Revising an Anglo-Dakota Family History Lizzie Ehrenhalt

“The Most Satisfactory Proof” Revising an Anglo-Dakota Family History Lizzie Ehrenhalt

Lawrence Taliaferro received his fair share places and events that are difficult to identify. But they of letters from famous men. As the Indian agent assigned also open doors to biographical mysteries, leading the to Fort Snelling, he maintained a correspondence with researcher-detectives who pursue them into some of the some of the most influential figures of the 1820s and more overlooked corners of pre-territorial Minnesota ’30s, including Joseph Nicollet, John C. Calhoun, Wil- history. liam Clark, and an assortment of presidents and their Perhaps the most intriguing of these mysteries is tied secretaries. Luckily for social historians, he also saved up in a letter that arrived at Taliaferro’s agency on Sep- the letters he received from lesser known people: obscure tember 23, 1836. In it, a woman named Margaret Hess merchants, minor fur traders, and other near-unknowns writes from Prairie du Chien. She begins formally in the whose names do not appear in major extant documents. style used by the agents, traders, and politicians in Talia- These letters are often short on background and refer to ferro’s circle. Dear Sir, in jeopardy would have resonated with the Indian agent, A Treaty held some years since, with the Sioux nation regardless.3 She closes the letter by returning to the busi- of Indians, granted to the mix’d or half breeds of that nesslike tone of its opening, promising that “the most nation, a donation of land, which was according to that satisfactory proof can be given as to the identity of my treaty, to be divided (as specified) between them. I have father and myself.” lately been inform’d (when application was made to me by a gentleman who wish’d to purchase an interest in my claim) that I had no interest to sell, and that I was Margaret Hess’s letter is a defiantly hybrid excluded from the provisions of that Treaty.1 document, one that refuses to confine itself to a single register or style. Its writer is polite and urgent, confes- Taliaferro’s papers contain few letters from women— sional and guarded, emotional and reserved. It belongs to let alone those asking for real estate advice—but Hess’s multiple genres, including those assumed to be exclusive Dakota heritage makes her an even more unusual corre- to men in the 1830s: the real estate inquiry, the business spondent. Her letter refers to the fourth Treaty of Prairie memo, the personal plea, the affidavit, the petition for du Chien, an 1830 agreement that ceded large tracts of justice. In drawing on the conventions of this last genre, native-held land to the United States and established Margaret employed a strategy long used by native people new reservations. One such reservation, on the shores seeking to clarify or contest their treatment at the hands of Lake Pepin between present-day Red Wing and Wa- of the U.S. government.4 basha, was set aside specifically for so-called half-breed Dakotas, and this is the land for which Hess was eligible.2 Having begun so formally, Hess’s letter takes a sur- Margaret’s letter is more than a prisingly personal detour. petition; it is also a savvy attempt to My object my dear sir in troubling you with this commu- leverage a personal connection. nication is to ascertain the facts in the case. I am sir the daughter of Charles Hess, who was himself a half Sioux and my mother a Sioux woman. You I believe knew my During the Jacksonian era, petitioners often were Father and probably my Mother too, and I know of no Margaret’s neighbors living throughout the Upper Mis- one who can see me righted in this matter, or would sissippi region; sometimes they were also women, acting probably take a greater interest than yourself. I appeal alone or in alliance. In 1828 Angelia Cutaw (a mixed- to you then as the Father and protector of our nation, to blood Ojibwe woman) and Cecille Boyer petitioned an see that Justice is done to me, and to three little helpless Indian Affairs commissioner in Michigan Territory for children. We are poor, and are certainly in a[s] great land owed to them under the terms of an 1819 Sagi- need of that donation as any other individual to whom it naw treaty. Their case, brought before Congress, was has been given[.] decided in their favor. Cecile Comparé, a mixed-blood Kaw woman living in St. Louis, filed a similar petition Hess’s plea is carefully composed, appealing in suc- seeking treaty-guaranteed land in 1834. And in 1829, cession to Taliaferro’s professional, personal, and moral a group of mixed-blood Sac and Fox people, includ- commitments. She holds back the revelation of her fa- ing several women, asked Congress to confirm their ther’s name until midway through the letter, heightening entitlement to a Missouri reservation. Such petitioners its impact. Taliaferro would have recognized it, having followed the bureaucratic protocol of the time and tried traveled to Washington, D.C., with an interpreter of the to redress their grievances by working within the Ameri- same name in 1824. It is possible that Margaret knew can legal system.5 of Taliaferro’s marriage a la facon du pays to a Dakota woman, The Day Sets, and the 1828 birth of their daughter, Mary; her reference to mixed-blood Dakota children Lizzie Ehrenhalt is a collections assistant at the Minnesota Historical Society. Most recently, she contributed to projects that document Dakota material culture and the history of Fort facing: Address and closing page of Margaret Hess’s 1836 letter Snelling. to Maj. Lawrence Taliaferro

