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From: "Cathy Joynt Labath" <>
Subject: Re: [IOWA] Great Massacre of Spirit Lake
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 13:42:35 -0500
References: <007401c38b69$dadfe8c0$c729ded0@Margaret>


This article contains other references you may want to check for your "list"...

McCarty, Dwight D. History of Palo Alto County. Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Torch Press,
1910



Chapter IV
The Indians and the Spirit Lake Massacre

The pioneer family on the western prairie could endure with fortitude the
life on a lonely claim, but one danger continually menaced its peace of mind.
The roving bands of Indians were generally unfriendly and often treacherously
destructive. Once roused to vengeance, the savage nature found expression in
deeds of pillage, arson and murder that made one's blood run cold.
Many different tribes of Indians had roamed over the Iowa prairies before
the advent of the white settlers, but all these had gradually drifted westward,
and their land acquired by the government, until in 1851 the last of Western
Iowa was ceded by treaty to the United States. Of all the bands of Indians the
Sioux were perhaps the most ferocious and warlike. They were continually at war
with other tribes and as they saw the onward march of the white settler and felt
the encroachments upon their beloved hunting ground, they became sullen and
bitter toward the pioneers.
Some unfortunate conditions served to intensify this feeling. As early as
1847, Henry Lott, and unscrupulous ruffian, who had settled far out on the
frontier in Webster County, organized a gang of desperate characters who stole
horses and committed many depredations among settlers and Indians. Lott's cabin
finally became such a notorious rendezvous, that when a band of Indians under
the chief Sidominadotah tracked a number of stolen ponies to his place, they
ordered him to leave the county. As he did not do so, a few days afterwards the
Indians killed his cattle, drove his family out, and burned his cabin. Lott fled
terror-stricken, leaving his wife and children, and one of his small sons died
from the cold and exposure. Lott swore vengeance upon the Sioux, but it was
several years before he returned.
The Indians resented the advance of the white man and when the surveyors
crossed the Des Moines in 1848, the Indians attacked them, broke up their
instruments and drove them back. This incident led to the establishment of Fort
Dodge by the government.
In 1853 Lott and his step-son came back again and settled on the east
branch of the Des Moines River in Humboldt County, at a place that has since
been known as Lott's Creek.
In the following January, the chief of the same band of Sioux, unsuspecting
and not recognizing his old enemy, camped a short distance from Lott's cabin.
Burning with hatred and revenge, in retaliation for the death of his son and
destruction of his property years before, Lott treacherously killed Chief
Sidominadotah and his whole family except a little girl who hid in the bushes
and a boy who was left for dead. 1
The bodies of the chief and his family were brutally left where they lay,
the camp was looted and burned, and the Lotts escaped down the river. They sold
the booty and hastened still farther west. Several days later Inkpadutah, a
brother of the murdered chief, discovered the bodies of the victims, and it was
soon known that Lott was the murderer. The Indians were thoroughly enraged and
demanded the punishment of Lott, but though attempts were made to follow him, he
was never apprehended. Not long after this the head of the murdered chief was
ingloriously stuck up on a pole in the town of Homer near Fort Dodge. 2 The
failure to punish Lott increased the rage and desire for vengeance among the
Sioux. The settlers were greatly alarmed, and there was a vague feeling of
distrust that boded ill for the future.
Inkpadutah, also known as "Scarlet Point" or "Red End," became the chief of
the Sioux band. Reckless, domineering and cruel, he ruled the tribe with a
strong hand and his harshness drove many of his followers to join more peaceful
tribes. His band thus dwindled until it became a small group of straggling
Indians, who ranged the country throughout the northwest, committing all sorts
of petty depredations. Harvey Ingham, in an article in the Midland Monthly, thus
describes their actions: "Inkpadutah and his followers contented themselves with
stripping trappers and surveyors, stealing horses, and foraging on scattered
settlers, always maintaining a hostile and threatening attitude. Many pages of
the Midland would be required for a brief enumeration of the petty annoyances,
pilferings, and more serious assaults which occurred. At Dakotah City, in
Humboldt County, the cabin of E. McKnight was rifled in the spring of 1855.
Farther north, within a few miles of Algona, the cabin of Malachi Clark was
entered, and the settlers gathered in great alarm to drive out the Indians- a
band of eighty braves led by Inkpadutah in person. Still farther north, near
where Bancroft stands, W.H. Ingham was captured by Umposhota, a leader under
Inkpadutah in the massacre, and was held a prisoner for three days." 3
The winter of 1856 was a very severe one. The intense cold and heavy snow
was followed by violent storms, and the sufferings of the settlers were extreme.
Inkpadutah and his band had been camping at Loon Lake, but in December, 1856,
started down the Little Sioux River as far as Smithland. Another part of the
band was in camp near Springfield (now Jackson), Minnesota.
In February, 1857, the Indians and settlers had trouble at Smithland, until
the redskins finally were driven away. With their savage natures aroused and
with a pent-up desire for vengeance, the combined band of Sioux started north.
Inkpadutah knew the defenseless condition of the scattered settlers and he
determined to wreak an awful vengeance upon the countrymen of Henry Lott. As the
band moved northward they robbed and pillaged with destructive hand, and
committed the most barbarous outrages that ever a savage mind devised. No one
had been killed, however, when with their murderous desires roused by these
atrocities to the highest pitch, they came to the peaceful little settlement on
the banks of the lakes in Dickinson County.
Mrs. Abbie Gardner Sharp, the sole survivor of the terrible massacre, in a
letter written in 1887, thus describes that never- to-be-forgotten event:
"It is with sadness that I recall to memory the ill-fated March the 8th,
1857, when Inkpadutah and his murderous band invaded the peaceful and happy
little settlement of Spirit and Okoboji Lakes and completely demolished it. It
is not thirty years since those horrible atrocities were enacted, and having
lost all on that sad day, that made life dear to me, and though wrecked in
health, I still live a witness to those terrible scenes. The outbreak was as
sudden and unexpected as a thunderbolt from a cloudless sky. The Indians
approached and through their professions of friendship got into the house,
taking the people by surprise, and attacking in such a way that one family could
not help one another. My father was shot down while his back was turned getting
the Indians some flour. They then rushed upon my mother and sister, beating them
over the head with the butts of their guns, and drove them out in the dooryard
and killed them. My brother and two sisters, all little children, were clinging
to me in speechless terror. They next seized these helpless children, heedless
of their piteous cries for the help I was powerless to give them, dragging them
out of doors, and beating them to death with sticks of stove wood. All through
their course they shot down the men when their backs were turned, and then
rushed upon the helpless and terror-stricken women and children and killed them
in the most cruel and shocking manner. At the time of the massacre I was little
more than a child of less than fourteen summers, and was with three other women
taken captive, suffering for three months all the cruelties and indignities that
Indians only know how to inflict." 4
Over forty persons-men, women and children- were thus brutally murdered at
the lakes, 5 and the savages, after holding their war dance and painting their
victories in signs upon the smoothed surface of a tree, broke camp and moved
northward in their plunder to find fresh fields for their murderous work.
Our settlers in Palo Alto County knew nothing of these tragedies that were
being enacted such a short distance away. The news was first brought to them by
three men from Jasper County-Wheelock, Parmenter, and Howe by name, who were on
their way to the lakes to join the settlement; but when they found the cabins in
ashes and the dead bodies of the victims lying where they had fallen, they
hurried back to give the alarm.
These harrowing reports spread terror through the whole northwest, and many
settlers fled to places of safety. The members of the little Irish colony could
hardly believe that the Indians who seemed so peaceful when camped so near them
that winter could commit such deeds. 6 It was indeed a miracle that they were
spared. But in spite of the general stampede to Fort Dodge, the Irish settlers
remained for some time. Their cabins furnished a convenient station for the
soldiers of the relief expedition as we shall see in the next chapter. It was
only after the soldiers of the expedition had all returned home, that the
faithful little band finally left the colony to seek a refuge at Fort Dodge
until the following spring.

