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HISTORICAL FICTION
Sophie's Hawk: Spirit of the Raptor is a work of historical
fiction.
THE THIEF
A soldiers lodge was a group of proven warriors who came together
as law givers and decision-makers. More powerful than the chiefs
or medicine men, their decisions and orders were never to be
challenged or disobeyed. Their primary function was to lead the
hunting parties, but they often took the lead in times of war.
The Thief was the head soldier of the soldiers lodge of Mankato’s
band of Mdewakanton Sioux. During the Sioux Conflict The Thief was
one of the chiefs who led war parties at the battle at Fort
Ridgely. He fought the battles at Red Wood Ferry, New Ulm, and
Birch Coolie. He is not mentioned in the Dakota trial records and
it is likely that he escaped with Little Crow to Dakota Territory
after the battle at Wood Lake. Little more is known about him.
While the name “The Thief” is the name of an actual person
involved in the Dakota Conflict, his part in this story is purely
fictional.
PIERRE "PIG'S EYE" PARRANT
Pierre Parrant, or “Pig’s Eye”, was the first person of European
descent to live within what is now the city limits of St. Paul. He
was also the owner of the first business in St. Paul—a moonshine
still. He was, by popular description, a man whose facial
appearance was most displeasing. He had only one serviceable eye,
the other having been lost in some unfortunate event during his
experiences as a voyageur. The injured eye was the likeness of a
pig’s eye and from that he got the moniker, “Pig’s Eye”.
In around 1832, Parrant set up his distillery among the settlers
around Fort Snelling and furnished whiskey to the soldiers at the
fort as well as the nearby Indians and settlers. By 1835, the
Indian agent at Fort Snelling, Major Lawrence Taliaferro,
(pronounced ‘Tolliver’) had expanded the area of the military
reserve to include the vicinity of Pig’s Eye’s still. He then
ordered Parrant, along with many settlers, away from the fort in
an effort to stop the not-quite-illegal whiskey trade.
Parrant moved his business to a place known as Fountain Cave
where, much to the dismay of Major Taliaferro and the officials at
the fort, he again set up his business. It wasn’t long before
others joined from the squatter camps and a small community
developed. Money ran short for Parrant and he was forced to
mortgage his claim to William Beaumette. The mortgage papers
changed hands several times which ultimately led to Parrant’s
eviction. He then moved to what is now the area of downtown St.
Paul, where Parrant immediately set up his saloon near Lambert’s
Landing and his business prospered. River men and settlers began
to call the area “Pig’s Eye”.
Parrant became involved in another dispute over ownership of the
land on which he ran his business and once again lost his claim.
Angry at the loss, he set out for Lake Superior hoping to return
to his homeland near Sault Ste. Marie. He apparently died en
route, in approximately 1844.
BARLEY CORN AND SNANA
Barley Corn was the mother of Snana. Snana is remembered in
history as the Sioux woman who saved the life of Mary Schwandt,
one of the girls who had been captured by the Indians during the
attacks on the agencies. Snana had lost a child due to illness a
few days before the outbreak and, in her grief, asked for a
captured white girl to replace the child she’d lost. Barley Corn
bought the child from her captor for the price of one pony and
gave her to Snana.
After the initial attacks on the Lower Sioux Agency, and the
defeat of Captain Marsh at the Red Wood Ferry, the Lower Sioux
went to the Sisseton and Winnebago Indians, who were friendly to
the whites, and demanded they join them in their war. The
Sissetons and Winnebagos refused. On September twenty-third Little
Crow’s army of 738 warriors went to do battle with Colonel
Sibley’s army of 1,619 men at Wood Lake and was defeated. On their
way back to camp they once again went to the friendly Indians to
try to force them to join the war. The Sissetons and Winnebagos
knew Little Crow’s forces would return, and, whether they won the
battle or lost, they would try to take the captives and probably
kill them all.
To protect the children from the enemy and stray bullets in
battle, the Indian women dug holes in the floor of their tepees to
create a hiding place. They would put the child down into the
hole, lay poles over the holes and blankets over the poles, then
sat upon them until the danger had passed.
