OJIBWAYS IN 1820 AT FORT ST. ANTHONY, NOW SNELLING.
Major Taliaferro, who had been appointed in 1819, the first Indian agent above Prairie du Chien, in his journal under date of July 10, 1820, mentions one of the first visits of Ojibways to the agency at the mouth of the Minnesota River. He writes: "The Chippeways have visited me, twenty-eight in number, under Abesheke their chief. They smoke the pipe of peace with the three bands of Sioux near this place. . . . . Col. Dickson[1] informs me that if I succeed in completing the peace between the Sioux and Chippeways, that the latter to the number of two hundred and fifty to three hundred will visit my agency."
In 1823, a large party of Ojibways visited the agency and held a council with the Sioux in the presence of the Indian agent Taliaferro.
After criminations and recriminations, the Sioux presented the calumet, as they had been the first to violate the agreement which had been made three years before. Wamenitonka (Black Dog), presented it to Pasheskonoepe, the oldest Ojibway chief, who after handing it to the Indian agent, smoked it, and passed it to the rest. The ceremony concluded with a little whiskey presented by the agent, but in two days they were again about to fight each other.
The council was held on the 4th of June, but it was not until the next day that Flat Mouth (Aish-ke-bug-e-koshe),
- ↑ Robert Dickson, known to Indians as "Red Head," with Archibald Campbell, Duncan Graham, and F.M. Dease, were traders on the Minnesota and the Upper Mississippi before the year 1802. Dickson during the war of 1812 was British Superintendent of Indians. Capt. Anderson in a speech to the Indians at Prairie du Chien in 1814 said, "My brethren! you must not call me father. You have only one father in this country, that is the Red Head, Robert Dickson, the others are all your brethren." In 1815, Dickson was for a period at Prairie du Chien. Wisconsin Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. ix. p. 236.
A notice of Dickson may be found in Neill's History of Minnesota, pp. 279–283, 289–291.
