AN EDUCATED SAVAGE
An educated NDN

The prevailing theory is that the Indian or Native American came across the Bering Strait thousands of years ago and slowly migrated eastward and then subdivided into hundreds of tribes. Who they were and where they came from before they came to be North American Indians is anyone’s guess.

Someone told me that the modern day Indian originally came from Turkey. That makes sense if you believe in the Old Testament. You may recall God regretted that He made man so He allowed the entire Earth to be flooded, except for Noah and his Ark. After the flood waters receded the ark settled on a Mount Ararat which is located in present day Turkey. We can assume that all people came from that area and over thousands of years Noah’s descendents scattered throughout the entire world.

Some of those people migrated to what is now France. From France some Frenchmen migrated to Quebec Canada, from Quebec they migrated in the 17th century to what is now the Minneapolis St Paul area.

They must have been pretty horny by the time they got to Minnesota. The Mdewakanton Dakota Indian girls must have looked pretty good. Some of the horny Frenchmen mated with the Indian girls and the result was half French and half Mdewakanton Dakota sons and daughters.

Ohiya and Joseph were two such boys.

Their father Joseph Sr. was in the fur trading business and about 1820 he moved to the Lac qui Parle area in what is now western Minnesota.

Ohiya married Winona, her father was a British fur trader, and her mother a Dakota Indian. Their son Gabriel was born in 1825. In 1832 Gabriel’s father Ohiya was killed in an ambush by the Chippewa’s so uncle Joseph Renville helped Winona raise him.

Joseph Jr. followed his father into the fur trading business and became very successful at it and he was also a very progressive minded half-breed Indian. He established his own village that included a school, church, saw mill, blacksmith shop, grist mill, and trading post.

There were over two hundred Dakota Indians who lived in and about this frontier outpost. Some of the Indians lived in wooden framed houses and others preferred to live in tipi’s as they have done for thousands of years.

Many of the Dakota men were engaged in hunting and trapping, and they also served as Josephs “army” to keep law and order and to protect the town and its residences from marauding bands of Chippewa’s.

“Gabriel, ask you mother to come see me,” Joseph said on a hot humid July afternoon in 1840.

“Ok Deksi (Uncle) I’ll be right back.”

Mother was at the trading post where she worked part time.

“Mother, Deksi wants to see you,” “He is up at his house.”

“Winona, in the near future I have a trip planned to Fort Snelling where we trade our furs for the trade goods; and the steam boat bringing the goods from St Louis will take Francois down the Mississippi River west of Chicago; and from there he will go to Chicago to shop for new trade goods and hopefully find new trading partners for our furs.”

“We spoke before about the need for Gabriel to get an education and I am thinking now is the time for him to go to Chicago with Francois. Francois knows of a school that is run by French people, where Gabriel can attend school.”

“Gabriel, you have heard to us speak of this plan before?” Joseph asked.

“Yes, Deksi.” I replied.

“I know Chicago will be quite a change from what it is here, but times are changing rapidly and you and the rest of the Dakota need to become prepared for that day.” “I fear the ways of our ancestors is rapidly disappearing.”

“In some respect this change is good, in other respects I fear for the Dakota Indian.”

“If we do not accept the inevitable changes we will lose out.”

“What your uncle is saying Gabriel is right, so I am telling you that you have no choice in the matter, we want you to go to school in Chicago, you maybe gone for at least three years.”

“Of course, if you like it there you may want to stay longer.”

“Since I don’t have much choice I guess I let all my friends know that I’ll be leaving them.”

“I talked with them about it and about half said they wished they could go along and the other half said no way would they go to a white man’s school in a far off land.”

“I’m a kind of curious so I have accepted your decision.” “When do we leave?”

“Oh, it will be at least another week, we have to get the horses shoed and the wagons ready, I would say in about five to seven days, so get yourself ready for the adventure of your life.”

Life in our village was unusual and one of a kind for that period of time. Uncle Joseph was supremely confident that he was doing the best for himself and those who supported his idea. The whole framework or concept was based upon the fur trade business.

Some Dakota Indians welcomed the changes and others rejected the half breed Indian and his new ways. Some refused to send their children to school and other totally rejected the whiteman religion.

About a third accepted the changes, a third rejected the changes, and the other third had the “wait and see attitude.

All of the Dakota Indians of the Lac Qual Parle village agreed upon one thing. They understood that somewhere out east their were people willing to pay for the furs of the animals that shared the vast frontier with the Dakota Indian. The Indian immensely enjoyed the trade goods that a pelt of fur could buy.

