Part 2
of
2
mdewakanton's chiefs
Shakopee
mdewakanton chief - shakopee
Shakopee (Shakpe, 'six')
The name of a succession of chiefs of the Mdewakanton Sioux, residing on Minnesota river not far from the present town of Shakopee, Scott coounty, Minn. Three men of the name are mentioned in succession. The first met Maj. S. H. Long at the mouth of the Minnesota in 1817, when he came up to distribute the presents which Lieut. Z. M. Pike had contracted to send them 12 years earlier, and Long found him very offensive. This Shakopee was succeeded by his son, who was known as Eaglehead- Shakopee, and he by his son Little Six (Shakopeela), who was a leader in the Minnesota massacre of 1862.
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Wamditanka
Mdewakanton's Chief - wamditanka
Wamditanka ('Great war eagle'). A chief of one of the bands of Mdewakanton Sioux at the time of the Sioux uprising in 1862; commonly called Big Eagle, and sometimes known as Jerome Big Eagle. According to his personal narrative, recorded by R. L. Holcombe (Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vi, pt. 3, 382-400, 1894), he was born in 1827 at the Indian village near the site of Mendota, Dakota county, Minn., and on the death of his father, Gray Iron, succeeded him as chief. In his youth he often went with war parties against the Chippewa and other enemies of his tribe, and on occasion wore a headdress with six feathers representing as many Chippewa scalps taken by him.
Although Wamditanka took part with the Sioux in the uprising of 1862, he claims that he did not participate in the massacres of the settlers, but even used his influence, in some instances, to save from death both whites and converted mixed-bloods. The evidence shows this claim to be substantially correct, and that he was perhaps pressed into the war by his people. At this time his village was on Crow creek, in McLeod county, Minn. His band consisted of about 150 to 200 persons, including about 40 warriors. Soon after the battle of Birch Coolie, Minn., in 1862, Wamditanka and his band, with others, surrendered to Gen. Sibley. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to three years imprisonment, part of the time at Davenport, Iowa, the remainder at Rock Island, Ill. After his discharge he was converted to Christianity. He was twice married; his second wife was still alive in 1894, at which time his home was at Granite Falls, Yellow Medicine county, Minn. He visited Washington with a delegation of his tribe in 1858, and was one of the signers of the treaty with the Sioux negotiated June 19 of that year.
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Wapasha I
mdewakanton chief - Wapasha I
Wapasha I was the son of a Dakota chief and a Chippewa princess. Born in approximately 1720, he was the eldest of two sons. Despite his Chippewa blood, Wapasha I led the Sioux in several battles with his mother’s tribe. One such incident marks the first recorded reference of his name by the white men.
After a band of Sioux warriors slew several Chippewa, a tribe which had been promised protection by the French, Wapasha and those with him on the raid offered to submit to French justice in order to keep peace with the incoming military forces of the Europeans. On March 9, 1740, the action was recorded by the commander of the French garrison at Mackinac, Michigan. No retribution was taken against the Sioux.
After military defeats at the hands of the British in the middle 1700s, the French began to withdraw from lands they had formerly held in the Mississippi River valley. The French had enjoyed the loyalty of the Indians, who aided them in their defeat with the British. After the French defeat, the English were both suspicious and fearful of the Indians. As a result, there were no English trappers and traders bargaining with the Sioux. The Sioux had developed a dependency on such trade. They had become more accustomed to hunting with rifles than bows and arrows. Fur traded with French trappers brought provisions and ammunition and the Dakota found it difficult to survive without this commerce.
Perhaps also fearing a war with the British, Wapasha I convened a council in 1763 to find a way to bring the British back to this area. Several incidents that took place during the French and Indian War made English trappers apprehensive about returning to the Mississippi River valley. One such incident took place in 1761. A Dakota named Ixkatapay had shot an English trader called Pagonta (Mallard Duck) by the Indians. The two had quarreled earlier, and Pagonta was reportedly killed while sitting in his cabin smoking. To appease the British, it was decided Ixkatapay would be turned over to them for the killing. Wapasha I led the party, composed of 100 men, to the English headquarters in Quebec.
Wapasha’s enthusiasm for peace with the English was shared by the tribe, but evidently this did not extend to submitting one of their own to the justice of the British. By the time Wapasha had reached Green Bay, Wisconsin, there were only six of the original 100 left, Wapasha and five braves. The others had drifted off in small groups. One of these deserting bands had taken Ixkatapay with them and returned to their homelands.
Wapasha I and the remaining five continued to Quebec and offered themselves as surrogates for Ixkatapay in the English court. He explained the plight of his people and their desire for peace, and asked the British to return to the area. Taken with his courage, the British awarded the Dakota chief seven military medals, hanging one around his neck in a ceremony at the fort. Trappers and traders soon returned to the area.