Winter 2012–13 145 Margaret’s letter, however, is more than a petition; important a matter.” 6 If he honored that pledge, the writ- it is also a savvy attempt to leverage a personal connec- ten record does not show it. The correspondence book tion. From her base in Prairie du Chien, she might have contains neither subsequent letters to or from Margaret appealed to local Indian Agent Joseph M. Street or to Hess nor evidence of the proof of identity that she offered any of the superintendents, agents, and commissioners to provide. assigned to the Upper Mississippi by the Office of Indian It is easy to imagine a scenario in which Hess’s case Affairs. Instead, she chose Taliaferro—the agent assigned fell through the cracks. The St. Peters Indian Agency was to the Dakota but also a man whose friendly memories a busy place in the fall of 1836, and a number of pressing of her father might stir his sympathy and inspire him to situations were competing for Taliaferro’s attention. Jo- do more than he might for a writer with an unfamiliar seph Nicollet had just returned from his latest expedition name. The relationship also promised a greater chance and was Taliaferro’s houseguest at the agency. Negotia- that Margaret’s story would be believed and her proof of tions were underway for a new treaty with the Dakota, identity accepted. and a mentally disturbed soldier discharged from Fort Taliaferro, it seems, saw no need to seek such proof. Snelling was at large in the neighborhood after attacking He replied to Margaret a month later—a relatively short a Dakota widow. The Lake Pepin reservation, moreover, turn-around time, given the volume of mail requiring had not yet been parceled out into individual lots, a proj- the agent’s attention. In a letter dated November 5, 1836, ect over which Taliaferro had little control and which copied carefully into his correspondence book among would remain uncompleted for many years.7 dispatches to governors and generals, Taliaferro pledged A document created in the summer of 1838, how- to bring Hess’s case before his superiors, assuring her ever, shows that Taliaferro’s and Margaret’s association of “the best disposition on my part to befriend you in so outlived their written exchange. Her name appears on a

Taliaferro’s reply to Hess, sent in November 1836

146 Minnesota History register, compiled by federal commissioners, of mixed- 1836, with the fur trade in decline and native groups re- blood Dakota people who qualified to receive money moved to points farther west, Prairie du Chien’s character from the U.S. government. Because the list specifies each was changing. The establishment of Wisconsin Territory registrant’s home, we know that in 1838 Margaret was on July 3 opened the area to floods of easterners eager to living at St. Peters in a cluster of Indian agency buildings build homesteads on the newly available farmland.9 that included the agent’s own home. Less than two years after writing her letter, she had become Taliaferro’s next- door neighbor.8 Taliaferro pledged to bring Hess’s case before his superiors, assuring her of “the Margaret’s letter provokes several questions, best disposition on my part to befriend the first of which involves timing. The 1830 treaty of Prairie du Chien was six years old by the time she sat you in so important a matter.” down to write to Taliaferro. What could have inspired her to write when she did? An answer lies in the colli- sion of people, money, and politics that was Prairie du Though the town had always attracted its share of Chien in the fall of 1836. For decades, the township at the crafty entrepreneurs, these new outsiders could be more confluence of the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers had sinister. A Michigan speculator named Charles Van provided a convenient meeting place for fur traders and Dorn arrived in time to unload $200 half-acre parcels trappers from the Upper Mississippi region. In the 1820s of uninhabitable swampland on unsuspecting buyers it hosted a series of treaty negotiations between native before disappearing. In August 1836, Hercules L. Dous- tribes and the U.S. government, drawing together rep- man described the prevailing local atmosphere in a letter resentatives from far-flung Dakota, Ojibwe, Ho-Chunk, Potawatomi, Ottawa, and other communities. But in Prairie du Chien about 1846, rendered in watercolor by Seth Eastman

