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CONCISE HISTORY OF THE STATE OE MINNESOTA BY EDWARD D. NEILL. MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. S. M. WILLIAMS, Publishes. 1887. PREFACE The Greek philosopher Aristotle, thought that the commence- ment of a people was "more than half of the whole." In all ages men havelookedbackwith interest to the origin of the particular community in which theylived, and loved to compare the then with the now; the struggles of the pastwith present attainment. To meet a desire for a concise history of Minnesota the author has preparedthe present volume. For sometime,the fifth edition of a large, and to someextent documentary History of Minnesota, con- tainingnearly a thousandpages has been exhausted. It was pre- pared as a work of reference suitable forlarge libraries, andwill alwaysbe of some service. The presenthistory, it is thought, may be adapted to the frontiersman's cabin, the farmer'sfireside, and tothe largenumberof intelligent youth, nativesof Minnesota,who can appreciatetheremarkof the Roman orator"thattobeignorant of what has happenedbefore you were born, will always keep you a child." For valuable assistance rendered, acknowledgments are due to N. H. Winched, State Geologist of Minnesota: H.D. Harrower: IvLson, Blakeman, Taylor £ Company, Xew York City; and Gen. H. H. Sibley, the commander of the expedition, which releasedthe white captives among the Sioux. St. Paul, February, 1887. CONCISE HISTORY OF MINNESOTA. CHAPTER FIRST. FRENCH EXPLORERS AND FUR TRADERS. Stephen Brule, (Broolay) employed by Champlain to collect peltries for the fur company of whichhe was the head, after a three years' absence, among the Indian tribes, borderingon theshoresof LakeHuron, intheyear 161S, returned to Quebec with a lump of copper, and mentioned that he ha 1 heard, from the Indians, of an upper lake connected with, but superior to Lake Huron, which was so long that it required nine days for an Indian to pass, in a canoe, from one end to the other. On the 4th of July, 1634, Jean Nicolet, the son of poor parents at Cherbourg, France,who had been in the service of the same fur company as Brule, left Three Rivers, a trading post on the Saint Lawrence River ninety miles from Quebec, for the distant West, and was the first white man to reach the Green Bay of Lake Michigan. It was not however, until the winter of 1659-60, that white men entered the region, within the present bound- aries of the State of Minnesota. Medard Chouart, born near Means, France, known in history as Sieur des Groseillh-r.-s ( Grozayyay) and his brother-in-law. Pierre d'Esprit, the Sieur Radisson, a native of St. Mulo. were the first Europeans to describe the Mississippi as a "deep, wide and beautiful HISTORY OF MINNESOTA. river comparable in its grandeur to the Saint Lawrence," explore the shores of Lake Superior, and visit the Dakotahs of Minnesota, known among the Algonquin tribes, because of their hostility, as the Nadouessiouk, and for brevity, called by the traders, Siou, or Sioux. After passing Sault St. Marie at the entrance of Lake Superior, they paddled their canoes towards a small stream called Pawabick Konesibis,1 the Ojibway word for Iron River, on modern maps called Little Iron River, and from thence pushed on to the Picture Rocks, called by the Algonquin Indians, Xamitouck Sinagoit, and were the first white men to enter the Grand Portal, an arched cave, which Radisson described in these words: " It is like a great portal, by reason of the beat- ing of the waves. The lower part of the opeuing is as a tower, and grows bigger, in the going up, 1 gave it the name of the portal of Saint Peter, because my name is so called, and that I was the first Christian who ever saw it." After an encampment of three days, at the mouth of the Huron Paver, they journeyed to Portage Piiver on the west shore of Keweenaw Bay, where they heard of rich copper deposits. Carrying the canoes across the peninsula they were launched, and at length they came to Montreal Paver, and in a half day from this stream saw a long point jutting into Lake Superior for two leagues, but only sixty paces in width. Crossing this narrow neck of land they found themselves in a beautiful bay, and going to the bottom of it near a brook, in the vicinity of the modern town of Ashland, erected a rude trading post made of logs, triangular in shape, with 1Baraga, in his Ojibway Dictionary,gives "Biwabikosibi" astb<?namefor Irou Liiver. FIRST EXPLORERS. 7 > tbe door facing the bay. The Indians who had accom- panied them to this point were Hurons, some of which tribe fleeing from the Iroquois, lived for a time upon an island in the Mississippi River above Lake Pepin, about three leagues below the town of Hastings, but owing to a quarrel with the Sioux had retired to one of the lakes toward the sources of the Chippewa, and Black River,in Wisconsin. Afterthey had been about two weeks at Chagouamigon Bay,the Hurons, whohadbeen informed of their arrival, sent a deputation to invite them to visit them on the banks of an inland lake, eight leagues in circumference and four days' journey from the Bay. Here the winter of 1659-GO was passed in hunting. Early in 1660, before the snow had melted, eight dele- gates from the Sioux visited the Frenchmen among the Hurons in Wisconsin. Each of the deputation had two wives. They approached the white men with great deference, and first greased their feet and legs and then stripped them of their clothes, and covered them with hides of buffalo ami white beaver skins. After this they wept over their heads and then offered them the calu- met or pipe of peace, made of the red pipestone, the stem of which, about five feet in length, was adorned with eagle's tail, painted with several colors. For eight days, feasts and councils were held, at which the Sioux expressed their friendship and desire to have thunder, as they called a gun. Afterwards the Frenchmen visited a large hunting village of the Tatanga Sioux, whose wigwams were of skins and mats, and remained with them six weeks. This baud were called Tatanga, the Sioux word Eur buffalo, because they came from their winter cabins, in 8 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA. the northern forests, to hunt this animal on the praries. It is noteworthy that Tatanga is one of the first Sioux words mentioned by any Frenchman. Radisson, in his Journal, describes the Mississippi as having two forks, one running toward the south and the other westward. The tributary known as the Min- nesota River runs southward as far as Mankato. Upon one of the earliest maps of the upper Mississippi River the Minnesota is called the River of Maskoutens (Prairie) Xadouessioux, and, perhaps, in the valley of this stream, the Frenchmen first visited the Sioux. Returning to Chagouamigon Bay, they coasted from island to island on the north shore, and learnedof rivers that flowed into Hudson's Bay. For along period Pigeon River, part of the boundary between the United States and British Possessions, was called Groseilliers. xVfter the middle of August, 1GG0, after a voyage of twenty-six days, Groseilliers and Radisson arrived at Montreal, from Lake Superior, with three hundred Indians, and a flotilla of sixty canoes laden with "a wealth of skins," valued at 200,000 livres, French cur- rency. Before the month had closed, the Frenchmen were on their return, with six others, also the Jesuit Father, Menard, and his servant Jean Guerin, a lay brother. On the 15th of October, Saint Theresa"s day, of the cal- endar of the Church of Rome, the party reached Ke- weenaw Bay, and here, Menardstopped, begana mission, and passed the winter. On the loth of June, 1661, he and Guerin left Keweenaw to visit the Hurons, toward the sources of Black River, accompaniedby a few Indian guides who soon deserted. The route was circuitous, by way of streams tributary to Lake Michigan, and