THE INK-PA-DU-TA WAR.

All old settlers will remember what in the history of Minnesota is known as "The Ink-pa-du-ta War." It occurred in 1857, and, briefly described, was something like the following: Near the northwest corner of the State of Iowa, in the county of Dickinson, and near the southwest corner of the State of Minnesota, in the county of Jackson, there are two large and very beautiful lakes, called Spirit lake and Lake Okoboji. The country about these lakes is surpassingly beautiful and fruitful, and naturally attracted settlers in a very early day. In 1855 and 1857 a few families settled on a small river which heads in Minnesota and flows southward into Iowa, called in English Rock river, and in Sioux In-yan-yan-ke. In 1856 Hon. William Freeborn of Red Wing, Minn., started a settlement at Spirit lake, and near the same time another location was made about ten or fifteen miles north of Spirit lake, and called Springfield.

There was a small band of Indians, numbering ten or fifteen lodges, under the chieftainship of Ink-pa-du-ta, or the "Scarlet Point," which had for long years frequented the region of the Vermillion river, and although Sioux, they had become separated from the bands that made treaties with the United States in 1851, and were regarded as outlaws and vagabonds. This band had planted in the neighborhood of Spirit lake prior to 1857, and ranged the country from there to the Missouri.

Early in March, 1857, these Indians were hunting in the neighborhood of Rock river settlement, and got into a row with the white people from some trivial cause, and the treatment they received greatly angered them. They proceeded north and massacred all the people at the Spirit lake and Okoboji settlements, except four women, whom they captured and carried off with them. They then attacked the settlers at Springfield, and killed most of them. The result of the massacre was forty-two white people killed and four white women taken as captives.

I was then United States agent for the Sioux, and the news of the trouble reached me at my agency, on the Minnesota river, early in March, 1857, by two young men, who had escaped, and had travelled all the way on foot through the deep snow, a distance of nearly one hundred miles. Although the air was always full of rumors of Indian troubles in those days, I was convinced that the news brought by these boys was true, so I made a requisition on Colonel Alexander of the Tenth United States Infantry, stationed at Fort Ridgely, for troops, and he sent me Company "A," commanded by Captain Barnard E. Bee and Lieutenant Murray. I supplied guides and interpreters from my Indians, and after a most laborious and painful roundabout march of many days, we reached the scene of the troubles, only to find, as I fully expected, the Indians gone. The dead were buried, and the troops, after remaining for some time, returned to the fort.

Now comes the most interesting part of the incident. The captured women were Mrs. Noble, Mrs. Thatcher, Mrs. Marble and Miss Gardner. The legislature of the territory was in session, and the news of the event soon reached St. Paul, and, as might be expected, created great excitement, and, of course, the principal interest centered in the rescue of the prisoners. All the legislature could do was to appropriate money to defray the expenses of the undertaking, and as nobody knew what to do or how to do it, they appropriated $10,000 and wisely left the whole matter to Governor Medary, who was then the governor of the territory, with full power to do what he thought best about it. He, being a practical man, and having no idea at all of how to proceed in the matter, very sensibly turned the whole business over to me, with carte blanche to do whatever I thought best.

An accident controlled the situation, and shaped future events. Two of my Indians, who had been hunting on the Big Sioux river, heard that Ink-pa-du-ta was encamped at Skunk lake, about seventy-five miles west of Spirit lake, and had some white captives in his camp; so they went to see him, and succeeded in purchasing Mrs. Marble, for whom they paid horses and rifles, and whatever they had, and brought her into the Yellow Medicine agency and delivered her to me. I paid them $500 each for their services, and immediately sent out another expedition to try to rescue the other captives. I say I paid these two Indians $500 each. The fact is, I could raise but $500 in money on the reservation, which I gave them, and resorted to a financial scheme to get the rest, which has since become quite the fashion when people or communities are short. I issued a territorial bond, and as it is the first government bond that ever was issued in all the country that lies between the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains, I give it in full.

"I, Stephen R. Riggs, missionary among the Sioux Indians, and I, Charles E. Flandrau, United States Indian agent for the Sioux, being satisfied that Mak-pi-ya-ka-ho-ton and Si-ha-ho-ta, two Sioux Indians, have performed a valuable service to the Territory of Minnesota and humanity, by rescuing from captivity Mrs. Margaret Ann Marble, and delivering her to the Sioux agent, and being further satisfied that the rescue of the two remaining white women who are now in captivity among Ink-pa-du-ta's band of Indians depends much upon the liberality shown towards the said Indians who have recovered Mrs. Marble, and having full confidence in the humanity and liberality of the Territory of Minnesota, through its government and citizens, have this day paid to the two said above named Indians, the sum of five hundred dollars in money, and do hereby pledge to said two Indians that the further sum of five hundred dollars will be paid to them by the Territory of Minnesota or its citizens within three months from the date hereof.

"Dated May 22nd, 1857, at Pa-Ku-ta Zi-zi, M. T. "STEPHEN R. RIGGS, Missionary A. B. C. F. M. "CHAS. E. FLANDRAU, "U. S. Indian Agent for Sioux."

This bond differed materially from some that were issued by Minnesota afterwards, in being paid promptly at maturity.

My expedition brought in Miss Gardner, but Mrs. Noble and Mrs. Thatcher were killed before relief reached them.

