Western Magazine Digest: Monette Bebow-Reinhard

Showing posts with label Monette Bebow-Reinhard. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 12, 2021

WMD Is Closing Its Doors

I'd like to thank everyone who have visited this magazine on a routine basis for your patronage. It is with sadness that I announce that we'll no longer be actively publishing stories and movie reviews. I will, however, leave the magazine intact and online for everyone to enjoy as they might stumble in.

If you're interested in purchasing the magazine, use the convenient contact form on the right (click here). You also can use our contact page to connect with me (click here).

Thank you!

Al Colombo and WMD Authors

Sunday, February 16, 2020

Red Bird's War: What Really Happened in 1827, Part 2

By Monette Bebow-Reinhard

Editor's Note: Last week, Western Magazine Digest (WMD) featured part 1 where the stage was set for further problems between the Whites and Red Bird's tribe, leading to his demise. Today, we feature part 2. Thank you for reading WMD! -Al Colombo

Captain Lindsay gave no reason why the two boats parted company.

About four in the afternoon on the 30th, [the Perry] was attacked by the Winnebagoes at or near the Bad Axe, and maintained a desperate conflict with them until sunset. The particulars are known; two of the crew were killed and four wounded and the Indians acknowledge a loss of eight killed and one wounded.

After writing about the ineffective attack on the second keel boat, Lindsay added the following:

I have been induced to publish this statement by a report, which appears to have been widely circulated, that the crews of the boats were the aggressors. I can solemnly aver that, from our departure to Prairie du Chien down to our arrival at the Leaf’s village this was not the case. In ascending, the two boats never parted company, and I was an eye witness to all that passed. It has been said that some of their women were taken forcibly from the Indians.

Observer did not say that women were taken forcibly. Observor only referred to “Venus” as a subtle reference to lovemaking. So the idea that the women were abducted came from Lindsay himself.

I commanded the Ashley myself, and would neither have done such an action, nor permit it to be done by others. Were a party of thirty free Americans to suffer such an outrage to be perpetrated by any of their number, they would better merit the name of savages than the Indians.

Lindsay did not know his American history. Richard White in The Middle Ground wrote that in the late 1760s two soldiers were killed by the St. Joseph Potawatomis to revenge two Indian women who were raped. Glenda Riley in Women and Indians on the Frontier wrote about Winnebagoes who killed two of Whistler’s soldiers at Fort Howard in 1819, for possibly the same reason. And the Paiute War in Nevada in 1860 was started by drunken miners raping Bannock women.

It is true, that it might possibly have been committed by the crew of the Perry, after she parted with us, descending – but it could scarcely have been, for when she arrived at the camp the Indians were dancing round the scalps of their victims at Prairie du Chien.

This last line must have been what led to the fabled dancing with Gagnier attack scalps.

Joseph Snelling, passenger on the keelboat that wasn’t attacked, wrote: “One or two Frenchmen, or half-breeds, observed hostile appearances on shore and advised the rest to keep in the middle of the stream but their counsel was disregarded. Most of the crew were Americans, who, as usual with our countrymen, combined a profound ignorance of Indian character with a thorough contempt for Indian prowess. The boat was within thirty yards of the shore when suddenly the trees and rocks rang with the blood-chilling, ear-piercing tones of the war-whoop, and a volley of rifle balls rained across the deck.” Snelling referred to this as an aggressive attack and nothing more.

Nothing else happened in Red Bird’s War. Red Bird was not at the keel boat attack.

Dodge wrote from Galena to John Connelly, sub-agent for the Fox Indians, on July 5th: “Unequivocal acts of hostility having been committed by the Winnebagoes, it is highly important to take such measures as may be necessary, as well for the general defence of the country, as to prevent the other tribes from joining the disaffected party. On my way here I had an interview with the Fox chiefs at Dubuque mines, and explained to them the situation of the Prairie and my desire that a party of their young men should proceed there and aid the inhabitants in its defense. On arriving with them at the prairie, you will employ them as circumstances may require in defensive measures, until other assistance reaches there. This proceeding will not only add to our effective strength, but it will overawe the Winnebagoes and secure the Foxes from all danger of joining them.”

Marsh heard that Red Bird and his people were gathering around the portage, and that Red Bird sent word to Winnebagoes at Rock River that they must carry on the war, now that it was started, and better to die bravely with weapons in our hands, for we will die anyway. This is highly doubtful; Red Bird was never said to be a part of the keel boat attack. They had been heading for council at Butte des Morts and stopped, probably hearing the army was after them.

The Winnebagoes didn’t want to give Red Bird up at council. He’d done nothing more than retaliate for wrongs committed on their people. But he agreed to surrender to save the lives of their people and, according to a Ho-Chunk historian, to preserve the honor of their women.

Red Bird and Wekaum, who was also involved in the Gagnier deaths, surrendered on September 3rd in the Portage area. McKenney wrote of watching their approach:

All eyes were fixed on Red Bird and well they might be – for of all the Indians I ever saw, he is, without exception, the most perfect in form, face and gesture. Red paint marked half his face, the other half was green and white. He was dressed in his finest regalia – bleached buckskin jacket and leggings that were heavily fringed and decorated with blue beads. On each shoulder, like epaulets, was the skin of a red bird.