Part Two

It took a week to get over twenty wagons and a large group of warrior hunters from Lac qui Parle to Fort Snelling. Fort Snelling was the largest military fort in the area and the hub for the growing frontier commerce. Once the Fort Snelling trade goods were loaded on the wagons it would take even longer to get the fully loaded wagons back to the Lac qui Parle trading post.

The Dakota Indian valued the metal pots and pans, the axe’s, knives, mirrors, blankets, an assortment of clothe, beads, trinkets, gun powder and rifles.

Contrary to what modern day Indian romanticists portray of those times the Indian in fact greatly welcomed the white mans inventions. Take for example the metal cooking pot. Ever since the Indian migrated to the North American continent they did not have a metal pot to make soup in. They would broil their meat and vegetables over an open fire, of course this worked for generations of time, but just think how much better a metal cooking pot was. Just think of the advantages a metal axe had over a stone axe.

“I don’t know what the future holds Gabriel,” Uncle Joseph said, “But, the fur trade business will not last forever, there is an limited number of fur bearing animals, and the white man may change their mind about what they wear.”

“You need to prepare yourself and learn how to speak and write their language.”

“I know French and I know the Dakota language, and I am improving my use of the English language, as a matter of fact, I am assisting Mr. Riggs make a book on the Dakota language.”

?Make a book?” I ask.

“Yes, For example, we say Koda in Dakota and the white man says Friend, it means the say thing.” So, Mr. Riggs and I are writing down all the useful Dakota words and translating them to English.”

“Well, Deksi, if you hurry up with this book I won’t have to go to Chicago and learn.”

“Haha, the white man calls it school, that’s where your going, at school they will teach you their language, and the way they write their language and their history, they do this so the next generation can learn from the previous generation.”

“In the Dakota way we pass on our history orally, but being humans, it depends on who’s telling the history, sometimes it changes over time, sometimes facts and events are forgotten so men make up or fill in the missing parts.”

“You will also learn what the white man calls Arithmetic.”

“Arithmetic?”

“Yes, they have a way to count, it’s quite complicated but apparently it has great benefit to them because their whole system of business is based on the understanding and the use of Arithmetic.”

“I don’t know Deksi it seems like an awful lot to learn, what if I am not smart enough?”

“Oh, your smart enough, but it might not make sense at first, so, don’t give up, give it your best effort.”

“I am confident that you will not regret this experience that you are about to embark on.”

The steam boat was awaiting our arrival and after several days all of our furs where loaded on the steamboat and all of the new trade goods were loaded on the twenty wagons.

“Francois has money for new clothes when you get to Chicago. You will take the steamboat down to a place they call Fulton Illinois, and you will get off, and Francois will buy a carriage that you and him will take to Chicago. He will be staying in Chicago for several months so he will keep and eye on you, but as soon as it starts to get cold he will make the return trip up the Mississippi River to Fort Snelling, and if he doesn’t get snowed in he will come back to Lac qui Parle before the real heavy snow starts to fall.”

“If you ever decide to leave Chicago remember to go straight west until you get to the Mississippi River, once you get to the river all you got to do is travel north until you get to Fort Snelling, once you get to Fort Snelling it is easy to find your way back to Lac qui Parle.”

“Beware, there are a lot of unfriendly Indians who live in that area and the white man doesn’t know the difference whether you are a friend or foe, so be careful.”

The population of Chicago in 1840 was 4,470 people. It was obviously the largest concentration of people I had seen in my young life. The town seemed to stretch for miles. I was totally amazed. Francois seemed to know where he was going and I felt comfortable knowing that he had been to Chicago before.

The Lycée Français de Chicago was a private co-educational day school serving forty students. Their goal was to prepare students to be responsible global citizens with a strong focus on English language arts and American studies. The multicultural, dual-language curriculum brought together the best of the French and American education systems.

I only knew a few English and French words so I was greatly handicapped. I was the first Indian to attend the school. Everyone was quite interested in where I came from and what kind of life Indians lived. I could not satisfy their curiosity because I did not know their language. If Francois did not come to visit me at the school nearly every day I would have left the school.

Otherwise simple tasks were foreign to me. I gave up my moccasins for a pair of shoes but it took me several weeks to put socks on. The food was completely different then anything I ever ate before, but when you’re a hungry young boy you will eat anything.

On the plus side everyone was very patient and understanding. The other students we quite friendly except for a boy named Andre.

“Hey Indian why are you here?” He would ask.

I did not understand what he said but I could tell by his facial expression that it wasn‘t good.

“Stupid Indian!” “Wild savage.“ He would say when he seen me.

Francois left for Minnesota in late October. I was on my own, but steadily gaining confidence and I spent sixteen hours a day learning to speak English and French. By Christmas I was able to write simple sentences and hold a limited conversation in English.