Winter 2012–13 147 to trading partner Henry Sibley: “We are overrun here Jerry/Jeremiah, 17; and David, 11, all born in Minnesota). with land speculators, sharpers, etc. etc. They are buy- Given that ages and birthdates tend to be approximate ing up the whole country—they have got the people here in early census records, these details align with what we perfectly delirious.” 10 It was in the midst of this delirium know about Margaret Hess, who would have been about that Margaret reached out to Taliaferro. With schemes 45 in 1850. Charles Hess traded along the Red River of like Van Dorn’s playing out around her and demand for the North, making it a likely birthplace for his daughter.12 land skyrocketing, it is no wonder she tried to secure the And the “little helpless children” Margaret mentions in property she had been promised. her letter to Taliaferro find counterparts in the sons listed in the census. Supported by these convergences, and by John’s status as the only eligible Campbell present at Her connection to Scott Campbell suggests St. Peters in 1838, we can identify him as the man who passed on the Campbell name to Margaret Hess. two related explanations for Margaret’s move from Prairie du Chien to St. Peters. As a young man, John Campbell traveled throughout the Great Lakes region. He helped run his A second set of questions surrounds Margaret’s iden- father’s portage business in what is now central Wiscon- tity. Who was this woman who wrote to Taliaferro and sin and served as a volunteer at Fort Michilimackinac lived at his agency, and what personal connections might during the war of 1812. But he seems never to have have helped her to move there? The 1838 mixed-blood settled on a profession (the 1850 census records his oc- register lists her location, age (35), and her name— cupation as farmer) or made a name for himself to equal Margaret Hess Campbell, the extra surname suggesting the reputations of his better-known half-brothers.13 a marriage into the many-branched Campbell family, The strongest evidence of John’s lack of success is based in Prairie du Chien. Two of the sons of patriarch Margaret’s letter, which implies that her husband failed Archibald Campbell can be traced to the St. Peters area in to provide for his children. Margaret’s apparent resolve 1838—and from there to Margaret. Scott Campbell, Talia- to sell her land for extra income, even when it required ferro’s long-time interpreter, had been living at the agency admitting her poverty to Taliaferro, suggests that by the for more than a decade by then. He had traveled with fall of 1836, the family was struggling. Their struggle Taliaferro to Washington in 1824 and, as an interpreter, may have been more than financial. In the 1834 census of would have worked side-by-side with Charles Hess. But in Crawford County (then a part of Michigan Territory), the 1838 he was already spoken for, having legalized a long- household of John Campbell contained four children— standing relationship with Margaret Menager in 1825. two boys and two girls—under the age of ten. Four years The couple remained married until Scott’s death in the later, the Clayton County census lists one female (Mar- 1850s. None of their five underage sons, moreover, was garet) and four males: John and three children (one just old enough to have made a match with Margaret.11 born, according to their ages in the 1850 Minnesota cen- Scott’s half-brother John Campbell appears on the sus). The two females do not appear.14 While there is no 1838 census of Wisconsin Territory as a resident of Clay- proof that the girls were John and Margaret’s daughters, ton County north of the Root River, an area that included the possibility remains that the couple lost two children St. Peters. Born in Ireland in the 1780s, John followed his between 1834 and 1838. father Archibald to Canada and eventually to Wiscon- Her connection to Scott Campbell suggests two re- sin Territory, where he was the only second-generation lated explanations for Margaret’s move from Prairie du Campbell who could not claim Dakota heritage (Scott Chien to St. Peters. In the first, Scott orchestrated the and his full siblings shared a Dakota mother). The 1838 move, using his influence with Taliaferro to find a place household John headed consisted of four males (in- for his half-brother’s family to live inside the agency. cluding himself) and one female. The 1850 census of Though he had six children of his own, in 1836 the inter- Minnesota Territory offers more information about the preter was prospering and in a secure enough position members of that family, albeit 12 years later: John’s wife to help a relative fallen on hard times. In the second “Margerite” (45, maiden name not given, born along the possible scenario, Taliaferro proposed the arrange- Red River of the North) and three sons (John Jr., 20; ment, realizing that though his hands were tied in the

