Huntington Free Library Native American Collection , m : : , CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 1924 097 620 326 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924097620326 I « H M a H O H d EH < 2; <! Eh «! «! I— M Eh X a « a Eh O Mo V H INDIAN OUTBREAKS By DANIEL BUCK Ex-Judge of the Supreme Court of Minnesota. ILLUSTRATED MANKATO, MINN 1904. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Page. The Indian 7 CHAPTER II. The Sioux Indians 12 o CHAPTER III. The Winnebagoes 23 CHAPTER IV. Miscellaneous Matters 28 CHAPTER V. The Spirit Lake Massacre 32 CHAPTER VI. Chief Little Crow 42 CHAPTER VII. Causes of the Outbreak 57 CHAPTER VIII. Beginning of the Massacre 85 CHAPTER IX. The Lake Shetek Massacre 99 CHAPTER X. Indians Attack New Ulm 113 CHAPTER XL Battles of Red Wood Ferry and Fort Ridgely 124 CHAPTER XII. Battle of Birch Coulee 147 CHAPTER XIII. Henry Hastings Sibley 162 CHAPTER XIV. Battle of Wood Lake 164 CHAPTER XV. Forts Abercrombie and Ripley 175 4 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVI. p AGB . The Captives 181 CHAPTER XVII. Narrative of Justina Kreiger 189 CHAPTER XVIII. Narrative of Justina Boelter 209 CHAPTER XIX. The Military Commission .' 218 CHAPTER XX. The Mulatto, Godfrey 227 CHAPTER XXI. Indians in McLeod, Nicollet and Blue Earth Counties 240 CHAPTER XXII. Execution of Thirty-eight Sioux, Dec. 26, 1862 251 CHAPTER XXIII. Race Cruelties 272 CHAPTER XXIV. Conclusion 280 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Execution of Thirty-eight Sioux at Mankato, Dec. 26, 1862 Frontispiece Daniel Buck opp. 5 Sioux Indians Traveling opp. 12 Sioux Burial opp. 22 Chief Little Crow opp. 42 Merton Eastlick, Eleven Years Old, Carrying His Brother Johnny, Fifteen Months Old, Fifty Miles to Escape from the Indians at Lake Shetek opp. 104 Indians Attacking New Ulm, 1862 opp. 113 Judge Charles E. Flandrau opp. 116 General Henry Hastings Sibley opp. 162 PREFACE. The writer of the following pages came to Minnesota May 15, 1857, where he has ever since resided. His facilities for ascertaining the facts and incidents herein stated have been good, and he has endeavored to treat all questions with judicial fairness. The Indian side of the trouble has been given a hearing, something usually omit- ted by writers upon the subjects of Indian difficulties with the whites. History is a narration of facts or events. His comments and criticisms upon certain phases of the nar- ratives herein contained are opinions long entertained by him, and he thinks not out of place even in a work of this character. If not of practical value, they may at least awaken a train of thoughts and reflections interesting to one or more readers. The work was written at the sug- gestion of friends, and he thinks that a similar one cannot now be found elsewhere. While the illustrations are not many, yet they are quite interesting. The portraits of General Sibley and Judge Flandrau will be welcomed by the many readers of this book, as they were the most noted leaders in the defense of the whites against the ter- rible Indian outbreak. The illustration of the hanging of the thirty-eight Sioux Indians, Dec. 26, 1862, at Mankato, is a wonderfully correct representation of that exciting scene, as the writer, who was then present, can vouch for. The present generation knows but little of the perils and 6 PREFACE. sufferings that many of the early settlers of this Western country passed through, and while this work may not be as elaborate as more time and great expense might have made it, yet the main facts are given, and to a charitable public it is respectfully submitted. Mankato, Minnesota, May 15, 1904. INDIAN OUTBREAKS. CHAPTER I. THE INDIAN. Anthropologists have been greatly puzzled to discover the real origin of the Indian of America. In the fifteenth century they constituted all, or nearly all, of the population of North and South America. This race was at one time designated as American, but the white race has monopolized the name, and what is now denominated the red man, or red race, of America is bet- ter known as Indians; but the term red man, as often used, is really inapplicable to the Indian, for his skin is more the color of copper than red. The title of Indian was first given to them by the Spaniards at the time Co- lumbus discovered America, under the mistaken idea that they had landed on the southern coast of India. We could not learn anything from them of their past, except vague and uncertain traditions. A study of these obscurities only leaves us in the realm of perplexities, and fathoms deep in uncertainties. It