During the American Revolution, the Sioux fought on the side of the British. Wapasha led his warriors against the Sauk and Fox forces which had sided with the rebelling colonists. In British military communiqués, he is referred to as General Wapasha. His aid in the British cause during the revolution was not forgotten. When he traveled to Montreal on one of his many visits to the British army commanders there, he was always greeted with the salute of a cannon.
Wapasha I died of neck cancer January 5, 1806, at a camp on the Root River in Houston County, Minnesota. He was probably somewhere in his 80s when he died, ending a public career that spanned 66 years.
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Wapasha II
mdewakanton chief - Wapasha II
Sometime before his father’s death, Wapasha II became the nominal head of the band. At first, he was low in stature among the members of the tribal council. Wapasha II was a strict abstainer from whiskey, enjoyed the arts of the while man’s culture and tried to bring them to his people. Wapasha II was also a man of peace who tried to keep his people out of war. However, he was leader of the Dakota forces who backed the British in the War of 1812. Allied with other Indians, Wapasha and the Sioux took part in the unsuccessful siege of Fort Meigs, Ohio, in 1813. At the time, the fort was under the command of a young officer named William Henry Harrison, later to become President of the United States.
After the Treaty of Ghent, signed December 24, 1814, the British invited a council made at Drummond Island, about 50 miles east of the Straits of Mackinac. After praising the Sioux for their valor and ability at war, the British offered them blankets, knives and food provisions as thanks for their efforts against the Americans. Wapasha II led the Dakota chiefs in their rejection of the gifts. The Sioux were told they would be consulted before the British signed any treaty with the United States. The British forces withdrew to Canada or back across the Atlantic Ocean. The Sioux, however, had nowhere to go. Wapasha angrily railed the British for betraying their trust and refused to accept their tokens of thanks. He led the chiefs back to their homes to try to promote peace between the white settlers and his people.
Despite the fact both the Constitution of the United States and the Northwest Ordinance of 1782 explicitly stated the right of the Indians to hold their land, by 1825 the federal government was enacting a plan to move all Indians west of the Mississippi. The Northwest Ordinance states, "the utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians. Their land shall never be taken from them without their consent; and their property rights and liberty shall never be invaded or disturbed unless in just and lawful war authorized by Congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity shall, from time to time, be made for preventing wrongs being done to them and for preserving peace and friendship with them."
In an attempt to stop the wars between the Chippewa and Dakota and to regulate other tribes the federal government convened a treaty meeting in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin in 1825. It included chiefs from the Sioux, Chippewa, Sauk, Fox, Menominee, Iowa, Ottowa, Potawatomi, and Winnebago tribes. One of the members of Wapasha’s council aided the whites in arranging the meeting, and traveled to several of the chiefs of different tribes to urge them to attend. The boundaries set between tribes were vague, generally running along rivers. That made little difference, however. Within a few months of the treaty of Prairie du Chien, clashes again erupted.
In 1830, Wapasha II signed a treaty ceding two tracts of land in southeastern Minnesota near Caledonia and Worthington to the United States government. The section near Caledonia was given to the Wisconsin Indians west of the river. As some Indians in the eastern sections of Wisconsin and in Illinois rebelled, Wapasha II and the Sioux still remained on the side of the whites, as did many of the Winnebago of this area. During the Blackhawk War of 1832, though friction had erupted between some Sioux and the officers at Fort Snelling near St. Paul, the Sioux fought with the soldiers against the Sauk Chief Black Hawk.
Also about this time, the Winnebagoes of western Wisconsin had fired upon a boat in the Mississippi River after the fort at Prairie du Chien had been closed. The old enemies from the south, however, were stronger targets of wrath from the Sioux and Winnebagoes. Black Hawk and his band had set out to recover land along the Illinois and Rock Rivers. After suffering several defeats at the hands of the army, Black Hawk fled toward the Mississippi River where he was met by Wapasha II and some Sioux who all but annihilated the Sauks. Black Hawk was finally captured after he fled down the Wisconsin River. Chief One-Eyed Decorah, the leader of the Winnebagoes centered around Black river Falls, Wisconsin apprehended him and turned the Sauk leader over to the Army. Those Sauk who survived, nearly all women and children, fled across the river to Iowa where Wapasha’s band fell upon them again, slaughtering them while they were almost defenseless. The massacre seems out of character for Wapasha. It should be mentioned, however, that the Sauks were known to the Sioux for similar murderous raids while the Sioux men were gone on hunting parties. About a year before the outbreak of the Black Hawk War, the Sauks had raided a Mdewakanton village along Money Creek in Houston County, Minnesota. The Sioux had managed to repulse the Sauks and freed captives that had been taken, among them, Witoka, the daughter of one of the most honored of Wapasha’s warriors, Wahkondeatah.
Wapasha II died at age 63 during a smallpox epidemic that swept through the Mdewakanton Sioux in 1836. His son, Wapasha III, succeeded him as chief.
