A Life on the American Frontiers: Collected Works of Henry Schoolcraft. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

Чтение книги онлайн.

      CHAPTER X.

       Table of Contents

       Observations on the Leech Lake Chippewas.—Data respecting the former state of the fur trade.—Their turbulent character.—Assassination of Relle by Puganoc.—Causes of the emigration of the North-western Indians.—The unsatisfactory character of their traditions.—Their language.—Brief synopsis of its grammatical structure.

      Leech Lake has been one of the principal posts of trade in the northwest since the region was first laid open to the enterprise of the fur trade, and it has probably yielded more wealth in furs and skins, than one of the richest mines of silver would have produced. European goods were extremely high at the period referred to, at the same time, that furs were abundant, and the ability of the Indians to pay, consequently, ample. The standard of value and computation in this trade, is an abiminikwa, or prime beaver, called plus by the French. A plus, tradition states, was given for as much vermilion as would cover the point of a case knife, and the same price was paid respectively for four charges of powder, or four charges of shot, or fifteen balls, or two branches of wampum. It is related that an outfit of six bales of goods, worth, say $2000, brought from Athabasca, ninety-six packs of beaver, each of which would weigh ninety pounds, at a time when prime beaver was worth four dollars per pound. A fine gun, worth ten guineas, was sold to a chief at one of the northern posts, for one hundred and twenty pounds of beaver, say four hundred and eighty dollars. The post of the Pic, alone, is said to have yielded one hundred packs of beaver, during a single season. From the MSS. of M. Perrault, now before us, referred to in a previous part of our narrative, the rates at which furs were reduced to the plus, at this lake, in 1784, were the following. A bear was estimated to be one plus, an otter, three martens, a lynx, fifteen muskrats, respectively, one plus. A buffalo robe, two plus. A keg of mixed rum, which was then the kind of spirits used in the trade, was sold at thirty plus, and the Indians, when they commenced trading, first put out the furs they intended as pay for their liquor.

      The Leech Lake Indians were then stated to be numerous, although, in common with other northern bands, they had also suffered from the general ravages of the small pox, in this region, two years previous. They were, however, then, as now, deemed a turbulent band, and such was the fear of giving additional excitement to their passions, that the liquor which was sold to them, was put in cache at the entrance of the river, that it might not be delivered to them, until the traders had finished their traffic, (which on that occasion, occupied but a single day,) and embarked on their return for Michilimackinac. Besides the original robbery of a principal trader, which drew upon them the name of Pillagers, their intercourse with the traders has been of a character to require perpetual caution to avoid the recurrence of serious difficulties. It is but two years ago that they confined a trader to his lodge, and threatened him, in such a manner, that he was happy to escape from the country with his life, and has not since returned to it.

      During the winter of 1821-22, a man named Relle, who was employed at Leech Lake, to collect credits, as it is termed, entered the lodge of a hunter named Puganoc i. e. Nutwood, and without much ceremony, obtained the Indian’s furs. He had as he conceived, got consent which the Indian afterwards withdrew. Relle, however, whose business it was to collect furs for his employer, and who had, from long usage, become expert in that employment, did not pay that deference to the Indian’s wishes, which he probably would have done, could we suppose that he considered them to indicate any more, than a mere reluctance to part with the furs. On this point we are without particular information. Be this as it may, Relle took up the furs, and proceeded homewards. Puganoc followed him but without any demonstrations of anger. It might be supposed that he intended in make a friendly visit to the post, for the purpose of further trading, and Relle evidently so considered the circumstance of his accompanying him, for he was wholly unsuspicious of latent revenge. Silent as this passion was kept, it burned, however, in the Indian’s breast, and, in crossing a lake, on the ice, the Indian treading in the hindmost step, (a practice in walking with snow shoes,) he suddenly discharged his piece. The ball entered his victim’s back below the shoulders. He fell dead. Puganoc then drew his knife, cut off two of the voyageur’s fingers, to make it appear that he had been struggling with an adversary, then threw down the knife on the snow, and returned with a report that the man had been killed by the Sioux.

      It may be interesting to notice the fate of Puganoc. Attempts for his surrender СКАЧАТЬ