Chapter II

SALE OF WHISKEY TO THE INDIANS.

In tracing out the causes which led to the late war with the Sac and Fox Indians of Rock river, reference was made to the violations of the laws of Congress in the introduction of whiskey among them by the white traders. The opinion, moreover, was expressed that the licensed traders of the United States, among these tribes, were in the habit of selling this article to them, and under circumstances which must have brought home the fact to the knowledge of our Indian agents. Black Hawk with other chiefs of the band to which he belonged, earnestly remonstrated against the introduction of whiskey among his people, because of its debasing effect upon their morals, and the danger of its provoking them to acts of aggression upon the whites, while in a state of intoxication. One of the facts, set forth in the memorial which the white settlers on Rock river, presented to Governor Reynolds, in 1831, and upon which he declared the state to be actually invaded by the Sac and Fox Indians, and ordered out the militia to repel it, was the destruction, by Black Hawk, of a barrel of whiskey, which the owner was retailing to the Indians. The violation of the laws of Congress and of express treaty provisions, in the sale of ardent spirits to the Indians, winked at, as they undoubtedly were, by the public agents, mainly contributed to bring about a war, which resulted in the destruction of a great part of the band of Black Hawk. That the allegations, in regard to the sale of intoxicating liquors, to the Indians, by the regularly licensed traders of the United States, may not be supposed to rest upon gratuitous assumptions, the following letter, is quoted, which places the matter beyond all question.

St. Peters, July 25, 1832 Gen. Joseph M. Street, } Indian Agent, Prairie du Chien.}

Sir—I arrived at this place yesterday from the sources of the Mississippi, having visited the Chippewa bands and trading-posts in that quarter. Much complaint is made respecting the conduct of the persons licensed by you last year, who located themselves at the Granite Rocks, and on the St. Croix. No doubt can exist that each of them took in, and used in their trade, a considerable quantity of whiskey. And I am now enabled to say, that they each located themselves at points within the limits of my agency, where there are no trading-posts established. My lowest trading-post on the Mississippi, is the Pierced Prairie, eighteen miles below the mouth of the De Corbeau. It embraces one mile square upon which traders are required to be located. On the St. Croix, the posts established and confirmed by the Department are Snake River and Yellow River, and embrace each, as the permanent place of location, one mile square. I report these facts for your information, and not to enable you to grant licenses for these posts, as the instructions of the Department give to each agent the exclusive control of the subject of granting licenses for the respective agencies.

Much solicitude is felt by me to exclude ardent spirits wholly from the Chippewas and Ottowas, the latter of whom have, by a recent order, been placed under my charge. I am fully satisfied that ardent spirits are not necessary to the successful prosecution of the trade, that they are deeply pernicious to the Indians, and that both their use and abuse is derogatory to the character of a wise and sober government. Their exclusion in every shape, and every quantity, is an object of primary moment; and it is an object which I feel it a duty to persevere in the attainment of, however traders may bluster. I feel a reasonable confidence in stating, that no whiskey has been used in my agency during the last two years, except the limited quantity taken by special permission of the Secretary of War, for the trade of the Hudson's Bay lines; and saving also the quantity clandestinely introduced from Prairie du Chien and St. Peters.

I know, sir, that an appeal to you on this subject cannot be lost, and that your feelings and judgment fully approve of temperance measures. But it requires active, persevering, unyielding efforts. And in all such efforts, judiciously urged, I am satisfied that the government will sustain the agents in a dignified discharge of their duties. Let us proceed in the accomplishment of this object with firmness, and with a determination never to relinquish it, until ardent spirits are entirely excluded from the Indian country.

I am sir, Very respectfully, Your obedient servant, Henry R. Schoolcraft.

P.S. Capt. Jouett, commanding at this post, has recently seized sixteen kegs of high-wines. His prompt, decisive, and correct conduct in this, and other transactions relating to Indian affairs, merits the approbation of government.

The Petite Corbeau has requested that no trader may be located at the mouth of the St. Croix.

The following picture of the present condition of the Winnebagoes, given in the St. Louis Bulletin, shows the deplorable results of the intercourse of the whites with the Indians—the baneful effects of spirituous liquors upon their morals and habits. The Winnebagoes were neighbors of the Sacs and Foxes, and long intimately associated with them. Twenty years ago, all of these tribes, raised annually more corn, beans and other vegetables, than were needed for their own consumption. Now they are miserable, squalid beggars, without the means of subsistence. The faithlessness of the Government, the perfidy and avarice of its agents and citizens, have brought this race of people to the horrible condition, in which they are represented in the statement that follows.

An agent of the Temperance Society, in a journal of a late tour to the region of the Upper Mississippi, presents a picture, melancholy indeed, of the present condition of the Indian tribes in that quarter, which must deeply rouse the commiseration of every benevolent man. From our own personal observation one year since, we would corroborate the assertion, that were the world ransacked for a subject in which should be concentrated and personified injustice, oppression, drunkenness, squalid filth, and degradation, one would point to the straggling Indian on the banks of the Upper Mississippi for the aptest exemplification.

There were some two or three hundred of these stragglers—Winnebagoes, chiefly, about Prairie du Chien—men, women, and children, many of whom had scarcely the fragments of a filthy blanket to hide their nakedness or screen them from the cold—strolling and straggling about in squads of from two to a half dozen each, begging for whiskey, or cold potatoes, or crusts of bread. One old female, doubtless turned of threescore and ten, half naked, was gathering up from the dirt and ashes about the boiler of the steam boat, a few pieces of dried apples that had been dropped and trodden under foot, which, with her toothless gums, she attempted to masticate with all the eagerness of a starving swine. Little children, from one to four years old, were crawling about in a state of nudity, and almost of starvation, while their own mothers and fathers, were staggering, and fighting, and swearing. It is a fact, that while these poor creatures cannot articulate a word of any thing else in English, the most awfully profane expressions will drop from their lips in English, as fluently as if it had been their vernacular tongue. When the whites first settled in that neighborhood, the Indians raised corn and other provisions enough, not only for their own use, but also for the fur-traders and settlers.

Now they are altogether dependent for even the scanty subsistence by which they are dragging out the remnant of a miserable life, upon the whites. And what has been the cause of so great a change in a few years in the circumstances and habits of a whole people! The answer is plain to every one at all acquainted with Indian history. It is the perfidy and avarice of the whites, and whiskey, whiskey has been the all potent agent by which it has been effected. By selling and giving them whiskey till they become drunk, they are soon filched of the little annuities received from government; and then treated the rest of the year like so many dogs.—As an illustration of the feeling towards them, a merchant at Prairie du Chien expressed the very humane wish, that there might soon be another Indian war to kill them all off.