All this occurred before I heard of the action of the legislature, and was done wholly on my individual responsibility. I, however, reimbursed myself for the outlay from the state funds, and covered the balance of the appropriation into the treasury.

Very shortly after the rescue of Miss Gardner, while at the Redwood agency, I received a note from Sam Brown, a trader at Yellow Medicine, by an Indian courier, which informed me that Ink-pa-du-ta and several of his band were at the Yellow Medicine river. I at once determined to kill or capture them, and sent word back that I would be on hand with a proper force on the morning of the second day, and that he must send an Indian who knew where to find them, who would meet me at midnight on the top of a butte half way between the Redwood and Yellow Medicine rivers, and guide me in.

I then made a requisition for troops on the commander of the post at Ridgely, who sent me a lieutenant and fifteen men. It chanced to be Lieutenant Murray, who had accompanied the expedition to Spirit lake. While waiting for the soldiers, I raised a volunteer force of about twenty men, among whom was a son of the celebrated electrician, Professor Morse, and some other young gentlemen who were visiting the agency, all of whom insisted on going for the fun of the thing. The balance consisted of employes, most of whom were half-breeds. The soldiers arrived about five o'clock in the afternoon, and I put them in wagons. I mounted my squad on good horses, and every man was furnished with a double-barrelled shotgun and a revolver. We started about dark, and at midnight arrived at the butte. I galloped to the top of it, and found sitting there in the most composed manner possible smoking his pipe, An-pe-tu-toka-sha, or John Otherday, who had been deputed by Brown to guide us in. He said he knew where we could find the enemy, and indicated six lodges standing together about four miles above the Yellow Medicine Agency, on the open prairie. He left the road, and guided us through the open country to a point on the river about a mile below the lodges, they being on the other side of the river. We arrived at about four o'clock in the morning, just as the light of day was breaking. It was an engrossing study to observe how skillfully he kept us concealed from view of the enemy, by keeping rolls of the prairie between us. All his movements were like those of a wary animal, stealthy and noiseless. The fact is, the education of a savage is learned from the wild animals on which he lives, and that is what makes him such a good hunter and fighter.

The river, with a narrow stretch of bottom land and a bluff of about thirty feet in height, lay between us and the plateau on which was the camp where Ink-pa-du-ta was supposed to be. Here we formed our plan of attack. As soon as we crossed and attained the high prairie, and located the enemy, we were to divide our force into two squads, one of which was to be the soldiers and the other the mounted men. The soldiers were to double-quick up the edge of the bluff, to intercept a retreat into the river bottom, while the mounted men took the open prairie to cut off escape in the other direction. Lieutenant Murray was to lead the soldiers and I the horsemen. I said to Otherday and my interpreter: "How are we to know the guilty parties?" The answer was: "Whoever runs from the camp you may be sure of."

The scene presented when we reached the high land was beautiful, inspiring, and frightfully alarming. As far as the eye could reach there was an unbroken camp of savages, not less than eight or ten thousand of them, representing all the Indians of my upper bands, and those from the Missouri who always visited us at payment time. I knew many of them were relatives of Ink-pa-du-ta and his people, and most of them his friends, but there was no time for balancing chances, and, at the word, away we went for the enemy's camp, which was the farthest up the river of them all. The night had been very hot, and, as is the custom, the tepees had been rolled up at the bottom, to allow a free circulation of air, which, of course, allowed the inmates an open view of the prairie. When my squad got within about two or three hundred yards of the lodges a young Indian, holding the hand of a squaw and carrying a double-barrelled shotgun, sprang out, and made for the river bluff as fast as his legs would carry him. All the soldiers fired at him, but he did not seem to be hit, and disappeared among the chaparral in the bottom. We surrounded him. He fired four shots, and each time I looked to see a man fall, but only one shot was effective, and that struck the cartridge box of a young soldier, turning it completely inside out, but without injuring the wearer. Whenever he shot, we poured a volley into the place indicated by the smoke, and succeeded in killing him. We took his squaw and put her into one of the wagons, more for the purpose of identifying the man than anything else, and started down the river towards the agency. We had to pass through the heart of all these camps, and the squaw yelled as only a scared squaw can. The savages swarmed about our party by the hundreds and thousands, threatening vengeance, and flourishing their guns in a blood-curdling manner. A shot from one of them, or from one of us, would have sent us all into heaven in less than a moment. The shot was not fired, and we succeeded in reaching the agency in safety. I have always attributed our escape to the moral force of the government that was behind us.

At the agency there were great log buildings, in which we fortified ourselves. I sent a courier to Fort Ridgely for reenforcements. The commanding-officer sent us the old Sherman Buena Vista Battery, which assisted us in letting go and getting out.

The Indian we killed turned out to be the eldest son of Ink-pa-du-ta, who was one of the head devils in the Spirit lake massacre. He had ventured in to see his sweetheart, and was the only one of the gang that was present when we made our attack.

The question has often been asked, why the government allowed the massacre to go unpunished. Colonel Alexander of the Tenth and I had a plan by which we would have destroyed Ink-pa-du-ta and his band without a doubt, but just at the moment of putting it into execution an order came for all the companies of the Tenth at Ridgely to leave at once for Fort Bridger, in Utah, to join the expedition under General Albert Sydney Johnson, against the Mormons, and that was the end of it.

Our raid was about as foolhardy and reckless a one as ever was undertaken, and our escape can only be credited to providence or good luck.

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