CHAPTER XI.

TREATIES OF 1822-24-25–WINNEBAGO OUTBREAK–ATTACK ON THE BOATS–ARREST AND

DISCHARGE.

The Sacs and Foxes were also trespassers upon Illinois soil,

dispossessing by conquest, after the manner just related, the Santeaux,

who claimed the soil from which they were driven.[54] Black Hawk was

always strenuously insistent for the principle that land could not be

alienated, therefore his nation could not, by treaty, legally have

alienated their lands. If lands were inalienable by grant, how, then,

could they have been alienated by conquest? The difference was in

instance and not principle with Black Hawk, and he no doubt argued that

the case was different with Santeaux and Iowas, because his was a party

in interest. And so with the treaty of 1804; it was good if it helped

Black Hawk and very bad if it contained anything good for the Americans.

That the Americans were intent on doing the best for the Indians which

then could be done under all circumstances is everywhere apparent in the

several treaties with the Sacs and Foxes. On September 3d, 1822,[55]

another treaty was negotiated with them, which also recognized the 1804

compact, and doubtless Black Hawk thought this all right, because it

gave to them an additional $1,000.00 for the privilege of being relieved

from the obligation of building a factory as that treaty had provided.

This 1822 affair bears the signature of Black Hawk.

Again on August 4th, 1824, a treaty was made between the Sacs and Foxes

recognizing the former treaties.[56]

On August 19th, 1825, another treaty for the purpose of suspending the

constant internecine wars of the Indians was made at Prairie du Chien,

wherein all former treaties were recognized.[57] With all these various

ratifications one would naturally infer that the treaty of 1804 was

pretty thoroughly understood by the Indians, and particularly by Black

Hawk, yet in the face of them all he continued his hostility to the

Americans whenever the possibility of making them trouble arose, and if

it did not arise from the efforts of others, he was ever alert to set it

in motion on his own account. The Winnebago outbreak, coming along in

1827, afforded him the next opportunity to display his genius for war,

and he was quick to place himself against his ancient foe, the

Americans. The unfriendly attitude of certain unruly Sioux, sometimes

called or classed as the Dakotas in the prints of those days, was

quickly brought to his attention, and without delay he was on the road

north to find trouble in which to participate.

In those days there were good and bad Dakotas, as with the Sacs, and the

malcontent element of the former was generally finding itself in

trouble. Upon two notable occasions parties of Dakotas wantonly murdered

unoffending Chippewas, the latest offense being under the very walls of

Fort Snelling and at a time when the Chippewas were dispensing a liberal

hospitality to them–a most atrocious crime![58]

These deeds were so revolting that Col. Josiah Snelling, the commandant,

very properly applied the custom prevalent among the Indians by turning

the four captured culprits over to the injured Chippewas for punishment.

Each Dakota was given thirty paces law, and a chance to run for his

life; but Chippewa bullets were swifter, and four vicious Dakotas were

speedily forwarded to their fathers. Revenge toward the whites for the

part they played in that affair rankled within the breasts of the

friends of the dead Dakotas and they diplomatically set about settling

the grudge in a most civilized and sensible manner, at the expense of

their friends, the Winnebagoes. Red Bird, a Winnebago chief of note,

contemporaneously, or soon thereafter,[59] led a losing enterprise

against the Chippewas, returning to his camp crestfallen and sullen. It

was at this fecund moment that emissaries from the Dakotas fell upon him

with all manner of adroit badinage for his fallen estate, impressing

upon his mind, with much innuendo, to what belittled influence his parts

had been reduced in the estimation of his people and to what distressing

ridicule he was being subjected by the laughter of the Americans. While

in the receptive mood to which these tactics had driven his mind, he was

in the same perverted manner made to believe that the four guilty

Dakotas turned over to the Chippewas and killed were Winnebagoes. Thus

was the foundation laid for the “Winnebago war” of 1827! The murder of

one Methode, with his wife and five children, was discovered. Following

this, on the 26th of June, 1827, Red Bird, with We-kau and Chic-hon-sic,

called at various places in Prairie du Chien (the garrison and its

stores having been removed just previously to Fort Snelling), obtained

from a trader ammunition and, as some have said, whisky, and left for

the cabin of one Registre Gagnier, who resided with his wife, young son,

baby daughter and an old discharged American soldier named Solomon

Lipcap some two miles from the village. The three entered, begged and

received food, and, taking advantage of their entertainers’ unguarded

condition, shot down and instantly killed Gagnier and Lipcap. Madam

Gagnier, in the frenzy of her excitement, seized the gun of her dead

husband, and while protecting her son finally drove the savages into the

yard, where they scattered. She then ran to the village with her boy,

forgetting the infant daughter, which had been lying upon the bed when

the Indians entered. The posse which immediately returned found Gagnier

and Lipcap scalped, but the girl baby, alive, was discovered under the

bed, though scalped and savagely cut in the neck. Stranger yet, she

recovered and grew to woman’s estate.

