together on their little Reserve, where all the worst characters could act in concert, and where they found bloody work for their idle hands to do.”[54] The government had liberally supplied them with tobacco, and they had never lacked money with which to buy whiskey. Their wants had been looked after so paternally that they had little else to do but spend their time in idleness. Craving entertainment they soon learned to find it in a wrong way. They no longer cared to hunt for food, since they did not need to do so. Soon their expeditions became mere raids upon their protectors, accompanied by unrestrained destruction committed to gratify their craving for some form of entertainment. Thus, while the forces of retrogression were at work the Indian was daily becoming more of a menace to the well-disposed border settlers who viewed his changing attitude in helpless terror.

But most insidious of all in keeping the Indian inimical to his white neighbors was the influence of the fur traders—especially those of the American Fur Company. The admitted purpose of this organization was to keep the Indian a savage hunter and at the same time to frighten the white settlers away from the frontier in order that the annual crop of cheaply obtained but valuable furs might not suffer diminution. To keep the Indian in such a condition it was necessary to prevent him from assuming too friendly an attitude toward the whites—in order that he might the better beat back or discourage their westward advance. There were strong suspicions that more than one attack upon border settlers by Indians occurred because the presence of these settlers threatened the fur-gathering preserves of the American Fur Company.

It would be wrong, however, to create the impression that the fur traders operated in secret. Practically everyone knew their purpose and methods: their purposes they openly admitted, and their methods consisted largely in dispensing “fire water” and in selling to the Indian on credit. The latter practice was useful, for it obligated the Indian to serve the Company in realizing its ends. Perhaps the most notable example of the Company’s interference with plans of Indian amelioration is to be found in the case of the Winnebagoes. Their agent, Joseph M. Street, one of the most enlightened Indian agents the Iowa country ever knew, had for some years been striving to improve the condition of the Winnebagoes, but without success. He had failed, not because his plan was impracticable, but because he came into direct conflict with the purposes and methods of the American Fur Company.[55]

IV
THE GRINDSTONE WAR AND THE DEATH OF SIDOMINADOTA

The strained relations between the whites and the Indians resulted in unfortunate incidents which served to intensify the bad feeling already engendered. Of these, two may be noted as especially significant in the frontier history of northwestern Iowa. Thus, in 1854 and 1855, the so-called “Grindstone War” caused the whites to abandon the frontier for a time and spread alarm far and near. This incident might properly be said to have had its origin in intertribal hatred.

For some time a group of Winnebago families had been accustomed to camp near Clear Lake. In this they had been encouraged by an old Indian trader by the name of Hewett. At the same time there also encamped among these Winnebagoes some Sac and Fox Indians who for years, in the Iowa country, had been the greatest enemies of the Sioux. When the latter became aware of the presence of these Sacs and Foxes among the Winnebagoes they swooped down upon them and by mistake scalped a Winnebago. Greatly alarmed, Hewett and his Indian friends fled down the valley, telling their story, which appears to have suffered somewhat from repetition as they proceeded. Within a brief time about one hundred armed settlers collected at Masonic Grove. According to some reports, about four hundred Sioux warriors fortified themselves some twelve miles distant.[56] Thus matters remained during 1854 with no action from either party.

As time passed the Sioux became bolder, until matters reached a climax in an incident which occurred near Lime Creek. A settler, James Dickerson by name, possessed an unusually fine rooster which was craved by a begging band of Indians. In chasing the rooster, a young brave upset and demolished a grindstone, and then made off with the largest piece in continued pursuit of the fowl. Dickerson pursued the Indian and, seizing a piece of the grindstone, knocked him to the ground, where he lay for a time insensible. The Indians, enraged at Dickerson’s act, demanded a settlement for the injury to the brave, making it plain that only Dickerson’s best horse or one hundred dollars in money would satisfy them. After no little parleying, in which Mrs. Dickerson acted as mediator, the Indians were pacified when Mrs. Dickerson had given them about six dollars in money, a number of quilts, and many other articles of household use.

This “grindstone incident” caused the settlers to become greatly alarmed: men from Clear Lake, the Mason City settlement, and vicinity organized and undertook to drive the Indians out of the country. After a chase of some miles, the band of over twenty-five white men came in sight of the rapidly fleeing Indians, who, realizing that they would soon be surrounded and punished, signified a desire to settle matters. Following an interchange of protests, the peace pipe was smoked, after which the Indians resumed their way westward. This understanding, however, did not allay the fears of the settlers who fled panic-stricken to Nora Springs, abandoning for a time their claims in the vicinity of Lime Creek and Clear Lake.[57]

However ready the Indians may have seemed to make peace, the settlers feared for the future; and so along the line of settlements they spread the alarm that the Indians were on the warpath. Many appeals were made to Governor Hempstead for aid. But when he sent Major William Williams from Fort Dodge to investigate the charges, the Major reported that no danger from further attacks seemed to exist. Unable to secure State protection, the settlers armed themselves. Doubtless the “grindstone incident” soon ceased to impress the settlers with any permanent sense of impending danger, for it was not long before they began to return to their deserted claims.

But not far from the scene of this near tragedy there occurred another incident which displays the temper not alone of the Indian but also of the white borderer of the more troublesome type. It appears that this tragic event grew to undue proportions mainly through the vengeful hate of a frontiersman by the name of Lott. The incident, somewhat trivial in itself, has been given so much prominence as a reputed chief cause of the massacre at Okoboji that it is deemed worthy of somewhat extended notice in this place.