148 Minnesota History Lake Pepin case, he could help in other ways. Attractive the source text for the Hess story; the later works borrow though this explanation is—it finds a way for Taliaferro liberally from Snelling’s descriptions and dialogue, some- to have honored his promise to help Margaret—it re- times reproducing whole passages verbatim.17 mains speculative. John Campbell is not on the list of Although Snelling appears to have met his subject, smiths and farmers contracted to work at the St. Peters the theatrical anecdotes he offers are fictionalized at Agency between 1837 and 1839, so Taliaferro did not go the very least, and he seems interested in Hess as an so far as to provide a job. But the family does appear to excuse for sensational storytelling rather than as an op- have lived within the agency proper, rather than on a portunity to report facts. Luckily, an even earlier source homestead nearby. The 1838 mixed-blood register dis- exists against which Snelling’s claims may be checked, tinguished between claimants living within the agency one written while Hess was still alive. A detailed record complex, those living around Fort Snelling, and those in of Stephen H. Long’s 1823 expedition to the source of the general St. Peters vicinity. For example, agency black- the St. Peters River, compiled by William H. Keating smith’s wife Madeline Campbell Rusico was traced to “St. and others, contains a profile of Hess—“one of the most Peters Agency, Fort S.,” farmer Oliver Faribault to “St. respectable traders whom we have seen”—convincingly Peters near Fort S.,” and trader’s wife Margaret Mooers to based on interviews with the man himself, carried out “Below Fort Snelling 18 mi.” This level of specificity sug- while the exploring party stopped at Fort St. Anthony gests that Margaret Hess Campbell, listed at “St. Peters (Fort Snelling).18 Agency, Fort S.,” lived close to Taliaferro indeed, in one of From the combined Keating and Snelling accounts a handful of buildings surrounding his home.15 emerges a timeline of Hess family history that contradicts Margaret makes no mention of John Campbell in Margaret’s 1836 letter. Having established himself in the her letter to Taliaferro. She signs her name Hess rather 1810s as a successful trader in the service of the Ameri- than Hess Campbell, as it appears two years later on the can Fur Company, Charles married an Ojibwe woman, mixed-blood register. This may indicate that her rela- with whom he had at least two children. By 1822 they tionship with John rested on a mutual understanding had settled at Pembina, an area known for its large Métis a la facon du pays and that they did not marry legally community. In that year, either on assignment for the Co- until after 1836—if at all.16 But it may also reflect a strat- lumbia Fur Company or in search of food, the family set egy of representing herself to Taliaferro as her father’s off in the direction of Lake Traverse. One day, the party daughter and on terms that were most likely to spur stopped to make camp and Hess rode off to hunt buffalo. his intervention. Margaret seems to have believed that When he returned, he found that a group of Yankton the surest route to success lay in emphasizing her con- Dakota had murdered his wife and children. Devastated, nection to Charles Hess rather than to the father of her he traveled on alone until he learned that one daughter children. Given an opportunity to link herself to Scott Campbell—one of Taliaferro’s oldest and most trusted employees—Margaret turned it down.

Charles Hess, as it turns out, was no mere interpreter. He was also a local legend, a trader and frontiersman who achieved near-mythic status in the published collections of pioneer lore that became popular after his death. He appears in no fewer than four such collections, among them William Joseph Snelling’s Tales of the Northwest (1830); L. H. Young’s Daring Exploits and Perilous Adventures (1843); Edward D. Neill and Charles S. Bryant’s History of the Minnesota Valley (1882); and volume two of Warren Upham’s Minnesota in Three Cen- turies, 1655–1908 (1908). Tales of the Northwest is clearly