Thomas L. McKenney, who gained the woman’s story from her own lips, has

narrated it in a manner worthy so illustrious a writer, disclosing a

heroism sufficient to warrant the erection to her memory of a monument

more than a little pretentious. In the order of mundane things, however,

heroines fare very badly when burly heroes can be found or manufactured

to consume the contributions of a hero-loving public, and probably Madam

Gagnier will get no monument.

Next evening a keel-boat, its sides literally filled with leaden balls,

arrived from Fort Snelling, bearing the dead bodies of two of its crew

and four wounded members, two mortally and two slightly; also the body

of a dead Indian, the result of a conflict of unusual fierceness and

inequality with Sac and Winnebago Indians at the mouth of the Bad Axe

about sunset of the 26th. This boat, the Oliver H. Perry, with its

consort, had gone up to Fort Snelling, under the command of Captain

Allen Lindsay, some time before, and meeting on the route[60] with many

exactions and exasperating and suspicious ovations from the Dakotas

whose villages were along the river, asked and received at Fort Snelling

thirty-two muskets and a quantity of powder and ball.

Arriving on the downward passage[61] at the the last of their villages,

Wa-ba-sha, now Winona, Minnesota, the Dakotas were found dancing a war

dance and making threats, but, offering no resistance (the Winnebagoes

and Sacs present having assumed that dangerous function), Captain

Lindsay very naturally considered all danger over and allowed the boats,

which had been lashed together for protection, to separate. That which

sat deeper in the water, having the advantage of the river’s

undercurrents, gained several miles’ advantage. This boat, commanded by

a Sac half-breed named Beauchamp, was manned by a crew of sixteen,

officers and men. The Frenchmen of the party, growing suspicious of the

actions of new bands of Indians gathering as the boat approached the Bad

Axe, urged the crew to caution, but the usual contempt for Indian

prowess and the thought that all danger had been passed caused a

foolhardy disregard of the Frenchmen’s warning. Naturally a supine

security followed.

The wind had sprung into unusual strength from the east and, in the face

of continued admonition, some of the crew were for tying up for the

night then and there, river crews in those days being much used to the

enjoyment of their own wishes.

A large body of Indians had collected on an island to the west of the

channel near to which the boat must pass, and as it reached this point

was rapidly drifting toward the bar on the island’s edge. Suddenly the

trees and rocks reverberated with blood-curdling war-whoops and a volley

of bullets rained upon the deck, wounding a negro named Peter so

desperately that he afterward died. The crew instantly sought shelter by

lying flat below the water line, because the bullets penetrated the

bulwarks. The second volley resulted in the instant death of an American

named Stewart, who had risen to return the first fire through a

loophole. The exposure causing a target to be made of his head, he fell

back dead, his finger still upon the trigger of his undischarged gun. No

further attempt was made to return the Indians’ second volley, and they,

encouraged by this non-resistance, rushed to their canoes with intent to

board. The men who had remained flat recovered in a measure from their

panic and the boarders were received with a disastrous fire and

repulsed. One canoe in particular was severely received, two of its crew

being killed, and in the death struggle overturned, compelling the

others to swim for their lives.

Presently a voice in the Sac tongue hailed the boat, demanding to know

if the crew were English. Beauchamp, who was a half-breed Sac, answered

in the affirmative.

“Then,” replied the querist, “come on shore and we will do you no harm,

for we are your brethren, the Sacs.”

“Dog,” retorted Beauchamp, “no Sac would attack us thus cowardly. If you

want us on shore, you must come and fetch us.”

Confident that it was impossible to storm the boat with success, the

plan was abandoned by all save two daring Indians, who leaped aboard.

One seized the steering oar and strove to run the boat aground, while

the other discharged some guns found abandoned on the deck, wounding one

white. After this exploit, he hastened to the bow of the boat and, lying

upon the deck, endeavored to assist his companion in stranding the boat.

Succeeding in this, he dropped the pole, and with supreme contempt for

danger began loading and firing, passing unscathed through the return

volley. In the general fusillade Beauchamp succeeded in shooting the

Indian at the steering oar, who dropped dead upon the deck and was

carried into Prairie du Chien, but in retaliation the savage in the bow,

with his third fire, shot Beauchamp and he fell upon the deck mortally

wounded. At this critical loss of the commander, some of the crew were

for an immediate surrender, but the suggestion was quickly vetoed by

Beauchamp, who cried: “No, friends, you will not save your lives so.

Fight to the last, for they will show no mercy. If they get the better

of you, for God’s sake throw me overboard. Do not let them get my hair.”

