Ojibwe-Dakota Peace and War, 1679-1825 (History)

[Music] today i'd like to share a little bit about ojibwe dakota relations and in particular how conflict broke out between the ojibwe and dakota in the 1700s this is a really important part of ojibwe history and dakota history and the history of the of the great lakes and the plains but it's also a piece of history that is not very well understood even by a lot of historians of the region there's a lot of complexity and detail and one of the things that complicates our understanding of this is that ojibwe and dakota people kept oral histories and most of those were never recorded and the intergenerational transmission of that knowledge was really compromised by conflict with america in the case of the dakota missionaries language shift cultural shift and a host of other things but there are people like william warren who did oral history in the 1800s in the ojibwe language with people who lived through a lot of this history and we've been able to pull together a lot of really reliable information to piece this important story together in speaking about the ojibwe first of all their identity as a people shifted and changed quite a bit over time the ojibwe emerged as a distinct people from other tribes in the algonquian language family fairly recently just a couple thousand years ago our dna is much much much older than that but the cultural and linguistic features that made us ojibwe as opposed to you know some other group really emerged at about that time the ojibwe had been moving from the east coast through the great lakes slowly and over a long period of time long before europeans ever made it to the americas and around the time of early french contact 1600 is when the first french people really came into the eastern great lakes and it was really the middle of the 1600s before they made it to the ojibwe population nexus around sault ste marie when they did so the ojibwe you could consider sault ste marie kind of a capital for the ojibwe people with villages in all directions around there but not where they currently are located a lot happened uh the british were in constant conflict with the french and the british and also the dutch before them tried to form alliances with the iroquois confederacy mohawk seneca cayuga onondaga nida so forth and as they did so they encouraged the members tribes of the iroquois confederacy to attack and displace their native neighbors and so as this happened you know mohawk warriors for example armed with british muskets start attacking the huron and eventually the ojibwe as well the french who were in conflict with the british were in danger of being displaced by the british and their native allies as a result they sought an alliance with the ojibwe and the other member tribes of the three fires confederacy ojibwe ottawa and potawatomi the ojibwe for their part weren't really interested in fighting french battles but as the iroquois confederacy began to attack their communities and even displace ojibwe people from some of their eastern communities the conflict was on and the ojibwe soon uh were in close alliance with the french fighting on the eastern front pushing against the iroquois confederacy there's a lot that was going on during the so-called beaver wars or iroquois wars which took place um from 1640 until 1701 60 years of conflict and in the early years the british allied iroquois confederacy had a lot of success and in the later years the ojibwe really pushed them back and as they did so the ojibwe population or the ojibwe territory expanded eastward um the the huron for example who the ojibwe were not at war with were really depopulated um by smallpox epidemics and constant attacks from the from the iroquois confederacy and as the ojibwe pushed east and eventually um issued a series of crushing defeats for the iroquois confederacy they absorbed a lot of the huron territory that the the iroquois had occupied as well as pushing the iroquois further east in the great lakes um into the upstate new york area and occupying most of the eastern great lakes for ojibwe ottawa and pottawatomie use and occupancy this gave them a huge advantage in access to beaver furs advantage in their trade with the french and so forth at this point in time the ojibwe were not in conflict with the dakota in fact the ojibwe had really elevated themselves militarily and financially through the course of the iroquois wars and uh functioned as middlemen in french trade with western tribes including the dakota this had been ongoing throughout the iroquois wars and accelerated afterwards in fact in 1679 the ojibwe and dakota had a huge peace conference in which the ojibwe agreed to act as middlemen in dakota trade with the french and in return the dakota agreed to allow the ojibwe to trap and live in parts of northern wisconsin and this was agreeable to the ojibwe they benefited financially it was agreeable to the dakota because they wanted muskets um and you know european trade goods it was good for the french who wanted more indigenous trade partners and so uh this worked out really well there were a couple of french people who were even present and observed the ojibwe dakota on taunt in 1679 although europeans did not orchestrate that event that was indigenous indigenous-led indigenous orchestrated and carried out by indigenous people in all the relationships afterwards over a period of decades the ojibwe dakota friendship grew and grew but there were other things going on so you know the french and british conflict never ended and in 1713 the french and british tried to work out a peace agreement uh was signed in a in a city in germany called utrecht so sometimes called the peace of utrecht in 1713. in this agreement the french agreed to limit their trade and colonization enterprise to the great lakes and louisiana and in fact used a trade route through the fox and wisconsin rivers to the mississippi river to connect those colonies rather than simply through the caribbean and they in also in the same agreement the british uh the french agreed to um leave them unmolested in their occupancy of their british colonies in america the 13 colonies and also allowed to the british to have exclusive trade rights to the hudson bay area so in essence the french are here in the great lakes and the british are above them in hudson's bay and to the east and below them in the american colonies and this was squishing kind of the french trade and trade routes