# History of the Ojibway Nation/Chapter 14

CHAPTER XIV.
PROGRESS OF THE OJIBWAYS ON THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI.
The band or village of the Ojibways, who had dispossessed the Dakotas of Sandy Lake, under the guidance of their chief Bi-aus-wah, continued to receive accessions to their ranks from the shores of Lake Superior, and continued to gain ground on the Dakotas, till they forced them to evacuate their hunting grounds and village sites on Cass and Winnepeg lakes, and to concentre their forces on the islands of Leech Lake, of which, for a few years, they managed to keep possession.
Being, however, severely harassed by the persevering encroachments of the Ojibways, and daily losing the lives of their hunters from their oft-repeated incursions, and war parties, the Dakotas at last came to the determination of making one concentrated tribal effort to check the farther advance of their invaders, and, if possible, put out forever the fires which the Ojibways had lit on the waters of the Upper Mississippi. They called on the different bands of their common tribe living toward the south and west, to aid them in their enterprise, and a numerous war party is ​said to have been collected at Leech Lake by the Dakotas to carry out the resolution which they had formed.
Instead, however, of concentrating their forces and sweeping the Ojibway villages in detail, they separated into three divisions, with the intention of striking three different sections of the enemy on the same day. One party marched against the village at Sandy Lake, one against the Ojibways at Rainy Lake, and one proceeded northward against a small band of Ojibways who had already reached as far west as Pembina, and who, in connection with the Kenistenos and Assineboins, severely harassed the northern flank of the Leech Lake Dakotas.
The party proceeding against Rainy Lake, met a large war party of Ojibways from that already important and numerous section of the tribe, and a severe battle was fought between them. The Dakotas returned to Leech Lake disheartened from the effects of a severe check, and the loss of many of their bravest warriors.
The second division, proceeding in their war canoes against the Sandy Lake village, met with precisely the same fate. They were paddling down the smooth current of the Mississippi, when one morning they met a canoe containing the advance scouts of a large Ojibway war party, who were on their route to attack their village at Leech Lake; these scouts were immediately attacked, and pursued by the Dakotas into a small lake, where the main body of the Ojibways coming up, both parties landed and fought for half a day on the shores of the lake. This battle is noted from the fact that a Dakota was killed here whose feet were both previously cut half off either by frost or some accident, and the lake where the fight took place is known to this day as "Keesh-ke-sid-a-boin Sah-ga-e-gun" "Lake of the cut-foot Dakota." The belligerent parties both retreated to their respective villages from this point, ​their bloody propensities being for the time fully cooled down.
The third division of the Dakotas went northward in the direction of Red River, but not finding any traces of the Ojibways about Pembina, all returned home but ten, who resolutely proceeded into the Kenisteno country, till discovering two isolated wigwams of Ojibway hunters, they attacked and destroyed their inmates with the loss of two of their number. This attack is noted from the circumstance that one of the Dakota warriors who was killed, had been a captive among the Ojibways, and adopted as a son by the famous chief, Bi-aus-wah of Sandy Lake. He was recognized by having in his possession a certain relic of this chieftain, which he had promised to wet with the blood of an enemy, to appease the manes of a departed child in whose stead he had been adopted.
During the same summer in which happened these memorable events in Ojibway history, the Dakotas having been thus severely checked and driven back by their invaders, became hopeless of future success and suddenly evacuated their important position at Leech Lake, and moved westward to the edge of the great western prairies, about the headwaters of the Minnesota and Red Rivers.
A few hardy hunters, mostly of the Bear and Catfish clans, gradually took possession of their rich hunting grounds, and planting their lodges on the islands of Cass, Winnepeg, and Leech Lakes, they first formed a focus around which gathered families from Rainy Lake, Sandy Lake, and Lake Superior, which now form the important villages or bands of the Ojibway tribe, who occupy these important lakes at the present day.
According to Nicollet, "The circuit of Leech Lake, including its indentations, is not less than 160 miles. It is next in size to Red Lake, which is said to be two hun​dred miles in circumference. The former has twenty-seven tributaries of various sizes. A solitary river issues from it, known by the name of Leech Lake River, forming an important outlet, from one hundred to one hundred and twenty feet wide, with a depth of from six to ten feet. It has a moderate current and flows into the Mississippi, after a course of from forty-five to fifty miles."