In the meantime Jack Mandeville, a powerful member of the crew, with the

heart of a lion, jumped into the breach, and as Beauchamp was cheering

him with cries of “fight on,” Mandeville shot the Indian through the

head and he, with his gun, fell overboard. Bullets from the shore

continued to pour into the boat, and one party of the crew favored

attempting an escape in the skiff, but Mandeville, who now assumed

command, threatened death to the first man who suggested anything but

fight.

He routed out the timid and skulkers. Darkness was approaching, which

boded evil for the crew. The bullets were falling with painful

precision, and if the boat was allowed to remain aground it was clear

that every man must die by the most refined torture.

With the judgment and determination of a brave man, Mandeville jumped

overboard and began the use of his herculean strength to dislodge the

boat from the bar.

The savages rushed upon him, but with an armored club he beat them back.

Only warily and at intervals could the whites fire in their efforts to

protect Mandeville. Seeing the futility of this style of warfare, four

of the crew resolutely jumped upon the bar to their leader’s assistance,

and in a space too brief for the relation the boat was put afloat and

the crew quickly and safely working her down stream, the gathering gloom

assisting their escape from the bullets which followed.

The battle had raged for three hours with a fierceness which no Indian

but Black Hawk could precipitate, and there he was, directing a cause

which was none of his own, he and his British band, notwithstanding his

pledges and protestations, fighting the Americans with the ferocity of a

wild beast. The casualties were two of the crew killed outright and four

wounded, two mortally and two slightly, while the loss of the Indians

was variously estimated at from seven to twelve killed and many wounded.

The other boat, which had aboard William J. Snelling, son of Colonel

Snelling, followed, but the darkness saved it from any damage, the

volley which was fired passing harmlessly overhead.

It has been said the Indian force numbered thirty-seven, but these

figures appear ridiculous when parties at Prairie du Chien, present when

the boat landed, reported over five hundred bullet holes in the craft,

and Mr. Snelling reported 693, which would allow eighteen bullets to the

Indian and leave no reckoning for the many which missed the boat

entirely. As this conflict occurred on the same day which saw the

Gagnier family murdered by Red Bird and his companions, it is not

conceivable how Red Bird could have been present. In fact, he was not,

as Black Hawk admitted after his acquittal. He was the leader and he

said so.[62]

It should be noted in this place that the miserable rumor mentioned by

Reynolds in his “My Own Times” and by other writers, of the action of

the crew upstream in debauching certain Winnebago squaws, had no

foundation whatever.

Black Hawk was subsequently arrested for this attack, but the lack of

evidence allowed him to escape an indictment. When discharged he made no

secret of his participation in the affair, but prior thereto he was the

most discreet Indian the imagination can portray. The only reference to

the court proceedings made by the newspapers at the time is to be found

in the Miner’s Journal of Galena for Saturday, September 13, 1828, and

is as follows:

“A gentleman who was present at the time of the arraignment and trial

of these Indians at Prairie du Chien has given us the following

particulars:

“A special term of the United States Circuit Court for the county of

Crawford, sitting as a court of oyer and terminer for the trial of

seven Indian prisoners (Winnebagoes), confined at Prairie du Chien,

was held at that village on the 25th ult., by the Hon. James D. Doty,

additional U.S. Judge for Michigan. Wan-i-ga, or ‘the Sun,’ and

Chick-hong-sic, or ‘the Petit Boeuff,’ were tried severally on two

indictments, one for the murder of Registre Gagnier, as accomplices of

Red Bird, deceased. On the second indictment, Chick-hong-sic was tried

for the murder of Solomon Lipcap, and Wan-i-ga was also tried on the

same as his accomplice. On the third indictment, Wan-i-ga was tried

for scalping Louisa Gagnier, with intent to kill. On first indictment,

defendants were found guilty. On second, Chick-hong-sic guilty,

Wan-i-ga acquitted. On third, Wan-i-ga found guilty; the others

acquitted. In the case of the United States vs. Wau-koo-kah and

Mah-na-at-ap-e-kah, for the murder of Methode and family, a _nolle

prosequi_ was entered and the prisoners discharged.

“There being no bills found against Kanon-e-kah, or ‘The youngest of

the Thunders,’ and Kara-zhon-sept-kah, or ‘The Black Hawk,’ imprisoned

for attacking and firing on the keel boat last year, nor against the

son of Red Bird, they were discharged.

“Counsel for the prosecution, John Scott, Esq., of Ste. Genevieve,

Mo.; for the defense, assigned by the Court, Charles S. Hempstead,

Esq., of St. Louis.

“Wan-i-ga and Chick-hong-sic were sentenced to be executed on the 26th

of December.”

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[Illustration: FORT SNELLING.]

[Illustration: COL. JOSIAH SNELLING.]

[Illustration: MILITARY TRACT OF ILLINOIS.]

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