Ox carts from Pembina, undated was alive and being held captive at a Dakota village. Lying would have been risky, especially Hess made his way to the village, tracked down the cap- tors, and negotiated for his daughter’s release. After that given her belief that Taliaferro “knew my ordeal, Hess returned to trading. He made the trip to Father and probably my Mother too.” Washington with Taliaferro in 1824 and died that same year, perhaps of the chronic “calculous disease” Keating mentioned.19 Who, then, are we to believe? The mismatched Keating and Snelling diverge in their descriptions of facts set up a kind of contest of trustworthiness, with the attack. Where Snelling reports the deaths of Hess’s Margaret Hess on one side vying against her father’s bi- wife and all of their children except the ransomed daugh- ographers on the other. Keating and Snelling could only ter, Keating maintains that the only casualties were a gain from embellishing their stories with the drama of an daughter and two traveling companions, unrelated to the unprovoked intertribal massacre—a drama their white Hesses. Both versions, however, support the conclusion audience, primed by stereotypes of bloodthirsty Indians, that it was Margaret who was captured and ransomed. If was only too ready to believe. Assuming that she was Snelling is correct that only the ransomed daughter was not Dakota, Margaret also stood to benefit from misrep- spared, then she must have been Margaret, whose 1836 resenting herself. But for her, the stakes were higher; letter proves her survival. Keating’s account states that Keating and Snelling wrote to entertain their readers, Hess had two children and that one of them was killed; while Margaret wrote to lift herself and her children from in this case, too, the sole survivor must have been Mar- poverty. Lying would have been risky, especially given her garet. In any event, Margaret lost at least one sibling and belief that Taliaferro “knew my Father and probably my experienced a sudden separation from her family.20 Mother too.” Turning back to Margaret’s letter, we find two chal- The question of Margaret’s truthfulness is ultimately lenges to these published biographies. First, she states resolved by the testimony she gave to the U.S. commis- that her father is half Dakota. This is not impossible, sioners in 1838. In the eyes of W. L. D. Ewing and S. J. since Hess fits the profile of an Anglo-Dakota trader, and Pease—and, by extension, the federal government— both Keating and Snelling report that he was called by Margaret Hess was a mixed-blood Dakota woman. a version of the Dakota name Tatanka Nazi (Rising—or Registering payout claimants was a serious business, and Standing—Buffalo). But Keating identifies Charles as commissioners took care to investigate would-be recipi- French, and though Snelling refers suggestively to his ents. Dakota tribal members also scrutinized the roll in “unknown origins” and a youth spent living with differ- order to vouch for the signers’ claims. Therese le Clair ent tribes, he depicts Hess in no uncertain terms as the and Joseph La Frambois were stricken from the final ver- archetypal white man seduced by “the wild, independent sion of the 1838 register after they were “found not to be habits of the wilderness” away from “the refinement and related to the Indians interested in this treaty.”23 For Mar- artificial wants of civilized society.”21 garet to have faked her way onto the list would have been Second, Margaret says that her mother is Dakota. difficult, to say the least. All available evidence indicates This goes against Keating and Snelling, who agree that that she was telling the truth and that Snelling and Keat- Charles married an Ojibwe woman. More important, it ing were either freely inventive or misinformed. upends their premise for the family murder: the Yankton Margaret’s letter to Taliaferro calls into question the Dakota attacked the Hesses because they were Ojibwe, most basic details of her father’s life, family, and identity and, therefore, enemies. Keating explains, “Having al- as recorded by his biographers, whose accounts acquired ways traded with the Chippewas, married among them, the patina of fact as the nineteenth century passed into and been considered as connected with them, [Hess] the twentieth. It serves as a reminder of the unreliabil- had entertained great apprehensions of the Dacotas.” ity of frontier lore, no matter how canonical or widely And Snelling, providing his own “motive for aggression,” published. In the end, the back-story of Charles Hess is states that “[t]he wife of Hess was a Chippeway, and the valuable not for its biographical details but for the insight blood of that hated race ran in the veins of his children.” 22 it provides into Margaret’s character as it was shaped during her young adulthood. The Hesses may not have facing: Taliaferro’s 1835 map of the region, clearly showing the been attacked in 1822 on their way to Lake Traverse in Indian agency buildings at Fort Snelling exactly the way Keating and Snelling describe. But those

Winter 2012–13 151 accounts were probably inspired by some kind of violent found them in 1850. Margaret may have lived out the rest event—an episode that would have affected 18-year-old of her life on this land, a resident but never an owner of Margaret and resulted in a personal loss. Her ability to the property she was owed.24 endure that loss and the death of her father two years Having waited 25 years after the Prairie du Chien later and go on to raise three children, appeal directly to treaty without apportioning individual lots, the U.S. a government official, and move to his agency suggests government pressured the mixed bloods to give up their determination, resilience, and will. She survived, and her claim to the reserve in exchange for scrip redeemable on early trials may have made her stronger. any unoccupied, unsurveyed lands not already reserved by the federal government. In 1855 and 1856 commissioners collected affidavits to verify the blood quantum Margaret’s life after the 1830s is sparsely of interested parties, and their resulting report offers documented. By 1839 she and her family had left St. Pe- first-person profiles of several Campbell family members, ters for a settlement outside St. Paul called Little Prairie. including Duncan Campbell’s widow and Scott Camp- There, John Campbell voted in the 1840 election of the bell’s sons. Margaret, who would have been about 50 third Wisconsin territorial legislature. Afterwards, they years old at the time, does not appear.25 moved 80 miles south along the Mississippi River to a Although Margaret Hess Campbell disappears farm near Wabasha—the area included in the Lake Pepin from the written record after 1850, her sons figure in a reservation that was the object of Margaret’s inquiry handful of documents. The 1857 census of Minnesota to Taliaferro. It is here that the territorial census taker Territory counted John and Jeremiah among the household of Benjamin Young, husband of their cousin Harriet facing: Opening page of Margaret Hess’s 1836 letter. Campbell. And in 1859, the Office of Indian Affairs below: Lake Pepin, engraving by Jacob C. Ward, about received a letter written on behalf of John, David, and 1840, when Hess was living nearby. Jeremiah Campbell of Lake City in Wabasha County. The

