Lesson 1.1: Lecture - "A Thoroughly Sordid Affair"

Lecture: A Thoroughly Sordid Affair: The treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota, 1851
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Minnesota historian William Watts Folwell neatly summarizes the clarity of vision possessed by Euroamerican immigrants in recently organized Minnesota Territory. It was a vision they shared with their newly commissioned governor, Pennsylvania Whig politician Alexander Ramsey: "From the May day of 1849 on which Ramsey arrived in Minnesota and became the guest of Sibley in his famous stone house at Mendota there was not a day in which ...he was not reminded that the one predominant and absorbing interest of the white people of the territory was the acquisition of the lands occupied by the Sioux Indians, lying west of the Mississippi River." ¹

To the settlers "Suland," that immense expanse of land making up most of the southern half of what would become the state of Minnesota, presented a tempting opportunity. The ever advancing American frontier was, at mid-century, threatening to breach the upper Mississippi River valley barrier. Previously, in 1830, President Andrew Jackson’s Indian removal bill forced the remaining tribes of the Old Northwest (lands north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi) to emigrate across the Mississippi. Now settlers neared the northern reaches of the great river. During the 1830s and 1840s the Sioux people experienced growing pressure to cede their land to the government. The decision by Congress to establish Minnesota Territory in March, 1849 guaranteed an increased white presence in the region and increased desire for Indian land. ²

Stephen A. Douglas, senator from Illinois and who had backed territorial status for Minnesota claimed "somewhere between eight and ten thousand" living in the terrritory in 1849 - generous beyond the actual census listing 4,852 citizens. Neither figure included the Indian people in the area. The vast Minnesota territory, as first constituted, stretched to the Missouri River and was divided into three "organized counties" - Washington, Ramsey and Benton. Six more sprawling and sparsely white-settled areas were linked to the trio of organized counties to create a semblance of a government.³

The naming error was perpetuated in the term "Sioux" and mistakenly applied to the Dakota. In most government documents, newspapers, magazines, and personal letters of the day, the Dakota people were referred to as "Sioux". Thus the term came into common, although incorrect, usage. ⁵

The subdivision of people within the Dakota nation also confused the Europeans. The Dakota divided into separate but allied tribal groups, with four, the Mdewakanton, Wahpekute, Wahpeton, and Sisseton, becoming known to the French as the Sioux of the East. The others, Yankton, Yanktonais, and Teton, were called the Sioux of the West. Collectively, the French applied the term "Santee", a corruption of "Issati," to the four eastern groups. This too was in error since the term referred only to one band of seventeenth century Mdewakanton.

As the French moved more aggressively into the Mississippi River valley, it would be the eastern Sioux with whom they dealt. The Yankton and Yanktonais moved westward, while the Teton, "dwellers on the plains," migrated to the prairies of the northern plains and later divided into seven more sub-tribes.

This course will give particular emphasis to the Mdewakanton, the Dakota people who, from their villages along the Mississippi, became best known to early settlers and thus often featured in the earliest recorded histories of the area. The Mdewakanton villages of Wabasha, Red Wing [under Wakute] and Kaposia [under Taoyateduta, Little Crow] near St. Paul were among the first to be viewed by settlers moving into Minnesota Territory. Wabasha, Wakute and Little Crow were able leaders who had experience in dealing with the government - all had visited Washington, D. C. and held meetings with American officials. They strongly opposed further sale of their tribal lands. During the Dakota uprising in 1862 the three men would assume prominent and but opposing positions.

In his first message to the territorial legislature in September, 1849 Alexander Ramsey called for pressure on Congress to make a land agreement with the Dakota. By the summer of 1851 the government negotiators, led by Ramsey and Luke Lea, the new Commissioner of Indian Affairs dispatched from Washington, were positioned to deal. The eastern Sioux heard rumors of a land sale, and the Mdewakanton, in particular, were skeptical. The Red Wing band talked openly of its opposition.