Life was so different in Chicago, it seemed like the white people were constantly building something. They had what they called Mercantile’s, or stores, which I found fascinating because it was like our trading post, however, the white folks did not bring in furs to trade.

I was told that they worked and from their labors they received money or a salary. It seemed like this was the motivating factor for everyone. They all got up everyday to go earn money.

Of all of the new things that I observed this fascinated me the most: White men would blow their noses with a piece of cloth and then they would put the cloth back in their pocket. I could not figure out why they saved their snot. I did not know enough English to ask why they did this.

Part 3

“Hey Indian boy, do you understand enough English now?’ “I have been asking you for months why are you here living with us white people?” Andre demanded.

“I came to get an education,” I answered. “Is there something wrong with that?”

“I don’t like Indians,” Andre replied.

“Why?”
“Because you dirty filty animals.”

“Dirty filty animal?” Why do you say that?” “Do you know any Indians besides me?”

“No, but, but, you live out there on the frontier with all the wild beasts.” “So, you must be only one step above the wild beasts that you live with.” Andre said. “I have seen pictures and drawings where you Indians are all wrapped in animal furs, you look like savages.”

“The animals that we share our land with provides for almost all of our daily needs.” “They have been with us for as long as anyone can remember.”

“My family, my Uncle is a fur trader. My Uncle has many trappers that sell their furs to him and he gives them trade goods that they want and need.“
“

“Then my Uncle sends all the furs to markets all over the world so that white people can also wrapped themselves in furs.” I said indignantly.”

“You are stupid Andre.”

The winter snow had melted and spring had come to Chicago. I longed for home.

“Bonjour Monsieur (good morning sir), I have come to tell you that I have been thinking of leaving school.” I said.

“Qu'est-ce que c'est? (what’s that)”

“You want to leave?” “I am sorry you cannot do that Gabriel.” “Your Uncle Joseph would forbid it.”

“Je ne comprends pas. (I don’t understand).”

“Well Sir, I like learning and everyone has been nice to me, but I am lonesome for home, I know Uncle will be disappointed, but I have spent almost 16 hours a day for the last eight months studying and learning.”

“And if I must say so myself I believe that I have made great progress and what I have learned so far will be sufficient for whatever new challenges that may arise out on the frontier.”

“I will be fifteen years old in a few months and I am ready to go home.”

“I insist that you stay here until summer and it will give me time to write a letter to your Uncle and tell him.”

I did not say any more, I left his office and went back to my room. I sat at my desk and began to lay out my plans. I had a eight American dollars. I would buy myself a knife, dried meat, hardtacks, and sugar candy, as much as I could carry. I remembered what my Uncle said about going straight west, follow the bright star in the west. You will eventually get to the Mississippi River. Follow the river north all the way to Fort Snelling.

I wondered now why Uncle told me this, did he expect me to take off from school?

I bought my supplies little by little so as not to raise any suspicions.

After everyone went to bed on the 23rd of April 1841 I quietly left the Lycée Français de Chicago school and took the back streets until I reached the end of west Chicago. I stayed off the main trail to Fulton Illinois where the steamboat let us off. The first night and my first day I walked nearly fifty miles. At dusk, tired and hungry, I climbed the biggest tree I could find and ate and then went to sleep. It took me three days to get to Fulton.

I had two dollars left and went into the small store and bought some dried meat and more hardtacks and began to follow the Mississippi River northward. I was on the eastside of the river and I wanted to get to the westside of the river, I don’t know why but I thought there would be less Indian on the westside of the river.

It would have been easier to walk in the open terrain, but I was afraid that some wild Indians would see me. I did not want to become a captive of some Indian people that I knew nothing about. After my second day of walking north I decided to change my strategy and sleep during the day and walk at night.

It took me twelve days of walking to reach Fort Snelling. I was running short of food and I wondered how I could get some food at Fort Snelling. My mother use to say she had Mdewakanton relatives living near the fort but I forgot their names. Maybe, someone at the fort will know my Uncle and give me something to eat.

I slowly approached the fort about three in the afternoon. I was unsure of how to proceed. Should I go into the fort or should I by-pass the fort and head west? There were Dakota Indians camped all about the fort. I decided to approach a family and tell them my story and if they were good Dakota Indians they would feed me and even give me food for my journey westward.

“Hau, Koda (Hello friend),” I said to a old man sitting near his lodge.” “May I sit down and speak with you?”

“E yo taka (sit down).” “What is your name young man, you do not look familiar.”

“I am Gabriel from out west,” I said. Then I told him my story about going to school in Chicago and walking all the way back to Fort Snelling.