and colonies so the french really wanted to find a way to find a passage to the western sea now there actually is one there's a way to get to the pacific ocean but the french had no idea that it was 3 000 miles of some of the roughest terrain on planet earth going across the rocky mountains and so forth they thought it could be over the next bend anytime so as they are engaging with the ojibwe and the dakota in the late 1600s and now after the piece of utrecht in the early 1700s they're trying to engage in diplomacy trade but also exploration looking west and as this happened over a period of decades the french began to send traders to dakota trade posts in places like minnesota and began directly trading with the dakota undermining the ojibwe middleman position in dakota trade that wasn't enough to unseat the friendly relationship between the ojibwe and the dakota at that point in time but things got more complicated when the french sent an explorer pierre galter de varancio de level andre and he was told you find a passage to the western sea you trade with all the natives you can find along the way and you get that trade route claimed in the name of france so he came first to what's now grand portage minnesota right on the minnesota canadian border region there's a chain of lakes and rivers that go really right along the u.s canadian border today that was a major trade and travel thoroughfare for the ojibwe dakota alliance and there was a lot there were lots of people living around that area the cree and the assiniboine um two other tribes lived in what's now rainy lake and lake of the woods kind of right on the minnesota ontario border region and they were numerous the cree are actually from the same language family as the ojibwe and today the ojibwe and cree of course are close friends there are even many ojibwe creek communities in canada but at this point in time they really had distinct political economic and military motives so the dakota waged war on the cree the ojibwe were allied with the dakota and sometimes help the dakota attack the cree that sometimes surprises people when we know about how friendly the ojibwe and the cree are with one another today but that dead happens well documented and as this went on now the cree are worried because the ojibwe the dakota and most of the tribes to their east are getting armed either by the french or the british and the cree feel like they may be disadvantaged in military excursions or intrusions with the dakota so when the french when lava andre arrives in grand portage there's a cree guy there who meets him and through translation they begin to have a conversation and he understands what the french are really looking for so this cree guy says oh of course there's a path to the western sea in fact i'll draw you a map he rolls out a piece of birch bark and he draws them draws a map for them in fact the map still survives sitting in a museum today laverandre is thrilled beyond measure i found the passage to the western sea when you i've looked at the map and when you look at it you cannot tell is this a map to the western sea or not there are a bunch of bubbles representing lakes and it could be that he was picking out the big lakes like rainy lake lake of the woods great slave lake a path to the western sea and it could be that he was just drawing a nice map of cree country either way it had the intended result laverandre takes his entire entourage and all of their trade goods and goes to set up camp in rainey lake and lake of the woods and as he does so the cree are very very very clever in how they manipulate him so they begin telling him oh the french are our dearest friends and we can't wait to show you how to get to the western sea but first to cement our friendship we want to adopt your son as our own and so lava andre is you know hemming and hawing and freaking out writing in his journal about should he let the cree adopt his son jean baptiste so just to get a sense of his mind here's what laverandre wrote he said i was agitated i must confess and cruelly tormented by conflicting thoughts on the one hand how was i to entrust my eldest son to barbarians whom i did not know and whose name i scarcely knew to go and fight against other barbarians whose name and of whose strength i knew nothing who could tell whether my son would ever return on the other hand or i to refuse him to them there was much reason to fear they would attribute it to fear and take the french for cowards with the result of their shaking off the french yoke in this dilemma i consulted with all the most intelligent frenchmen of my post and those best able to give advice they were all of the opinion that i should grant the request of the savages and even pressed me to do so they said that my son would not be the first frenchman who had gone with savages to war moreover my son was passionately desirous of going and so as lava andre is hemming and hawing he eventually agrees the cree adopt his son and then immediately turn around and say he's cree now and he comes with the decree when we go to war and so the cree and there are cinnaboyan allies who actually speak nakota it's a closely related dialect of the dakota nakota lakota language family sometimes called the suian language family and they come down you know through war road down to red lake minnesota and attack and the attack itself wasn't extremely um impactful in terms of lives lost or territory changed or anything like that but the dakota who were there could see two white guys with the natives who were attacking them and so they call out who's attacking us and the nakota speaking assiniboine reply ah it is the frenchman. even though the french weren't really orchestrating that attack it looked like it now the dakota are in a great turmoil you know jean-baptiste and you know the rest of his entourage they return to the lake of the woods area and now the dakota are thinking we were just attacked by the french there are french people living amongst us trading with us in some places like in southern minnesota so if we just attack the french and kill all their traitors there's going to be an all-out war with the french if we let this pass then we're only going to see more intrusions in our territory and more attacks upon us and so what they decide to do is to leave the french people unmolested who are living amongst them so they can continue to trade with them they call upon their ojibwe allies and say we're going to teach these people