is an archaeological problem; conjectured and guessed at, but never solved; investi- gated, but doubt never dispelled. All is buried in the silence of antiquity. In the State of Minnesota there are numerous mounds, many of them full of pottery, relics and other remains, about which the Indians never could, and cannot now, furnish any reliable information. Point out these mounds and their contents to them, and they stand silent and apa- — 8 INDIAN OUTBREAKS. thetic. So ignorant are they of their origin, and of the race that built them and buried their contents, that they cannot tell us nearly as much as we can guess. We see that the finger of a greater civilization points to their creation, and to a time more remote than the knowledge or history of the aboriginal denizens extend; possibly to a time beyond their actual occupation of this land. Did a great people once occupy this land, with their mounds of pottery and other remains? If so, what has become of them? Did civilization yield to barbarism? They disappeared, and Time's receding hand failed to note the time and place of their disappearance. It was beyond and back of the time when the Indian with his barbarism and untamable nature, his tomahawk and scalp- ing knife, fought his equally savage enemy. One of these mounds formerly existed on Front street in the city of Mankato. Mr. Sibley built a dwelling house upon it, and while excavating for a cellar found quite a lot of Indian pottery, which I saw at the time. Some of these mounds are used by the Indians for the burial of their dead, but among the Dakotas the native way is to erect scaffolds upon a rise of ground so that the place may be seen from a distance all around, and pro- tects the dead body from the depredations of wild animals. These Indians wail morning and evening for their dead. When placed upon a scaffold they can easily be seen. They call some of these burial mounds pahas, and all such are under the guardianship of their God, Heyoka. Some- times they represent him as an old man, wearing a cocked hat, with a quiver on his back, and a bow in his hand. In the winter it is said that he goes naked, and loves the northern blast, while in summer he wraps his buffalo robe around him and still suffers from cold. There are many persons who believe that the Indians are a distinct species, or fundamental type, of mankind, THE INDIAN. 9 a group arranged by Nature herself, and not an offshoot or variety of Adam and Eve, or their descendants. Many very learned and eminent men sincerely and earnestly believe that humanity had several distinct nuclei indige- nous to the continent of America. Others equally able and learned believe that mankind had only one center of creation; that from this center they radiated in all direc- tions, and their descendants ultimately peopled all the habitable regions of the earth. The latter in support of their theory cite the remark of St. Paul at Athens, that God had made of one blood all nations of men. This interesting question cannot be here discussed at length, but I venture to suggest that the origin of the Indian race was not then under consideration or discussion, and that St. Paul never heard or knew of the Pequot or Iroquois, of the Algonquin, the Five (or Six) Nations, nor of the Chippewas or Dakotas, and hence did not have them in mind when he uttered that memorable and greatly dis- cussed saying. To-day many of the Chippewa Indians living in the most northern part of Minnesota are as wild as they were fifty or one hundred years ago, and live pretty much the same life now as they did then. They are of the old Algonquin stock, and civilization has done but little for the most of them. The timber thief has been ahead of the missionary, and the whisky bottle (that curse of the Indian) has raised its flag of victory where the sacred Bible should have won. The Indian nature favors fire- water rather than the banner of the Cross, and the sincere Christian missionary finds it difficult to wholly overcome these savage instincts. These Indians still hear the voice of the Great Spirit in the soft breeze of the morning and the gentle soughing of the winds at the setting of the sun. They feel God's wrath in the tornado and the cyclone; not in the ven- IO INDIAN OUTBREAKS. geance of his enemies, which have made the forests and fields a Waterloo or Thermopylae. But when the storm cloud has past, and the untold agony of the war club and scalping knife has ceased, these wild children of the forest see in their native haunts the only- place for their tepees, wigwams, council fires and soldiers' lodges.