5
Wisconsin Death March
When efforts to talk the Chippewa into migration continued following the unsuccessful
1847 treaty councils, these communities stepped up their political opposition. Meanwhile, they
proceeded along self-defined paths toward economic improvement in place, irrespective of what
views American authorities held for their future. Then, in early August, 1847, Commissioner Medill
signaled the preliminary design for their removal. The La Pointe sub-agency was to be closed,
its functions shifted west of the Mississippi to Crow Wing even if efforts to secure the north
shore of Lake Superior were unsuccessful. In the latter instance, relocation of the La Pointe
sub-agency and its services, so believed the Commissioner, would have the effect of luring some
Wisconsin Chippewa west, easing the way for the removal of the remainder. Later Medill explained
the government's plans for resettling all Wisconsin Chippewa that coming spring to R. Jones,
Adjutant General of the Army. The Chippewa were not alone in Medills design: the Menomini, Stockbridge,
and those Winnebago still in Wisconsin (then near statehood) were also targeted, together with
the Winnebago in the old “Neutral Ground” in the northeastern part of the new state of Iowa.
Together, these several relocations were designed to clear Wisconsin, Iowa, and southern Minnesota
of their remaining Indians, leaving a broad corridor open for American movement westward, between
the existing Indian Territory southwest of the Missouri River and a viable new Northern Indian
Territory in north-central Minnesota.
While these distant plans were being laid, the Lake Superior Chippewa followed their
own variegated agenda of economic adaptation. The 1842 treaty had added a second valuable term
annuity to their annual income. Over the course of twenty-five years, they would share with the
Mississippi bands yearly an additional $12,500 in coin, an equal amount in hard goods,
rations, and consumables, and over $6,000 for the services of black-smiths, farmers, teachers,
and other artisans. But this was only a small fraction of their annual needs, so these Indians
proceeded to make up the balance by their own enterprise. Fur- trapping continued to be of small
importance, while on the lakeshore, Chippewa men were increasingly engaged in commercial fishing,
either with their own equipment or as seasonal labor for Americans. As mining developed, numerous
Chippewa men transported supplies, acted as guides, cut and supplied mine timber, or delivered
venison and fish. Intensive gathering went on, and gardening increased, particularly of root
crops; this was largely the work of women, who traded surplus vegetable foods and otherwise served
the mining crews. In the interior, where the timber industry was expanding along the lower river
valleys, similar changes in economic behavior occurred, attuned to the labor and material requirements
of that extractive industry.49 Some few Chippewa,
particularly those on the Keweenaw Peninsula, as well as at the Reverend L. H. Wheeler’s experimentalstation
at Bad River, even approximated the old expectation of ill-informed American philanthropists
by engaging in sometimes productive, male-managed, animal-powered small farming, although most
others strongly resisted this novelty, risky at best in these latitudes. The substantial development,
notably, lay in individual wage work and small-scale commercial enterprise, primarily in extractive
industries, not in agriculture. But of greater long-range importance was the growing recognition
among the local American population—most of whom were entrepreneurs, managers, or laborers, nearly
all male, not under-capitalized small farmers with families seeking cheap land—that the Chippewa
were delivering services and goods important to their enterprises. The Chippewa were creating
tight social and economic bonds with potential allies in their immediate neighborhood.50
Thus, by early 1848 one necessary antecedent of a high stress, forced relocation
was firmly in place: there was a prolonged, irresolvable dispute between Chippewa leaders and
American national authorities over the right of the latter to demand and enforce abandonment
of the ceded lands. Since Wisconsin’s statehood was imminent and its laws would soon be extended
over the area inhabited by the Chippewa, Commissioner Medill made a firm decision: they would
have to leave. When rumors of government planning for this step reached the Chippewa they responded
with a variety of political counter-moves. Some started asserting their “right” to reservations,
claiming these had been promised during the 1842 negotiations.51
But planning for relocation went on, with the 1849 establishment of Fort Gaines (in 1850, renamed