In July the treaty commissioners proceeded to Traverse des Sioux, near present day St. Peter, to meet with the Sisseton and Wahpeton living farther to the west. Ramsey and Lea believed those groups to be less sophisticated than the Mdewakanton and Wahpekute, thus easier to persuade. The tribal leaders at Traverse des Sioux reluctantly ceded most of the land in southern and western Minnesota Territory. A notable exception was a reservation on either side of the upper Minnesota River. The Dakota were to receive for their land a total of $1,665,000, less a $275,000 payment to satisfy debts to traders and $30,000 for other costs. Interest on the principal would produce a $40,000 yearly cash payment. The Indian leaders, after signing the treaty, initialed another instrument prepared by traders. The document amounted to a blank check with which the Indians agreed to pay unspecified debts supposedly owed to the traders. The traders’ claims exceeded the available cash from the land sale and were later reduced. Nevertheless, the issue of "traders’ papers" greatly embittered the Indians. ⁷

Ramsey and Lea knew that procuring the signatures of the Mdewakantons and Wahpekutes would be a more difficult matter. Those bands would be required to leave their homes and villages if they agreed to the new treaty. The negotiations opened at Mendota beginning July 29, the first meeting indicated that hard bargaining lay ahead.

The Mdewakantons, led by Wabasha, Little Crow and Wakute talked of earlier unfulfilled government promises and demanded immediate payment of money owed them. Wabasha wanted to know what had become of the money from the Treaty of 1837 education fund, discomfiting Ramsey. Little Crow also complained about the administration of the 1837 agreement. Ramsey tried to deflect the complaints, but Little Crow replied, "We will talk of nothing else but that money if it is until next spring." ⁸

Wakute also spoke of broken promises. He recalled the trip to Washington in 1837 when the Mdewakanton leaders "...were told many things which...we found out could not be done. At the end of three or four years, the Indians found out very differently from what they had been told - and all were ashamed." The leader of the Red Wing band feared more treachery from Washington. ⁹

As negotiations wore on Little Crow came to view the sale of the Mdewakanton land as inevitable, while Wabasha continued to resist compromise with Ramsey and Lea. Little Crow changed tactics, attempting to secure a reservation in the east and as close to the woodlands as possible. Wakute, who had deferred to Wabasha’s leadership earlier in the talks, now seemed to follow Little Crow’s more conciliatory line. ¹⁰

Wakute also hoped to obtain an eastern woodland reservation for the Red Wing band and made a specific request. "I was not brought up in a prairie country, but among woods; and I would like to go to a tract of land called Pine Island, which is a good place for Indians. I want you to write this in the treaty." He added that if his wishes could not be accommodated he would "...say no more about it." ¹¹

Little Crow agreed to the treaty of Mendota after government concessions on reservation locations. He defied the rumored threat that the first to sign would be killed by other warriors. A resigned Wabasha was next to attest, followed by 63 others. The Mdewakantons and Wahpekutes received $1,410,000 for their land, with interest on the principal yielding annual payments for the bands. The Mdewakanton refused to initial other documents, aware of the "traders’ paper" controversy at Traverse des Sioux. Yet through their grudging acceptance of the treaty at Mendota, the Mdewakanton agreed to leave their Mississippi River valley homes and move farther west. ¹²

The treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota still needed United States Senate ratification, a process which involved risk for the eastern Sioux. Wakute's concerns were borne out. The Senate agreed to the treaties on June 23, 1852 but, not liking the idea of Minnesota reservations for the Dakota people, simply removed that clause from the agreement. Upon learning of the arbitrary treaty change, the Indians felt betrayed and bitterly disappointed over a proposal which left them without a home. Said an angry Wabasha, "There is one thing more which our great father can do, that is gather us all together on the prairie and surround us with soldiers and shoot us down." ¹³