The Sissetons and Winnebagos repelled the Mdewakantons without
bloodshed. The Mdewakantons left to return to their camp. A war
party of the friendly Indians followed Little Crow’s warriors back
their camp, singing their war songs and firing their guns in the
air as a show of force. They rode into the camp and demanded that
Little Crow turn over the rest of his captives. Little Crow knew
that if any more of the captives were killed it would destroy any
chances of peace talks with Sibley so he ordered the release of
the captives. When Henry Sibley came to take the prisoners that
the friendlies had rescued from the Mdewakantons, Mary Schwandt
was taken from Snana.
Snana and Mary Schwandt were reunited in the autumn of 1894.
CAMP RELEASE
After the defeat of Little Crow’s warriors at the battle of Wood
Lake, and the refusal of the Sissetons and Winnebagos to join
their forces, the Mdewakantons escaped toward the plains of the
Dakotas fearing that Sibley and his army would follow and destroy
them. Sibley, in spite of his overwhelming forces, and for reasons
known only to him, did not follow them. Instead, he went into camp
near the village of the Sisseton and Winnebago Indians. While
there, he sent word to all the Indians to come to him, surrender
and turn over any and all prisoners they might have. Many Indians
surrendered and released their prisoners, which prompted Sibley to
name the camp “Camp Release”.
In early October of 1862, there were 243 Indian camps at Camp
Release. Sibley sent word that any Indian who surrendered would be
treated as a prisoner of war and given the treatment due a
soldier. He would only punish those Indians that had killed white
civilians or were guilty of rape.
As word of Sibley’s promise spread throughout the Indian
community, more groups surrendered and the camp grew to over 2,200
people. A second camp was formed near the Yellow Medicine Agency.
When Sibley concluded that all who were going to surrender had
done so, he ordered his troops to surround the camps and disarm
the Indians.
In an attempt to gather more hostiles, Sibley passed word to the
Indians that the annuities were being distributed at the agency.
When the families came to receive their payments, the men were
sent through a back door where they were disarmed, chained and put
under guard. The women were sent to the compound with the rest of
the captured families. This tactic was criticized by many as a
cheap trick, beneath the dignity of military men. This writer
agrees.
Though he lacked the authority to do so, Sibley set up a military
court and began trying the male prisoners for war crimes. The
trials were conducted haphazardly and men were convicted of murder
on even the slightest of evidence. Most of the Indians were tried,
found guilty and sentenced to hang, and in many cases, all in the
space of only a few minutes. By November, 303 Indians had been
tried, found guilty and condemned to the gallows. They were then
sent to a prison in Mankato to await execution. The rest of the
Sioux were sent to prisons at Mankato and Fort Snelling to wait
out the winter while the Minnesota government determined what
should be done with them. Many of the Indians died of starvation
and sickness while imprisoned.
Sibley formed civilian units and ordered them to search the
countryside, especially the Big Woods area, for roving bands of
hostile Sioux. Some were found and captured, or killed, but most
escaped to parts unknown. Some never left Minnesota and their
descendents still live here today.
The names of the condemned prisoners were sent to Washington for
the approval of the president for immediate execution. President
Lincoln demanded the transcripts of the trials be sent to him,
then had them thoroughly studied by three trusted attorneys. Of
the 303 condemned men listed, Lincoln found only 39 whom he
considered to have had sufficient evidence brought against them to
warrant execution. One of the 39 was given a reprieve because he
was the brother of one of the Indians who had helped white people
escape the war.
On December 26, 1862, thirty-eight Sioux were hanged en mass while
a crowd of on onlookers cheered. It was, and still is, the largest
mass execution in United States history.
THE THUNDER SPIRITS
Records left by early trappers and explorers tell of strange
rumbling sounds emanating from the Black Hills of South Dakota.
The sounds were like distant thunder and most assumed they were
from unseen thunderstorms that frequent the hills. Thunder does
travel for many miles through the hills and can be heard miles
away from the storms, but the thunder was heard when there were no
storms in the hills.
Scientists have studied the reports of the thunder but have not
found a conclusive explanation. The last reports of thunder sounds
came in the later part of the nineteenth century. Prior to that
time no geological studies had been done in the Black Hills.
