Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/507

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SPEECH OF CHIEF HOLE-IN-THE-DAY THE YOUNGER.
497

prisoner, and go myself and deliver her at the fort.' As this would have been injudicious, he at length consented to deliver the prisoner to the agent. In a little while, however, he determined to go uninvited to the fort, and the result has already been narrated."[1] Schoolcraft[2] described Hole-in-the-Day as "one of the most hardened and bloodthirsty wretches," and mentions that Mr. Aitkin, the elder, told him "that having once surprised and killed a Sioux family, the fellow picked up a little girl, who had fled from the lodge, and pitched her into the Mississippi. The current bore her against a point of land, and seeing it, the hardened wretch ran down and again pushed her in."

TREATY OF FOND DU LAC, MINNESOTA, A.D. 1847.

In 1847, Hon. Henry M. Rice, now of St. Paul, late U.S. Senator from Minnesota, and Isaac A. Verplanck, of Buffalo, New York, were appointed commissioners to treat with the Ojibways for the country between the Wattap and Crow Wing Rivers. Hole-in-the-Day, the son of the recently deceased chief of that name, made his appearance in council for the first time as chief and addressed the commissioners as follows:—

SPEECH OF CHIEF HOLE-IN-THE-DAY, THE YOUNGER.

"Our Great Father instructed you to come here, for the purpose of asking us to sell a large piece of land, lying on and west of the Mississippi River. To accomplish this you have called together all the chiefs and head men of the nation who to the number of many hundreds are within the hearing of my voice: that was useless, for they do not own the land; it belongs to me. My father, by his bravery, took it from the Sioux. He died a few moons ago, and what belonged to him became mine. He, by his courage

  1. See page 488.
  2. Personal Memoirs, p. 611.