Messengers were sent to every village with the news,and at the villages of Little Crow and Little Six the war council was red-hot.
It was proposed to take advantage of the fact that north and south were at war to wipe out the white settlers and to regain their freedom.A few men stood out against such a desperate step,but the conflagration had gone beyond their control.
There were many mixed bloods among these Sioux,and some of the Indians held that these were accomplices of the white people in robbing them of their possessions,therefore their lives should not be spared.My father,Many Lightnings,who was practically the leader of the Mankato band (for Mankato,the chief,was a weak man),fought desperately for the lives of the half-breeds and the missionaries.The chiefs had great confidence in my father,yet they would not commit themselves,since their braves were clamoring for blood.Little Crow had been accused of all the misfortunes of his tribe,and he now hoped by leading them against the whites to regain his prestige with his people,and a part at least of their lost domain.
There were moments when the pacifists were in grave peril.It was almost daybreak when my father saw that the approaching calamity could not be prevented.He and two others said to Little Crow:"If you want war,you must personally lead your men to-morrow.We will not murder women and children,but we will fight the soldiers when they come."They then left the council and hastened to warn my brother-in-law,Faribault,and others who were in danger.
Little Crow declared he would be seen in the front of every battle,and it is true that he was foremost in all the succeeding bloodshed,urging his warriors to spare none.He ordered his war leader,Many Hail,to fire the first shot,killing the trader James Lynd,in the door of his store.
After a year of fighting in which he had met with defeat,the discredited chief retreated to Fort Garry,now Winnipeg,Manitoba,where,together with Standing Buffalo,he undertook secret negotiations with his old friends the Indian traders.There was now a price upon his head,but he planned to reach St.Paul undetected and there surrender himself to his friends,who he hoped would protect him in return for past favors.It is true that he had helped them to secure perhaps the finest country held by any Indian nation for a mere song.
He left Canada with a few trusted friends,including his youngest and favorite son.When within two or three days'journey of St.Paul,he told the others to return,keeping with him only his son,Wowinape,who was but fifteen years of age.He meant to steal into the city by night and go straight to Governor Ramsey,who was his personal friend.He was very hungry and was obliged to keep to the shelter of the deep woods.The next morning,as he was picking and eating wild raspberries,he was seen by a wood-chopper named Lamson.The man did not know who he was.He only knew that he was an Indian,and that was enough for him,so he lifted his rifle to his shoulder and fired,then ran at his best pace.The brilliant but misguided chief,who had made that part of the country unsafe for any white man to live in,sank to the ground and died without a struggle.The boy took his father's gun and made some effort to find the assassin,but as he did not even know in which direction to look for him,he soon gave up the attempt and went back to his friends.
Meanwhile Lamson reached home breathless and made his report.
The body of the chief was found and identified,in part by the twice broken arm,and this arm and his scalp may be seen to-day in the collection of the Minnesota Historical Society.