Winter 2012–13 153 brothers wanted to determine whether the government followed his mother’s people to the Santee Sioux Reser- owed them scrip—a credit they could have inherited vation in northeast Nebraska, where he passed into late from their mother upon her death but also may have middle-age surrounded by his Dakota kin, including two qualified for on their own.26 Twenty years after Margaret grandchildren.27 wrote to Taliaferro, her sons were grappling with the same slow-moving bureaucracy that had thwarted her efforts to claim a piece of the Lake Pepin reserve. The story of Margaret Hess and her family is Though this struggle was part of the Hess-Campbell valuable as many things: as a window into pre-territorial family legacy, Margaret seems to have passed on to at Minnesota history, as a case study in the struggle of least one of her children a connection to his Dakota mixed-blood Dakota people to assert their rights, and as heritage that ran deeper than property claims. Jeremiah, a snapshot of a moment in the life of a Dakota woman her middle son, married a mixed-blood Dakota woman of the 1830s, taken from her own perspective. We may and had a daughter who married and had children never know Margaret’s complete life history, but her let- with a Dakota man. Jerry, as he was called, eventually ter to Taliaferro points us in the right direction. a

Notes The author thanks Jim Hansen of the Wis- Early Minnesota,” Minnesota History 59 consin Historical Society for sharing his re- (Spring 2005): 189–92. search into the lives of John Campbell and 4. Native men and women had been pe- his sons and especially for identifying titioning the government since the 1700s. Campbell as the husband of Margaret Hess. For example, in 1711 a “free born Indian Thanks also to Mary Bakeman, Debbie woman” who feared being sold into slavery Miller, and Duane Swanson for their re- asked the colonial governor of New York for search leads and feedback. protection; Sarah Robins to Gov. Robert Hunter, British Colonial Council Papers, 1. Margaret Hess to Lawrence Taliaferro, vol. 56, p. 96, New York State Archives, Sept. 23, 1836, Lawrence Taliaferro Papers, http://iarchives.nysed.gov/dmsBlue Minnesota Historical Society (MHS). Hess /viewImageData.jsp?id=184002 (accessed probably had help composing the letter; the Sept. 25, 2012). “Sarah” appears incorrectly 1850 census of Minnesota Territory identi- as “Saran” in the catalog description. fied her as a person “over 20 [years] of age 5. For Cutaw and Boyer, see Asbury Crossed peace pipe and hatchet adorn who cannot read & write.” Patricia C. Har- Dickins and John W. Forney, eds., American pole and Mary D. Nagle, eds., Minnesota State Papers: Documents of the Congress of the seal (reversed here) that Taliaferro Territorial Census, 1850 (St. Paul: Minne- the United States in Relation to the Public used at Fort Snelling. sota Historical Society, 1972), 72. Lands (1860), 5: 450–51, also available on- 2. For the Lake Pepin reservation’s line; for Comparé, House Journal, 23rd boundaries, see Article 9 of the treaty in Cong., 1st sess., Feb. 10, 1834, p. 300, also “Eastern Dakota Mixed Bloods and the Charles J. Kappler, Indian Affairs: Laws online (using “Kanza,” a European name for Lake Pepin Reservation (land scrip etc.), and Treaties (Washington, D.C.: Govern- the Kaw). For the Sac and Fox, “Petition to 1837–71” file, Alan R. Woolworth Papers, ment Printing Office, 1904), 2: 307, also Clarify Half-Breed Land Parcels,” Aug. 25, MHS. available online. “Half-breed” has long been 1829, William Clark Papers, vol. 32, p. 3, 8. Register of Claims under the Second considered offensive to the people it de- Kansas Historical Society, Topeka. Clause of the Second Article of the Treaty scribes. When discussing a historic entity 6. Lawrence Taliaferro to Margaret Made with the Mississippi Sioux Indians . . . such as the Lake Pepin Half-Breed Reserve, Hess, Nov. 5, 1836, Taliaferro papers. Sept. 29, 1837, file 200, Special files of the I retain the original term; when describing 7. Lawrence Taliaferro to Gov. Henry Office of Indian Affairs, 1807–1904, Na- or analyzing in my own words, I use the Dodge, Sept. 29, 1836, Nov. 30, 1836; Talia- tional Archives microfilm M289, roll 59, term mixed-blood. ferro to Col. William Davenport, Nov. 7, frame 42, copy in MHS. For the treaty, see 3. Lawrence Taliaferro, “Autobiography,” 1836—all in Taliaferro papers. Kappler, Indian Affairs, 2: 493–94. Minnesota Historical Society Collections Two years later, more than 100 mixed- 9. Mark Wyman, The Wisconsin Fron- (St. Paul, 1894), 6: 203–05; Edward D. blood Dakota people petitioned Secretary of tier (Bloomington: Indiana University Neill and Charles S. Bryant, History of the War Joel Roberts Poinsett to divide the land Press, 1998), 157–59, 173–84. Minnesota Valley (Minneapolis: North Star into individual plots; Members of the Sioux 10. Peter Lawrence Scanlan, Prairie du Publishing Co., 1882), 150, also available Nation to Joel Roberts Poinsett, Sept. 5, Chien: French, British, American (Menasha, online. If his efforts to support his own 1838, Alexis Bailly Papers, MHS. Though WI: George Banta, 1937), 199, 200 (Dous- daughter are any indication, Taliaferro was the petition claims to list “nearly all the half man letter). sensitive to the welfare of mixed-blood chil- and quarter breeds of the Sioux Nation,” 11. Register of Claims, frame 42, also dren. See Jane Lamm Carroll, “Who Was Margaret Hess [Campbell] does not appear. lists Margaret as one-fourth Dakota, Jane Lamont? Anglo-Dakota Daughters in For a compilation of related documents, see whereas in her letter to Taliaferro she iden-

