href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@42074@[email protected]#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[58] Its connection with later events may well be a matter of conjecture, owing to the character of the Indians concerned.

For nearly a decade after the whites had begun to settle in northwestern Iowa the inhabitants of that region had been obliged to endure constant molestation from a roving band of Sisseton Sioux Indians.[59] Though at first composed of only about five lodges—mainly, it is said, of desperadoes and murderers—the band had grown by the gathering of like characters, fleeing from their avenging fellow-tribesmen, until it numbered at times nearly five hundred.[60] The band as a whole only assembled from time to time for the purpose of united warfare against others—particularly against isolated bands of the Sac and Fox Indians.[61] It was known and feared from the Des Moines westward to the Vermillion and northward to the Minnesota River on account of its peculiarly ferocious and quarrelsome character. It was, in short, a band of Indian outlaws. As such, it was hated and feared by red men and white men alike. In its forays it spared neither friend nor foe, but preyed upon both without discrimination. It claimed no home, but roamed at will wherever its fancy might lead.

Leadership of this band had been early acquired by one Sidominadota or “Two Fingers”. He had succeeded to the leadership of this loosely consolidated band upon the death of Wamdisapa, an Indian of somewhat milder disposition than his successor. Sidominadota well maintained the savage character of the band and may be credited with the inspiration of many vengeful and frightful deeds committed during his brief leadership.[62] He was only nominally the head of the united group, while really the leader of a small band seldom numbering more than fifteen and frequently less. By all who had to deal with him, red or white, he was looked upon with distrust. His fellow leaders associated with him only in time of dire necessity, for they well knew that Sidominadota would go any lengths to accomplish an end. While he continued to make his refuge and headquarters along the Vermillion, as did his predecessors, his favorite haunts were the headwaters of the Des Moines and Little Sioux Rivers and the region of the Iowa lakes.[63]

About 1847 Sidominadota began to frequent that portion of the Des Moines Valley where Fort Dodge now stands. It was his band that in 1849 attacked a party of surveyors in charge of a man by the name of Marsh about three miles from the present site of Fort Dodge. Marsh and his party had been sent from Dubuque to run a correction line across the State. After crossing to the west side of the Des Moines River, they were notified by Sidominadota not to proceed with their work as this territory was Indian land. With the departure of the Indians, the surveyors continued to run their line. In a short time the Indians returned, destroyed the instruments and landmarks of the surveyors, stole their horses, and drove the men back across the Des Moines.[64] About a year later some settlers, more adventurous than their fellows, located near the mouth of the Boone River. Sidominadota, becoming aware of the arrival of these settlers, paid them a visit and ended by destroying their cabins and driving the people out of the country. This sort of behavior was continued toward every white man who ventured into that territory until the founding of Fort Dodge in 1850.

“Among others who had received indignities from this band was one Henry Lott...who in 1846 settled near the mouth of Boone River in Webster County.”[65] Lott’s past had been a varied one and much of it was obscure. He boasted of New England origin, while his wife claimed to be a daughter of an early Governor of Ohio or Pennsylvania. If, however, we are to accept the judgment of their contemporaries the family had degenerated.[66] Lott is almost always described as being notoriously lawless, a horse thief, a vender of bad whiskey, a criminal, half-civilized, a desperado, an outlaw, and a murderer.[67] Up to the time he appeared in the valley of the Des Moines his whole life had been one of adventure.

His first appearance in Iowa, so far as known, was at Red Rock, Marion County, in 1845, where he essayed the role of Indian trader while dealing out bad whiskey to the Indians and surreptitiously stealing their ponies. It is said that his Red Rock neighbors in 1846 requested him to leave the neighborhood—which he did by moving on to Pea’s Point. Here his stay seems to have been brief, for during the same year he is found located on the Des Moines River near the mouth of the Boone, where he erected a cabin and resumed his whiskey-selling and horse-stealing.[68]

Lott’s horse-stealing activities caused the Indians to grow suspicious; and finally they traced the loss of five ponies directly to him and his fellow marauders. This led to an Indian council which decided that Lott should be driven out of the country. Accordingly he was waited upon by Sidominadota and warned “that he was an intruder; that he had settled on the Sioux hunting grounds”; and that he was expected to get off at once. Lott contended that he was not an intruder and refused to go. The Indians then began the destruction of his property: his horses and cattle were shot, his bee-hives rifled, and his family threatened. Lott seems to have been something of a coward, for when the Indians began taking summary action he fled. While the Indians were destroying or stealing his property and abusing the helpless members of his family he, according to his own story, crossed the river and secreted himself in the brush. Later he and his stepson, leaving his wife and young children to the mercy of the Indians, fled down the Des Moines River to Pea’s Point, a short distance south of the present site of Boone.

Here Lott related his story to John Pea and others