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  Grand Expedition of the Dakotas to the Sources of the Mississippi, against the Ojibways After having given, in the two preceding chapters, a summary account respecting the affairs of the Ojibways, attendant on the change from the French to the British supremacy, we will once more return to the northwestern vanguard of the tribe, under the chief Bi-aus-wah, whom we left battling with the fierce Dakotas for the possession of the Upper Mississippi country. As near as can be judged from their mode of computing time,by events, and generations, it is now about eighty-five years [] since the following events occurred, to that portion of the tribe who had located their village at Sandy Lake, and hunted about the sources of the Great River. The incidents to be related,resulted in a fierce battle between the warriors of the two contending tribes, at the confluence of the Crow Wing River with the Mississippi. The most reliable account of this occurrence which the writer has been enabled to obtain, is that given by Esh-ke-bug-e-coshe, the venerable and respected chief of the northern Ojibways.He is one whose veracity cannot be impeached.He is between seventy and eighty years of age,and the tale having been transmitted to him by his grandfather Waus-e-ko-gub-ig (Bright Forehead),who acted as leader of the Ojibway warriors who fought in this action,his account can be implicitly relied on. “The M’dé-wak-anton Dakotas,being at last obliged,from the repeated incursions of the Ojibways, to evacuate their grand villages at Mille Lacs and Knife Lake, now located themselves on Rum River. Smarting under the loss of their ancient village sites, and their best hunting grounds and rice lakes,they determined to make one more united and national effort to stem the advance of their troublesome and persevering enemies,and drive them back to the shores of Lake Superior. Having for some years past been enjoying an active communion with the French traders, they had become supplied with fire-arms, and in this respect they now stood on the same footing with the Ojibways, who 155 Schenck bk p i-xxiv 1-318_Layout 1 5/13/11 10:54 AM Page 155 had long had the advantage over them, of having been first reached by the whites. War parties formed at the different villages of the Dakotas, and met by appointment at the Falls of St. Anthony, where the ceremonies preceding the march of Indian warriors into an enemy’s country being performed,the party, consisting of from four to five hundred men, embarked in their canoes, and proceeding up the Mississippi, reached, without meeting an enemy,the confluence of the Crow Wing River with the “Father of Rivers.” It was but a short time previous that they had possessed and occupied the country lying on and about the headwaters of the Mississippi, and being thus perfectly familiar with the route and portages from lake to lake, and the usual summer haunts of the Indian hunter, they determined to make the grand circuit by Gull, Leech, Cass, and Winnepegosish Lakes, and descending the Mississippi from its head, pick up the stray hunters and rice-gatherers of their enemy, and attack the village of the western Ojibways at Sandy Lake.Carrying this plan of their campaign into execution , the Dakotas ascended the Crow Wing and Gull Rivers into Gull Lake, from the northern extremity of which they made their first portage.Carrying their canoes about two miles, they again embarked on Lake Sibley; making another portage, they passed into White Fish, or Ud-e-kum-ag Lake,and through a series of lakes into Wab-ud-ow Lake,where they spilt the first Ojibway blood,killing a hunter named Wab-ud-ow (White Gore), from which circumstance the lake is named to this day by the Ojibways. From this place they passed into Gauss Lake,where again they massacred an unfortunate hunter with his wife and children. The tale of this transaction is briefly as follows:— An Ojibway named Min-ah-ig-want-ig (Drinking Wood),was travelling about in his birch bark canoe, with his family, making his summer hunt. One evening,after dark,he arrived at Gauss Lake,where seeing a long line of fires lighting the shore,and supposing it to be the encampment of a war party of Rainy Lake Ojibways on their way to...

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