Iowa History Project
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Making of Iowa
Chapter XXIX
Iowa's Indian Massacre
The settlement of Iowa was marked by singular and mostgratifying freedom from trouble with the Indians. From 1830, the date whenat Dubuque the whites formed the first settlement, until the present, there hasbeen only one bloody spot to stain the relations that have existed betweensettlers and Indians within Iowa's borders.
Even before 1830 the assaults on Fort Madison furnish the onlyrecord of avowed hostility by the Indians against the whites of what is nowIowa.
It is true that during the many years a number of whites - forthe most part hunters, trappers and the like - were killed by Indians, andIndians were killed by whites, but these tragedies were merely what might beexpected in any Territory.
March 8, 1857, nearly eleven years after Iowa had become aState, brings that dreadful scene in Northwestern Iowa, when the Sioux surprisedthe isolated settlers and before withdrawing, killed thirty-two persons,slaughtered cattle, and in the light from a blazing cabin danced in all theirold time glee, yelling and boasting.
The leader of the Sioux was Ink-pa-du-tah, or Scarlet Point, atall, fierce Indian, sullen and treacherous. His face was deeply marked bysmallpox. He was the brother of Si-dom-i-na-do-tah, the chief who wasbrutally murdered in January, 1854, by Henry Lott, a dissolute trader.Ink-pa-du-tah sought revenge. For three years he had been broodingover the death of his brother. Now he had determined that time was ripe.
It was not alone the murder of Si-dom-i-na-do-tah that impelledthe Sioux to action. Although in 1851 Sioux chiefs had signed a treatygiving up their claims to any land in the State, robber bands of these Indianscontinued to rove about in Northwestern Iowa. They asserted that they didnot take part in the treaty, and that the land was theirs. They resentedthe progress of settlement, entered cabins, insulted women, broke furniture, andextorted from defenseless families food and clothing. These Sioux were notrecognized as belonging to the main nation.
It is now the close of the winter of 1856-57, the most severewinter in the history of Iowa, and particularly hard on the settlers who werecalled upon to face it. In spite of the attitude of the Sioux, thesettlers have been pushing on and on, until Dickinson, Palo Alto, and EmmetCounties contain a number of cabins.
The line of settlement has been extended to the Minnesotaboundary. Here, around the beautiful lakes, hardy men and women havelocated. Claims have been taken up on the shores of Minnewaukon, or SpiritLake; Minnetonka, or West Okoboji; and East Okoboji. To-day these lakesare well-known summer resorts.
The terrible, long winter has cut off the settlers fromcommunication with the outside world, and even with one another. Thefamilies have suffered greatly. But March has begun, and a slight thaw hasset in. Settlers are stirring out, seizing on the opportunity to makeneedful excursions. The snow is soft enough for the children to moldsnowballs.
Ink-pa-du-tah and his band have spent the winter in the vicinityof the lakes. Near Spirit Lake are their empty tepees. At High Lake,southeast of the present town of Estherville, Ish-ta-ha-bah, or Sleepy-Eye, andhis minor band have wintered, while just over the Minnesota line, atSpringfield, now Jackson, fifteen miles from Spirit Lake, are twenty more Siouxhuts.
The Indians were thus distributed in readiness for the massacre.
On the south shore of West Okoboji is the cabin of RowlandGardner. Beside himself and his wife, in the family are Abigal (athirteen-year-old daughter) and a little son; a married daughter (Mrs. Luce) herhusband, and two children are for the present living with the Gardners.
The morning of the 8th of March has arrived. In theGardner cabin breakfast is spread. Abigal has been helping her mother, inorder to hasten the meal, so that the father may go to Fort Dodge while theweather permits. Fort Dodge is the nearest pint where supplies may beobtained.
Suddenly, almost without warning, a Sioux lifts the larch of thedoor, and stands before the two families. In a few gutteral words hesignifies that he wants food. He is given a place at the table. In amoment fourteen other braves, with their squaws and pappooses, appear at thethreshold and crowd inside. They compose Ink-pa-du-tah's band, and Ink-pa-du-tah,with pitted face and surly eye, is with them.
They are in bad temper. Not content with the foodliberally laid before them, they wax insolent. They demand ammunition.One snatches at a box of gun caps; another attempts to take from the walla horn of powder, and when Luce, the son-in-law, interferes, the Indian points agun at him.
Matters look ugly when Dr. Isaac H. Harriott and Bertell A.Snyder visit the Gardner cabin with a letter for Gardner to carry to thepostoffice at Fort Dodge. Gardner says:
"I am not going to Fort Dodge to-day, or anywhere else.The Indians mean mischief, and I dare not leave my family."