The eastern Sioux were in a precarious position. They would have to move, but because of government indecision they did not know when and where they were expected to go. The Indians had missed their summer hunt and had lost much of their corn to flood, leaving them nearly destitute. Meanwhile, in the spring of 1852 new settlers, learning of the impending sale of Suland, began moving into lands west of the Mississippi. The government was powerless to halt the flood of illegal immigration as the newcomers set up town sites and farms and hunted on tribal lands. ¹⁴

Governor Ramsey scrambled to save the treaties. He asked Washington to allow the Mdewakanton use of the reservations for 20 to 25 years and then planned to promise the eastern Sioux occupancy rights. The governor traveled to Washington to secure funding for the treaties. Ramsey, upon his return in November, proposed to settle Indian debts claimed by traders by using treaty money. He suggested the Indians sign "receipts" for the cash and trust him personally to handle the traders’ payment. Wabasha and Wakute insisted they would make such distributions. Eventually the Mdewakanton leaders signed the receipts after receiving nearly $3,000 each in cash. The United States Senate later authorized hearings on Ramsey’s dealing with the eastern Sioux. The investigation exonerated him. ¹⁵

The Red Wing Mdewakanton band, returning from its winter hunt in April, 1853, discovered their homes burned to the ground. The Mdewakanton made no attempts at retaliation after discovering the destruction. Wrote missionary Joesph Hancock, the Indians surveyed the ashes of their homes yet "...made no signs of ill temper...". Wakute and his people, "... rebuilt in other places where the whites would not use the land."¹⁷

Settlers pinned their land claim hopes on a provision of the Pre-emption Act of 1841 in which Congress stipulated that an individual could make a claim to government-owned land before it was actually put on sale. This meant "pre-emptors" could put off paying for land that they settled until the government declared it on the market. ¹⁸

Settlers ignored legal niceties. Throughout the settlement period in the Northwest, land surveys lagged behind settlement, so "squatters" - those who claimed land still owned by the United States - frequently lived on their claims. In Minnesota the territorial government overtly encouraged the illegals moving into the territory by repeatedly petitioning Congress to allow the purchase of the land. In 1851, Governor Ramsey appealed to Washington, observing of the immigrants, "They cost the Government neither monthly pay, nor rations - they solicit no bounty ...- but they make the country, its history, and its glory." ¹⁹ Still, Congress would delay until August 4, 1854 before allowing the claims of those living on the unsurveyed lands.

Presidential politics caused further delays in settling the lingering eastern Sioux reservation issues unresolved since the signing of the 1851 treaties. The election of a new president, Democrat Franklin Pierce, in November, 1852, overshadowed the establishment of the new Indian reservation in Minnesota Territory. Pierce’s election meant that the territory received a new Democratic governor, Willis Gorman, and a new superintendent of Indian Affairs, Robert Murphy. On February 24, 1853, the government, after a delay of nearly two years proclaimed the sale of Suland. Murphy overruled earlier plans and declared his intent to locate the Sioux Indian agency on the Minnesota River about 15 miles above the new base at Fort Ridgely. ²⁰

During the summer of 1853 most members of the Red Wing (Wakute as leader) and Wabasha bands left their homes on the Mississippi, and by September 10 encamped at Little Crow’s village near St. Paul. The missionary Hancock reported that some in the Wakute group invited him to join them when they moved west to their new home. Hancock also observed that the Indians were "not all satisfied with going up the St. Peters [Minnesota River]". ²¹

The federal government certified the land sale in 1853 and officially claimed the Indian lands. The removal of the Mdewakanton and Wahpekute commenced, but was interrupted and extended over several years. Wakute’s people left their village, but their exodus was far from final. Tribal members returned to their old hunting grounds around the Cannon River and Red Wing for several years. Yet fewer than 20 families were living off the new reservation by the time of the 1862 Dakota uprising in the Minnesota River valley. ²²

Humphrey, like others, quickly spotted weaknesses in the regulations regarding the establishment of claims. "This claiming business is rather rich," he reported. "The law requires that any man to hold 160 acres must build a house on it, live on it, make it his home, but does not require any particular length of time. The way the merchants, lawyers & speculators take up claims and reside on them is amusing."