“You are a brave boy,” he said. “I do not think that I could do that, and you say your only 15 years old.” “Let me call my wife, she is cooking meat right now, I am sure we have enough for such a brave boy.”

It was the best soup I ever ate.

“You can sleep over there,” the old lady said.

“Pida miye do (thank you), I said.

The next morning the old man says, “How did you sleep?”

“It was the real good,” I said. “It was the first night of sleep in two weeks that I did not have to worry about being killed by Indians or some wild animal.”

“Thank you again.” “Someday I will repay you.”

“You can stay longer if you want,” the old man said.

I gave the old man my knife for his hospitality.

“Thank you again, but I’m going to get back on the trail again, I am anxious to get back home.”

“Before you go young man, can I ask you a question?”

Certainly,” I said.
“I was wondering are there many white men over there where you came from?”

“Yes, I replied, “I believe there is an endless supply of white men.”

“I was afraid of that,” the old man replied.

Part 4

It took me four days to walk to Lac qui Parle. I did not want to come into camp until after dark. I was afraid of my Uncle. I knew he would be disappointed. I would have to convince him that I had learned a lot in the eight months that I was away.

I knocked on the door at my mothers lodge. “Who is there? she asked.
I said, “Its me Gabriel.”

“My son, what are you doing here?’ “How did you get back?”

“I walked,” I replied.

“You walked?”

“Yes, all the way, it took me two weeks.”

“Your crazy!”

“I found out that I am a Dakota Indian through and through.” “I felt like I was becoming a white man, but on the long walk home I knew that I was a Dakota.”

I realized you can take the Indian away from their home, but you cannot take the Indian out of the Indian.”

“I am greatly impressed by what I seen and learned, but I am also impressed that the Dakota Indian has been able to survive for more years that any of us can remember on the strenght of his character and the manner in which we live.”

“Don’t tell Uncle that I am back Mother, you will have to break it to him slowly.”

“And, also tell him that I will be able to help him in the fur trade business.” “I did learn a lot Mother and I can help Uncle.”

Uncle Joseph did eventually forgive me. He died in 1847 and his fur trade business was passed on to my mother’s son-in-law, a white man named Samuel who was married to my half sister Susan. Uncle Joseph was right the fur trading business did not last forever.

Twenty two years later I was thirty-seven years old and farming in the Granite Falls Minnesota area when on August 17, 1862, the Dakota Indians went on a rampage and killed nearly five hundred white people.

The United States government had made a number of treaties with the Dakota Indian and they did not honor the treaties so the Dakota Indian rebelled.

Not all of the Dakota Indians participated in the war. It was an ill-advised war, there was no way the Dakota Indian could beat the white man. The war lasted less than a month and the Dakota perpetrator’s fled Minnesota.

They burned down my farm and killed all of my cattle because they said I was trying to be a white man. To make matters worst the white man was hell bent on revenge and he did not distinguish between friendly Indians and the hostiles.

Over sixteen hundred half-breed and full blood Dakota Indians were rounded up and herded across Minnesota and incarcerated at Fort Snelling from October 1862 until April 1863.

In April they were loaded on steamboats and taken down the Mississppi River to where it joined with the Missouri River and then taken up the Missouri River to Crow Creek in Dakota Territory.

They nearly starved their first year there.

In late December 1862 I walked up the hill to Fort Snelling and met with Colonel Henry Sibley.

“Come in Gabriel.” “I understand you have a proposition.”

“Yes General.” “There are some of us Dakota who are willing to offer our services to be scouts. To be frank, it is not a popular choice to go hunt down our own people.” “But, some of them cocksuckers burned down my place and I lost everything I had.”

“And, look at the rest of us Colonel, living like caged animals, the conditions here are so harsh that one does not know if he will be alive in the morning.”

On February 27, 1863, thirty-seven half breed and full bloods rode out of Fort Snelling.

Eventually over two hundred Sisseton and Wahpeton Indians would serve as scouts for the military and for their service on February 19, 1867, the US government gave the Sisseton and Wahpeton’s a 916,000 acres reservation in what is now northeastern South Dakota.

The United States government and the Sisseton and Wahpeton Oyate (people) appointed Gabriel be the Chief Spokesman for the Sisseton and Wahpeton Bands.

Immigrants were pouring into the United States look for new land. In 1887 the United States government proposed to enact the General allottment Act which gave each Dakota Indian 160 acres of land. Once that was accomplished they then proposed to sell off the surplus land to white homesteaders for two cents an acres. Going along with this plan the Indians would lose out on over six hundred thousand acres of land.