Geologists speculate that the sounds may have been caused by the
spontaneous ignition of natural gasses that built up in the deep
caves and in closed caverns deep underground, leaving no evidence
at the surface. An educated guess at best, as there is no record
of anyone actually having seen the explosions and therefore, no
description exists.
The sounds have curiously stopped and the opportunity for further
investigation is lost. The geology of Black Hills is alive and
perhaps someday we will hear the “thunder spirits” talk again.
THE MÉTIS
The Métis (pronounced “may-TEE”) were a community of mixed blood
people of Canada—a mix of American natives and European
immigrants. The Canadian government was reluctant to view them as
Canadians where rights and privileges of Canadian citizens were
concerned, and equally as reluctant to see them as Indians when it
came to Indian rights and privileges. The Métis held more closely
to the free roaming lifestyle of their Native American mothers
than to the structured and prearranged society of their European
fathers.
Expert horsemen and hunters, the Métis rode through the plains of
Canada and the northern parts of America hunting buffalo for
survival. They went where they could find buffalo and, as free
people, national boundaries meant nothing to them. Although hard
work was their way of life, agriculture was not one of their
choices.
The Métis built the ox cart trade routes that contributed largely
to the development of the Minnesota Territory. The trails started
in Pembina, followed the Red River of the North southward and down
the Minnesota Valley to Saint Paul. Several trails went across the
state to Crow Wing City at the confluence of the Mississippi River
and the Crow Wing River. The Red River Trails, as they were
called, connected Pembina on the northwest corner of Minnesota
with Saint Paul. Many of our present-day roads and highways still
follow these trails. Today, U.S. Highway 10 follows one of these
routes almost exactly.
From about 1820 to 1870 the Métis carried buffalo robes, buffalo
tongue, furs, pemmican and other trade goods, as well as mail.
When their cargo had been delivered, they loaded their carts with
guns, gun powder, traps, blankets and goods not easily obtained in
the remote parts of Minnesota, then headed back to Pembina. The ox
carts were made entirely of wood and rawhide using knives, axes,
saws and draw knives. There were no metal parts used in the
construction. The carts were pulled by a single ox, horse, or mule
and in some accounts young buffalo were trained for the job. Each
cart could carry up to 900 pounds of merchandise. Grease was not
used on the axles and their squealing and groaning could be heard
for miles. In places such as Old Crow Wing town near Brainerd and
the plains of northwestern Minnesota, the ruts cut by the wheels
of their carts can still be seen today.
The Métis were a people unto themselves, independent and free
roaming. In many accounts and diaries of early travelers and
explorers, the Métis are mentioned showing up on the prairies in
groups of hundreds on their way to the buffalo hunting grounds.
Nowhere in my research did I find any instance where they were the
least bit hostile to the Americans. In fact, in most cases they
were perfectly willing to share what they had. They were an
arrogant and proud people, and are to this day a credit to the
populace of Minnesota.
THE HENRY REPEATING RIFLE
The rifle that would become the Henry Repeating Rifle, and later
the famed “Winchester Lever Action Rifle”, was first developed in
1855 by the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company of Norwich
Connecticut.
In its original design, it fired a very unreliable round with too
little power to be of interest to hunters or the military.
Volcanic Arms went bankrupt and out of business. Oliver Winchester
took control of the firm under the name New Haven Arms Company in
New Haven, Connecticut. New Haven Arms Company saw potential in
the new rifle and hired B.Tyler Henry, a machinist from Volcanic
Arms, to develop a cartridge with more power and reliability. He
came up with a round completely encased in a copper cartridge. It
carried a .44 caliber conical bullet weighing 216 grains propelled
by a charge of 25 grains of black powder. When discharged, the
bullet left the muzzle at about 1400 feet per second. The rifle
weighed 9.5 pounds.
The magazine beneath the barrel held fifteen shots, and with one
round in the chamber, it could be fired sixteen times without
reloading. Reloading was accomplished in fifteen seconds and the
rifle was back in action. It was capable of extreme accuracy at
two hundred yards in the hands of the common shooter. Thirty-two
shots in the time it takes to load and shoot a muzzle loading
musket once, makes brave men out of cowards.
