The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1907-05-16

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{ could have easily turned out thou
sand warriors at that time, had
Joined Hole-in-the-Da the Indian
massacre of settlers in 1862 would
have been one of the worst recorded
in the annals of the country. Their
services were most willingly accepted,
and Commissioner Dole thanked them
very heartily for their support. When
the chief requested him to try and Sc
cure them annuities he promised them
he would do so. How he did it will
be shown later. III
Up to 1855 the Chippewas occupied
all the country of which they had dis
possessed the Sioux hundred years
before, and as the white settlers began
to crowd upon their lands the govern
ment made treaty that year which
transferred to the public domain
millions of acres, the Chippewas re-
serving the present reservations
throughout the state as they are
known today. The Mile Laos only
reserved the four fractional townships
bordering the south shores of Mile
Laos lake. 1t was several years be-
fore they really understood the exact
boundaries of their reserve, not know
ing anything about surveyors lines
or the definitions embraced in the de-
scriptions. They supposed they had
reserved all the lands around Mile
Laos lake. especially those within sew
eral miles of the shore, and not until
e. o. Garrison was sent there by the
government in 1868 to locate the diff
ferent county lines did they find out
to what little space they had been con-
fined. EGO. Garrison has detailed to
me the difficult time he had to explain
to them why they could not have all
the land surrounding the lake.
He said there were eight good sized
villages scattered around on it's
shores and over three thousand In
dams occupied them.
During the winter 1853 a delega-
ton of the chiefs was invited to go to
Washington by the Indian commits
sioner to make the treaty promised
them to obtain annuities. They held
a general council of the tribes and
they went instructed to make any
treaty they liked, except that under no
consideration were they to do any
thing that would dispossess them of
the lands comprising their old
homes. Arriving at Washington they
met in the commissioners Office and
stated what they were instructed to do
and what not to do. The writer OBJ
tanned this information from the vol
luminous records on file in Wash
ington when he was there few years
ago with the chiefs trying to obtain
some redress for their damages. He,
in company with a committee of SEN
ators, went to the department to find
out the statuts of those Indians in
order to see if the department could
allow an appropriation to reimburse
the Indians for their losses by the
white settlers taking their improve
ments. The old record of all the con-
versation between the commissioner
and the delegation of chiefs, when the
treaty was made in 1868, was gone
over. The head chief, Shaw-bosh-
kung, was the spokesman, and he
stated they wanted to sell the Chin
quak (pine trees) but not the land. It
was explained to him that the govern
ment could not buy stumpage, but it
would buy land, trees and all. They
would not consent to that and the
treaty business was likely to fall
through, a thing the government off,
Gals were determined not to allow if
possible, for if this delegation of In
dams returned to Mile Laos dissatis-
fed it meant serious trouble, and the
government was not hunting for more
trouble at that particular time. The
officials felt as though they we're in
honor bound to reward these Indians
for their meritorious action in going
to the relief of Fort Ripley in defense
of the government. A solution of the
affair was finally agreed upon, viz,
that treaty be drawn up stating that
the reservation would be coded to the
government and a provision would be
inserted to the effect that the Indians
would always keep the land. It
seems that a verbal agreement was
made with them that the government
would cut and remove the pine to re-
imburse the treasury for the money
paid in annuities. But the treaty
does not show anything of this. It
simply goes on in the general form of
treaties when lands are ceded, and a
little provision is inserted something
like this. "By the twelfth article of