Red Bird said to Major Whistler: “I do not wish to be put in irons. Let me be free. I have given away my life – it is gone.” With a graceful motion, he stooped, scooped up a handful of sand, tossed it in the air, and watched it fall to the ground. “I would not take it back. It is gone.”

(Photo is of Red Bird dedicated to his surrender, and stands at a state park outside Appleton, Wisconsin.)

Red Bird was imprisoned, never stood trial, and died eight months later, still in prison, of disease.

John Reynolds wrote this in his autobiography 28 years later.

The Cause of this small speck of war was a great outrage committed by the whites on the Indians; which was of such brutality that it is painful to record.

Two keel-boats of a contractor to furnish provisions for the troops at the falls of St. Anthony stopped at a large camp of the Winnebago Indians on the river not far above Prairie du Chien. The boatmen made the Indians drunk - and no doubt were so themselves - when they captured some six or seven squaws, who were also drunk. These squaws were forced on the boats for corrupt and brutal purposes. But not satisfied with this outrage on female virtue, the boatmen took the squaws with them in the boats to Fort Snelling, and returned with them. When the Indians became sober, and knew the injury done them in this delicate point, they mustered all their forces, amounting to several hundreds, and attacked the boats in which the squaws were confined.

The boats were forced to approach near the shore in a narrow pass of the river, and thus the infuriated savages assailed one boat, and permitted the other to pass down in the night.

Reynolds noted that the Indians retrieved their women from the boats, which means they had been held captive from around the 21st, or the date of the drunken party, to the 30th.

To save the women, and his people, from further war, Red Bird gave up his life. To an Indian, being imprisoned was worse than death. He deserves to have those lies about the war erased.

Editor's Note: Thank you for reading Red Bird's War, part 1 and 2. To read part 1, Click Here.

Additional Readings & Documentaries:

Winnebago War of 1827
Winnebago, "Ho-Chunks" (Winnebago) Indians: Corporate and Tribal History
Old Decora: Waukon Decorah (Wikipedia)
Chippewa Indians
Fort Crawford
Chief Winneshiek, Pecatonica Winnebagoes

Red Bird Documentary by Grandchild:

About the Author

Monette Bebow-Reinhard WMD Author

Monette Bebow-Reinhard is an established book author, specializing in historical accounts, issues, and events. She began writing movie scripts in 1975 and from 1992 to 1995, she co-wrote scripts for the Bonanza series. She has won several minor awards and Monette has several novels on the market. Her latest is entitled "Civil War & Bloody Peace: Following Orders, a historical works involving the American Civil War, now available through Amazon (click here). To connect with Monette Bebow-Reinhard, send an email.

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Sunday, February 9, 2020

Red Bird's War: What Really Happened in 1827, Part 1

By Monette Bebow-Reinhard

When research began, it involved the Winnebago War of 1827, a Wisconsin Historical Collection volume had an innocuous footnote about a Missouri Republican article in St. Louis that indicated a drunken frolic started the war. Yet, this source had never found its way into any historian’s account. So this author traveled to St. Louis and found that article. It changed the entire perspective of what happened—but not, of course, back then; only how it can be viewed today.

In 1822, while treaties were being made for the lead mining region with the local tribes around Galena and other places in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and southern Wisconsin, the Winnebago Indians (now Ho-Chunk) believed that the land was worth more than the offer. Red Bird was a minor chief of a village located southeast of La Crosse, Wisconsin at the mouth of the Black River, north of Prairie du Chien. His tribe was always friendly with the people in and around Prairie du Chien on the Mississippi River. Lucy Murphy in A Gathering of Rivers noted that their removal from mining land was not inevitable because Indians proved, like Red Bird, that they could accommodate the whites. Ultimately, Red Bird paid the price for this war.

At a sugar camp in southern Wisconsin the spring of 1826, a French family named Methode was murdered. There was a path leading to a Winnebago camp. On July 9th, about 80 Winnebagoes arrived at Fort Crawford at Prairie du Chien to turn over six for the murders. Yet Old Decora said he never told anyone that these men were guilty.

Two Winnebagoes, held for the crime for over a year, pleaded innocent to the charges. Rumors began to spread that the army allowed Chippewa Indians to beat and torture them to death. The Winnebagoes threatened to sack Fort Crawford in Prairie du Chien to demand the truth or release of these prisoners. One reason given for their transfer to Fort Snelling was that the climate around Fort Crawford was a poor one that led to sickness; but isn’t it odd that, during heightened tensions after the Methode killings, they’d close the only garrison around?

In early 1827, Winneshiek, chief of the Pecatonica Winnebagoes, asked subagent John Connolly for help to remove miners digging on their land. These miners refused to leave, saying they had special permission to be there. Lt. Martin Thomas, superintendent of the U.S. Lead Mines, encouraged the forced annexation of their lands with violence. He supposedly told the miners to “remain there until blood is spilled, and something will be done.”

