Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/173

 

CHAPTER XII.

 

OCCUPATION OF THE ST. CROIX RIVER COUNTRY BY THE OJIBWAYS.

 

A peace is effected between the Ojibways and Dakotas by the French traders about the year 1695—The French locate a post among the Dakotas—Ojibways locate a permanent village at Rice Lake—Intermarriages between them and the Dakotas—Origin of the Wolf Totem among the Ojibways and of the Merman Totem among the Dakotas—The feud between them is again renewed—Causes thereof—Battle of Point Prescott—The Dakota captive—Consequences of the new rupture—Peace is renewed between the Rice Lake Ojibways and the St. Croix Lake Dakotas—Ojibways form a village at Yellow Lake—Tale of O-mig-aun-dib—The war becomes general.

 

After the sanguinary battle which resulted in the total evacuation of Mille Lacs by the Dakotas, the ancient feud between them and the Ojibways raged with great fury, and it is at this period that the latter tribe first began to beat the Dakotas from the Rice Lakes of the St. Croix River region which they had long occupied in conjunction with the Odug-am-ees. The pipe of peace was not again smoked between the two belligerent tribes, till the old French traders had obtained a firm foothold among the Dakotas, and commenced an active trade.

According to the Indian mode of counting time, this event occurred four generations ago, or about the year 1695. It was brought about only through the most strenuous efforts of the French traders who resided among the Ojibways on Lake Superior, and those who had at this time built a post among the Dakotas near the mouth of the St. Croix River.^[1]

 

1. Bernard de la Harpe writes that in 1695 "Mr. Le Sueur by order of the Count de Frontenac, Governor General of Canada, built a fort on an island in the Mississippi more than 200 leagues above the Illinois, in order to effect a peace between the Sauteurs natives who dwell on the shores of a lake of five