XIII Portage des Sioux
“Come and make treaties of friendship.”
As his brother had done at the close of the Revolution, so now William Clark sent to the tribes to make peace after the War of 1812.
“No person ought to be lazy to be de bearer of such good news,” said old Antoine Le Claire, the interpreter.
Up the rivers and toward the Lakes, runners carried the word of the Red Head Chief, “Come, come to St. Louis!”
To the clay huts of the sable Pawnees of the Platte, to the reed wigwams of the giant Osages, to the painted lodges of the Omahas, and to the bark tents of the Chippewas, went “peace talks” and gifts and invitations.
“De Iowas are haughty an’ insolent!” St. Vrain, first back, laid their answer on the table.
“De Kickapoo are glad of de peace, but de Sauk an’ Winnebago insist on war! De Sauk haf murdered deir messenger!”
That was Black Hawk. With a war party from Prairie du Chien he was met by the news of peace.
“Peace?” Black Hawk wept when he heard it. He had been at the battle of the Thames.
“De messenger to de Sioux are held at Rock River!”
One by one came runners into the Council Hall, and, cap in hand, stood waiting. Outside, their horses pawed on the Rue, their boats were tied at the river.
“Some one must pass Rock River, to the Sioux, Chippewas, and Menomonees,” said Clark. Not an interpreter stirred.
“We dare not go into dose hostile countrie,” said Antoine Le Claire, spokesman for the rest.
“What? With an armed boat?”
The silence was painful as the Governor looked over the council room.
“I will go.”
Every eye was turned toward the speaker, James Kennerly, the Governor’s private secretary, the cousin of Julia and brother of Harriet of Fincastle. The same spirit was there that led a whole generation of his people to perish in the Revolution. His father had been dragged from the field of Cowpens wrapped in the flag he had rescued.
At the risk of his life, when no one else would venture, the faithful secretary went up the Mississippi to bring in the absent tribes. Black-eyed Elise, the daughter of Dr. Saugrain, wept all night to think of it. Governor Clark himself had introduced Elise to his secretary. How she counted the days!
“The Chippewas would have murdered me but for the timely arrival of the Sioux,” said Kennerly, on his safe return with the band of Rising Moose.
“The Red Coats are gone!” said Rising Moose. “I rush in. I put out the fire. I save the fort.”
Without waiting for troops from St. Louis, forty-eight hours after the news of peace the British had evacuated Prairie du Chien. A day or two later they returned, took the cannon, and set fire to the fort with the American flag flying.
Into the burning fort went Rising Moose, secured the flag and an American medal, and brought them down to St. Louis.
While interpreters were speeding by horse and boat over half a hundred trails, Manuel Lisa, sleepless warden of the plains, arrived with forty-three chiefs and head men of the Missouri Sioux. Wild Indians who never before had tasted bread, brought down in barges camped on the margin of the Mississippi, the great council chiefs of their tribes, moody, unjoyous, from the Stony Mountains. For weeks other deputations followed, to the number of two thousand, to make treaties and settle troubles arising out of the War of 1812.
Whether even yet a council could be held was a query in Governor Clark’s mind. Across the neighbouring Mississippi, Sacs, Foxes, Iowas were raiding still, capturing horses and attacking people. That was Black Hawk.
The eyes of the Missouri Sioux flashed. “Let us go and fight those Sacs and Iowas. They shall trouble us no more.” With difficulty were they held to the council.
There was a steady and unalterable gloom of countenance, a melancholy, sullen musing among the gathered tribes, as they camped on the council ground at Portage des Sioux on the neck of land between the two rivers at St. Charles. Over this neck crossed Sioux war parties in times past, avoiding a long detour, bringing home their scalps.
Resplendent with oriental colour were the bluffs and the prairies. Chiefs and warriors had brought their squaws and children,—Sioux from the Lakes and the high points of the Mississippi in canoes of white birch, light and bounding as cork upon the water; Sioux of the Missouri in clumsy pirogues; Mandans in skin coracles, barges, dug-outs, and cinnamon-brown fleets of last year’s bark.
