Living with Strangers: The Nineteenth-Century Sioux and the Canadian-American Borderlands

3. The Dakota Conflict of 1862 and the Migration to the Plains Borderlands

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 [17], (2) Lines: 11 to 24 ——— 4.82pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [17], (2) 3. THE DAKOTA CONFLICT OF 1862 AND THE MIGRATION TO THE PLAINS BORDERLANDS In the wake of the Dakota Conflict, Dakota people moved up the Minnesota River and onto the plains beyond. This exodus has often been presented as if the refugees fled either to the Dakota Territory or to Rupert’s Land, as if the boundary presented a real barrier once crossed. In reality, Dakotas fled to the borderlands and then moved back and forth between American and British territory. Although the boundary had not yet been marked on the ground (this would not happen until 1873–74), Dakota peoples were very much aware of its existence, and they took advantage of the opportunities it offered during the 1860s. Dakota leaders from Minnesota sought sanctuary from Hudson’s Bay Company (hbc) officials at Upper Fort Garry, while at the same time they discussed peace with American army officers. When American troops approached camps on American soil, the Dakota leaders fled across the border, using it as a shield, and throughout this period they traded with the Red River Métis for arms and ammunition. By the end of the 1860s the Dakotas had constructed a host of relationships with their borderlands neighbors. Many formed close ties to the Yanktonais and remained with them on Sioux lands. Others negotiated with the Ojibwas for access to Ojibwa lands. Most continued to trade with the Métis. These new relationships were pivotal to the success of the Dakotas in the borderlands. The movement of Dakota people across the boundary into Rupert’s Land in 1862 was prompted, undoubtedly, by the need for supplies. The Dakotas were at war, and they needed firearms and ammunition to fight the Americans as well as to hunt. The hbc was a potential source of such munitions, so several Dakota leaders and their followers traveled to the Red River Settlement in late 1862 and early 1863 to renew ties to the British crown, represented by hbc officials, which they hoped to do by focusing on past Anglo-Dakota relations—relations forged 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 [18], (3) Lines: 24 ——— 0.0pt ——— Normal PgEnds: [18], (3) during the War of 1812. Less visible in the sources is the fact that the Dakotas also aimed to open negotiations with the Métis. From both the British and the Métis the Dakotas hoped to receive arms and allies. On 10 December 1862 FatherAlexisAndré wrote from his mission at Pembina that the Dakotas at Saint Joseph,a Métis settlement on the Pembina River,would soon be joined by some six hundred others from Devil’s Lake and that the combined assembly intended visiting Fort Garry to get munitions. The sources do not identify the leaders of this delegation, but it is likely that the Sisseton leader Standing Buffalo was among them.1 According to John Christian Schultz, a prominent member of the “Canadian Party” at Red River, the Dakotas had sent a peace pipe to Alexander Grant Dallas and then a message saying that they wanted to come to trade.2 Dallas, the governor-in-chief of Rupert’s Land, and Father Alexandre-Antonin Taché, the bishop of Saint Boniface, replied that they wanted nothing to do with them, but on 27 December over one hundred Dakotas arrived at Saint Norbert, a village just south of Fort Garry. There they were met by nearly eight hundred Métis and by Dallas, William Mactavish (the governor of Assiniboia—that part of Rupert’s Land that contained the Red River Settlement), and Taché. The Dakotas announced that they had come to renew the friendship that existed between their forefathers and the hbc. The following day they attended a mass at which both Taché and Dallas asked them not to go to Fort Garry. They proceeded to Fort Garry anyway, arriving later that day.3 Eighty men and six women from the Dakota delegation arrived at Fort Garry on 28 December and met...