The Sioux assented, and at half past five in the afternoon, two sons of Tokali were delivered with much ceremony. Their old mother said: "Of seven sons, only three are left; one of them was wounded and soon would die, and if the two now given up were shot, her all was gone. I called on the head men to follow me to the fort. I started with the prisoners, singing their death song, and have delivered them at the gates of the fort. Have mercy upon them, for their folly and for their youth."
But this night, notwithstanding the murdered man of Hole-in-the-Day's party had been buried in the military graveyard for safety, an attempt was made by the Sioux, to dig up his remains. On the evening of the sixth of August, Major Plympton sent Hole-in-the-Day and party home, giving them provisions, and sending them across the Mississippi.
HOLE-IN-THE-DAY IN 1839 AT FORT SNELLING.
In June, 1839, Hole-in-the-Day again determined to come down to Fort Snelling, and on the 18th the Indian agent sent a letter to him by Stephen Bonga[1] or Bungo, but on the 20th, Hole-in-the-Day arrived with five hundred Ojibways and asked permission to remain three days. The next day, under a canopy near the walls of the fort, the Ojibways held a council with the Sioux, Bonga acting as their interpreter. On Sunday the 23d, the whole number of Ojibways at the fort was eight hundred and forty-six, and twelve hundred Sioux. The day was passed in danc-
- ↑ His grandparents were negro slaves of Capt. Daniel Robertson, British commandant at Mackinaw from 1782 to 1787. After his death they remained, and Kelton gives the following marriage from the Parish Register: "1794, June 25th, Jean Bonga and Jeanne." The married couple, Kelton mentions, kept the first inn on the island. In 1800 a negro named Pierre Bonga was with Alexander Henry of the Northwest Company in the valley of the Red River of the North. George Bonga, supposed to be the father of Stephen, was an interpreter of Gov. Cass in 1820 at Fond du Lac. Stephen died in 1884.