The rifle was given the name Henry’s Patent Repeating Rifle. New
Haven Arms began to market their new product to hunters and sport
shooters. Because the Henry was made available to sport shooters
before it was presented to the military, there were dozens of them
in the hands of settlers during the Sioux Conflict. In 1862, the
soldiers of the Union Army realized the combat potential of the
fast-shooting weapon. It could be fitted with a long barrel for
use by common foot soldiers and a shorter barrel for cavalry.
Brigadier General James W. Ripley, Union Chief of Ordinance under
Abraham Lincoln, was not receptive to new weapons. The general was
particularly leery of repeaters, which he believed were expensive,
wasteful of ammunition and too delicate for military service.
Therefore, he decided not to purchase them for the Union Army. The
Henry Rifle was used in the Civil War, most having been purchased
by individuals out of their military pay. The soldier in the Union
Army made thirteen dollars a month—a new Henry cost about
forty-five dollars, depending on whose book you read. Many a
soldier claimed it was well worth the price but the Confederate
soldiers damned it and called it, “the gun you load on Sunday and
shoot all week.”
It could be argued that, had the rifle been issued to the Union
soldiers early in the war, it would have saved countless dollars
by bringing the war to an end much sooner and could have saved
immeasurable cost in the lives of Union and Confederate soldiers.
The Union Army didn’t officially adopt a repeating rifle until the
Krag Jorgenson bolt action rifle in 1892.
In the account of Cecelia Campbell Stay, a survivor of the attack
on the Lower Sioux Agency, the presence of Henry Rifles is made
known.
“Grandmother sat on the banking of the house bewailing the absence
of her sons, father and Uncle Baptiste. Uncle Hippolite sat by
Grandmother, a sixteen shooter by his side and a double-barreled
shotgun across his knees; he said he would “defend with his life”.
Woe to the Indian that would have offered harm to us that day.”
Anderson, Gary Clayton, and Allen R. Woolworth. 1988. Through
Dakota Eyes: Narrative Accounts of the Minnesota Indian War of
1862. The Minnesota Historical Society Press.
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FORT ABERCROMBIE
In the middle of the nineteenth century trade between the Hudson
Bay Company in northern Canada and Saint Paul grew and the ox cart
traffic increased along the Red River Trails. Immigrants began
moving northward into the newly opened Red River Valley area in
search of rich farming land. Wagon trains moved west through
Minnesota to the gold fields of Montana, Idaho and the Fraser
River in British Columbia. The trails they traveled closely
followed the dividing line between the Chippewa and the Sioux
territories. The Minnesota government soon realized the necessity
to protect the travelers from possible attacks by the Indians, or
from being caught in the middle of one of the frequent
confrontations between the two tribes. The travelers would also
need a place to stop, refresh their animals and re-stock their
food stores—a roadside rest, as it were.
In 1858, construction began on a new fort at the head of
navigation on the west side of the Red River of the North about 50
miles north of Lake Traverse. Shortly after commencement of the
construction, a report from the war department warned that the
sight was subject to springtime flooding and the project was
abandoned. In 1859, the Saint Paul Chamber of Commerce offered a
$2,000.00 reward to the man who could put a boat on the Red River.
Anson Northrup answered this challenge. He had purchased a small
steamer to navigate the upper Mississippi from Little Falls to
Grand Rapids. During the winter while the lakes and ponds were
frozen over, he dismantled his boat and with 43 teams of horses
and 60 men, carried it over land to the Red River. He named his
boat ‘The Anson Northrup’ after himself.
With the new steamboat service on the Red River, the officials saw
an even greater need for a fort and built it farther away from the
river where flooding was not as likely to occur. By1860, the post
was occupied by regular troops and named Fort Abercrombie after
Lieutenant Colonel John J. Abercrombie who designed the fort. At
the outbreak of the Civil War the troops were called away to fight
in the South and small groups of volunteers manned the fort under
the command of Captain John Vander Horck, a German immigrant and
veteran of the Prussian wars.
In that year, treaty talks were planned with the Pembina and Red
Lake bands of Chippewa Indians. Cattle and horses and other
supplies were brought to the new fort for use during the treaty
talks.
On August 23rd Vander Horck received word of the Sioux Uprising.
