Modern
Leather-Stocking Tale
A
Thrillingly Interesting Story of Kas-Kas-Ka-Na-Gee, a Half-breed
Chippewa Indian, the White Man's Squaw.
The Widow of Pierre Bottineau's Brother Spending Her Rapidly
Declining Years with Relatives in Minneapolis.
This modern Leather-Stocking tale
came to light in
an accidental way, as most good things have a way of coming. It
required search and inquiry to prove the facts, but even Fenimore
Cooper would have given that for the sake of his story.
Kas-kas-ka-na-gee is a half breed Chippewa Indian who has
made her home in Minneapolis nearly 25 years. She and her stalwart
husband, an Alabaman by birth, are in the last quarter of their
century, for she is 76 years of age and he is 78. Together they are
finishing the long journey which they began 49 years ago in St.
Paul. Here was indeed a union of the north and south, years before
the freedom of slaves was an issue in the country.
Kas-kas-ka-na-gee is tall and angular, like the squaws of her native
race, yet with a certain lithe spring in her step, even in old age,
inheritance from her Chippewa grandmothers. Her straight black hair
is easily thinner than when she played by the river's edge in
moccasins, but her eyes are still
as clear as a pool of forest
water, black with the shadows of trees above it. Her features are
sharp, but they are tinged with native brown, and the high
cheekbones prove a ready birthmark. She was born near the Red River
of the North, and her grandmothers on both sides were full-blooded Chippewas married to French husbands.
Kas-kas-ka-na-gee was known among her white friends as
Margaret Rushenall, and she was won for a bride by Bazill Bottineau,
a half breed brother of Pierre Bottineau, a name that is familiar in
the history of Minnesota. She was his wife two years, and then he
left to go with the Hudson Bay company to the Rocky mountains. He
was drowned shortly after, and about the same time she started for
St. Paul with friends who were traders. She wanted to see if she
could make a living in the village on the Mississippi River.
It was a bright day in summer when the little train set out
on its journey and the most hopeful one in the party was the tall
Kas-kas-ka-na-gee. She found enough inducement in St. Paul to
wish to remain there during the winter, at least, and she resolved
to return to Manitoba to bring her family. She would like to
have company on the journey back, but there was no one going north,
and she must do it alone or give up her project. It was not
possible to hire a dog train, which was then the chief method of
conveyance from one point to another, so she determined to walk to
Manitoba alone. It was a distance of 600 miles.
She started back in September, a clear morning with the sun
only a little way up in the sky. Under her blanket she carried
a bundle of bread, expecting to find fish and game among the
Chippewa tribes she would pass along the way. There was
nothing for her to fear. She had been brought up on the
prairies, knew every animal that roamed over the plains, and counted
on the friendliness of her own Indian tribes to give her what
shelter she might require. She said good-bye to the handful of
friends she had made in St. Paul and stalked out over the paths that
led to the plains, her moccasined feet sinking in the soft grass by
the way.
The third day out a little above Elk river she was overtaken
by a party of three men, two priests and a Frenchman. They had
three carts, small two wooden-wheeled affairs, in which they carried
their provisions. They hailed her in French, and as they went
along side by side, asked her to be their guide. They, too,
were on their way north. Her keen instinct, sharpened by
practice, had familiarized every feature of the road on the way down
a few months before, and she could easily direct the way back.
The men continued to ride in their two-wheeled carts, but she
declined their offer for a seat, and walked by their side, her
bright eyes searching the horizon and examining the sky and ground.
They pitched their camp at night to find wood and water, and very
early before breakfast she would get away from the sleeping men to
return with an armful of wood and pouches of water, and begin
preparing the morning meal. On the way they passed herds of
buffalo, grazing a mile away; they saw wolves, bear and small
animals. They met some Indians and no white men. The
Indians were friendly Chippewas, and gave them meat and fish.
Once they lost their horses, but she started on the scent, and in a
little while brought back the animals, who had run but a short way
in their new found freedom.
They traveled in this way 15 days, and at last reached
Manitoba. She parted with her traveling companions and went to
Pembina, where she found her father and mother and brothers and
sister. She prevailed upon them to return with her. They
hitched up one little cart in which the small children could ride,
and they walked back to St. Paul. That was the fall of 1847.
St. Paul consisted of not more than five or six log
houses, and its principal residents were the traders, one of whom,
August Larpenteur, is still living. After another of them, Robert,
a street was named. Simpson and Jackson were others among them.
Margaret remained in St. Paul until 1862, the year of the Indian
rebellion, although in the meantime she had married and been away
for a while.
* *
*
In the spring of 1845 B. T. Baldwin was among those who came
from the South to the new trading post at St. Paul. He had lived in
Alabama, brought up among the Southerners of the Southland, and he
was eager to try his luck in the North, even though his fortunes
should be among the much dreaded Indians. Six years later, in 1851,
he wooed and won the widow of.jpg)
Bazill Bottineau, and he gave her
little son a home with her.