The panorama of forest and prairie was there,—Sioux of the Leaf, Sioux of the Broad Leaf, and Sioux Who Shoot in the Pine Tops, in hoods of feathers, Chinese featured Sioux, of smooth skins and Roman noses, the ideal Indian stalking to and fro with forehead banded in green and scarlet and eagle plumes.
For Wabasha, Little Crow, and Red Wing had come, great sachems of the Sioux nation. The British officers at Drummond’s Island in Lake Huron had sent for Little Crow and Wabasha.
“I would thank you in the name of George III. for your services in the war.”
“My father,” said Wabasha, “what is this I see on the floor before me? A few knives and blankets! Is this all you promised at the beginning of the war? Where are those promises you made? You told us you would never let fall the hatchet until the Americans were driven beyond the mountains. Will these presents pay for the men we lost? I have always been able to make a living and can do so still.”
“After we have fought for you,” cried Little Crow, “endured many hardships, lost some of our people, and awakened the vengeance of our powerful neighbours, you make a peace and leave us to obtain such terms as we can! You no longer need us and offer these goods for having deserted us. We will not take them.”
Kicking the presents contemptuously with his foot, Little Crow turned away.
“Arise, let us go down to the Red Head Parshasha!” In handsome bark canoes propelled by sails alone, the Sioux came down to St. Louis.
Walking among their elliptical tents, lounging on panther skins at their wigwam doors, waited the redmen, watching, lynx-eyed, losing nothing of the scene before them. Beaded buckskin glittered in the sun, tiny bells tinkled from elbow to ankle, and sashes outrivalled Louisiana sunsets.
Half-naked Osages with helmet-crests and eagle-quills, full-dressed in breech-clouts and leggings fringed with scalp-locks, the tallest men in North America, from their warm south hills, mingled with Pottawattamies of the Illinois, makers of fire, Shawnees with vermilion around their eyes, Sacs, of the red badge, and Foxes, adroitest of thieves, all drumming on their tambourines. Winnebagoes, fish eaters, had left their nets on the northern lakes, Omahas their gardens on the Platte, and Ojibway arrow makers sat chipping, chipping as the curious crowds walked by. For all the neighbouring country had gathered to view the Indian camp of 1815.
Oblivious, contemptuous perhaps, of staring crowds, the industrious women skinned and roasted dogs on sticks, the warriors gambled with one another, staking their tents, skins, rifles, dogs, and squaws. Here and there sachems were mending rifles, princesses carrying water, children playing ball.
About the first of July, Governor Clark of Missouri, Governor Ninian Edwards of Illinois, and Auguste Chouteau of St. Louis, opened the council,—one of the greatest ever held in the Mississippi Valley.
Auguste Chouteau, prime vizier of all the old Spanish commandants, now naturally slipped into the same office with Clark, and Governor Edwards of Illinois, who as a father had guarded the frontier against the wiles of Tecumseh, and had risked his entire fortune to arm the militia,—all in queues, high collared coats, and ruffled shirts, faced each other and the chiefs.
In front of their neatly arranged tents sat the tawny warriors in imposing array, with dignified attention to the interpretation of each sentence.
“The long and bloody war is over. The British have gone back over the Big Water,” said Governor Clark, “and now we have sent for you, my brothers, to conclude a treaty of peace.”
“Heigh!” cried all the Indians in deep-toned resonance that rolled like a Greek chorus to the bluffs beyond. The sky smiled down as on the old Areopagus, the leaves of the forest rustled, the river swept laughing by.
“Every injury or act of hostility by one or either of us against the other, shall be mutually forgiven and forgot.”
“Heigh! heigh! heig-h!”
“There shall be perpetual peace and friendship between us.”
“Heigh!”
“You will acknowledge yourselves under the protection of the United States, and of no other nation, power, or sovereign whatsoever.”
“Heigh!”
A Teton Sioux who had come down with Lisa struggled to his feet, approached, shook hands with the commissioners, then retreated and fixed his keen eye on the Governor. His voice rang clear over the assembled thousands,—
“We have come down expressly to notify you, our father, that we will assist in chastising those nations hostile to our government.”