The fort had no walls, so the commander put his troops to work
stacking cordwood around the buildings and constructing
breastworks between them. Nothing happened until the 30th of
August when a band of Sioux appeared and drove off a large portion
of the livestock. Forty of the animals were recovered the next day
by a scouting party of soldiers. On September third, the Indians
once again appeared. The size of the attacking force is different
in each account you read, but most historians agree the count was
probably around one hundred. The attacking Indians were driven
off, thanks to the three twelve pounder cannon in the post. A
second attack came at daybreak on the sixth of September, which
was also thwarted by cannon fire and the guns of civilians
determined to save their cattle. In the attacks, one civilian was
killed and two wounded. The number of Indian dead, of course,
could not be learned, but one report said, “Two bodies were found
and planted”. No further attacks followed, however a troop sent to
Saint Paul encountered a band of Indians and two of the troops
were shot dead.
Fort Abercrombie was abandoned in 1877. Today, Fort Abercrombie
State Historic Site is free and open year round for visitors.
THE FLAT COUNTRY OF NORTH DAKOTA
The latest continental glaciers covered the northern parts of our
country 10,000 to 70,000 years ago. As the glaciers pushed
southward they plowed earth against their front. Geologists call
these piles of pushed up earth ‘terminal moraines’. The climate
began to warm and the glaciers melted back, leaving the moraines
where they stood. Water from the melting ice ponded between the
front of the glacier and behind the moraines and a lake was
formed. This was the largest lake in the world. Lake Aggasiz
covered the northwestern corner of Minnesota and the eastern edge
of North Dakota, nearly all of the province of Manitoba in Canada,
and stretched to Hudson Bay. The lake continued to rise until,
near what is now Brown’s Valley, it began to spill over the earth
dam formed by the moraines. For twelve hundred years, the waters
of Lake Aggasiz flowed over the dam and down the valley of the
Minnesota River, filling it from rim to rim with churning, rushing
water.
In time, the ice melted back to Hudson Bay, opening drainage for
Lake Aggasiz to the north. The lake drained and left its bottom
dry and very flat— some of the flattest ground in the world. The
soil left behind is the sediment of the lake bottom. It is fine
grained, black mud that sticks to anything that touches it. Wagon
wheels, the feet of the horses, and the shoes of travelers are
quickly encased in this sticky mud. Reports of travelers indicate
that the grass on the Dakota Plains stood as high as a man. Now,
of course, the ground has been plowed and turned into farmland and
few scattered patches of the tall grass remain. Though extremely
difficult to till, the soil in the Red River Valley is some of the
richest farming land in the world.
STANDING BUFFALO
TATANKA NAJIN
Standing Buffalo was about twenty nine years old at the beginning
of the Sioux Conflict. By all accounts he was handsome,
intelligent and of good disposition. Born in 1833, Standing
Buffalo grew up in a time when buffalo were becoming fewer on the
plains and dependence on the white man was becoming more
essential. In 1858, his father made him chief of the Sisseton band
of Sioux. Standing Buffalo knew the Indians could no longer live
on the diminishing numbers of buffalo on the plains, or the deer
and elk of his home land, and now needed the help of the white man
to feed themselves.
When the Mdewakantons attacked the agency at Red Wood, Standing
Buffalo and his Sissetons were on the Dakota prairie hunting
buffalo for the winter and knew nothing of the attack until they
returned to their village. When the chief learned of the attacks
on the agencies he told his people not to get involved. He wanted
food and money for his people but he trusted that the government
would provide for them if they maintained the peace. However, when
some of his young braves saw the plunder the other Indians were
bringing home, they wanted some of it. They told Standing Buffalo
they were going hunting but instead they went to kill and steal.
Through the conflict, Standing Buffalo refused to get his people
involved in the war. Little Crow and his warriors came to them and
tried to force them to join them but the Sissetons resisted. After
Little Crow’s defeat at Wood Lake, Standing Buffalo led his people
away from his land near Big Stone Lake and moved north into Dakota
country and Devil’s Lake. From there they went west. Because they
happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time they got
involved in the battle of Big Mound with Sibley’s army. And so,
the Sissetons were then hunted as aggressively as the Mdewakantons
were.