154 Minnesota History tifies herself as three-fourths (“my mother a Hess saga, Allen E. Woodall remarked, context of Snelling’s narrative, for Hess Sioux woman” and her father “a half “The story of Charles Hess is fairly well himself to have been Indian. Sioux”). James L. Hansen, ed., “Two Early established as a fact” but did not elaborate Following Snelling’s lead, L. H. Young’s Lists of Mixed-Blood Sioux,” Minnesota or name sources. He maintained that Snel- 1843 version of the story calls Hess “a re- Genealogical Journal 6 (Nov. 1986): 523–30 ling’s contribution was to transform Hess markable illustration of the superiority of includes a transcription of the 1838 register. into a hero. Tales of the Northwest was pub- white intellect over aboriginal genius and His introduction (p. 523) explains, “The de- lished anonymously, but insiders recognized cunning.” This narrative does not mention gree of Indian blood should be considered Snelling as its author. See Woodall, “Wil- the attack, murders, or ransom but repro- more cautiously as the principal concern liam Joseph Snelling and the Early North- duces word-for-word other Snelling de- was to verify that the applicant had at least west,” Minnesota History 10 (Dec. 1929): scriptions; Daring Exploits and Perilous ¼ Sioux blood, the minimum required for 380, 378 note 16. Adventures (New Haven, CN: Hitchcock inclusion. In fact some of the quarter bloods Beyond Snelling’s book, his narrative and Stafford, 1843), 405–10. are known from other sources to be ¾ about Hess remained available to compilers 22. Keating, Narrative, 409; Snelling, Sioux.” On Scott Campbell, see James L. of adventure tales through numerous Tales, 79. Hansen, “Crawford County, Wisconsin Mar- reprints and excerpts. See, for example: 23. Hansen, “Two Early Lists,” 523, 527. riages, 1816–1848,” Minnesota Genealogical American Masonick Record and Albany 24. John Campbell was among the vot- Journal 1 (May 1984): 43; for an overview Literary Journal 4 (1830): 180–81; Colum- ers interviewed by a county commissioner of his life and milieu, see Annette Atkins, bian Star and Christian Index, June 5, after a losing candidate contested the 1840 Creating Minnesota: A History from the 1830, p. 354–456; Ballou’s Monthly Maga- election results. In his deposition, Campbell Inside Out (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical zine 22 (Dec. 1865): 441–43; Gleason’s testified that he had lived in St. Croix County Society Press, 2008), 26–33. Monthly Companion 3 (May 1874): for one-and-a-half years before September 12. Clayton Co. census, 1838, in Helen 218–20; Mary H. Carmichael, comp., 1840; Minnesota Beginnings: Records of M. White and Bruce M. White, Fort Snel- Pioneer Days (New York: Duffield and Co., St. Croix County, Wisconsin Territory, ling in 1838 (St. Paul: Turnstone Historical 1917), 116–28. 1840–1849 (Stillwater, MN: Washington Research, 1998), 137; Harpole and Nagle, 18. William Joseph Snelling, Tales of the County Historical Society, 1999), 269. eds., Minnesota Territorial Census, 1850, Northwest; or, Sketches of Indian Life and 25. U.S. Office of Indian Affairs,Records p. 72; Neill and Bryant, History of the Min- Character (Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Related to Mixed Blood Claimants under nesota Valley, 150. Wilkins: Boston, 1830), 68, refers vaguely the Treaty of Prairie du Chien, 1855–1856, 13. Crawford Co. deeds, Book A, 13–14, to a fireside interview with Hess, but that National Archives microfilm M550, copy in cited in James L. Hansen, “The Campbell detail may arise from Snelling’s attempt to MHS. Hess is also missing from the list of Family of Prairie du Chien,” 5, Archibald evoke an