Five years later the Winnebagoes ceded to the United States all their lands east of the Mississippi, and also relinquished the right to occupy, “except for hunting,” a portion of that which they owned on the west side. For this cession and relinquishment they were to receive $200,000; part of this sum to be expended in paying their debts, the expense of their removal and establishment in their new homes, and the rest to be invested by the United States Government for their benefit.
In 1846 the Winnebagoes were forced to make another treaty, by which they finally ceded and sold to the United States “all right, title, interest, claim, and privilege to all lands heretofore occupied by them;” and accepted as their home, “to be held as other Indian lands are held,” a tract of 800,000 acres north of St. Peter's, and west of the Mississippi. For this third removal they were to be paid $190,000—$150,000 for the lands they gave up, and $40,000 for relinquishing the hunting privilege on lands adjacent to their own. Part of this was to be expended in removing them, and the balance was to be “left in trust” with the Government at five per cent. interest.
This reservation proved unsuited to them. The tribe were restless and discontented; large numbers of them were continually roaming back to their old homes in Iowa and Wisconsin, and in 1855 they gladly made another treaty with the Government, by which they ceded back to the United States all the land which the treaty of 1846 had given them, and took in exchange for it a tract eighteen miles square on the Blue Earth River. The improved lands on which they had been living, their mills and other buildings, were to be appraised and sold to the highest bidder, and the amount expended in removing them, subsisting them, and making them comfortable in their new home. This reservation, the treaty said, should be their “permanent home;” and as this phrase had never before been used in any of their treaties, it is to be presumed that the