Humphrey’s concise, first-person study of one such land fraud near Cannon Falls sums up the situation. The fact that others employed similar practices throughout the county and elsewhere in the territory serves to make Humphrey’s account even more relevant.

The law requires a house. A log cabin that had already been one home was bought for $2. The logs drawed (sic) on to the claim & put up in the form of a pen 12 ft square and 6 1/2 high. A board roof & floor is required & they were borrowed of the next neighbor for a couple of days. One glass window must be had & it was lent by the landlord of the hotel. A door was necessary & it was brought two miles on our backs one evening to be returned early the next morning. The cabin must be chinked & mudded. Fifteen minutes sufficed for that operation. The preemptor [land claimant] must make it his home there & the landlady furnished a pail of provisions for two days support. A witness to all this must needs be had & of course I accompanied him. Two nights we slept in our cabin, on our prarie (sic) home & two very comfortable nights they were....The third morning we took up our borrowed blankets, window & all fixins & came in.²⁴

A woman could not pre-empt under law unless she was a widow or "head of a family." But clever pioneer females found ways to circumvent the restrictions. They couldn’t borrow a movable house in the manner of David Humphrey’s friend, but they could borrow babies. Young women, to prove they headed a household, were known to hire out a child for temporary adoption, swear to their family status, and then preempt land. Later they had the adoption annulled and returned the child to its natural parents.

...your pioneers are encircling the last home of the red man, as with a wall of fire...You must approach these [Indians] with terms of conciliation and friend- ship, or you must suffer the consequences of a bloody and remorseless Indian war...The time is not far distant when, pent in on all sides, and suffering from want, a Philip, or a Tecumseh, will arise to band themselves together for a last and desperate onset upon their white foes. ²⁵

Sibley’s warning was remarkable for its prescience. In August, 1862 the "bloody and remorseless war" he predicted swept across the Minnesota prairie.

Minnesota historian Newton H. Winchell labeled the treaties of 1851 a "monstrous conspiracy," a comment echoed by Roy W. Meyer in his history of the eastern Sioux. Meyer’s indictment is uncompromising:

"From beginning to end - the tactics used to get the Indians to accept the treaties in the first place, the bad faith of the Senate in amending them, the devices employed to force the Indians to accept the amendments, the whole nefarious business of the traders’ paper - it was a thoroughly sordid affair, equal in infamy to anything else in the long history of injustice perpetrated upon the Indians..."²⁶

Conference Center Activity: (The Center @ Hamline)
Upon your completion of the lecture notes and readings, please offer your opinions on the evolution and eventual signings of the 1851 treaties signed at Traverse des Sioux and Mendota. This can be more of a conversational review with the emphasis on your ideas. You do not need to formally reference your readings to support your point of view. Review the ideas of your fellow class members and comment to one another. As instructor, I will read the conversations and possibly add to them or ask questions to clarify comments.

Readings:
Read and become familiar with the following found in the packet mailed to you.

Rhoda R. Gilman, "How Minnesota Became the 32nd State," Minnesota History, 56(Winter, 1998-99), 154-167. The article provides a balanced overview on the political situation in territorial Minnesota and the "fundamental barrier that stood in the way of new immigration" - namely the Dakota people in the south and the Ojibwae in the north. Pay close attention to the maps.

Barbara T. Newcome, "A Portion of the American People: The Sioux Sign a Treaty in Washington in 1858," Minnesota History, 45(Fall, 1976), 82-96.

Frederick L.Johnson, "A Thoroughly Sordid Affair," in Goodhue County, Minnesota: A Narrative History, pp. 20-29.

For more background on the 1851 treaty signings, see Lucile M. Kane, "The Sioux Treaties and the Traders," Minnesota History, 32(June 1951):75-77.

