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  Progress of the Ojibways on the Upper Mississippi The band or village of the Ojibways,who had dispossessed the Dakotas of Sandy Lake, under the guidance of their chief Bi-aus-wah, continued to receive accessions to their ranks from the shores of Lake Superior, and continued to gain ground on the Dakotas,till they forced them to evacuate their hunting grounds and village sites on Cass and Winnepeg lakes, and to concentre their forces on the islands of Leech Lake, of which, for a few years,they managed to keep possession. Being, however, severely harassed by the persevering encroachments of the Ojibways, and daily losing the lives of their hunters from their oftrepeated incursions, and war parties, the Dakotas at last came to the determination of making one concentrated tribal effort to check the farther advance of their invaders, and, if possible, put out forever the fires which the Ojibways had lit on the waters of the Upper Mississippi. They called on the different bands of their common tribe living toward the south and west, to aid them in their enterprise, and a numerous war party is said to have been collected at Leech Lake by the Dakotas to carry out the resolution which they had formed. Instead,however,of concentrating their forces and sweeping the Ojibway villages in detail, they separated into three divisions, with the intention of striking three different sections of the enemy on the same day.One party marched against the village at Sandy Lake,one against the Ojibways at Rainy Lake,and one proceeded northward against a small band of Ojibways who had already reached as far west as Pembina,and who,in connection with the Kenistenos and Assineboins,severely harassed the northern flank of the Leech Lake Dakotas. The party proceeding against Rainy Lake, met a large war party of Ojibways from that already important and numerous section of the tribe, and a severe battle was fought between them. The Dakotas returned to Leech Lake disheartened from the effects of a severe check,and the loss of many of their bravest warriors. 125 Schenck bk p i-xxiv 1-318_Layout 1 5/13/11 10:54 AM Page 125 The second division,proceeding in their war canoes against the Sandy Lake village, met with precisely the same fate. They were paddling down the smooth current of the Mississippi,when one morning they met a canoe containing the advance scouts of a large Ojibway war party, who were on their route to attack their village at Leech Lake; these scouts were immediately attacked, and pursued by the Dakotas into a small lake, where the main body of the Ojibways coming up,both parties landed and fought for half a day on the shores of the lake. This battle is noted from the fact that a Dakota was killed here whose feet were both previously cut half off either by frost or some accident,and the lake where the fight took place is known to this day as “Keesh-ke-sid-a-boin Sah-ga-e-gun” “Lake of the cut-foot Dakota.” The belligerent parties both retreated to their respective villages from this point, their bloody propensities being for the time fully cooled down. The third division of the Dakotas went northward in the direction of Red River, but not finding any traces of the Ojibways about Pembina, all returned home but ten,who resolutely proceeded into the Kenisteno country , till discovering two isolated wigwams of Ojibway hunters,they attacked and destroyed their inmates with the loss of two in their number. This attack is noted from the circumstance that one of the Dakota warriors who was killed, had been a captive among the Ojibways, and adopted as a son by the famous chief, Bi-aus-wah of Sandy Lake. He was recognized by having in his possession a certain relic of this chieftain, which he had promised to wet with the blood of an enemy, to appease the manes of a departed child in whose stead he had been adopted. During the same summer in which happened these memorable events in Ojibway history, the Dakotas having been thus severely checked and driven back by their invaders,became hopeless of future success and suddenly evacuated their important position at Leech Lake,and moved westward to the edge of the great western prairies,about the headwaters of the Minnesota and Red Rivers. A few hardy hunters, mostly of the Bear and...

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