The government agents came to hold meeting urging the Indians to go along with their plan. Their big sales pitch was that the Indian would then be able to live like white men, with the same rights and privileges of citizenship.

This had great appeal because twenty years earlier many of these same Indians were incarcerated at Fort Snelling. They were landless, homeless, and without hope, and had suffered many degradations while being force marched and stockaded like animals at Fort Snelling.

“What’s to say that you will honor this new agreement?” “Every agreement we made with the Great Father has been broken or violated.”

“You gave us this isolated land to separate us from the white man.”

“Now your constant hunger for new lands has came to haunt us once again, when will you ever be satified?” I said at the initial meeting with the government agents.

Two of the white agents leaned over to confer privately. “Who is this Indian?”

“He is Gabriel, he has been the Chief for over twenty years, and he has been a constant pain in the Arse to the reservation agents,” one of them said.
“We are going to have to find a way to undermine his influence,” the other said, “Many of them look to him and if he doesn’t go along with our plan we are not going to get this done.”

The government agent got up and and said. “The Great Father has changed in Washington, some of you have been to Washington and you know that every four years the government changes, the Great Father Cleveland has instructed me to tell you that it is true that the US government has not always been fair with the Indian, but we are determined to correct our past mistakes.”

“The General Allotment Act will give each of you 160 acres of land, this is more then enough land to provide for your families.”

“After everyone is given a land allotment the rest of the land will be sold to white people who are pouring into this country looking for new land.”

“You will be living right amongst them and this will benefit your people.” “With the money from the sale of your surplus land you will be able to buy what you need to also become prosperous farmers like your white neighbors.”

“Two Stars, you know their lying through their teeth and look over the crowd, half of them believe them for no other reason than because their white men,” I whispered to my long time friend Two Stars.

“The idea of making the Indian a full citizen has great appeal to the Indian after what we experienced at Fort Snelling.”

“Over three hundred people died, most of them young children, and their parents, or grandparents.”

“This fact is indeed unfortunately, and the white man will use it to their advantage.”

“I am going to get up and tell the government agents and the people what they are trying to do, that they are playing on their emotions.”

“If we accept their plan what will happen to our future generations, there will be no land to give them.”

I got up and spoke passionately to what I had just whispered to Two Stars.

The agents hung their head in silence and after a while they conferred and then called for an adjournment of the meeting until tomorrow.

The next day, the government agents were right back at it, trying their best to convince the Indian that the General Allotment Act was in their best long term interest.

Gradually Two Stars and I could see that one by one the government agents were convincing the Indians to accept their plan. Of course, we had our loyal friends, there was an equal amount of Dakota Indians who believed that accepting the General allotment Act would in the future come back and bit us in our onzes (asses) like all the previous treaties.

I got up and said, “As a young boy I was in a place they called Chicago, where I went to school for eight months to learn the white man ways, and their was a boy there named Andre who did not like me for the simple reason that I was not the same race as he was.”

“He was a stupid young man and I often wondered whatever became of him.”

“Today, the man sitting in front of you is that man Andre, and he is trying to steal your land in the name of progress.”

“I urge you to reject this proposal.” “I can tell you my friends that he has no love for you and I urge you to reject this proposal.”

Andre’s face and neck flushed red. Andre’s reaction to my revelation reminded me of the negative remarks I have heard directed toward the Indian.

Some have called the Indian - “Redskins, Redman, the Noble Redman.

Look at Andre, he looks like a red man. I silently chucked to myself.

Later that day a line was drawn in the dirt. “Those in favor of the proposal get on one side of the line and those against the proposal get on the other side,” the agent said.

The Indians were arguing amongst themselves and various factions were attempting to physically pull others to their side. A few punches were thrown. The Indians voted to accept the General Allotment Act by a slim margin.

The government agents preferred that I would not be involved in the final negotiations and the eventual signing of the agreement. I was the Chief and despite my own trepidations I had to sign the agreement, I had to accept the will of the people.

“Chief Gabriel, you will see that this is best for the Indian,” Andre said.

“Va te faire foutre (go fuck yourself,)” I said glaring at him.

“I insist that we be paid no less then twenty-five cents per acre and the money be appropriated in twenty annual payment and the balance be put into a trust fund and draw five percent annual interest until it is paid in full.”

It was not what the government agents wanted to hear, however, they had no choice but to accept my terms.

“You educated son-of-a-bitching Indian.” Andre snarled at me.

“Merci beaucoup!” (thank you very much). ” I said.

The reservation was opened up to homesteading in 1892. Today, the orginal reservation has dwindled to a little over one hundred thousand acres of land and the new generations of Dakota Indians do not own any land individually.

The End.