a lesson we don't know exactly who was on the war party but a war party went north into the lake of the woods area and this took about a year later after this attack and when they finally get up there they actually caught up with jean baptiste who's the son of lava andre they catch father always who's the french priest in the area and 19 other french fur traders together this little entourage comprises most of the french people in la vrandre's command they kill every single one of them they decapitate the frenchmen and arrange wrap each head in a beaver fur and arrange them in a circle and the message being delivered is you made a decision in council sitting in a circle to attack us the consequence is death and furthermore the message is french people who are allied with decree are gonna die french people who are allied with the dakota living with the dakota they're gonna be safe now all of the interpersonal dynamics were unknown to the dakota so laverandre finds out that his son was killed his priest was killed and most of his entourage were killed so he actually freaks out takes all of his guns gun powder ammunition tobacco trade goods and he begins to disperse all of it to anybody willing to fight the dakota he tells the cree and assiniboine i want you to wage a genocidal war against them he leans upon the ojibwe the ottawa and the potawatomi to engage in a multi-pronged assault to attack and displace the dakota the ojibwe are now in a really difficult position this had happened you know the first attack in 1733 the second one i just mentioned 1734. it takes a while with all the communication and so forth you know this is pre-cell phone era and so uh and so it really takes about two years to put this assault together the ojibwe now have to make it a really big decision they are intermarried with the dakota some of them are living in northern wisconsin at the you know at the with the permission of the dakota living under their good graces um they have frequently trading traveling and living together it's not a simple thing to break their alliance with the dakota however the thought of losing their friendship and trade relationship with the french also their very close military allies the ottawa and the potawatomi is really upsetting to them and to kind of sweeten the pot the cree are telling them if you join us to attack the dakota we'll even give you settlement rights in northeastern minnesota around grand portage boys fort and so forth so as the ojibwe think about it eventually they decide to break their alliance with the dakota and engage in a series of attacks it takes about two years for this to happen after the last attack in which jean-baptiste de leverandre was killed and when the attack comes other things happen there's a smallpox epidemic that really impacts the assiniboine there's stories about them dumping their entire winter's fur supplies into the river and that the entire river was covered in fur you couldn't even see water because all those furs were contaminated as a result the assiniboine never mustered their attack as promised and even the cree were greatly weakened by smallpox and they never really had a huge attack but to the great surprise of the dakota who are expecting something from the assiniboine expecting something from the cree maybe something from the french receive no trouble from that quarter instead they are only attacked by their longtime friends the ojibwe and the ojibwe attack comes at lake pepin way in southern minnesota it wasn't significant in terms of lives lost it was significant in terms of the great surprise to the dakota who were now betrayed by one of their closest friends and take muster their entire military might and engage in a major conflict against the ojibwe this conflict displaces the ojibwe from places like lactoflambo lacuterae and so forth and they're pushed out of northern wisconsin except for some of the islands in lake superior so like madeleine island is a big island in the apostles and the ojibwe do maintain control of madeleine island but many ojibwe are displaced and their war refugees so now they take the cree up on their offer to let them settle in the arrowhead region in northeastern minnesota the first ojibwe to come into minnesota as permanent residents were actually war refugees then you know the dakota are attacking the ojibwe the ojibwe are counter-attacking and laverandre goes back to montreal and says hey we need more guns we need more ammo we need more supplies and french officials are furious with him they said you're an idiot what are you doing you are supposed to find a path to the western sea and trade with all the natives you are encouraging war that's going to disrupt our trade with all the natives you are fired and it takes a few years but he is fired by 1744 he dies you know by 1749 and then seven years later the french lose in the french and indian war and the entire french army pulls out of north america they left their settlers behind french-speaking quebecois in canada and so forth but the british took over canada but now there's this ojibwe dakota conflict that has been ignited and it burns for another 150 years it takes time but the ojibwe who had been allied with the french in the early phases of this and then trade partners with the british in the later phases eventually swell and start pushing the dakota out reoccupying their former habitations in northern wisconsin pushing into minnesota eventually you know it's probably the mid 1700s 1740s when the ojibwe start to really win and acquire territory 1760s when they're moving into northern minnesota up to red lake and places like that it's the early 1800s when they make it out to turtle mountain in the 1820s when they make it out to places like rocky boy and so forth so it was a huge conflict there's another part of this story which is how the ojibwe and dakota reconciled and made peace and i'll save that one for the next talk thank you so much for listening miguel thanks for watching today i'm anton troyer let's keep in touch i'm active on social media and my website has lots of information on my books speaking engagements free ojibwe language resources resources for teachers and more migraines

Channel: Anton Treuer

Views: 809

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: #Ojibwe # Dakota #Cree #Assiniboine #French #LaVerendrye #LakeoftheWoods #RainyLake

Id: _xdZwaraAI0

Length: 24min 17sec (1457 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 05 2021