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I have seen probably 100-150 websites, bulletin boards and eMails that describe three earlier Wapasha Chiefs. All of the information comes from one source - the website TRADE GOODS (users.usinternet.com/dfnels/index.htm) created by Dale F. Nelson. I've used Nelson's entire descriptions with minor editing of his lengthy statements, converting them into shorter setences for easier comprehension. I also created a Dakota name from the Nelson's English name, hopefully correctly, using my "English-Dakota Dictionary" by John P. Williamson, MHS Press, 1992. See note at the bottom of this webpage that was added 26 Jan 2012. This parallels Nelson's undocumented material on his three earlier chiefs before Wapasha I ((1720-1806). [ He is probably a Mantanton which later broke into the seven bands of Dakota people. ] [ Timeline: ] In 1640, nearly 40 years after the Europeans explore the northern east & west coasts of North America, Jesuit Relation records the information Jean Nicolet obtained on his 1634 visit to Green Bay. During the visit he met the Winnebago people, a Siouan tribe whose language & culture are more closely related to the Iowa, Oto & Missouri Siouan tribes than the Sioux, documenting there was a tribe called "Naduesiu" to the west. "Naduesiu" in Algonquian language means snakes. The French version of the name became Scioux or Sioux. The Winnebago name for their distant relatives, the Sioux, was Caha. It was probably about this time that the Assiniboine split off from the Yankton (Nakota) Sioux and migrated north into Cree lands. It appears by this time period the Winnebago have been cut off from their distantly related Siouan tribes of the Iowa, Oto, Missouri & Sioux, due no doubt to the Iroquios wars in the east which forced the Algonquian tribes to migrate west, the Ojibwe into the north western Winnebago lands, and the Fox/Sauk into the southwestern Winebago lands. In 1660 Radisson & Groseillier visit the Sioux. At this time period the Sioux were seeking the firearms that their enemy the Cree had already obtained from the French and were using against them. Radisson later takes about 50 Sioux on a peace mission to the Cree and at another time visited the "nation of the beefe" or "Prairie Sioux" to the west. 1671 the Sioux drive the Ottawa-Huron refugees from the Mississippi valley. He is born in the Mille Lacs area and marries an Ojibwe woman. [ Timeline: ] On 2 July 1679, Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Luth (Duluth) visited the "Sioux of the Lakes" village on Mille Lacs called Izatys (this was a Santee Sioux or Dakota village). Spring of 1680, Michel Accault-Dacan, Antoine Dugay-Auguel dit Picard & Father Louis Hennipen, sent by LaSalle up the Mississippi to the Sioux, are escorted by a Sioux war-party to the Izatys village on Mille Lacs. The principle Chief on Mille Lacs is documented by Hennipen as Aquipaguitin. 1695 Pierre LeSueur escorts Mdewakaton Chief Tioscate (Teeoskahtay) to Montreal for council. 1700 Mdewakanton Chief Wankantape visits Pierre LeSueur on the Blue Earth River, a southern tributary of the Minnesota River. He was the son of Red-Bonnet & a Ojibwe woman, born in the area of Mille Lacs. [ His son would become Wabasha I ]. [ Note: That was all the information Nelson had on this Chief. The information that follows are excerpts from Essay 25: Waubojeeg the White Fisher, INDIAN DAYS IN MINNESOTA'S LAKE REGION - The Great Sioux-Ojibwe Revolution, Carl A. Zapffe, Historic Heartland Association, Inc., 1990 ] "Waubojeeg was his name, and for once we have an Indian name which translates directly and unambiguously: White Fisher. In reference is that large and somewhat vulpine arboreal carnivor Martes pennanti of the marten and weasel family, once a native of our [Minnesota] woodlands but now virtually extinct, which seasonally changes the color of its beautiful fur to a winter-time white." - - - - - "[W]e will recall from the DuLuth story that as early as 1679 -- about a quarter-century before the events now under study -- efforts at intertribal Sioux-Ojibwe peace were periodically attempted by calling together great conclaves of the two nations under conditions of unrestrained celebration and brotherly love." "Apparently at one of these conclaves, about the year 1717 as best we can calculate it, a noteable Sioux Chief of the Mde-wakanton band on Mille Lacs Lake took an Ojibwe bride; and, as was the Ojibwe custom, he then came to live with her people at LaPointe. Two sons were born to them, the first of who became the highly renowned Wabasha of the 18th Century. There is strong