This final installment of Judge Ambrose Call's record of the Indian raids in northwest Iowa delves into the encounters leading up to the Spirit Lake massacre. It was published on December 24, 1902, in the Upper Des Moines Republican:
In the autumn of 1856, however,
Inkpadutah and his followers came down from the northwest, passing down the
East fork of the Rock in Lyon county, thence on the Floyd and Little Sioux
rivers, creating consternation wherever they went; the helpless settlers
repeatedly called for assistance from the state and government but their call
was unheeded. Major Williams had been
appointed by Gov. Grimes to do what he could to protect the settlers on the
frontier, but he had no resources and consequently was powerless.
The Indians crossed the Minnesota line,
going south, about Nov. 15th and were at Sutherland and working up
the Little Sioux by Jan. 1st, 1857.
They followed the line of settlements, robbing cabins, killing stock,
running the settlers out, taking their guns and abusing their wives, becoming
more bold and insolent as they advanced until they reached Clay county. I copy from local historians the record of
their depredations from Peterson up to Lost Island Lake and Spirit Lake. Their depredations at Peterson are described
by the Clay county historian, Gilbrath, in the following language: “The Clay county settlers had heard of the
depredations they were committing and were thoroughly alarmed for the safety of
themselves and property. When they came
to the home of Mr. Bicknell, and finding no one there, he with his family
having gone to Mr. Kirchner’s, across the river, they immediately appropriated
everything that met their fancy. The
next day they made their appearance at the
Kirchner house, where they found the
terror-stricken settlers huddled together.
Without any ceremony they captured all the arms to be found, killed the
cattle and took what they wanted. After
remaining in the Peterson settlement a day and a night they pushed on, leaving
the whites badly frightened but thankful they had escaped with their
lives. The band of bloodthirsty Sioux
then proceeded to the house of Ambrose Mead, who was absent at Cedar
Falls. Previous to leaving for this
place he had arranged with a Mr. Taylor and family to remain with Mrs. Mead and
the children during his stay. When the
Indians came Mr. Taylor protested against their taking the property or
disturbing the premises. Becoming angry
at Mr. Taylor for his intervention they threatened to kill him if he didn’t
keep out of the way. Fearing they would
carry out their threats, Taylor left the women and children and set out to
secure assistance. The Indians killed
the stock, drove off the ponies and carried the women with them, but fearing
they would be pursued and overtaken they decided to allow the women to return,
after taking such liberties as the helpless women could not prevent. They then directed their steps towards Linn
Grove and Sioux Rapids where they subjected the settlers to the treatment they
had given the Mead and Taylor families.”
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| Kirchner Cabin 2015 |
Mrs. Sharp in her book enters more into
the details. She says: “After remaining a few days in Cherokee,
where they busied themselves with wantonly shooting cattle, hogs and fowls and
destroying property generally, sometimes severely beating those who resisted, they
proceeded up the Little Sioux to the little settlement in Clay county, now
called Peterson. Here the tarried two or
three days, committing acts of atrocity as usual. At the home of A. S. Mead, Mr. Mead being
away, they not only killed his cattle and destroyed his property but knocked
down his wife and carried off to camp her daughter seventeen years old, and
started away with a younger sister, but she resisted so hard and cried so loud
that an Indian picked up a stick and whipped her all the way back to the house
and left her. At the same house they
knocked down Mr. E. Taylor, kicked his boy in the fire and took his wife off to
their camp, but as yet had committed no murder.
After one night in the Indian camp Mrs. Taylor and Miss Mead were
permitted to return home. From Peterson
they passed up to Sioux Rapids, where similar scenes were enacted and similar
outrages perpetrated. They killed the
stock and destroyed everything capable of being destroyed. It was at the home of Abner Bell that their
atrocities assumed the most fiendish aspect.
From Sioux Rapids they went up to Gillett’s Grove. The Gilletts were two brothers who had moved
in late in the summer, bring with them about a hundred head of cattle,
intending to go largely into stock business.
The Indians made more general destruction here than they had hitherto
done. They killed every living animal on
the place, took all their bedding, clothing and provisions and destroyed
everything they could not take away.
They even cut a new wagon to pieces to get the bolts.” The Gilletts soon after this left the country
and did not return. One of the brothers,
many years after came back and according to Mr. Gilbrath, the Clay county
historian, told the following story as the cause of his sudden departure: He said one day after the Indians had
destroyed their property while they were encamped at Lost Island Lake a young
buck came down to his cabin and in his absence insulted or abused his wife. Upon his return soon after his wife told him
of the circumstances and he took down his rifle and followed his tracks until
he got within range of him, when he shot him, killing him in his tracks. He told his brother and they decided to leave
at once, as the Indians would surely be looking for the missing Indian, so the
next morning they cut the head from the dead Indian, which they took with them,
boxed up, hid the body in a hollow tree and immediately left for Fort Dodge and
the East. This story was probably true
to the letter. From Lost Island the
Indians went to Spirit Lake. The details
of this massacre are too awfully sickening to tell here, but suffice it to say
that every soul in the settlement of over forty persons was killed excepting
the four women who were carried away into captivity.
This ends the recollections of Judge Call as published in the Upper Des Moines Republican in December of 1902. Harvey Ingham, who later went on to write a more thorough account of the Indian raids in a book called, "Indian Days," submitted the following article which originally appeared in the Des Moines Daily Register and Leader and was reprinted by the Upper Des Moines Republican immediately after Judge Call's final installment.
