class="tdr">XVI.

Relief Sent from Fort Ridgely 128 XVII. Preparations for Defense at Springfield 132 XVIII. Inkpaduta Attacks Springfield 138 XIX. The Settlers Flee from Springfield 147 XX. Relief Arrives from Fort Ridgely 153 XXI. Organization of Relief at Fort Dodge and Webster City 159 XXII. The March from Fort Dodge to Medium Lake 170 XXIII. From Medium Lake to Granger’s Point 182 XXIV. The Burial Detail 192 XXV. Return of the Relief Expedition 206 XXVI. The Death of Mrs. Thatcher 215 XXVII. The Ransom of Mrs. Marble 225 XXVIII. The Death of Mrs. Noble and the Ransom of Abbie Gardner 232 XXIX. Pursuit and Punishment of Inkpaduta 245 XXX. The Memorial Tributes of Iowa 260 XXXI. Changes of Sixty Years 269   Notes and References 277   Index 321

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I
THE ADVANCING FRONTIER

Clothed in myth and legend and held in sacred awe by the Siouan Indian, Lake Okoboji and Spirit Lake had rested in seclusion for ages at the headwaters of the Little Sioux. To the red men these lakes had been a sort of Mecca, second only to the red pipestone quarry to the northwest, for the silent adoration and worship of the Spirit.[1] Although the region had been little disturbed by the whites the Sioux were becoming uneasy as the frontier continued its westward advance. By the middle of the nineteenth century the meeting and clashing of the two races became more frequent.

This rivalry of the races was engendered by the white man’s disregard of what the Indian held as sacred: it was embittered by the unstable policies of the government. Finally, in the early days of March, 1857, came one of those tragic events in the long series of misguided attempts to deal with the Indian and solve the problem of the frontier. In this terrible tragedy in the pioneer history of northwestern Iowa, the lives of more than forty white people were sacrificed. The Spirit Lake Massacre was the result of an Indian policy which has been characterized as “vacillating, full of inconsistencies[Pg 1]
[Pg 2] and incongruities, of experiments and failures.”[2] For the Sioux this policy had been the cause of frequent humiliation.

It must be frankly admitted that in dealing with the Indian the whites too often lost sight of the fact that the red man was really a human being, seeking to have his person as well as his rights respected. To compel the respect which his proud spirit demanded, he frequently resorted to massacre. In fact, an Indian was open to insults and abuse from his fellow tribesmen until he had killed a foe.[3]

To some extent the Indian appreciated his own inferiority, and he was expectantly on the alert to prevent being over-reached and deceived by the whites. Suspicious by nature, he became doubly so when his activities brought him into relation with another race. Unhappily he was not always wrong in his suspicions of the white man’s deception, and many unpleasant border difficulties sprang from his attempts to match deception with deception. Physically superb, he too often had recourse to those physical means of redress that have marked the history of the frontier with tales of tragic revenge.[4]

Accustomed to the matching of intellects, the whites frequently resorted to the stilted verbiage of treaties in their efforts to push the Indian farther toward the setting sun. In these treaties