This son, Charles Bottineau, is now a land holder in the
White Earth reservation, and was prominent in the peace treaty with
the Turtle Indians.
In the year '56 Baldwin fitted up a train of goods, and with
his wife and children went north to Pembina to trade for furs with
the Indians. Margaret Baldwin was ill during the winter, and she
was anxious to come back to St. Paul. The collector of customs, who
was making ready to come to St. Paul with a dog team, offered to
take Mrs. Baldwin with him, and told Baldwin that if he would remain
and be the deputy collector and postmaster he would see the wife
safe home. They started with three dogs hauling the woman and two
children, and two dogs to haul the baggage and provisions. They
were driven by one of her brothers to Crow Wing, where they took the
stage for St. Paul. Baldwin paid $50 for the five dogs to carry his
wife and babies, at the same time 18 or 20 dog trains made the trip,
so there was no lack of company. The dogs returned to Pembina
loaded with goods.
* * *
In the year of 1862, when there came a demand for troops,
Baldwin enlisted as a private, and was assigned to Fort Abercrombie,
in Dakota, near Moorhead. He sent for his wife and family, and she
returned North in June. In August there was an Indian outbreak, and
the fort was a speedy object of their wrath and fury. Again and
again they attacked the fort, which was nothing more permanent than
a little collection of houses huddled together without walls or
solid protection. The next month the Indians were hot around
Abercrombie, and the soldiers were in constant fear of being set
fire to with the prepared arrows sent flying by the savages and
aimed for their powder magazine and inflammable cottages. The siege
lasted seven or eight weeks, and during the time there were 14 or 15
attacks. The soldiers killed 80 or more Indians, but the lives of
themselves and their families were in constant danger. They had
sent out messengers to St. Paul, but no returns had come back.
They were hemmed in on all sides by the Indians, and cut off
from intelligence. In the thick of the fight the soldiers ran short
of cartridges, and there was a moment's suspense at the threatening
peril.
"Men, what is to be done?" asked Col Vanderhorck, commanding
officer of the fort, and as he spoke the bullets whistled around
them. A woman came toward him from the cottages.
"Let me help, colonel," she said in French and broken
English. "I can make cartridges if I can't do anything else."
There was nothing else to do, and Margaret Baldwin
disappeared in the men's dining room to roll and fill cartridges.
The bullets followed her and whizzed through the room. Outside the
colonel was talking to his men and considering the advisability of
evacuating. It seemed impossible to hold out, and they would
probably be burned to death if they remained. He did not feel
strong enough to hold the fort.
The lieutenant colonel was much opposed to surrender, and
then an idea came to him. He thought of the half breed wife of
one of the soldiers, at that moment making cartridges in the men's
dining room.
"I will go ask her what she thinks we ought to do," he said.
"She knows enough of the Indian customs and habits to understand the
situation, colonel, better than you or I, and I believe she can tell
us the right course to pursue."
So he went to Mrs. Baldwin, and she listened very quietly
while he talked, shaking her head now and then, for the situation
did seem bad. But she advised them to hold on to the fort.
In that lay their only hope of salvation, for if they ever left the
protection of the houses and ventured on the plains they would all
be set upon and killed. She bade him hope, for they were safer
in the fort.
"Indians will not come so thick as blackbirds about the corral
picking up grain," she said, "so do not be afraid."
He carried word back to the commanding officer; there
was another meeting, and the officers concluded that they would risk
it. They would hold the fort, as she had advised, and stay
there.
Meanwhile they could not reach the river without danger, so
they dug a well for water in a corner of the fort. New
preparations were made for resisting the enemy. Word was sent
to the herders to come in as quickly as possible, and even as the
herds were returning to the fort a band of Indians came whooping and
yelling across the plain, and swooping down on the horses and cattle
and took them all away.
After this raid the savages broke into the fort early one
morning, entering by the south end of the government barn.
Instantly the soldiers were on guard at the other end and they
fought like tigers under cover. When the scrimmage was over
one soldier lay dead, another was wounded and one Indian lay
weltering in his own blood.
They kept up the shooting day after day.
They could creep close to the fort, sneak in behind the hay,
and shooting their guns would set the hay on fire until it look as
if the whole place was doomed.
*
* *
Between Sept. 20 and 30, 1862, there was a terrible fight, in
which Mrs. Baldwin's brother was killed and scalped. Sept. 25
two messengers were sent from the fort to St. Cloud asking for help
from the soldiers there, and with them went an escort of one surgeon
and 13 or 14 soldiers. When the Indians started in pursuit the
brave little band stood their ground.
"Charge bayonets!" shouted the commander, "we will break
through them or die," and they hurried for the ferryboat.
Mr.