_________
1 For the story of Lott and his troubles see Gue, History of Iowa, vol. 1, pp.
289-292; Smith, History of Dickinson County, chap. 2; Flickinger, Pioneer
History of Pocahontas County, pp. 27-28, etc. See also an excellent article by
L.F. Andrews in Des Moines Register and Leader, August 12, 1907.

This Indian boy recovered and was afterward known as "Josh." He was a frequent
visitor at the Carter cabin.

2 "Sketch of Early History," by Ambrose A. Call, History of Kossuth County,
Union Pub. Co. The late Charles Aldrich, also had a vivid remembrance of this,
and says that the skull was fractured in several places by a blunt instrument.
L.F. Andrew's article, Des Moines Register and Leader, August 12, 1907.

3 Harvey Ingham, Midland Monthly; Smith, History of Dickinson County, p. 38;
Abbie Gardner Sharp, History of the Spirit Lake Massacre, chap. vi.

4 From a letter of Mrs. Abbie Gardner Sharp, Aug. 4, 1887, Annals of Iowa,
October, 1898, p. 550. Mrs. Sharp's book, History of the Spirit Lake Massacre,
is a graphic description of teh events leading up to that terrible day, and
contains a vivid picture of the massacre, the relief expedition, the captivity
of Abbie Gardner, her ransom and release.

5 Abbie Gardner Sharp, History of the Spirit Lake Massacre, p. 47.

6 The late J.F. Neary, a member of the original colony, once told me that he
thought Inkpadutah's band camped until March, 1857, in Crowley's woods, five
miles north of the colony, and M.H. Crowley is of the same opinion. But A.B.
Carter, who knew Sleepy-Eye and his band very well, is positive that it was
Sleepy-Eye's band that camped at Crowley's and remembers Sleepy-Eye telling him
that it was Inkpadutah's band of Indians that was killing whites on the Sioux
and at the lakes.
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