Great Spirit has placed these men in our hands that we might do with them as we please. Do, therefore, as you wish, only do not shed blood on the steps of these white men, nor in their presence. Though it is my doing, yet I shall not be with you."
The Ojibways waited till the Dakotas left the shelter of the trading post, and escorting them out on the prairie, towards their country, they shot them down, and cutting off their heads, they caught up with their chief, who had gone on his road homewards, unwilling to witness the scene which he knew his warriors were determined to perpetrate. Sha-wa-ke-shig is noted as having killed the chief Shappa, and secured his scalp. The chief's medal which he wore on his breast, was secured by Wash-kin-e-ka (Crooked Arm), a warrior of Red Lake.
Col. Dickson, who had married a sister of the Yankton chief, was very much exasperated at his death, and he sent a message to Flat Mouth, that henceforth the smoke of a trading house would never more arise from among the Pillagers; and within four years the village would be swept away." The Pillager chieftain laughed at his threats, and he now[1] remarks, that "the traders came to him as usual, and his village continued to grow larger, notwithstanding the big words of the red-headed Englishman." It is doubtless a fact, that Col. Dickson's future treatment of this powerful northern chieftain conduced greatly to alienate him from the British interest, and to strengthen his predilections to the American government. He peremptorily refused to join the British in the late war against the people of the United States.
Shappa, the Yankton chief, was succeeded by his son Wa-nah-ta, who became one of the most influential and celebrated warriors that the Dakotas can boast of. During his lifetime he amply revenged the death of his father,
- ↑ A.D. 1852.
