HISTORY OF THE CHIPPEWA VALLEY - CHAPTER 2


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Transcribed and contributed to the USGenWeb Archives by Timm
Severud Ondamitag@aol.com

Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm

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Faithful Record of all Important Events, Incidents, and
Circumstances that have Transpired in the Valley of the
Chippewa from its Earliest Settlement by White People,
Indian Treaties, Organization of the Territory and State;
Also of the Counties Embracing the Valley, Senatorial,
Assembly and Congressional Districts, and a Brief
Biographical Sketch of the Most Prominent Persons in the
Settlement of the Valley. BY Thomas E. Randall 1875.  Free
Press Print.  Eau Claire, Wisconsin

CHAPTER 2

The settler on any of the western prairies, and the axe men
who enter upon the primeval forests, where no mark or sign
of man's destructive force or redeeming power is seen or
felt, is frequently the subject of strange reflections as he
follows his plow, turning up the virgin soil that through
all the ages has remained undisturbed, or hews down the
stately pine, that for a thousand years has flourished and
grown, unnoticed, uncared for by the hand of man, he wonders
how it occurs that he, of all the people that have lived and
still live on the face of the earth, swarming as it does,
with so many millions, should be the first to appropriate to
his comfort and convenience the blessing so long held in
reserve in Nature's vast store house.

He wonders, too, why his race should require all the
resources of earth, the production of forests, mines,
rivers, lakes and oceans - of the soil plowed, planted,
cultivated and garnered; the flocks and herds, feeding and
gamboling on a thousand hills - for his subsistence, while
other races have remained from generation to generation in
all the untamed wildness of the wild deer and elk on which
they subsist. What of the race that but yesterday was here! 
Have these rivers, fields, and forest, now so peaceful,
always been so calm and still? Or have they like the old
world, been the scene of some savage and sanguinary
conflicts? We speculate in vain on the long ago dwellers
upon the banks of these pleasant streams; their war dance
and savage yells may have been the only sound that ever
waked the stillness of these hills, or a race long since
extinct may have plowed and sowed and built, and loved, and
worshiped, and cultivated all the graces and amenities of
civilized life, but the records of whose deeds and virtues
have been obliterated by the convulsions of Time's
relentless changes. Of the race whose steps are now fast
receding and giving place to ours, we know comparatively
little, as traditions, and their history written for the
past two hundred years by foreigners, is very imperfect. A
brief account of the Indians, who once claimed this valley,
will be the subject of this chapter.

The Chippewas, whose name our river bears, were considered
by the French missionaries as the bravest, most war-like,
and, at the same time, the noblest and most manly of all the
tribes on the American continent. They were derived from the
Algonquin race, or type, and were first met with by the
French on the Chippewa River near Montreal, Canada, in 1642,
and were immediately taken into alliance with them
(politically), but matrimonial alliances soon followed, and
their relations became very intimate. The Jesuit
missionaries speak of the language of the Chippewas as the
most refined and complete of any Indian tongue. Their
territory seems to have been confined at that time to what
is now the New Dominion (SE Ontario) and the lower peninsula
of Michigan.

Of the Sioux or Dakotas, still less is known of their
history, at the time of which we are speaking, 1642 they
seemed to have been in possession of all the territory south
of Lake Superior, west of Lake Huron and Michigan and as far
south as Milwaukee, and west to even beyond the Missouri
River, for at this period they took a Jesuit priest prisoner
at Sault Ste. Marie, and killed him as an intruder on their
territory. And in 1660, the Jesuits having established a
mission at La Pointe on Madeline Island, Lake Superior, were
driven off by the Sioux. Soon after this, probably in 1670,
the Chippewas commenced their inroads upon the territory of
the Sioux on the north and east, and fought their way south
and west to the lines hereinafter described.

In the mean time the Winnebagoes, a migratory tribe from
Mexico, to escape the Spaniards came among the Sioux, who
gave them lands near Green Bay, probably to shield
themselves from the Chippewas. But the Sac and Fox came up
from the South and took forcible possession of their
territory and compelled them to 'Go West,' and they in turn
were crowded out by the Menomonee's.

In consequence of these immigrations and predatory wars the
claims of several Indian Nations to their respective
territories became very complicated and the cause of almost
incessant war amongst them. To prevent this as much as
possible the United States Government, in 1825, authorized a
general treaty to be held at Prairie du Chien between all
the Indian tribes within a distance of five hundred miles
each way. This joint treaty, was signed on the part of the
government by Generals William Clark and Lewis Cass, and by
Wabasha and Red Wing, Little Crow and twenty-three other
chiefs and braves of the Sioux, and by Hole-in-the-Day and
forty other Chiefs and braves on the part of the Chippewas.
The names of the other chiefs and omitted an unnecessary and
not specially interesting to my readers. To fix the
boundaries between the various nations definitely was the
first and principle object of this treaty.  The eastern
boundary of the Sioux commenced opposite the mouth of the
Iowa River on the Mississippi, runs back two or three miles
to the bluffs, following the bluffs to, and crossing the Bad
Axe River to the Black River, from which point the line
described is the boundary between the Sioux and the
Winnebagoes, and extends in a direction nearly north to a
point on the Chippewa River, half a day march from Chippewa
Falls. From this point on the Chippewa, and runs to the Red
Cedar just below the Falls, from thence to the St. Croix
River at a place called the Standing Cedar, about a day's
paddle in a canoe above the Lake on the river, thence
passing between two lakes called by the Chippewas "Green
Lakes," and by the Sioux "The Lake they Bury the Eagles in,"
from thence to the Standing Cedar that the Sioux split, and
thence to the mouth of the Rum River on the Mississippi. The
boundary lines between the Chippewas and the Winnebagoes was
also defined at this treaty, as commencing at this same
point on the Chippewa River, half a day's march below the
Falls, and thence to the source of the Clear Water (Eau
Claire) River, a branch of the Chippewa River, thence south
to the Black River, thence to a point where the woods
project into the meadows, and thence to the Plover portage
of the Wisconsin River.

Thus we see the boundaries of the Sioux, Chippewas, and
Winnebagoes, were brought to a point at the famous half a
day's march below the Falls; we see also that the permit
granted Street and Lockwood, and mentioned in the preceding
chapter, was entirely within the limits of the Sioux
territory, unless they had occasion to go above the Falls of
the Red Cedar, which was not the case as an abundance of
pine was found near and by the creeks that drove those
mills.

The boundaries above were pretty carefully observed by the
respective parties to the treaty a foresaid, except when war
parties were fitted out by the Sioux or Chippewas (the
Winnebagoes remained perfectly neutral,) when the
intervening territory between the Mississippi and the first
described boundary became the theatre of many a hard fought
battle, and hunting here was regarded as very unsafe by all
three of those tribes.

On July 29, 1837, at Fort Snelling, Governor Dodge on the
part of the United States, and Hole-in-the-Day with forty-
seven other Chiefs and braves, on the part of the Chippewas,
signed a treaty ceding to the United states, the lands as
follows: Beginning at the confluence of the Crow Wing and
Mississippi rivers, and running north to the point Lake St.
Croix, one of the sources of the river of that name, thence
along the dividing ridge between the waters of Lake Superior
and Mississippi to the source of the Ocha-sua-sepe,
(Couderay River) a tributary of the Chippewa River, Thence
to a point on the river twenty miles below the outlet of Lac
du Flambeau, thence to the confluence of the Wisconsin and
Pelican Rivers, and thence by various points named, to
Plover Portage , thence back along the boundary between the
Winnebagoes and Chippewas, to a point on the Chippewa River
a half a day march below Chippewa Falls, thence to the mouth
of the Rum River and up the Mississippi to the place of
beginning.

On the September 29, 1837, at Washington City, D.C., Joel R.
Poinsett, Secretary of War on the part of the United States,
and Big Thunder with twenty other Chiefs and braves on the
part of the Sioux, made a treaty, when they ceded to the
United States all their lands east of the Mississippi, and
all their islands in said river.

On October 4, 1842, at La Pointe, Madeline Island, Lake
Superior, Robert Stewart on the part of the United States,
and Po-go-ne-ge-shik with forty other Chiefs and braves of
the Chippewas held a treaty at which all the Chippewa lands
in Wisconsin were ceded to the United States.

It is proper to state, however, that immediately subsequent
to the cession of the last named lands, several bands of the
Chippewas became very much dissatisfied with the treaty, and
with the reservation set apart for them above Sandy Lake,
Minnesota, and begged so hard to come back, that the
Government, in 1854, gave them back several townships and
half townships of the land on the Couderay and other
branches of the Chippewa River, and established an agency
there for the distribution of part of the annuities promised
them by the terms of the treaty, and a consideration for the
value of their land.

One thing will strike the reader as remarkable in regard to
the treaty of 1825, namely, the geographical accuracy with
which the boundaries between the tribes are defined,
especially when we consider that eleven years later when
Congress annexed the northern peninsula of Michigan; the
maps of these territories were so imperfect that great
difficulty arose in defining the boundaries between that
State and this.