RECORD OF A VAGABOND TRIBE - PART I

The last two posts featured the story of the incident when Indians came to raid the Maxwell cabin.  In that story, Ambrose Call spoke briefly of going to the Indian camp to speak with Inkpadutah to demand that the Indians leave the area immediately.  Judge Call wrote of that visit in more detail in two articles entitled “Inkpadutah and his Band in the Fifties.”  His description of the artistry decorating Inkpadutah’s teepee made it come alive in my imagination and I found his encounter with Inkapdutah’s daughter/niece to be quite touching.

Inkpadutah and His Band in the Fifties

By HON. AMBROSE A. CALL

       I find in Hon. R. A. Smith’s history of Dickinson county this description, which I gave the Upper Des Moines, of Inkpadutah some years ago:  “Of Inkpadutah, who led in the Spirit Lake massacre, and who was present in person at the raid on Mr. Call and the settlers south of Algona, he says:  ‘Inkpadutah was about fifty-five years old, about five feet, eleven inches in height, stoutly built, broad shouldered, high cheek bones, sunken and very black sparkling eyes, big mouth, light copper color and pock-marked in the face.' "  This was a fairly good description.

        Inkpadutah was something of an aristocrat.  His teepee was very conspicuous.  I never before nor since have seen one on which so much painting for decorative purposes had been done, or where as much pains had been taken to beautify it.  The material was elk skins neatly sewed together and around the whole teepee, beginning about four feet from the ground, were three broad bands painted in red, which were each about a foot in width and painted in the form of looped-up drapery.  The teepee was very large and the artist evinced considerable skill in the painting.  The Indians themselves when they visited us had their faces more or less painted with the same material.  I did not discover that Inkpadutah had any family except one daughter, about twelve or fourteen years old.  She may have been the daughter of his brother, Sidominadotah, killed by Henry Lott.  It was said that one girl about ten or twelve years old escaped the general massacre.  At any rate she was quite a comely lass for a squaw, dressed in scarlet blanket and leggins.  When I first visited Inkpadutah’s village, near Holland’s, I was struck with the beauty of the big teepee and of course knew it was occupied by the chief, so I unceremoniously pulled the door one side and walked in, I having learned that this was not a violation of Indian etiquette if one did not stand in the doorway.

        The chief lay on a buffalo robe, evidently nursing his foot, and did not even grunt a welcome, but the young miss approached me, looking intently at my coat.  I wore a checkered cotton or linen one, on one side of which were three large bone buttons about the size of a half dollar, with no button holes to match, and these were what interested her.  She took hold of one of them and gently pulled, at the same time patting her breast and making a fairly good attempt to smile.  She was begging for the button.  I was curious to know what she wanted of it and managed to make myself understood, when she took from her neck and from under her blanket a curiously wrought necklace principally made up of claws of bears, mountain lions and other beasts and birds of prey, bright colored stones, agates and shells, and among the rest four brass army buttons.  She was a curio fiend, and as persistent and energetic as her white sisters.  When I enquired where she got the buttons she seemed much pleased and holding her hand high up, indicating far away, said:  “Heap big captain!”  So, thinking my button might get in good company I gave her my knife and she, selecting the one that best suited her, cut it off.  Holding it up she jabbered to the old man, who gave her a grunt of approval.

        A brief history of the career of Inkpadutah after the death of his brother, Sinominadotah, the last of January or first of February, 1854, when he became chief of the outlaw band, might interest the reader.  I have taken considerable interest in following his wanderings up to and until after the Spirit Lake massacre, when his outlaws disbanded and sought to lose their identity in other tribes and bands to escape punishment.  The first heard from him was on July 2^nd, five months after the death of his brother, when he robbed two surveying parties, under Captains Leach and Ellis, two miles south of Algona on section 15.  These surveyors had no weapons except one old gun, and the Indians who were well armed found them easy victims, took everything they had and ordered them out of the country.  Had the surveyors been armed they were probably in sufficient force to have successfully resisted them.  It was these parties who in glowing terms told my brother and me of the beauties of this section of the country and of the fine grove of timber, and we determined to come up at once and take possession of as much of it as we could.  We reached the grove July 9^th.  The Indians had gone East and were next heard from two weeks later on the head waters of the Cedar on Lime creek, and at Clear Lake, where they had their own way, intimidating the settlers, killing stock, etc.  They found a Winnebago Indian who was working for Capt. Hewitt, an Indian trader at Clear Lake and killed him.  The only person who resisted them so far as I ever heard was Mr. Dickerson who found an Indian carrying off his grindstone and took it away from him, thumping him severely over the head with it.  Hence the settlers rested their laurels on this occurrence and christened it “The Grindstone War.”

        The Indians returned to their rendezvous on the Missouri by a more northerly route, crossing the east fork just below the mouth of Union slough and the west fork above the state line, going by the way of Lake Cheteck and Kempaska.  Later in the season they scattered, sneaking into the different agencies and drawing annuities from the government.  Their next appearance was in our settlement at Algona, in July, 1855, with the result as I have heretofore stated.  They again returned to their rendezvous on the Upper Missouri, scattering and drawing annuities as they could.

        Judge Flandreau, whom I regard as the best authority of Sioux history and nomenclature who has ever written on the subject, having been personally acquainted with them for a long period of years, says of Inkpadutah:  “In August, 1856, I received the appointment of Indian agent for the Sioux of the Mississippi.  The agencies for these Indians were on the Minnesota river at Redwood and on the Yellow Medicine river a few miles from its mouth.  Having been on the frontier some time previous to such appointment, I had become quite familiar with the Sioux and knew in a general way of Inkpadutah and his band, its habits and whereabouts.  They ranged the country far and wide and were considered a bad lot of vagabonds.  In 1856 they came to the payment and demanded a share of the money of the Wahpekutahs and made a great deal of trouble, but were forced to return to their haunts on the Big Sioux and adjoining country.”

        Mrs. Sharp, one of the women carried into captivity by Inkpadutah and who has written a book, says:  “According to the most authentic testimony collected by Major Prichette, Inkpadutah came to the Sioux agency in the fall of 1855 and received annuities for eleven persons, although he was not identified with any band,” so it seems that in 1856 Inkpadutah’s band were trying to work the agencies for annuities and with some success, and did not make their annual July raid on the frontier settlements.  The Indians usually make their raids in July, as their ponies are not sufficiently recovered from the starvation process of the previous winter to be able to haul their luggage on their “travois poles” and run down buffalo and elk before that time.  In the early spring they are scarcely able to walk, and many die during the winter, as they must subsist on dead grass and branches they crop off the willow bush.


In our final installment, Judge Call will share his recollections of the incidents leading up to the Spirit Lake massacre.

Until next time,

Jean, a/k/a Kossuth County History Buff

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