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  Affairs of the Ojibways on the St. Croix During the middle and latter part of the eighteenth century, the hunting camps of the Dakotas and Ojibways often met on either bank of the St.Croix River,as far down as the Falls.Spots are pointed out,on Sunrise, Rush, and Snake Rivers, where bloody fights, massacres, and surprises have taken place, and where lives of helpless women and children, as well as stalwart warriors, have been sacrificed to their implacable warfare. It happened,sometimes,that the camps of either tribe would meet in peace, in order that the hunters might pursue the chase during the winter in security . But no sooner did spring again make its appearance, than the peace was treacherously broken,by either party,and war raged again during the summer,full deadly as ever. They did not always succeed in their attempts, each fall, to smoke the pipe of peace together.On one occasion the Ojibway chief,Mons-o-man-ay, sent two of his young men with a peace pipe to a large camp of Dakotas who were, as usual in the fall, approaching to make their winter hunts on the St. Croix River. These young men were received in the enemies’ lodges and treacherously killed.They were relatives of the Ojibway chieftain , and he made preparations during the winter to revenge their death. He collected a large party of warriors,and when the snow melted from the ground,he followed the trail of the Dakotas as they returned towards their villages on the Mississippi. He caught up with their camp, at a prairie on Sunrise River. They numbered many lodges, and around their camp they had thrown up an embankment of earth about four feet high.In order to more readily accomplish his vengeance, the chief approached the encampment in open day, after the Dakota hunters had dispersed for the day’s chase.He approached with the semblance of a peace party,carrying the white man’s flag at the head of his long line of warriors. The enemy for a time appeared uncertain how to receive him, but as they saw the 233 1. Mons-o-man-ay appears as Monso-Manin (also Marin) in John Sayer’s Snake River Journal (Birk , ). He signed the Treaty of  as Moose-o-mon-e, Plenty of Elk (Kappler ,). Schenck bk p i-xxiv 1-318_Layout 1 5/13/11 10:54 AM Page 233 Ojibways continue slowly to advance to the very foot of their defences,two warriors,unarmed,rushed forth to meet them,thinking that they came in peace. Without waiting for the orders of their chief, some of the young Ojibway warriors immediately fired on them. One succeeded in making his escape, while the bleeding scalp of the other dangled on the belt of a warrior. The Ojibways ran up to the Dakota defences,from behind which they fired repeated volleys into the defenceless lodges within, thus turning to their own advantage the embankment of earth which the enemy had formed with such great labor.The Dakota hunters,hearing the noise of the battle, flew back to their camp, and the fight every moment, as their ranks increased, became more hotly contested. Towards evening the Ojibways were dislodged from their position, and forced to retreat, with the loss of several killed and many wounded. The loss to the Dakotas which was much greater, judging from long rows of graves they left on the spot, and which my informants assert, are still plainly discernible within the inclosure of the earthen embankment. Several years after this occurrence, the Dakotas, after having made a formal peace with the Ojibways, and agreed to hunt in peace and friendship , suddenly attacked a small camp of hunters and killed several women and children.During the summer following,the Ojibways collected to the number of sixty warriors, and proceeded down the St. Croix River, to revenge this act of perfidy. They discovered their enemies encamped in a large village near the mouth of Willow River. They approached the camp during the middle of a pitchy dark night,and the chiefs placed two or three men to stand by each lodge, into which, at a given signal, they were to fire a volley, aiming at the spots where they supposed the enemy were lying asleep. Immediately loading their guns, when the inmates of the lodges would jump up in affright,they were to fire another volley and immediately...

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