Minnesota. Folwell William Watts

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СКАЧАТЬ by Major Taliaferro on the east bank of Lake Calhoun in 1829, and put to learning the art and mystery of agriculture, may be called a school. Philander Prescott was the teacher, and his pupils numbered twelve; the next year he had one hundred and twenty-five “different scholars.” Within a few days after the arrival of these missionaries a Presbyterian church was organized at Fort Snelling, June 11, the first in Minnesota, with the Rev. Mr. Stevens in charge.

      The American Fur Company had an important stockaded post on Lac qui Parle in Chippeway County. The trader there was Joseph Renville, who had been captain in the British frontier service in the War of 1812. He had married a woman of the Sioux by Christian rite, and had a large family growing up. Although Catholic by birth and education, he invited Dr. Williamson to come and establish his mission near him, so that his children might be taught. The mission at Lac qui Parle was thus promptly opened. Dr. Williamson has recorded that this school, begun in his house in July, was the first in Minnesota outside of Fort Snelling. It was continued for many years by his sister, Miss Jane Williamson, who perhaps rendered more lasting service than any of the noble band to which she belonged. After some two years’ study of the Dakota language Dr. Williamson set about what became his life work, the translation of the Holy Scriptures into that tongue. The Rev. Stephen Return Riggs joined the Lac qui Parle mission in 1837, after having studied the Dakota under Samuel Pond. He soon became expert, prepared text-books for the schools, and later edited the Dakota dictionary and grammar, to which all the Sioux missionaries contributed. Mission work begun in 1837 at Kaposia (now South St. Paul) by Methodist preachers, and at Red Wing in 1839 by Swiss Presbyterian evangelists, however praiseworthy for intention, was too early abandoned to have permanent results. Equally transient was the ministration of the Catholic father Ravoux, at Lac qui Parle and Chaska, in 1842. The missions of the American Board to the Minnesota Sioux were maintained until that nation was removed to the Missouri in 1863. The results were sufficient to encourage persistence, in hope of future success, but the great body of the Indians was not affected. For a time this was due to suspicion on the part of the Indians of the sincerity of the missionaries. They could understand the soldier and the trader, but the missionary was a puzzle. He had nothing to sell, he asked no pay for teaching the children, caring for the sick, or preaching the word. Why he should teach a religion of brotherhood, and still keep to himself his household stuff, his little store of food, and his domestic animals, was beyond the comprehension of savages accustomed to communistic life. A greater obstacle lay in the fact that the missionary had first to break down faith in an ancient religion, and the dominance of a body of medicine-men who maintained their cult by a ceremonial interwoven with the whole life and habits of the people. Not less obstructive was the example of most white men known to the Indians, – greedy, dissolute, and licentious.