Fort Ripley) on the upper Mississippi, and the reshuffling of agents and agencies aimed at concentrating
the Chippewa on their remaining “national” lands in northern Minnesota. Chippewa opposition hardened
as well, expressed in systematic lobbying in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Washington for the right
to remain on small reserved parcels within the bounds of their old estate. A few on the Upper
Peninsula, aided by their missionaries, started preempting and purchasing public lands, thereby
acquiring the status of tax paying citizens under state law. 52 Mean while, others sent delegations
to plead their case in Washington.53
The Chippewa delegations to the nation's capital did not find an attentive reception,
for throughout 1849 and 1850 Congress and President Taylor were pre occupied with larger issues
such as incorporating the far West into the American state and the associated crisis regarding
the extension of slavery in new territories. Nevertheless, despite the un concern with the desires
of several thousand Indians in an already established Free State, various political-administrative
developments combined to create a national and a local context for what Methodist Missionary
John H. Pitezel, an eyewitness on the Lake Superior scene, subsequently called a “chain of distressing
evils.”54 President Taylor’s patronage sweep
through the positions controlled by his office created the official team directly responsible
for the Chippewa’s winter disaster. Since the Indian Office had been transferred to the new Department
of the Interior, relations with these Indians were brought under the supervision of a Taylor
loyalist, Thomas Ewing of Ohio, a man more concerned with problems of the distant West than with
those in northern Wisconsin. Secretary Ewing, however, strongly favoring the trading firms, kept
a firm grip on the details of managing the Indian business, causing the new Commissioner, the
Kentucky Whig Orlando Brown, much frustration. The third member of the administrative chain responsible
for arranging the attempt to move the Chippewa out of Wisconsin was the Pennsylvania Whig, Alexander
Ramsey, who in March, 1849, was appointed Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the
newly formed Minnesota Territory. This trio had little experience in the management of relations
with Indians, but the team was not yet complete. It was awaiting its fourth, junior but key,
member, Sub-Agent John S. Watrous.55 Until
this time, the relocation of the Lake Superior Chippewa had been little more than an administrative
intention; no specific mechanism for accomplishing this aim had been created. Neither had there
been an immediate impetus for translating thoughts into deeds. Excepting the Lake Superior shoreline
and the river valleys traversing the pine lands, most of the ceded Chippewa lands were
entirely un populated by Americans. The fact that the Americans residing nearby were al most
entirely male likely reduced rather than increased local support for removal. However, there
was simply too little “settlement” anywhere to create local “pressure” for removal.56
In addition, although they adamantly held to their right to remain in Wisconsin,
the Chippewa had not forced the dispute to a confrontation point. Instead, still holding title
to the north shore mineral lands, they remained pacific and reasonable, employing lobbying and
bargaining tactics, seeking approval for reservations within their old estate. The thrust, but
not an explicit mechanism of Chippewa removal, derived from the appointment of Governor Ramsey,
who was the titular head of the Whig party in Minnesota Territory as well as Governor. Being
one of the few Whigs in a frontier Democratic stronghold and expected to deliver economic favors
to party loyalists, his position in this new Territory was particularly difficult. Thus, concerned
with patronage and with establishing a firm presence in his new office, when counseled by a powerful
Minnesota trader, H. H. Sibley, Ramsey could see that the Wisconsin Chippewa presented an opportunity.
Obtaining their removal meant also transferring their large annual annuities and the numerous
salaried jobs associated with their management into his superintendencey. As well as moving an
important patronage resource out of a Democratic state into his hands, the resettlement would
also have meant a policy coup, a major step toward rejuvenating the floundering plans for a Northern
Indian Territory.57
The April 22, 1850, appointment of John S. Watrous
as the new Chippewa sub-agent added a critical figure, a man with at least some experience in
the region and among these Indians, and one with a profound vested interest in seeing them dislodged.