This quotation from a most reliable source, will give to the reader an idea of the size of Leech Lake, and its great importance to the Indian can be judged by its numerous natural resources. It abounds in wild rice in large quantities, of which the Indian women gather sufficient for the winter consumption of their families. The shores of the lake are covered with maple which yields to the industry of the hunter's women, each spring, quantities of sap which they manufacture into sugar. The waters of the lake abound in fish of the finest quality, its whitefish equalling in size and flavor those of Lake Superior, and are easily caught at all seasons of the year when the lake is free of ice, in gill-nets made and managed also by the women.
At the time when the Ojibways first took possession of Leech Lake and the surrounding country, which is covered with innumerable lakes and water courses, beaver, and the most valuable species of fur animals abounded in great plenty, which procured them the much coveted merchandise of the white traders. The lake itself is said in those early days to have been, at certain seasons of the year, literally covered with wild fowl and swan; pelican and geese raised yearly their brood of young on its numerous islands. From this circumstance Goose and Pelican Islands have derived their names. The incentives, therefore, which actuated the first Ojibway pioneers to fight so strenuously for its possession, were many and great, and soon caused the band who so fearlessly occupied it to be​come a numerous body, and to be the most noted western vanguard of the Ojibway tribe.
At first, while they were yet feeble in numbers, they planted their lodges on the islands of the lake for greater security against the Dakotas, who for many years after their evacuation often sent their war parties to its shores to view the sites of their former villages, and the graves of their fathers, and, if possible, to shed the blood of those who had forced them from their once loved hunting grounds.
Almost daily, the hardy bands of Ojibways who had now taken possession of the head lakes of the Mississippi, lost the lives of their hunters by the bands of the Dakotas, and they would soon have been annihilated, had not accessions from the eastern sections of their tribe continually added to their strength and numbers. In those days, the hunter moved through the dense forests in fear and trembling. He paddled his light canoe over the calm bosom of a lake or down the rapid current of a river, in search of game to clothe and feed his children, expecting each moment that from behind a tree, an embankment of sand along the lake shore, or a clump of bushes on the river bank, would speed the bullet or arrow which would lay him low in death. Often as the tired hunter has been calmly slumbering by the dying embers of his lodge fire, surrounded by the sleeping forms of his wife and helpless babes, has he been aroused by the sharp yell of his enemies as they rushed on his camp to extinguish his fire forever. On such occasions the morning sun has shone on the mangled and scalped remains of the hunter and his family.
These scenes, which my pen so poorly delineates, have been of almost daily occurrence till within a few years past, along the whole border which has been the arena of the bloody feud between the Dakotas and Ojibways.
​For greater security against the sudden attacks of their enemies, the Ojibways on the Upper Mississippi, under the guidance of their wise chieftain Bi-aus-wah, would collect each fall into one common encampment, and thus in a body they would proceed by slow stages where game was most plenty, to make their fall and winter hunts. While collected in force in this manner, the Dakotas seldom dared to attack them, and it often happened that when the great winter camps of either tribe came in contact, fearing the result of a general battle, they would listen to the advice of their wiser chiefs who deprecated the consequences of their cruel warfare, and enter into a short term of peace and good fellowship. On such happy occasions the singular spectacle could be seen, of mortal foes feasting, caressing one another, exchanging presents, and ransoming captives of war.
The calms, however, of a feud of such intensity and long duration as existed between these two combative tribes, were of short and fitful duration, and generally lasted only as long as the two camps remained in one another's vicinity. The peace was considered holding only by such of either tribe as happened to be present at the first meeting, and smoked from the stem of the peace pipe.
It is said, however, that the Ojibway chieftain Bi-aus-wah tried hard to bring about a lasting peace with the Dakotas after he had secured a firm footing for his people on the rich hunting grounds of the Upper Mississippi. And it is a noted fact that his humane efforts were so far successful as to put an end by distinct treaty, to the custom of torturing captives, which was still practised by the Dakotas. From the time that he effected this mutual understanding with his enemies, this bad practice ceased altogether, and the taking of captives became less frequent.
For many years after Bi-aus-wah first took possession of Sandy Lake, which event may be dated as taking place ​about the year 1730, his village remained without a trader, and it was a practice with his bands, as had been before with the tribe when congregated at Shaug-a-waum-ik-ong, to make visits each spring to the nearest French posts on Lake Superior, Grand Portage, and Sault Ste. Marie, to procure in return for their rich packs of fur, clothing, trinkets, fire-arms, and ammunition, and above all, the baneful fire-water which they had already learned to love dearly.
The band who lived at Rainy Lake, and those who had already pierced as far north as Pembina and Red Lake, often joined the Kenisteno and Assineboins on their yearly journeys towards Hudson's Bay for the same purpose; the English in this direction having early opened the trade, and actively opposed the French who came by the routes of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River.