      CHAPTER V

      EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS

      To discover the true source of any of the great rivers of the world, that is, that one of all sources which measured along the axis of its channel is farthest from its mouth, has ever been an alluring problem to the exploring geographer. David Thompson, geographer of the Northwest Company, in the course of a journey of exploration lasting a year and extending to the Missouri River, on April 23, 1798, reached Turtle Lake, four miles north of Lake Bemidji, and believed himself the discoverer of the true source of the Mississippi. Lieutenant Pike was confident that when on the 12th day of February, 1806, he reached the upper Red Cedar (Cass) Lake he was at the “upper source of the Mississippi.” These claims were either not known or not trusted, and a series of expeditions to reach the “true source” of the Mississippi was begun, soon after the military occupation in 1819. Lewis Cass, known best in American history by his national employments as senator, cabinet officer, and foreign minister, had cut such a figure as colonel of an Ohio regiment and brigadier-general in the War of 1812 that the President made him governor of the Territory of Michigan; an office which he held for seventeen years. That territory in 1819 was extended to the Mississippi River. Its governor was naturally curious to see something of this immense addition to his jurisdiction and the great river forming its western bound. He sought and obtained leave to conduct an expedition. An engineer officer, Captain Douglass, was ordered to join it, and Governor Cass employed Henry R. Schoolcraft, of whom we are to hear later, as mineralogist at one dollar and a half a day. Leaving Detroit late in May, 1820, with ten Indians and seven soldiers, in three birch-bark canoes, Cass was at the American Fur Company’s post at Fond du Lac (of Superior) on the 6th of July. He ascended the St. Louis River and took the Savanna portage to Sandy Lake. With a reduced party he pushed up stream through Lake Winnebigoshish to that upper Red Cedar Lake which Pike had seen fourteen years before. Assured that this was the true source of the Mississippi, he ended his journey. Mr. Schoolcraft doubted, but he was too polite to differ openly with his chief. Captain Douglass on his map gave the lake the name “Cassina,” which, shorn of two superfluous syllables, has remained in use. Mr. Schoolcraft wrote a narrative of the expedition which is very pleasant reading. The return journey, beginning July 22, was down the Mississippi to Prairie du Chien and thence to Green Bay by the Fox-Wisconsin portage. At Fort Snelling the party were feasted with fresh vegetables from the post garden. At the Sioux agency, then on the Mendota side of the Minnesota, some chiefs of the Sioux and Chippeways were got together in council and a reluctant consent was obtained to cease from troubling one another. The high contracting parties were content to gratify the white man, but they understood the farcical nature of the convention. Governor Cass reported the cost of the expedition at $6156.40¼.

      It seems proper to interpolate here some account of the expedition conducted by Major Stephen H. Long of the topographical engineers of the army, in 1823, to the valleys of the Minnesota and Red rivers. Six years before, that officer had made an uneventful journey to St. Anthony’s Falls, of which he left a graphic and appreciative description. His party, escorted by a detail of soldiers, left Fort Snelling on July 9 with Joseph Renville as interpreter and guide. At Traverse des Sioux, Long abandoned his canoes and set out overland by the well-worn trail for Lake Traverse, where he was welcomed at the headquarters of the Columbia Fur Company. On August 2 Long reached Pembina, where he established a monument to mark a point astronomically determined in the international boundary. His instructions had been to strike east from Pembina and trace the boundary to the Lake of the Woods. This he found to be impracticable. Putting his people into bark canoes, he descended the Red River past Fort Garry to Lake Winnipeg, traversed the south arm of that water, and ascended the Winnipeg River to Rat Portage on the Lake of the Woods.

      The homeward journey by the old Dawson route to Lake Superior, along the north shore to the Sault Sainte Marie and thence by the lower lakes and the Erie Canal, was rapidly made without notable incident. Professor William H. Keating of the University of Pennsylvania, who was geologist of the expedition, published a narrative abounding in varied and interesting knowledge. It will ever remain indispensable to the historian of the period and region.

      Major Long had been accompanied from Fort Snelling to Pembina by an Italian gentleman of a romantic and enterprising nature, Giacomo Constantino Beltrami by name. Little is known of his early life beyond the facts that he had held military and civil appointments, and had, for reasons not revealed, found it desirable to absent himself from Italy. He came to America full of zeal to be the discoverer of the true source of the Mississippi, and thus place himself in the company of great Italian explorers. Agent Taliaferro came upon him in Pittsburg and offered to further his ambition. They reached Fort Snelling on the 10th of May, 1823, by the steamboat Virginia, the first steam vessel to reach that post. The crowd of wondering Indians gathered on the levee were sufficiently impressed by the bulk of the white man’s fire canoe; but the scream of her steam whistle, opportunely let out, sent them scampering far off on the prairie.

      When Beltrami at Pembina found Major Long pointing his canoes down the Red River, he detached himself, and with a slender outfit and uncertain guides struck out to the southeast, where he expected to find the object of his journey. After a few days of hardship he reached the south shore of Red Lake, and there he found a “bois-brulé” who guided him up a tributary then called Bloody River. It is marked “Mud Creek” on modern maps. A short portage brought him to a small, heart-shaped lake, to which he gave the name “Lake Julia,” in memory of a deceased friend. СКАЧАТЬ