Harriott and Snyder laugh at him, chat with the Indians, andafter doing a little trading return to their own cabin on the peninsular betweenEast and West Okoboji. The Sioux remain near the Gardner cabin until noon.Then they go towards the point where, on the peninsular, stands the cabinof James H. Mattock.
The cabins of the settlers in the community are so scatteredthat the Gardners decide warning should be sent out, to the effect that theIndians mean trouble. Luce and another man start to make the rounds, sofar as possible, and deliver the caution.
The messengers leave at two o'clock. In an hour theGardners hear the reports of rifles from the direction of the Mattock cabin.Gardner slips the heavy bar into place across the door and tries to cheerup the frightened women. All anxiously wait. Mrs. Luce cries softly,thinking something has happened to her husband. The air is full offoreboding.
Five o'clock comes and the Gardner cabin has been unmolested.Gardner finally unbars the door and steps out to look around. Thesun is setting like a crimson globe. The atmosphere is cold and crisp, andthe snow and frozen lake sparkle. The reeds and trees cast long shadows.Not far away Gardner sees a group of dusky figures approaching.
"The Indians are coming!" he announces, hastilyre-entering the cabin.
He is certain that all in the cabin will be killed, but he wantsto bar the door and fight to the last. The women implore him not to resistthe savages, but to meet them in a friendly manner, so as not to provoke them.Gardner allows the women to prevail, and the door is not locked.
Nine Sioux, rifles in hand, file up to the cabin, push their wayroughly through the doorway, and scowl at the whites. A brave calls formeal. Eager to please, Gardner turns to the bin. In a second hefalls dead, shot through the back.
The women are driven out of doors and their skulls smashed withgun-butts. Abigal Gardner is sitting in a chair, the three little childrenclinging to her. The savages drag the children, one by one, from her andkill them with sticks of stove wood. Abigal is made prisoner.
In the cabins on the peninsular are similar scenes of barbarityand slaughter. Night falls, and the Mattock cabin is burning, whilecircling around it the Sioux indulge in a hideous dance of triumph. Notall the persons in the cabin are unconscious, and shricks of agony can be heard.During the next few days the Indians seek out other cabins, and kill rightand left. Then, having stripped the bark from a tree, on the white truckthey picture the deeds, and leaving this monument as a trophy, flee, taking withthem Abigal Gardner, Mrs. J. M. Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret Marble and Mrs.LydiaNoble.
Mr. Thatcher, husband of one of the prisoners, had been absent.Mr. Noble and Mr. Marble had been killed by the savages.
Such was the Spirit Lake massacre, as it is termed. March10, Morris Markham, who had been staying at the Thatcher cabin, but who had beenaway for a few days, returned to the vicinity. He reached the lakes in thenight, and was surprised to see no light from any house. Silence broodedover all. When he reached the first cabin, even in the darkness he knewwhat had happened. Retreating, horror stricken, he stumbled into a groupof Sioux tepees, but was not discovered. He made all speed to Springfield,Minnesota, to give the alarm there.
At this village the settlers barely had time to gather in adouble log cabin. Several persons were overtaken and killed. Alittle boy, shot through the head, tumbled on the threshold of the cabin, andduring the fighting which followed lay there moaning in pain. Inside werehis mother, powerless to help him, and the father, badly wounded. Amongthe women in the cabin was Mrs. W. L. Church, whose husband was absent from thesettlement. Mrs. Church used a gun with such good effect that she riddleda Sioux who peered out from behind a tree.
The Indians, baffled, gave up the contest, and withdrew.The settlers harnessed oxen to a wagon and set out southward for thenearest village.
Fort Dodge was at this time the frontier town of NorthwesternIowa. Into it rode two men, who had been asked by Markham to bear the newsof what he had seen. They told a story hardly credited by the peopleuntil, on the evening of March 21, O. C. Howe, R. U. Wheelock and B. F.Parmenter came with blanched faces to confirm the tidings. They owned landin the lakes region. Three nights previous they had arrived there tosettle on their claims, and had seen what Markham saw.
Fort Dodge was aroused. The next day was Sunday, butnevertheless a meeting was held in the brick school house. Volunteers togo against the Sioux were called for. Nearly one hundred menenrolled, and were divided into two companies, A. and B. From Webster Cityand vicinity another company, C, was gathered.
On March 24, the troops started from Fort Dodge, with teamsloaded with what clothing and supplies could be obtained on such short notice,and with shot guns, muskets and rifles as arms.
The commander was Major William Williams, sixty-two years ofa*ge. Major Williams had been connected with old Fort Clarke, and was nowthe most prominent resident in the town. Through all the severe march heexhibited the greatest fortitude and courage.
