I
Indian war whoops resounded
again in Minnesota when the at
tacks on Fort Ridgley and other
stiring incidents in the early hiss
tory of the state were pictured iri
a pageant held at St Peter, Minn.,
last month.
How the frontiersmen repulsed
three assaults by the Sioux, Chief
Little Crow'? call to the warpath
that resulted in rushing a company
of volunteers to the defense of
New Ulm, and how the expedition
organized by General H. Sib
ley, who used St. Peter as his
headquarters,- crushed the power
of Little Crow forever, all these
events were depicted by the 60Q
participants in the exhibition which
was given in the large natural
Amphitheater.
One of the principal episodes
dealt with the famous treaty of
Travers des Sioux, consummated
70 years ago, by which the Sioux
nation ceded away one of the
richest areas in the world.
Late in June, 1851, Governor
Alexander Ramsey and Colonol
Luke Lea, then Commissioner of
Indian Affairs, traveled to Traverse
des Sioux, then the largest trad
ing post in the northwest, to meet
the leading chiefs of the Sisseton,
Wahpeton and Dacotah tribes. On
July 18 the .grand council opened
and on July 23 the treaty was
signed
After the pipe of peace had
been passed, the document was
read in English and then trans
lated into the Dacotah tongue by
Rev. S. R. Riggs, an early. Pres
byterian missionary.
According to the terms the In
dians were to receive $250,000 in
annual payments for a vast #egion
which included 30,000,000 acre*.
Failure of the government to
'prDperIy'''ma,ke''tih^'-'ammiJt^^pay^'
menis has always been regarded'as
one of the primary causes of the
bloody outbreak in 1862.
