Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/397

 

CHAPTER XXXV.

 

EVENTS FROM 1818 TO 1826.

 

In 1818, Black Dog, a Pillager war-leader, marches into the Dakota country, with a party of sixteen warriors—Desperate fight, from which but one Pillager escapes death—In 1824, four white men are murdered on the shores of Lake Pepin by an Ojibway war party—Unsuccessful pursuit of the murderers—The traders demand them at the hands of their chiefs—Chief of Lac du Flambeau delivers three of the ring-leaders into the hands of Truman A. Warren—The principal murderer is secured by Wm. Holliday—They are taken to Mackinaw and confined in jail, from which they make their escape—Convention at Fond du Lac in 1826, between commissioners on the part of the United States, and the Ojibways—Objects thereof.

 

For several years after the closing of the last war between Great Britain and the United States, no event of sufficient importance to deserve record, occurred to the Ojibways. Their warfare continued with the Dakotas, but no important battle was fought, nor striking acts of valor and manhood performed, such as find a durable place in the lodge tales and traditions of the tribe, till the year 1818, when the hardy Pillagers again lost a select band of their bravest warriors.

A noted war-leader, Black Dog, having lately lost some relatives, at the hands of the Dakotas, raised a small but select band of warriors to go with him in pursuit of vengeance. They numbered but sixteen men, but being all of determined character, they marched westward, and proceeded further into the country of their enemies, than any Ojibway war party had ever done before them. After having travelled all one night in crossing a wide prairie, early in the morning they discovered a large encampment of Dakotas, whose lodges were located on a prairie, close