Originally from Ashtabula, Ohio, Watrous had arrived at La Pointe in 1847 hoping to make his
fortune in the Indian trade, in which he was unsuccessful. Something of a political chameleon,
in early April he left his desk in the Wisconsin State Assembly—where he had briefly served a
Democrat constituency in the northwestern part of the state—to travel east in search of greater
opportunity, likely drawn there by news of the Presidential order revoking the Chippewa’s 1837
and 1842 treaty privileges. In Washington he presented himself to influential friends of his
family as a staunch Ohio Whig and as a man experienced in dealing with the Chippewa.58
Watrous was a man with plans—for himself and for dispossessing these Indians. He
was soon dispatched to his new post carrying Commissioner Brown’s official, public orders to
bring about the im mediate movement of the sub-agency into Minnesota Territory, as well as a
covert scheme for dislodging the reluctant, wary Chippewa. Thus was combined an ongoing dispute
over a treaty and several influential local actors—men with vested interests in securing a removal.
A potential disaster lay waiting only the major confrontation that the Chippewa had been avoiding.
Guided and supported by his superiors in the administrative hierarchy, particularly by Governor
Ramsey, Watrous soon manufactured this confrontation.59
The public version of these plans specified a summer, 1850, timing for the relocation.
However, aside from closing down the sub-agency’s operations in Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper
Peninsula, Watrous did little to bring about the move that early. Indeed, there is no suggestion
anyone believed the Chippewa would cooperate had such an attempt been made.60
Aside from Ewing, Brown, Ramsey, and Watrous, few if any others knew of the covert,
contingency design, timed for a tricky, hazardous, early winter dislocation. In any respect,
news of the President’s executive order withdrawing the privilege of occupying the ceded lands
spread rapidly, and the reaction was equally swift. While the Chippewa and their American allies
began mobilizing for political resistance, there was also much demoralization. Of those who had
been farming, many would not plant crops that spring; many more spent long periods in councils
debating how to avoid resettlement. The time and energy spent in political agitation and the
wasted economic in activity resulted in decreased food production that summer and fall. The Chippewa
became even more dependent on government rations, which contributed to the winter debacle. Protestant
and Catholic missionaries associated with the Indians were divided in their reactions. Being
largely dependent on federal funds for their operations, they had to tread lightly; the position
most commonly expressed was one of ambivalent neutrality, and none rose to a heroic defense of
the Chippewa. On the one hand, they deferred to presidential authority; on the other, they had
to consider what they saw as their responsibilities to the Chippewa, which were, mainly, to see
to the future of themselves and their schools and missions among the Indians. Most commonly,
while not actively supporting or opposing relocation, they would not counsel the Indians to move
or stay.61
In the end, only a few became active advocates of resettlement. The Reverend Sherman
Hall at La Pointe was one. Soon after taking office, Watrous acquired Hall’s loyalty with the
promise of an important job at the proposed new Indian boarding school in Minnesota.62
However hesitantly, soon some missionaries quietly began aiding the Chippewa in
framing their petitions and helping to mobilize help from other Americans in the region. One
active and effective supporter was Cyrus Mendenhall, a mining entrepreneur associated with the
Methodist Episcopal Mission Society, who on an inspection trip along the Lake Superior shore
in June, 1850, circulated a memorial among Americans calling for the recall of the removal order.
Most merchants, mine foremen, lumber men, and other influential citizens between Sault Ste Marie
and La Pointe responded to Mendenhall’s appeal, which was subsequently delivered to Congress
and officials in Washington. Mendenhall kept up the pressure and was soon joined by the Reverend
S. B. Treat (Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions). Their lobbying
effort grew in force and did not end until after removal order was withdrawn two years later.
Indeed, from the start there was no evidence of local public support for the Chippewa’s removal.
Regional newspapers, echoing and reinforcing the sentiments of their readers, regularly criticized
the President’s order and both the motives for and the tactics employed in efforts to implement
it. Sault Ste Marie’s Lake Superior News and Mining Journal was consistently strident in its
support of the Chippewa, and its editorials and news clips were picked up and reprinted throughout
the Great Lakes area. The Chippewa even made the news in Boston, when one of their delegations
passed through on its way to Washington. The fact that the whole region occupied by the Chippewa
was strongly Democratic did not aid the Taylor administration in its efforts to dispossess them.63
Meanwhile, Sub-Agent Watrous worked at implementing the public version of his orders.
He first conducted an inspection tour of Sandy Lake (Fig.
2), the new site where the Chippewa annuities were to be distributed.