Footnotes for Lesson 1.1
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¹ William Watts Folwell, A History of Minnesota, vol. I: 266.

² Roy W. Meyer, History of the Santee Sioux, 72-73.

³ Folwell, vol. I:241-248, 352. Harpole and Nagle (eds.), vii-viii. June Drenning Holmquist,ed., They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the State’s Ethnic Groups, (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1981) 8. Return I. Holcombe, Minnesota as a Territory, vol. 2 of Minnesota in Three Centuries, 1655-1908 (Mankato: Publishing Society of Minnesota, 1908), 431.

⁴ Here and below, Meyer, History of the Santee Sioux, 4, 10-11. Gary Clayton Anderson, Little Crow, Spokesman for the Sioux, (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1986), 6. Gary Clayton Anderson, Kinsmen of Another Kind, Dakota-White Relations in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1650-1862 (St. Paul, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1997 ed.) n284. Upham, I:104-105. Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, They Led a Nation, (Sioux Falls: Brevet Press, Inc., 1975), 1.

⁵ This course uses eastern Sioux and Dakota interchangeably, and also uses specific eastern Dakota tribal names - Mdewakanton, Wahpekute, Wahpeton, and Sisseton. Over the centuries the word Sioux has lost some of its negative connotation, but as Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve wrote in They Led a Nation (p. 1): "Naturally the Sioux prefer their own traditional name of Dakota."

⁶ Here and below, Folwell, vol. I:266-304. Meyer, Santee Sioux, 72-87. Hancock, Minnesota Collections 10:177.

⁷ Lucile M. Kane, "The Sioux Treaties and the Traders," Minnesota History, 32(June 1951):75-77. Meyer, Santee Sioux, 81.

⁸ Anderson, 61-62.

⁹ Rasmussen, 18-19.

¹⁰ Anderson, 62-63; Meyer, Santee Sioux, 83. Curtiss-Wedge, ed., 80.

¹¹ History of Goodhue County,(Red Wing: Wood, Alley & Co., 1878) 205-206. Roy W. Meyer, The Red Wing Village, manuscript in Goodhue County Historical Society Chesley Library, 33.

¹² Holcombe, vol. II: 308-316. Anderson, 63-64. Folwell, vol. I:285-286. Kane, "The Sioux Treaties and the Traders," Minnesota History 32(June 1951):77.

¹³ Anderson, 65-66; Meyer, Santee Sioux, 84-86.

¹⁴ Meyer, Santee Sioux, 84-85. Wood, Alley, 218-219.

¹⁵ Anderson, 66-69. Folwell, vol. I:297-299; 462-470.

¹⁶ Here and below Meyer, The Red Wing Village, 34. Angell and Miller, 100.

¹⁷ Hancock, Goodhue County Past and Present, 95. See also Anderson, Kinsman of Another Kind, 204 for more on the growing pressure on the Mdewakanton to move.

¹⁸ Holmquist, ed., They Chose Minnesota, 254.

¹⁹ In the words of historian Daniel J. Boorstin, "The Western "squatter" was usually the actual first settler, the pre-emptor, the man who had got there first." See Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans, The National Experience, (New York, Random House, 1965) 74. The Ramsey quotation found in Folwell, vol. I:355.

²⁰ Meyer, History of the Santee Sioux, 88-90

²¹ Joseph W. Hancock to Rev. S. B. Treat, June 14, 1853, ABCFM Papers, MHS.

²² Curtiss-Wedge, ed. History of Goodhue County, 87-88.

²³ Here and below, David Humphrey to Dear Friends, June 23, 1855; Minnesota Historical Society, David Humphrey papers.

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ Roger Kennedy, Men on the Moving Frontier (Palo Alto: American West Publishing, 1969), 51-52.

²⁶ Meyer, Santee Sioux, 87.

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Updated 06/14/02