intimate storytelling atmosphere. mixed-blood claimants included on the Campbell file, Woolworth papers; Harpole William H. Keating et al., Narrative of same roll. and Nagle, eds., Minnesota Territorial Cen- an Expedition to the Sources of St. Peter’s 26. June 4, 1859, letter cited and de- sus, 1850, p. 72. Like his brother Scott, River . . . (Philadelphia: H. C. Carey & I. scribed in Hansen, “Campbell Family,” 6. As Duncan Campbell enjoyed success in the Lea, 1824), 408–09, also online. According the children of a white father and a mother fur trade and as a Dakota-language inter- to Keating, Hess was at the fort to seek who self-identified as three-fourths Dakota, preter; see his file in the Woolworth papers. treatment for “a very painful calculous dis- they would have been three-eighths Dakota. In their compilation of the area’s 1838 “ci- ease.” The eligibility cutoff for the group in the vilian, non-Indian population,” White and 19. Keating, Narrative, 52, claims that 1838 mixed-blood register was one-quarter. White group “Marguerite Hess” with Dun- Hess had two daughters; Snelling, Tales of 27. Jerry Campbell in U.S. census sched- can’s household (Fort Snelling, p. 223), the Northwest, 77, 80, mentions six chil- ules, 1900, Santee Township, Knox County, but this is most likely an error. The mixed- dren. On Hess’s health, see Keating, Narra- Nebraska, accessed on Ancestry.com (Sept. blood register identifies the “foot of Lake tive, 409. Calculous disease (lithiasis) is 25, 2012). Pepin” as Duncan’s residence in 1838 and caused by the concretion of stones inside the St. Peters Agency as Margaret Hess an organ. If Hess did die from lithiasis, Campbell’s; Register of Claims, frames it is likely to have involved his gall bladder 40, 42. or pancreas, since kidney stones are rarely The original map (p. 150) is in the National 14. James L. Hansen, e-mail to the fatal, even if infected; “Kidney stones: Archives, Record Group 75, Washington, author, Mar. 27, 2012, transcript from a definition,”www.mayoclinic.com/health D.C.; all other images, including the seal, copy of census returns, Crawford Co., 1834. /kidney-stones/DS00282 (accessed Sept. 25, photographed by Adam Harris, are in The original is in RG 44 B267 F7, Archives 2012). MHS collections. of Michigan, Lansing. White and White, 20. Keating, Narrative, 410; Snelling, Fort Snelling, 133, 137. Enumerated in May Tales, 79–80. This description of the attack 1838 for the Wisconsin territorial census, is so gratuitously violent as to suggest exag- Clayton County in July 1838 became part of geration for dramatic effect. It is likely that the new Iowa Territory. Snelling inflated the number of casualties 15. Between 1837 and 1839, St. Peters and embellished the circumstances, all of Agency records list Scott Campbell’s salary which would fuel the story’s melodrama as $300; White and White, Fort Snelling, and prepare readers for the tragic climax 120; Register of Claims, frame 42. For to come. various ways of measuring the relative 21. Keating offers the English transla- value of Campbell’s salary in 2012, see tion Standing Bull (Narrative, 411); Snel- www.measuringworth.com. ling’s transliteration is Tahtunkah Nahzee 16. Their names do not appear in Han- (Tales, 82). Snelling, Tales, 67 (for quotes), sen, “Crawford County . . . Marriages,” a which also asserts that, as a child, Hess master list whose sources cover Prairie du “witnessed the burning of his paternal roof, Chien as well as St. Peters. and the slaughter of his family by a party of 17. Reviewing Snelling’s treatment of the Indians”—making it illogical, within the

Winter 2012–13 155

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