One old story is that Red Bird and other Winnebagoes wanted a war against miners. But with this newspaper account, we see that this war had three events; it started with a drunken party between soldiers from Fort Snelling. From the St. Louis Republican:

…that the crew of the keel boat which was attacked by the Indians had, on their passage up the river, been on shore at this Indian settlement, where they participated with the Indians in a drunken frolic, which, as is usual with both parties, terminated in a quarrel, in which, it is believed, the whites were the aggressors; that the boat’s crew, as if apprehensive of the resentment of their red companions in the revel, which had been wantonly resigned to the mischievous management both of Venus and Bacchus…

The editorial was signed “Observer,” so we’ll never know for sure who wrote it. But it was likely future Illinois Governor John Reynolds; he wrote this exact story in his 1855 memoirs. This drunken party and “Venus” with Indian women likely took place before June 22nd, because the two boats arrived at Fort Snelling in Minnesota on the 23rd.

The next incident happened on the 27th; in other versions, Red Bird was ordered to exact vengeance from the white intruders for the imprisonment and abuse of those prisoners. Instead, if women were abused and even taken from that drunken party, we can understand another motive; Red Bird went to Prairie du Chien to ask if anyone had seen these women. To this point Red Bird had never harmed anyone in the area.

But he was thought to be in distress when he and two others, Wan-i-ga (Wekau) and Chick-hong-sic, went to Lockwood’s trading house that late June. According to James Lockwood, they recognized the tension in the Indians and got them to leave. From Lockwood’s house, Red Bird and the other two went to Rijeste Gagnier’s farm (Gagnier was a respectable farmer in the area and someone whom Red Bird considered a friend). With the arrival of the Indians Lipcap put down the hoe and joined Gagnier in the house (Lipcap was a renter on Gagnier's estate). If the drunken party happened, everyone in Prairie du Chien must have known about it. And they knew what Red Bird wanted.

Here’s how Indian Affairs Superintendent Thomas McKenney reported this second event:

Gagnier had, meantime, seen something peculiar in the looks and movements of these Indians, as is supposed, which led him to reach up, and take from brackets just over his head, his rifle, which, as Mrs. Gagnier turned to get the fish and milk, she saw lying across Gagnier’s lap. At the moment she heard the click caused by the cocking of the Red-Bird’s rifle, which was instantly followed by its discharge. She looked and saw that her husband was shot. At the same moment, the third Indian shot old Lipcap, when Mrs. Gagnier seeing We-kau, who had lingered about the door, about to rush in, she met him, made fight, and wrested from him his rifle…

John Marsh, a sub-Indian agent, heard from Mrs. Gagnier that Gagnier’s head had been nearly cut off. The baby had been scalped, her neck cut nearly to the bone, but survived.

They supposedly fled with the scalps to their band, encamped at, or near, the mouth of the river Bad Axe. The local citizens, on hearing what had happened, took refuge in old Fort Crawford while Marsh raised a posse and searched for them. It was then noted that since the war had begun, they might as well keep it up.

The third incident was the keel boat attack, which happened while the keel boatmen were hauling provisions from Fort Snelling to Fort Crawford.

The St. Louis Republican reported the keelboat attack on July 12th:

We are also informed that the miners in the neighborhood of Fever River were a good deal alarmed. The Indians had been harassing them, and a boat, either ascending or descending the river, was attacked and completely riddled. Two men on board were killed and two severely wounded.

Indian agent Taliaferro at Fort Snelling wrote what Joseph Snelling told him: “They fought nearly three hours in the first (keel) boat, in which two men were killed and four wounded. In the Keel in which he was, there was but one wounded. He farther supposes that the loss on the part of the Winnebagoes must have been considerable not less than fifteen or twenty killed and wounded as the attack commenced in the middle of the night the men on board the boats – directed their fire by the blaze from the guns of the Indians – and where thereby better enabled to do certain execution …”

Observer wrote about it this way:

…that on their return to the Indian settlement, they were approached by some of those Indians in canoes without arms, when the crew, suspicious of their motive, fired upon them from the boat; this fire was returned by the Indians from the shore, who immediately advanced in canoes to this attack, the fatal consequences of which are so well known to us.

The Indians were canoing out to them, not to fight, but simply to find their women. The soldiers attacked first. Observer continued:

The murder at Prairie du Chien, which took place subsequently [Gagnier murders], was, no doubt, wanton and cold-blooded, but in strict compliance with the well-known law of those as well as all other tribes of Indians – to make up for the balance of lives which the fate of war had withheld from them in the previous engagement with the whites.

He ended by noting how well the whites can exaggerate any problems with the natives. The soldiers responded in the Missouri (St. Louis) Republican on August 23rd, in response to Observer’s report of a drunken party:

On the 29th, the Perry and the Ashley passed the Leaf’s village [Sioux] in company, without any molestation. The same night the two boats parted company, and the Perry gained about six hours in advance.

This is the end of part one of Red Bird's War: What Really Happened in 1827. Be sure to tune in next Sunday when we'll feature part two.

Additional Readings & Documentaries: