a temporary obedience. Thus the story of the government's relations with the Sioux became an alternation of treaties and Indian and white retaliatory measures. A treaty was only too often accepted by the Indians as a challenge for some shrewdly devised scheme of vengeful retaliation.

Through a series of treaties extending from 1825 to 1851 the Indian occupants of Iowa soil were slowly but surely dispossessed. They felt the westward push of white migration, and were fearful of being unable to stem it. Unluckily for themselves they fell to intertribal quarreling, and for the moment, being off their guard, they accepted white mediation. Thus, the two treaties of Prairie du Chien had attempted to settle the differences between the Sioux and their traditional enemies, the confederated Sacs and Foxes.[9] But they did not succeed, since the line established in the first of these two treaties was so indefinite that neither white man nor Indian could locate it to his own satisfaction. To the Sioux their claim to northern and western Iowa seemed a.s.sured, and they proceeded confidently to its occupation. The Sacs and Foxes believed the same concerning their rights in southeastern Iowa and jealously sought to exclude all others from it.

By the second treaty of Prairie du Chien there was established the Neutral Ground, which only aggravated the difficulties already existing.[10] Then, by the treaty of September 15, 1832, the eastern portion of the Neutral Ground was designated as a reservation for the Winnebagoes.[11] The Wahpekuta Sioux never forgot this action, which they regarded as a violation of their proprietary rights in the district; and from that time on they became increasingly more difficult to deal with and more restive of restraint. Later the Winnebagoes by two successive treaties made an absolute cession of this land.[12] It was then opened to settlement, and the Sioux sulkily retired westward.

In 1832 Black Hawk, the able Sac and Fox leader, burning with revenge for past wrongs and fearful of his waning power as a tribal leader as well as of the steady advance of the westward moving frontier, declared war. The conflict was brief, resulting in the defeat of Black Hawk. By four successive treaties covering the period from 1832 to 1842 he or his people were compelled to accede to agreements which had for their purpose the removal of the Indians to lands west of the Missouri wholly unsuited to their needs.[13]

Likewise the Iowas were required to surrender all claims which the United States had recognized in former treaties as ent.i.tling them to occupy Iowa soil.[14] With the surrender of all right or interest which they held in the Iowa country they were in turn removed to a reservation beyond the Missouri. Southern Iowa had not as yet been cleared of its aboriginal inhabitants, for remnants of the Pottawattamies, Chippewas, and Ottawas yet remained. By the treaty of June 5 and 17, 1846, however, these Indians agreed to withdraw to other reserves further west and south.[15]

The withdrawal of these tribes left only the Sioux who were striving to maintain a precarious foothold in northwestern Iowa. The steadily advancing frontier was menacing their peace of mind, as it now became increasingly evident that they in turn would be ejected. Two conditions, the urgent demands of alarmed and annoyed border settlers and the troublesome character of the Sioux themselves, determined the Indian authorities at Washington to remove the members of these tribes. When informed of the government's intention to remove them, the Sioux begged to retain their lands. Notwithstanding Indian importunities representatives of the Sissetons and Wahpetons were cited to appear at Traverse des Sioux, Minnesota, to consider withdrawal. Here they gloomily gathered at the time appointed. Though outwardly ready to treat for withdrawal they did not conceal their displeasure. On July 23, 1851, however, the treaty of Traverse des Sioux was witnessed, by the terms of which these Indians were to definitely withdraw from northwestern Iowa to lands on the Minnesota River.[16]

At the close of the conference all seemed settled. But within a brief time the Sioux, who had not been parties to the treaty, positively refused to abide by its provisions. Later, at Mendota, Minnesota, on August 5, 1851, the Mdewakanton and Wahpekuta tribes, in part, acceded to the Sisseton and Wahpeton cessions.[17] These cessions had not been accomplished without considerable opposition: strong tribal parties refused their consent outright and threatened trouble.[18] For the period of nearly a decade the frontier settlements of the northwest were not free from the alarms created by these discontented bands.

II

INDIAN WRONGS AND DISCONTENT

Unhappily the relinquishment of the Iowa country had not been free from a strong suspicion of wrongs done the Indians. The Indians had obstinately contested the giving up of these lands, and at no time was a treaty of relinquishment signed that may be said to have expressed the tribal will. These treaties of cession had instanced bad faith toward the natives, unwarranted interference on the part of the trader element, compulsion which at times approached intimidation in the securing of signatures, allotment of lands to the Indians as reserves that appeared worthless from the Indian viewpoint, undue urgency of prospective settlers anxious to "squat" upon the vacated lands, and the forceful effect of the presence of the military. All of these factors had operated to secure cessions at the doubtful price of irritating the Indian and arousing his resentment.

Officers in administrative charge of Indian affairs, far removed from actual contact with the Indians, too often failed to realize that Indian treaties should be regarded with some deference to their observance. Promises were made concerning the payment of annuities which were long delayed in their fulfillment or never kept: to the Indian these promises seemed to be made only to be broken--as happened in the treaty of Traverse des Sioux. According to second chieftain Cloudman, the Indians for five years following the making of this treaty remained quietly upon their reserve. At the expiration of that time, not having heard of or received any of the money promised, they began raiding the adjacent frontiers in an effort to produce action.[19]

Lack of good faith in treaty matters often precipitated long periods of bad feeling, and occasionally blood was shed before the Indians could be convinced that faith was being kept or that agreements entered into were in turn to be kept by them. If treaties had been honestly and faithfully carried out in every instance it is not unlikely that the Sioux and other Indians might have been far readier to refrain from wrong-doing than was often the case. Altogether the conditions on the frontier tended to create disaffection among the Indians and a loss of respect for government promises.

Not infrequently, as has been noted, the Indians were allotted lands that were wholly inadequate to supply their needs. The Sioux had outlived "the means of subsistence of the hunter state": they were unable longer to eke out an existence exclusively through the spoils of the chase.[20] The buffalo and larger game were rapidly disappearing. But what was still worse, the Sioux often found upon going to the specified reserves that their coming had been antic.i.p.ated by other hunters and the game was gone, if indeed any had ever been there. In the presence of such conditions it was useless to appeal to the garrison commanders--to whom such complaints seemed absurd. On the other hand, the killing of intruders was nearly always resorted to as a warning against marauders.[21] To live it was necessary to resist the encroachment of others not of their kind, for barbarism demands a wide range of untrammeled activity. Thus the Indians came to think that "if they would have game to kill, they must kill men too."[22]

A great deal of Indian discontent is traceable in the final a.n.a.lysis to another cause: the presence upon the Indian reserve, as well as on the white frontier, of a large number of undesirables, both red and white. As forerunners of white settlement, many adventurous characters found their way to the frontier posts and systematically preyed upon the Indian. Undesirable as elements of civilization, they were equally troublesome on the frontier. In civilized communities it was possible to restrain them, but along the borderland this power was either lacking or not organized. Oftentimes when these adventurers pushed matters to an extremity, the outraged feelings of the Indian would demand a settlement or make one. Unhappily, post commanders were often only too willing to take up the needless quarrels of these frontier disturbers and exact a severe and not always just settlement in their behalf. Later when the more peaceably disposed settlers--the real pioneers--began to arrive the Indian refused to make any distinction between them and their more turbulent predecessors.

Again, the National government when settling the Indians upon their reserves took no account of the fact that there were both good and bad Indians--that there were Indian criminals as well as Indians willing to abide by the rules of tribal law. Both good and bad were settled indiscriminately upon the same reserve. The seditiously disposed were constantly creating trouble, and the Indian people as a whole incurred the blame and displeasure arising from the misdeeds of a few. These matters irritated those Indians who were well disposed and created an ever-ready excuse for an attack.

Such, in the main, had been the att.i.tude of the government toward the Sioux as the last of the Indian races inhabiting the Iowa country. It had not been an altogether enlightened policy; nor had it been one that was calculated to secure their good will. Instead, it had stirred the Indians to wreak vengeance at every convenient opportunity.