Standing Buffalo moved his village north heading toward Canada. In
the summer of 1867, the village was stricken with smallpox.
Standing Buffalo’s mother, father, and many other close relatives
died, including the children of his youngest wife who, in her
grief, killed herself with the poison kept to kill coyotes. At the
age of thirty four, Standing Buffalo was grief stricken and alone.
He wandered alone for eight years after that initial battle with
Sibley. He had suffered hardship, famine, war, disease, and
finally a Sioux warrior’s death while still in the prime of his
life. Standing Buffalo decided he was sick of life and decided to
end it. He rode his horse into an Indian village and, to attract
attention, killed four Indian women picking berries. He then threw
down his weapons and allowed himself to be shot until he fell to
the ground, mortally wounded.
Nothing remains of Standing Buffalo but stories and legends. His
body was not properly buried and the exact location of his death
and burial are unknown.
Diedrich, Mark. 1988. The Odyssey of Chief Standing Buffalo.
Minneapolis: Coyote Books.
THE FANCY SHAWL DANCE
The Fancy Shawl Dance is not a dance of the historical period of
this book but we thought it proper to include it because it is one
of the most beautiful dances to be seen at modern day pow wows. It
has its origins in recent history as the dance called the Blanket
Dance. These dances were preformed by the men. But the women, not
be held down, developed their own form of this dance and called it
the Fancy Shawl, or Butterfly Dance.
The dancers are adorned in brightly colored shawls with long
fringes on the edges, matching colored dresses, leggings, and
beaded moccasins. The dance is reminiscent of a butterfly dancing
on the wind. The dance is done in time with the changing rhythm of
the drums. It is fast moving and very physical with steps that
make the dancer appear as if her feet never touch the ground.
According to the legend of the Butterfly Dance, a butterfly lost
her mate in a battle and in her grief she wrapped herself in her
cocoon. She wandered around the world stepping on each and every
stone until she found one beautiful enough to bring her out of her
grief. She then emerged from her cocoon with beautifully colored
wings. Now she flies around the world bringing happiness to the
grief stricken.
The dance can be enjoyed at any of the pow wows staged year round
in all of the states of the union and Iowa. Take time to visit a
pow wow and we’re sure you’ll be delighted by the spectacle.
THE BATTLE AT MURFREESBORO
The story of the battle at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, as told in
this book, is true. Colonel Henry Lester did surrender his troops
without a fight to Confederate General Nathan B. Forest. He did
call two meetings of the officers in his command to secure the
vote to surrender.
Sergeant Wambolt and his part in this story are fictional. During
the fighting at Murfreesboro there were squads of soldiers who
left Lester’s command to go to the fighting, but to my knowledge
no records exist to say who those men were.
WABASHA
“White men go to war with their own brothers and kill more men
than Wabasha can count all the days of his life. Great Spirit
looks down and says, ‘Good white man. He has my book; I love him,
and will give him good place when he dies.’ Indian has no Great
Spirit book. He wild man. Kill one man—has scalp dance. Great
Spirit very angry. Wabasha don’t believe it.” (Chief
Wabasha.1863.)
THE BIG WOODS
When I was a kid back in Ottertail County one of my favorite
places to spend time was the woods south of town. I didn’t know at
that time that I was in the area called “the Big Woods”. I didn’t
know that those woods covered more ground, and went farther than I
had ever imagined. An old trapper once told me, “These here woods
goes from Ioway clear up inta Canada.” I was impressed, but still
had no idea of the size, and I don’t think he was any more aware
than I was.
I once tried to impress my buddies with this bit of Minnesota
trivia but, rather than being impressed, they responded with a
dry, “So?” Then they resumed their discussion about Mickey Mantle
and right-handed pitcher, Jim Bunning. What could possibly be more
exciting than Mickey Mantle, batting left-handed, hitting his
200th homerun off a throw from a right-handed pitcher?
To this, I responded with a dry, “So?” In my humble opinion,
watching the leaves decay on the floor of the Big Woods beats it,
hands down.
Disappointed with my failure to distinguish myself as a
well-informed member of adolescent society, I retreated into a
world of reading and discovery. If that old trapper was still
around today, I could try to impress him with what I have learned.