evidence that the father had the same name; and this striking line of Sioux chieftains would then continue into the following Century, each with his own sacred Indian name but, like Little Crow and Hole-in-the-Day, more commonly known for inheriting a name so famous as to have become virtually legendary. Today we ourselves have inherited the name Wabasha not only for a City, but for an entire County, as well as countless other places and items. In fact, the Wabasha Dynasty among the Sioux was generally regarded as taking precedence over that of Little Crow; and this 18th Century "father of Wabasha" was apparently as exalted in stature among the people of his own time as were his descendants a century later. One even wonders what relationship if any he might have had with that historic character Tioscatay whom Le Sueur brought to Quebeck in 1695. That his name was indeed Wabasha seems proved by our old friend Pierre Paul Marin. For Martin recorded having met "Wabasha" 9 March 1740 during those hectic days at the very opening of the Sioux-Ojibwe Revolution. We will recall the problems at Fort Beauharnois in 1736, the killing of two Frenchmen by the Sioux, and the closing of the Fort by Le Gardeur de St. Pierre in May 1737. Marin finally captured two Sioux and one Winnebago two years later and sent them to Montreal as hostages. Hopefully they would be strongly reprimanded, forgiven, then sent back with some stern message that reprisals would be great should any of their two nations ever molest a Whiteman again. Wabasha with nine other Sioux accordlingly traveled to the Fox-Wisconsin portage to meet them when they were due to return about February 1740. However, while they were patiently waiting there, some smark aleck Ottawas came by and, when asked if they had any news of the hostages, came up with the bald-faced lie that the French had burned them to death! In a sudden fit of wild rage, Wabasha and his associates immediately jumpted the Ottawas and hacked every one of them to death. For were they not allies of the French? Yet, scarcely was the dastardly deed accomplished than news swept the forest highway that the hostages were on their way home as planned, and in fact not far distant." - - - - "About 1719 a second child was born - - another son, whose name we unfortunately do not have. Then shortly after that, and not far from the year 1720, all Hell broke loose! The two great nations were at it once again in all-out intertribal warefare; wherupon the glorious romance soon ended." For the typically fierce nature of those conflicts made it no longer safe for the father to remain among Ojibwe people. Furthermore, his high standing as a Chief required him to return to his own people at Mille Lacs. Nor would it even be safe for his two sons to remain among the Ojibwee because of the Sioux blood in their veins. So these two splendidly matched and previously very happy people, under conditions of mutual agreement which guaranteed safety of the two boys, were forced to break up their marriage, with the father taking the lads back to Sioux country." Added 26 Jan 2012: The following tradition is from “Ninety-Six Years Among the Indians of the Northwest - Adventures and Reminiscences of an Indian Scout and Interpreter in the Dakotas” by Philip F. Wells as told to Thomas E. Odell, 1948, North Dakota History, Volume 15: pages 86 & 87: "When Chief Powatan died in 1618, Opechancanough, his brother, became head chief of the Virginia Algonquains. He continued as such until the Anglo-Indian alliance between the colonists and Powatan was ended by the encroachments of the form upon the Indians' land. After the alliance was was broken up, some of the Algonquains migrated to hunting grounds in the Northwest. Pine Shooter's wife bore him a son in 1658. The son's name was Wapasha, the English equivalent of which is "Red War Bonnet." Wapasha, who succeeded to the chieftainship at the death of his father, married a full-blood Ojibway woman. To this union two sons were born. When war ensued between the Sioux and the Ojibways, Wapasha took his soons and left his wife with the Ojibways. One of the sons was Wapasha, known to the whites as "Snow Mountain." Wapasha was born on the border of Mille Lacs of mixed Sioux Ojibway and Algonquain blood about 1683. Wapasha had a son, who was born at the head of Rum river, in Minnesota, in 1718. The Indians named him Wapasha I. The whites called him "Red Leaf." Edward Duffield Neill [The History of Minnesota, pp.226-228] says that history has preserved the name of no greater nor better man than Wapasha.  |
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