The snow was three feet deep, and in ravines was twelve andfifteen feet. The distance to be traversed was over seventy miles, acrossthe desolate, windswept prairies. It was a perilous proceeding. Thefirst day out only six or seven miles were covered.
The second day ten miles. The volunteers were obliged toprecede the wagons, trample a road for a short space, haul the wagons over it,and pull the horses and oxen out of the drifts. Rivers and creeks wereswift, and the ice was not strong enough to afford secure support. Thusmen and beasts waded the bitter, stinging water. Snow blindness attackedthe column. Frozen feet were prevalent. Food was scarce. It issaid that in hardship and bravery this rescue march out of Fort Dodge, and back,has hardly a parallel in the world's history.
Yet, urged, inspired and buoyed by the indomitable major, thevolunteers marched on. The march lasted eighteen days and nights.
On the morning of March 31, about five or six miles northeast ofHigh Lake, Emmet County, the advance guard saw ahead a band of what appeared tobe Indians, awaiting assault. The soldiers approached nearer, ready tofire, when to their delight and astonishment they discerned the people werewhite. In the advance guard was W. L. Church.
"Oh, boys!" he exclained. "There are mywife and babies!"
Thus husband and wife were reunited. The party met by thesoldiers was that from Springfield. It had been on the road three days andfour nights. The women's clothing was torn to shreds and all weresuffering from cold and exhaustion. They had taken the soldiers forIndians, and had prepared to sell their lives dearly. Two of the men werehelpless from wounds. A third, John Bradshaw, had stacked the eight gunsbeside him, a little in advance of the group, and telling his companions to lookout for each other had made ready to hold off the supposed savages as long aspossible.
Brave John Bradshaw!
The Springfield refugees were escorted back to the Irish Colony,near where Emmettsburg now is, and their wants attended to in as thorough amanner as time and place would permit.
Nor far from the present town of Esterville word was received bythe volunteers that a detachment of the regular army had scouted the countryalong the Minnesota line, and that the Sioux had escaped. Major Williamsdecided to send on a party to bury the dead of the lakes region.Twenty-six heroes offered themselves for the hazardous duty. Afterenduring frightful torture from cold and hunger, they accomplished theirpurpose. Two in their number, Captain J. C. Johnson and William E.Burkholder, were lost on the prairie. Eleven years afterward their boneswere found.
The Irish Colony had been appointed the meeting place of themain body and the special detachment. The night before the union one ofthe worst storms known in Iowa prevailed. When the burial party enteredthe Irish Colony many in the detail were crazy.
From now on the troops exerted all their strength to reach FortDodge. Their progress was impeded by a heavy rain that flooded thestreams. This was followed by a blizzard and freeze. The mercurysank far below zero. But at last home and shelter were attained. Allthrough this long march the soldiers had no tents!
The postured of the bodies found at the lakes showed that thevictims had been killed with hardly a warning. Dr. Harriott seems to havebeen the only one who made resistance. When found he had a broken rifle,empty, in his hand.
The Sioux had intended descending the Des Moines valley, raidingthe settlements in their course as they swept on. But the promp action bythe soldiers at Fort Ridgley, Minnesota, and the volunteers from Ford Dodge andWebster City, frightened the savages and they fled westward.
Abigal Gardner and the three women were taken with them.The fight led into Dakota. The prisoners were forced to walk and hadno snow shoes. At night they were made to gather firewood, and put up thetepees. Mrs. Thatcher was ill, but no allowance was made for that.Finally she became a burden. While crossing a river on a narrowbridge she was pushed into the water and shot. Mrs. Noble angered hercaptors by weeping and wailing, and one day she, too, was killed.
Mrs. Marble was sold to another band of Sioux, and by itdelivered to the Indian agent at Yellow Medicine River, Minnesota. Abigalhad given up hope of anything but a life among the Sioux, when finally she waspurchased by Sioux from the mission at Yellow Medicine River. The pricepaid for her was two horses, twelve blankets, two kegs of powder, twenty poundsof tabacco, thirty-two yards of blue squaw cloth, thirty-seven and one-halfyards of calico and ribbon. The great Sioux chief, Ma-to-we-ken, gave hera fine headdress.
In December, 1883, nearly twenty-seven years after the massacre,Abigal, now a woman, once more stood within the walls of the old Gardner cabinon the shore of Minnetonka.
The Sioux never were punished for their deed. To-day amonument stands at Okoboji, and a pile of stones marks the burial place of theGardner family, the two serving to emphasis the significance of the little logcabin, preserved near at hand.
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