However mistaken this policy toward the Indians had been, the att.i.tude toward the frontier and its white inhabitants had been no wiser and at times scarcely as wise. Much Indian trouble and no few ma.s.sacres resulted from the loose administration of frontier affairs--more specifically from the lack of control exercised over various commercial interests whose chief justification for existence seemed to have been that they might prey upon the near-by red inhabitants. The government failed to appreciate the need for an adequate defense of the frontier.

Venders of whiskey and other intoxicants frequented the frontiers and Indian villages--unmolested, oftentimes, in pushing their sales.[23]

It is true that laws had been enacted by Congress with a view to putting an end to the liquor nuisance among the Indians; but the effective enforcement of these measures had scarcely been attempted.

If a more than usually zealous Indian agent forbade dealers to carry on their nefarious business within reserved grounds, they would erect their cabins upon the ceded lands immediately adjoining the reserves--places to which the Indians were at all times free to go. To make matters yet worse the agent was in some cases powerless to act even though he desired to do so. The Chippewa agent, for example, complained that the treaty of 1855 deprived him of a.s.sistants or force through which to punish or apprehend violators of departmental rules and regulations.[24]

Thus was produced that state of affairs where the Indian was being robbed and debauched, while innocent settlers were threatened by Indian violence during the periods of his drunken orgies. Not infrequently the ma.s.sacre of isolated settlers completed the tale of an Indian visitation to a near-by liquor dealer's establishment.

Fortunate it was that the Sioux, "the Iroquois of the West", were slow to take up and make their own the vices of their white neighbors.[25]

To the activities of another type of frontiersman, the trader, Indian wars were sometimes due. In many instances the trader was an individual who was unable to earn an honest living among his white neighbors further east: necessity had made of him an exile from civilization. These traders secured the confidence and good esteem of the Indians in various and devious ways, and the latter soon became indebted to them. In fact their deliberate aim in most cases was to secure upon the Indian a leverage of such a character as to render necessary the surrender of most of the Indian's profits from the chase or treaties. Because of the Indian's profligacy it was necessary that he should buy on credit if he bought at all. When government payments became due, traders were always on hand, and their books invariably showed Indian indebtedness enough to absorb a considerable portion if not all of the payment. The Indians kept no books as a matter of course; and not understanding those of the traders, they could not deny the debt. As a matter of fact, the Indians were always willing to antic.i.p.ate the next payment in order to get credit. In the face of this situation "the poverty and misery of the Indian were continually growing". Again, the Indian could not sue in the courts if he had so desired. Out of such conditions trouble or bad feeling inevitably arose.[26]

Owing to their long residence in the Indian country and their keen knowledge of Indian character, the traders had become "the power behind the throne". This was especially true in treaty-making. The Indian commissioners grew to realize the power of the traders in the securing of treaties and were not slow to request their services. It was to the financial interest of the traders that treaties should be made, for thus there was insured a steady supply of money with which the Indians could pay their debts. "The commissioners did not do much more than feed the Indians and indicate what they wanted; the traders did the rest."[27] Due to their influence, the government habitually incorporated in treaties a clause providing for the compulsory payment of the Indian debts to the traders. These debts, in some cases, were in the aggregate equivalent to small fortunes. To prevent abuses, the traders were to be paid out of the first cash annuities.[28] It was not an uncommon thing to have these debts absorb even more than these first annuities. Hence, the Indian had to wait long for his first money. Concerning this plan the Indians were not always consulted, but the traders expressed their satisfaction.

In time matters grew so bad and the Indians became so rebellious that Congress, in March, 1843, stipulated by law that no payment of Indian debts to traders should henceforth be provided for in treaties. But the traders were ingenious and evaded the law.[29] Matters came to a crisis in 1853 when the Indians rebelled, claiming that by misrepresentation in the treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota in 1851 they had signed away their annuities to the traders to the amount of two hundred thousand dollars. Investigation proved nothing.[30] As Superintendent Cullen remarked upon this act of fraud, "it is equally important to protect the Indians from the whites as the whites from the Indians." It is safe to say that if the traders had been curbed in their operations many a frontier horror might have been averted. It is no wonder that the Indian's "untutored mind was, now and then, driven to the distraction of savage vengeance".[31]