The two factions faced each other. Scowls of lightning hate flashed over the council. But the wisdom and tact of Clark were equal to regiments. “The fighting has ended,” he said. “The peace has come.”
“Heigh!” shouted all the Indians. “Heig-h!”
Partisan was there, the Teton chief, who with Black Buffalo had made an attempt to capture Clark on the way to the Pacific. And now Partisan was bristling to fight for Clark.
Wabasha arose, like a figure out of one of Catlin’s pictures, in a chief’s costume, with bullock horns and eagle feathers. There was a stir. With a profile like the great Condé, followed by his pipe bearers with much ceremony, the hereditary chief from the Falls of St. Anthony walked up to Governor Clark.
“I shake hands,” he said.
Every neck was craned. When before had Wabasha stood? In their northern councils he spoke sitting. “I am called upon to stand only in the presence of my Great Father at Washington or Governor Clark at St. Louis. But I am not a warrior,” said Wabasha. “My people can prosper only at peace with one another and the whites. Against my advice some of my young men went into the war.”
The fiery eyes of Little Crow flashed, the aquiline curve of his nose lifted, like the beak of an eagle. He had come down from his bark-covered cabin near St. Paul.
“I am a war chief!” said Little Crow. “But I am willing to conclude a peace.”
“I alone was an American,” said Rising Moose, “when all my people fought with the British.” All the rest of his life Tammaha, Rising Moose, wore a tall silk hat and carried Governor Clark’s commission in his bosom.
Big Elk, the Omaha, successor of Blackbird, spoke with action energetic and graceful.
“Last Winter when you sent your word by Captain Manuel Lisa, in the night one of the whites wanted my young men to rise. He told them if they wanted good presents, to cross to the British. This man was Baptiste Dorion. When I was at the Pawnees I wanted to bring some of them down, but the whites who live among them told them not to go, that no good came from the Americans, that good only came from the British. I have told Captain Manuel to keep those men away from us. Take care of the Sioux. Take care. They will fly from under your wing.”
Sacs who had been hostile engaged in the debate. Noble looking chiefs, with blanket thrown around the body in graceful folds, the right arm, muscular and brawny, bare to the shoulder, spoke as Cato might have spoken to the Roman Senate.
“My father, it is the request of my people to keep the British traders among us.” As he went on eloquently enumerating their advantages in pleading tone and voice and glance and gesture,—hah! the wild rhetoric of the savage! how it thrilled the assembled concourse of Indians and Americans!
Clark shook his head. “It cannot be. We can administer law, order, and justice ourselves. Come to us for goods,—the British traders belong beyond the border.”
The Indians gave a grunt of anger.
“It has been promised already,” cried another chief. “The Americans have double tongues!”
“Heigh!” ran among the Indians. Many a one touched his tongue and held up two fingers, “You lie!”
With stern and awful look Clark immediately dismissed the council. The astonished chiefs covered their mouths with their hands as they saw the commissioners turn their backs to go out.
That afternoon a detachment of United States artillery arrived and camped in full view of the Indians. They had been ordered to the Sac country. Colonel Dodge’s regiment of dragoons, each company of a solid colour, blacks and bays, whites, sorrels, grays and creams, went through the manœuvres of battle, charge and repulse, in splendid precision. It was enough. The Sac chiefs, cowed, requested the renewal of the council.
“My father,” observed the offending chief of the day before, “you misunderstood me. I only meant to say we have always understood from our fathers that the Americans used two languages, the French and the English!”
Clark smiled and the council proceeded.
But by night, July 11, the Sacs, Foxes, and Kickapoos secretly left the council. At the same time came reports of great commotion at Prairie du Chien where the northern tribes were divided by the British traders.
Head bent, linked arm in arm with Paul Louise, his little interpreter, the giant Osage chief, White Hair, gave strict attention. White Hair had been in St. Clair’s defeat, and in seeking to scalp a victim had grasped—his wig! This he ever after wore upon his own head, a crown of white hair. He said, “I felt a fire within me,—it drove me to the fight of St. Clair. His army scattered. I returned to my own people. But the fire still burned, and I went over the mountains toward the western sea.”