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Wapasha III
mdewakanton chief - Wapasha III
Wapasha III is the best known of the Sioux chiefs in this area. He was well known for his red hat, and the red tone of the limestone formation on the top of one of the bluffs above Keoxah (Winona, Minnesota) was called "Wapasha’s Hat" by the early settlers. It is known as Sugar Loaf today. His wife was named Wenonah, as was his eldest daughter. The name, in fact, means eldest daughter. There is no record of Wapasha’s daughter jumping from Maiden Rock in Wisconsin.
Wapasha III inherited many problems, which proved unsolvable from his point of view, because of treaties his father had signed. In fact, the turmoil had already started from the second treaty of Prairie du Chien, signed in 1830. Under one of the treaty’s provisions, a half-breed reservation was to be established along the Mississippi River in what is presently parts of Goodhue, Wabasha and Winona counties in Minnesota. When the tract was first assigned, it ran southwest from the present city of Red Wing, then extended through Wabasha County with the boundary line cutting through Chester Township, the town of Zumbro Falls, Hyde Park, Oakwood and Plainview townships. Cutting back toward the river, the boundary line included a portion of northwest Whitewater Township in Winona County. Marriage between Sioux and whites was not uncommon and there was a large number of half-breeds in the area. Both Indian agents and the Sioux requested the allotment of land for those of mixed blood. The establishment of the reservation was never completed, however. A treaty drawn in 1851 tried once again to set the land aside to those of mixed blood. In the 1851 arrangement, the federal government was to purchase the land for $150,000. The U. S. Senate, however, struck the clause from the treaty.
Script entitling the bearer to a certain amount of land had been passed out to half-breeds after the treaty provisions had been drawn up in 1830. Several disputes took place, most settled in favor of the "squatters." While this transpired in the territory formerly ruled by the Sioux, Chief Wapasha III was trying, like his father and grandfather, to keep his people out of wars. Like his ancestors, Wapasha III was shrewd and cautious and a skilled diplomat. But, in a little more than 10 years of his succession to chief, he would become involved in the first outright conflict over the removal of Indians from the western banks of the Mississippi.
Further trouble came when the Wisconsin Winnebagoes were forced to move to the western side of the Mississippi and in 1846 forced to move again, this time up river to a new reservation north of St. Cloud, Minnesota. Much resistance took place but eventually they began moving. Those traveling by water stopped at Wapasha’s Prairie (now Winona, Minnesota). When joined by the land travelers, they decided to make camp along the slough now known as Lake Winona. As many whites were, the Winnebagoes were taken with the beauty of the area; they decided they wanted to settle on the prairie and offered to purchase it from Wapasha III. The agents, backed by the soldiers, ordered them to move. They paid no heed. The Winnebago, the Sioux and the soldiers all prepared for battle. The Indians danced a war dance the second night of the confrontation but armed conflict did not come. Disillusioned, the Winnebagoes headed up river. For his part in the events, Wapasha was arrested and sent to the prison at Ft. Snelling. He was soon released, however.
The Sioux were allowed to remain on their camps along the west bank of the Mississippi River according to an 1853 amendment to the treaty of Prairie du Chien. Hunger coupled with the anger and frustration of the Indians resulted in what is called the Sioux Uprising of 1862.
The Sioux led by a Mdewakanton chief named Little Crow, swept through the southern part of Minnesota and the north sections of Iowa. By the time the Sioux were finally defeated, somewhere between 400 and 500 white men, women and children had been killed. Reportedly, one of the first victims of the uprising was a trader who responded to the complaints of the Indians’ plight by commenting, "As far as I’m concerned, they can eat grass." His corpse was found with grass stuffed inside his mouth. The uprising lasted only about one month, the action of the army was swift and firm and no more merciful than the Sioux. Wapasha’s effort in the uprising was half-hearted. Eventually, he was sheltering whites and half-breeds in his camp. He was one of the first to attempt a settlement of the short-lived war, opening contacts with the army while fighting was still at a peak.
Approximately 1,200 Indians were eventually arrested. Most were Sioux. A five-man tribunal was established when 392 were brought to trial. Of these, 307 were sentenced to death and 16 given prison sentences. The list was sent to President Lincoln for confirmation. Lincoln personally reviewed the cases of all those given death sentences. Only 39 of the sentences were upheld, and one Sioux warrior was later reprieved. The remaining 38 were executed December 26, 1862, in a mass hanging at Mankato, Minnesota. The bodies were buried in shallow graves along the river, and Dr. William Mayo, whose sons founded the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, was among the doctors who dug up some of the bodies to use as cadavers.
Payment of all annuities to the Sioux were stopped and the money was given to settlers who had been victims of attacks during the uprising.
After spending the winter in a prison camp at Ft. Snelling, the remainder of the Sioux were sent to reservations in Nebraska and South Dakota. Other Sioux were forced to those reservations by the army in 1863.
Wapasha III died at the Santee Agency Reservation in Nebraska on April 23, 1876. He is said to have spent his last years in sorrow, pondering the dissolution and degeneration of his people.
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