This ends the recollections of Judge Call as published in the Upper Des Moines Republican in December of 1902. Harvey Ingham, who later went on to write a more thorough account of the Indian raids in a book called, "Indian Days," submitted the following article which originally appeared in the Des Moines Daily Register and Leader and was reprinted by the Upper Des Moines Republican immediately after Judge Call's final installment.
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| Harvey Ingham |
THE STORY OF INKPADUTAH.
In the columns of the Algona
Upper Des Moines Republican Mr. Ambrose A. Call is writing some of his
personal recollections of Inkpadutah.
The name recalls the Spirit Lake massacre, one of the most tragic events
in the pioneer history of Iowa, as well as the story of some of the most
lawless Indian bands which were to be found in the entire northwest.
The Sioux in Iowa were in the main the
renegades from all the Dacotah tribes.
They were known as the Wahpecoute or “Shooters at Leaves,” which seems
to have been a title of derision. Pike
says of the Wahpecoute, “they hunt generally at the head of the Des
Moines. They appear to me to be the most
stupid and inactive of the Sioux.” And
Elliot Coues in a footnote in his edition of Pike’s Journal adds that they were
merely “a band of vagabonds formed by refugees from all the other bands, which
they left for some bad deed.” In the
later 40’s, when the white settlements first began to encroach upon the lands
north and west of Des Moines, two of the conspicuous chieftains of the
Wahpecoute were Sidominadotah, or chief Two Fingers, and his brother,
Inkpadutah, or Scarlet Point.
How in 1848 Sidominadotah drove Marsh,
the United States surveyor, away from the Raccoon Forks of the Des Moines, and
how in consequence Brigadier General Mason was ordered to locate a fort where
Fort Dodge now stands, have often been told.
The first white man to penetrate still further to the north, was Henry
Lott, who had been a whiskey seller among the Sacs and Foxes in Marion county,
and a stealer of Indian horses. In 1848
he had gone north among the Sioux, and in Boone county had stolen horses from
Sidominadotah, who gave him a “moon” and told him to “puckachee,” and had at
the expiration of the time gone to his home, killed his stock and abused his
family. Lott escaped and went to
Boone. His little boy attempted to follow
him and after walking twenty miles was overcome by cold and his little body was
found frozen stiff on the ice. Mrs. Lott
had died soon after from injury and exposure, and Lott was now moving north of
Fort Dodge to be revenged. It was in the
spring of 1854 that he beguiled Sidominadotah, who was in his winter lodge with
his family, nine in all, out for a hunt, and, killing him, returned and
massacred the family, all but a boy and a girl who had hidden in the
weeds. He chased the aged mother of
Sidominadotah and Inkpadutah a hundred yards in the snow and tomahawked her.
It is from this massacre of
Sidominadotah by Lott that the career of Inkpadutah in Iowa dates. He had ranged further north and west prior to
this time, but now came in to avenge the murder of his relatives, while in
1854, the white settlement began to push out into his territory. Judge and Ambrose A. Call located at Algona
in that year, and the settlements on the west branch of the Des Moines and
about Spirit and Okoboji Lakes followed in 1856. Inkpadutah demanded that the murderers of his
brother be given up by the whites, and attempted an inquest at the town of
Homer, which he supposed was merely a preliminary to the surrender of
Lott. When he discovered that the legal
proceedings were formal merely and that Lott had escaped, his indignation
foreboded trouble. And his determination
to be avenged was not lessened when he later saw the skull of Sidominadotah
nailed to the court house at Homer.
During the three years that intervened
until the Spirit Lake massacre Inkpadutah molested the settlers along the
entire Upper Des Moines. Trappers and
the surveyors were stripped, houses were rifled, stock was killed, and no one
was free from danger, although no one received physical injury. It was in the summer of 1855 that the Indians
made their raid upon Mr. Call and his neighbors at Algona, of which he is
giving his recollections in his present interesting sketches. Why the Indians waited three years before
taking full revenge may never be fully known.
One reason was probably the rapid influx of white settlers. Another was the vigorous admonition of Col.
Wood of Fort Ridgley, who, when he learned of the massacre of Sidominadotah,
had called the chiefs together and told them in his own peculiar way, with
which they were well acquainted, that if they caused any trouble in
consequence, he would “blow them all to hell.”
The winter of 1857 was very severe.
The Indians suffered great deprivations.
In the spring they were hungry and ugly.
They were in the proper frame of mind when they reached Spirit Lake to
take the revenge they had been waiting for, and they took it.
The Indian chiefs with whom Inkpadutah
was associated were Umpashotah, or Smoky day, Titonka, or Big Buffalo,
Istahabah, or Young Sleepy Eyes, and some younger men, Cosomenah, Wahkonsa,
Mokococquemon and Mocopoco, the latter two sons of Inkpadutah. But among them Inkpadutah was easily
leader. He was a dark, sullen,
pock-marked man short and stout, the natural leader of a band of outlaws. He had no standing with the Sioux leaders of
the great tribes in Minnesota and along the Missouri, was not recognized at the
Sioux agencies, and fought his way in Iowa for himself.
Our early settlers were indeed brave souls who were willing to risk all they had to establish a new life on the prairie. It appears that to some extent the Sioux nation received a bad reputation because of actions by rogue groups identifying themselves as Sioux warriors. Do you ever wonder if many of these killings could have been avoided if Henry Lott had left with his family when first told to do so? It is one of those questions which can never be answered.
Until next time,
Kossuth County History Buff
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