The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1905-10-20
THE CAUSES WORCESTERSHIRE |NKPADUTAHM MASSACRE:
Paper Read By Thomas Hughes Before State
Historical Society, Monday, Oct. 9, 1905.


officer.
Both Indians and whites at first
thought as the two surviving children
had reported, that the dastardly deed
was the work of some of their providing
Indian foes, but the inability to find
the bodies of either Lott or his stepson,
and the discovery of the telltale wag-
on track soon revealed to the satisfac
ton of all who the real murderers were.
Places where the fugitives had stopped
and people who knew them, with whom
they had talked. and who had seen in
their possession the gun and pony of
Sintomnidutah, were also found putting
the matter beyond doubt.
Inkpadutah, the brother of Sintomni-
the Red Top band, and when he knew
that white men were the slayers of his
brother and family, it was only upon
the most positive assurance given by
the military at Fort Ridgely and at a
number of councils held between the
whites and the Indians along the Des
Moines to the effect that the white peo-
pie emphatically discountenanced the
dastardly deed and would speedily APP
prehend and hang the murderers, or
turn them over to the Indians for pun
ishment, that an immediate massacre
of the settlers was averted.
Coroner John Johns and Granville
Berkeley, the prosecuting attorney of
Hamilton county, went up and viewed
the remains of the murdered Indians
and brought back with them Sintomni-
dutah's skull under the preteXt that
they wished to examine it for marks of
violence. a coroner's jury was then
summoned at Homer, the county seat,
and the late chiefs surviving son and
daughter and other witnesses examined
before it, but the whole proceeding was
turned into farce and Joke 1t is
said Berkeley acted as interpreter as
well as attorney at the inquest, and
humorously applied Greek Technology
to Indian words and disputed in a ban
tering way with an old frontier man
named William II. Miller as to the cor
rect translation. 1t is also said that
instead of burying the chiefs skull or
4 Is. e. "A
to Il pole over his house.
All this did not tend to allay the
suspicious of the Indians as to the
white mans sincerity in denouncing the
murder and promise to avenge it. In
fact no further effort was made by the
authorities to apprehend the murderers,
though the Indians were kept stuffed
with many fair promises all that year
and the next.
By 1856 it was very evident to Ink
padutah that all these promises were in
bad faith, that in fact the whites never
intended to apprehend the murderers,
and if the brutal death of his mother,
brother and relatives was ever to be
avenged it must be done by himself
after the custom of his fathers. That
such Il wild, eXpatriated band of saw
ages, already ill disposed toward the
whites because of the appropriation of
their lands should resort to desperate
deeds under such added provocation is
not to be wondered at.
A massacre of the white settlers was
often discussed at their camp fires dur
ing the fall and winter of 1856 and war
dances were frequently held to work up
their courage to the proper pitch.
Joshpadutah, the orphan son of Sin
tomnidutah, had since his parents muir
der been brought up by Il white family
named Palmer, but made frequent Wis
its to his Indian relatives. On these
visits he discovered the murderous in
tent of Inkpadutah and his followers
and fully warned his white benefactors
of their danger.
The whites, however, paid no heed to
reports of peril the Indian youth brought
them, and finally about midwinter, fear
ing the threats of his own people if he
lived any longer among the whites,
JOSH" as he was called, suddenly dis
appeared and was never heard of again.
In January, 1857, Inkpadutah and his
band started down the Little Sioux riv-
er and were very insolent and overbear-
ing to all the settlers. At Smithland
they were turned back by them. 1t
is claimed that dog bit one of the
Indians and he shot the dog The OWL
er of the dog in his anger struck the
Indian. The settler fearing trouble went |
to the Indian camp and took away all
their guns. The next morning, the In
dams went to the house where their |
guns had been stored and finding only
woman at home they took back their
guns but offered no violence to the wo-
man. Returning up the river in an
lglier mood than ever they entered the |
house of Abner Bell on Feb. 2lst, 1857 |
md drove the family from the house
md killed some cattle and plundered