The Big Woods was an area of dense forest, prairie, and savanna,
dotted with lakes and marsh, and laced with hundreds of miles of
rivers and streams. It covered an area from Otter Tail County in
west central Minnesota, down the middle of the state to the Iowa
border. It was bounded, roughly, by the Minnesota River Valley on
the west, and the Mississippi River on the east. In the central
part of the state it merged with the boreal forests of
northeastern Minnesota. The glacial lakes area, and the moraines
left by the glaciers was host to the Big Woods. Look at a
Minnesota road map and notice the string of lakes stretching from
Detroit Lakes south-eastward to just west of the Twin Cities and
southward to Le Sueur and Nicollet Counties. This is roughly the
area covered by the original Big Woods.
The relatively flat plains to the east and west of the woods were
subjected to natural prairie fires pushed on by dry, perpetual
west winds. Native inhabitants set grassfires in the spring to
burn off the cover of dead grass from the previous year and
promote new growth and to bring the life-giving buffalo back from
their wintering grounds. The fires killed off any trees that tried
to grow there.
Conversely, the fires in the moraines were controlled or even
prevented by the rivers, lakes and hills. Fire moves much more
slowly downhill and does not spread as quickly as on the plains.
Also, the winds that drove the fires on the plains were slowed in
the woods. In the hills, young trees were allowed to take root,
grow and multiply. A canopy of leaves shaded the ground and kept
the carpet of fallen leaves moist, thus reducing the chances of
fires starting or continuing. Also, sunlight was filtered out
reducing growth of underbrush and leaving a park-like environment.
A survey done by the Minnesota Horticultural Society in 1878 lists
over fifty varieties of trees and shrubs in the Big Woods. The Big
Woods provided shelter and food for deer, bear, wolf, and
elk—animals whose range would have otherwise been limited to the
northern forests. Countless birds and insects that would have been
driven out by the cold winters found shelter in the woods.
After the Civil War, pioneers began to move into Minnesota in
search of farming land. The rich soil beneath the Big Woods drew
farmers who cleared large portions of the land for fields. The
majestic oak, elm, ash and basswood, were cut down to provide
lumber and fuel, and millions of trees were cut for railroad ties.
Scrub oaks, aspen, box elder and other less desirable timber took
over the forest areas. Wetlands were filled in by settlers to
provide even more farm land. On the prairies, settlers planted
rows of fast growing trees and hedges to block the wind and to
control the natural fires. The natural prairie grasses and plants
were plowed under and the soil seeded with wheat, oats, barley and
soybean—crops foreign to the Minnesota prairies and forests. The
original Big Woods have now been reduced to a few small plots in
southern Minnesota.
A drive down a country road through the Leaf Hills of Otter Tail
County will give the viewer a taste of what the Big Woods might
have been like two hundred years ago. In Minnesota there are still
huge forests filled with wildlife and vegetation, but the grandeur
of the original Big Woods is gone. Someday another glacier will
cover this land, till the soil and allow Mother Nature to restore
the Big Woods to its original majesty.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is currently working
to preserve what is left of the Big Woods and restore some of the
prairies to their natural state. The process is slow and the work
is hard, but the results are worth the effort.
That old trapper back home would be impressed with what I could
tell him about the Big Woods. Now what the hail was his name? Aw
hail, don’t matter none enna ways.
He’s dead now.
...
For those who would like to find more information on this exciting
and important chapter of Minnesota history, we would recommend
reading:
A History of Minnesota, Volume II
William Watts Folwell
Minnesota Historical Society Press
Soldier, Settler, Sioux: Fort Ridgely and the Minnesota River
Valley, 1853-1867
Paul N. Beck
Pine Hill Press
Little Crow: Spokesman for the Sioux
Gary Clayton Anderson
Minnesota Historical Society Press
Through Dakota Eyes: Narrative Accounts of the Minnesota Indian
War of 1862
Gary Clayton Anderson and Alan R. Woolworth
Minnesota Historical Society Press
...
We do hope you enjoyed this book and we encourage you to read on
as the adventures of the Pa Hin Sa continue.
—Arvid Lloyd Williams
Bonnie Shallbetter
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