Every morning the Osages set up their matutinal wail, dolefully lamenting, weeping as if their hearts would break.
“What is the matter?” inquired Governor Clark, riding out in concern.
“We are mourning for our ancestors,” answered the chief, shedding copious tears and sobbing anew, for ages the custom of his people.
“They are dead long ago,—let them rest!” said the Governor.
Brightening up, White Hair slipped on his wig and followed him to the council.
Houseless now and impoverished Black Partridge and his people clung to Colonel George Davenport as to a father. Poor helpless Pottawattamies!
“Come with me,” said Davenport, “I will take you to St. Louis.”
So down in a flotilla of canoes had come Davenport with thirteen chiefs, all wreathed in turkey feathers, emblems of the Pottawattamies. No more they narrated their heroic exploits in fighting with Tecumseh.
Grave, morose, brooding over his wrongs, Black Partridge was seventy now, his long coarse unkempt hair in matted clusters on his shoulders, but figure still erect and firm. “I would be a friend to the whites,” he said. “I was compelled to go with my tribe.” The silver medallion of George Washington was gone from his breast. Many and sad had been the vicissitudes since that day, when, in a flood of tears, he had thrown it down at the feet of the commander at Fort Dearborn. Tall, slim, with a high forehead, large nose and piercing black eyes, with hoops of gold in his ears, Black Partridge was a typical savage,—asking for civilisation. But it rolled over him. Here and there a missionary tarried to talk, but commerce, commerce, the great civiliser, arose like a flood, drowning the redmen.
“The settlements are crowding our border,” Black Partridge spoke for his people on their fairy lake, Peoria. “And whom shall we call Father, the British at Malden or the Americans at St. Louis? Who shall relieve our distresses?”
“Put it in your mind,” said Auguste Chouteau, the shrewd old French founder of St. Louis, “put it in your mind, that when de British made peace with us, dey left you in de middle of de prairie without a shade against sun or rain. Left you in de middle of de prairie, a sight to pity. We Americans have a large umbrella; keeps off de sun and rain. You come under our umbrella.”
And they did.
The Indian has a fine sense of justice. The situation was evident. Abandoned by the British who had led him into the war, he stood ready at last to return to the friends on whom he was most dependent.
One by one the chiefs came forward and put their mark to the treaty of peace and friendship. Clark brought the peace pipes,—every neck was craned to scan them.
Sioux pipes sometimes cost as much as forty horses,—finely wrought pipes of variegated red and white from the Minnesota quarries, Shoshone pipes of green, and pipes of purple from Queen Charlottes, were sold for skins and slaves,—but these, Clark’s pipes of silver bowls and decorated stems, these were worth a hundred horses!
Puffing its fragrant aroma, the fierce wild eye of the savage softened. Twenty thousand dollars’ worth of goods was distributed in presents, flags, blankets, and rifles, ornaments and clothing.
“Ah, ha! Great Medicine!” whispered the Indians as the beautiful gifts came one by one into their hands.
“We need traders,” said Red Wing, sliding his hand along the soft nap of the blankets. “That made us go into the war. Without traders we have to clothe ourselves in grass and eat the earth.”
“You shall have traders,” answered Clark. “I shall not let you travel five or six hundred miles to a British post.”
Every September thereafter he sent them up a few presents to begin their fall hunting, and counselled his agents to listen to their complaints and render them justice.
“We must depend on policy rather than arms,” said the Governor. “For they are our children, the wards of the nation.”
The Indians were dined in St. Louis and entertained with music and dancing. By their dignity, moderation, and untiring forbearance, the Commissioners of Portage des Sioux exemplified the paternal benevolence of the Government.
At the end of the council Lisa started back with his chiefs, on a three months’ voyage to their northern home, and on the last day of September Clark dismissed the rest.
Thus making history, the summer had stolen away. All next summer and the next were spent in making treaties, until at last there was peace along the border.
“Did you sign?” finally asked some one of Black Hawk of the British band.
“I touched the goose quill,” answered the haughty chief.
So ended the War of 1812.