Baldwin, in the fort, heard the noise of the fighting and took
his gun to follow after. Margaret Baldwin also hard and came
after him, but he motioned her back and ordered the men to hold her.
She returned to the enclosure, but the sights of the men outside
were sickening. Wright, a citizen, had been killed. The
Indians had cut his body open up and down the breast, and, cutting
off his head, had set it in the opening with the face toward the
south. A butcher knife was left sticking in the heart.
Another body, a German, had both arms and feet cut off and piled
across the trunk. Next day there was a hurried funeral
procession from the fort and the soldiers and men marched out to
bury their dead.
In
the desperate fighting the women had been as brave as the men,
and in the thick of the battle Mrs. Baldwin had several times taken
a gun in hand. In all their plans and constitutions she was
the trusted adviser of the officers. Having lived among the
Indians, for her early life had been passed in the wigwam, she knew
their ways and customs. At night, when the sun went down she
looked across the prairies and she heard their dancing about the
camp fire. She heard the beating of the tomtoms and their
hoarse cries.
"They are making ready for another fight tomorrow," she told
the commander. "Be prepared in the morning," and her warning
never failed.
On the morning of Sept. 28, while the fight was still raging,
she gave birth to her youngest child. The next day she
gathered her two children together, took the baby in her arms, and
climbing out of the window, ran barefoot from her cottage a distance
of 70 or 80 yards, to the fort. At that time, while the
bullets whistled around them, three mothers gave premature birth to
children, and lost them.
For seven dreary weeks the siege continued. One morning
after the herds had been stolen, the captain told the soldiers to go
out and kill the Indians, but Margaret Baldwin, looking cautiously
around, saw two or three Indians lurking about the brickyards, and
told her husband to tell the captain not to send the men away.
Further away she saw a lot of red men lying in the hollows ready to
rush the fort the moment the soldiers left. Thus in one way
and another this quick witted woman guided the soldiers, and by
following her advice and heeding her instructions they held
themselves in safety.
*
* *
Mrs. Baldwin was helpful in other ways. She nursed the
soldiers when they were wounded, and she cared for an old woman who
had been set upon by the Indians at Otter Tail crossing, where she
kept a station with her son and grandson. They killed the son,
shot the old woman through the side, and, tearing off her rings,
left her apparently dead among the slain while they hurried away
with the grandchild. The next day the old woman had recovered
sufficiently to crawl to Breckenridge for help, but when she saw the
dead piled one on top of the other she crept back to the sawmill and
lay down to die. When the soldiers came by the following day
to look for the dead, she raised herself suddenly among the bodies
where she was lying. They carried her back to the fort, and
Mrs. Baldwin nursed her to health.
Finally, help came, and a troop of soldiers with Capt. Oscar
Taylor at their head hurried up from St. Cloud and the danger was
for the present at an end.
*
* *
Is
it possible in these days of peace and sunshine, when the
horrible butchery of the Indians is a curse of the past, to hear a
story so vividly told by an eye witness as to make it seem but
yesterday? Mrs. Margaret Baldwin and her sturdy husband have
for many years been living with their daughter, Mrs. Lucy Doyle, and
a married son and his wife, at 716 Lincoln street northeast.
In the small rear rooms of their humble home the heroine of the
Sioux rebellion of 1862 goes about her simple daily tasks while she
broods over the past. She is almost the last of a forgotten
race. The Sioux and Chippewas no longer hover about her
dooryard.
The day will not come again as it comes once, when she will
go to her door in answer to the knock of a strange hand and see
there three naked Chippewas standing there ready to take her life.
They had seen her moccasin tracks in the sand, and thought she was
the squaw of their deadly foe, the Sioux, and they followed her to
lure her from the shelter of her home and kill her. They
talked about her among themselves, and recognizing the tongue of her
own tribe, she asked them in Chippewa what they wanted. Then
the enemies were friends at once, and the strangers remained over
night with Mr. Baldwin. He took their guns and hid them under
his bed, but he pointed out the bread and roasting corn and told
them to help themselves. They ate and were satisfied, and when
the morning came they were ready to go on their way. Before
they left they told Baldwin where a great cranberry marsh lay not
far on, and a little later when he searched for it to see if they
had lied, he found it and the bushes bearing many berries.
*
* *
J. B. Bottineau, who used to live in North Minneapolis, was
the son of a full-blooded Chippewa squaw, with his father a
half-breed, and he was cousin of Mrs. Baldwin's first child.
In this day and age of the practical it is strange to run across so
romantic a page from the history of the past and to find within easy
distance of a cross section car line the hearing of so many stirring
adventures. She delights in relating over and over again the
incidents of those early years, and as she looks across the city
squares and walks the paved streets of Minneapolis she remembers
that 52 years ago she tramped 600 miles to Manitoba and back again
and there was no person other than two priests and a Frenchman to
lend her company on the way.
K. B. M.
[ End. ]
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