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Chief Wapasha II
c. 1773 - 1836
Excerpt from:
"Explorers found hills, valleys alive with Indians,"
a Steve Kerns article in the Winona Sunday News, November 14, 1976. Gathered from http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~wapasha/kerns_1976.htm.
Wapasha II (Abt. 1773 - 1836)
Sometime before his father’s death, Wapasha II became the nominal head of the band. At first, he was low in stature among the members of the tribal council. Wapasha II was a strict abstainer from whiskey, enjoyed the arts of the while man’s culture and tried to bring them to his people. Wapasha II was also a man of peace who tried to keep his people out of war. However, he was leader of the Dakota forces who backed the British in the War of 1812. Allied with other Indians, Wapasha and the Sioux took part in the unsuccessful siege of Fort Meigs, Ohio, in 1813. At the time, the fort was under the command of a young officer named William Henry Harrison, later to become President of the United States.
After the Treaty of Ghent, signed December 24, 1814, the British invited a council made at Drummond Island, about 50 miles east of the Straits of Mackinac. After praising the Sioux for their valor and ability at war, the British offered them blankets, knives and food provisions as thanks for their efforts against the Americans. Wapasha II led the Dakota chiefs in their rejection of the gifts. The Sioux were told they would be consulted before the British signed any treaty with the United States. The British forces withdrew to Canada or back across the Atlantic Ocean. The Sioux, however, had nowhere to go. Wapasha angrily railed the British for betraying their trust and refused to accept their tokens of thanks. He led the chiefs back to their homes to try to promote peace between the white settlers and his people.
Despite the fact both the Constitution of the United States and the Northwest Ordinance of 1782 explicitly stated the right of the Indians to hold their land, by 1825 the federal government was enacting a plan to move all Indians west of the Mississippi. The Northwest Ordinance states, "the utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians. Their land shall never be taken from them without their consent; and their property rights and liberty shall never be invaded or disturbed unless in just and lawful war authorized by Congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity shall, from time to time, be made for preventing wrongs being done to them and for preserving peace and friendship with them."
In an attempt to stop the wars between the Chippewa and Dakota and to regulate other tribes the federal government convened a treaty meeting in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin in 1825. It included chiefs from the Sioux, Chippewa, Sauk, Fox, Menominee, Iowa, Ottowa, Potawatomi, and Winnebago tribes. One of the members of Wapasha’s council aided the whites in arranging the meeting, and traveled to several of the chiefs of different tribes to urge them to attend. The boundaries set between tribes were vague, generally running along rivers. That made little difference, however. Within a few months of the treaty of Prairie du Chien, clashes again erupted.
In 1830, Wapasha II signed a treaty ceding two tracts of land in southeastern Minnesota near Caledonia and Worthington to the United States government. The section near Caledonia was given to the Wisconsin Indians west of the river. As some Indians in the eastern sections of Wisconsin and in Illinois rebelled, Wapasha II and the Sioux still remained on the side of the whites, as did many of the Winnebago of this area. During the Blackhawk War of 1832, though friction had erupted between some Sioux and the officers at Fort Snelling near St. Paul, the Sioux fought with the soldiers against the Sauk Chief Black Hawk.
Also about this time, the Winnebagoes of western Wisconsin had fired upon a boat in the Mississippi River after the fort at Prairie du Chien had been closed. The old enemies from the south, however, were stronger targets of wrath from the Sioux and Winnebagoes. Black Hawk and his band had set out to recover land along the Illinois and Rock Rivers. After suffering several defeats at the hands of the army, Black Hawk fled toward the Mississippi River where he was met by Wapasha II and some Sioux who all but annihilated the Sauks. Black Hawk was finally captured after he fled down the Wisconsin River. Chief One-Eyed Decorah, the leader of the Winnebagoes centered around Black river Falls, Wisconsin apprehended him and turned the Sauk leader over to the Army. Those Sauk who survived, nearly all women and children, fled across the river to Iowa where Wapasha’s band fell upon them again, slaughtering them while they were almost defenseless. The massacre seems out of character for Wapasha. It should be mentioned, however, that the Sauks were known to the Sioux for similar murderous raids while the Sioux men were gone on hunting parties. About a year before the outbreak of the Black Hawk War, the Sauks had raided a Mdewakanton village along Money Creek in Houston County, Minnesota. The Sioux had managed to repulse the Sauks and freed captives that had been taken, among them, Witoka, the daughter of one of the most honored of Wapasha’s warriors, Wahkondeatah.
Wapasha II died at age 63 during a smallpox epidemic that swept through the Mdewakanton Sioux in 1836. His son, Wapasha III, succeeded him as chief.
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