The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1898-03-19
Interesting Biography of the
Great Indian Mis-
siOnary.
CHIPPEWAS OF l.. SUPERIOR
Some Interesting Points in Re
gard to the History of This
Formerly Great Nation.
Continued from Last Week.

Faces, there is no nation about whom
and Of whose language, customs anC
history, so much has been written
as the Chippewas, or, as Father
Baraga wrote, the Ochippwe, ol
Lake Superior.
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who for
thirty years was officially connected
with Indian affairs in Michigan, was
an extensive contributor to what re-
latesJ to Chippewa history, to the
national traditions, to the customs
and to the cult of the Chippewas, as
well as to the romance of their his
tory. Schoolcraft's works contain
about all that is authentic, and much
that is traditional, of the history of
the people of this Indian nation.
Their historical renown belongs
to the past, while their present status
is melancholy one.
More than two hundred years ago,
the Jesuit Fathers, these devoted
and intelligent Frenchmen, inpelled
by burning zeal for the salvation
of souls, went out, cross in hand,
into the savage wilderness of the
great northwest. These men-who
were good geographers, topograph-
ers and naturalists, apt observers,
and who possessed the skill and in
dustry necessary to render their
discoveries OF value to mankind
tell US that for two hundred years
the Chippcwas had been at war
with the Sioux. These two nations
"buried the Ratchet" in 1925, at the
treaty of Prairie du CHEN, negotiat-
ed by General Cass. This treaty
was supplemented by the treaty of
Fonnd du Lac, negotiated August,
1926, by Gen. Cass and Col Thomas
L. McKenney.
The most glorious, as it is also
the most bloody event in Chippewa
history, was the complete annihila-
tion of the Iroquoian army, which,
about the middle of the seventeenth
century, in gigantic feet of war
canoes, invaded Chippewa soil and
encamped on a point fifteen miles
above Sault Ste. Marie. This camp
was surprised by the Chippewas
during a great storm, and the Iro-
quoin army, which had come more
than thousand miles from the
council fire of the Iroquoian con-
federacy at Onondaga, was butcher
ed in the darkness and confusion of
the attack without mercy, while but
a few stragglers escaped to carry
the story of the bloody disaster to
the cantons of the confederacy. The
scene of this bloody tragedy is
known as Point Iroquois. It's
Indian name translated is: The
place of the Iroquois bones. -
The Chippewa, the Oldest and
most powerful of the Algouquian
nations of the north
west, had for centuries lived upon
the coasts and islands of Lake Su-
perior. The chief canton of the
Chippewas, according to General
Cass, was at the head of Lake Su-
perior, where the national and con-
federate council fire had been burn
ing for centuries. According to
the same eminent authority, this
locality was the centre of the intel
ligence, as it was of the power, of
the Indian nations of North Ameri-
ca, before the advent of the Iro-
quoians on the st. Lawrence, and
long before the whites had
"squatted" upon Indian soil. 1t is
not, therefore, without significance
the phrase l have made use Of:
''The renown of the Chippewas be-
longs to the past!''
The wretched condition of the
Chippewa Indian Of the nineteenth
century may be traced to his condi-
tions in the past and to his sur
roundings during these decades. The
Chippewa is of high born, caste
Indian race. In the plenitude of