The settler on any of the western prairies, and the axe men who enter upon the primeval forests, where no mark or sign of man's destructive force or redeeming power is seen or felt, is frequently the subject of strange reflections as he follows his plow, turning up the virgin soil that through all the ages has remained undisturbed, or hews down the stately pine, that for a thousand years has flourished and grown, unnoticed, uncared for by the hand of man, he wonders how it occurs that he, of all the people that have lived and still live on the face of the earth, swarming as it does, with so many millions, should be the first to appropriate to his comfort and convenience the blessing so long held in reserve in Nature's vast store house. He wonders, too, why his race should require all the resources of earth, the production of forests, mines, rivers, lakes and oceans - of the soil plowed, planted, cultivated and garnered; the flocks and herds, feeding and gamboling on a thousand hills - for his subsistence, while other races have remained from generation to generation in all the untamed wildness of the wild deer and elk on which they subsist. What of the race that but yesterday was here! Have these rivers, fields, and forest, now so peaceful, always been so calm and still? Or have they like the old world, been the scene of some savage and sanguinary conflicts? We speculate in vain on the long ago dwellers upon the banks of these pleasant streams; their war dance and savage yells may have been the only sound that ever waked the stillness of these hills, or a race long since extinct may have plowed and sowed and built, and loved, and worshiped, and cultivated all the graces and amenities of civilized life, but the records of whose deeds and virtues have been obliterated by the convulsions of Time's relentless changes. Of the race whose steps are now fast receding and giving place to ours, we know comparatively little, as traditions, and their history written for the past two hundred years by foreigners, is very imperfect. A brief account of the Indians, who once claimed this valley, will be the subject of this chapter. The Chippewas, whose name our river bears, were considered by the French missionaries as the bravest, most war-like, and, at the same time, the noblest and most manly of all the tribes on the American continent. They were derived from the Algonquin race, or type, and were first met with by the French on the Chippewa River near Montreal, Canada, in 1642, and were immediately taken into alliance with them (politically), but matrimonial alliances soon followed, and their relations became very intimate. The Jesuit missionaries speak of the language of the Chippewas as the most refined and complete of any Indian tongue. Their territory seems to have been confined at that time to what is now the New Dominion (SE Ontario) and the lower peninsula of Michigan. Of the Sioux or Dakotas, still less is known of their history, at the time of which we are speaking, 1642 they seemed to have been in possession of all the territory south of Lake Superior, west of Lake Huron and Michigan and as far south as Milwaukee, and west to even beyond the Missouri River, for at this period they took a Jesuit priest prisoner at Sault Ste. Marie, and killed him as an intruder on their territory. And in 1660, the Jesuits having established a mission at La Pointe on Madeline Island, Lake Superior, were driven off by the Sioux. Soon after this, probably in 1670, the Chippewas commenced their inroads upon the territory of the Sioux on the north and east, and fought their way south and west to the lines hereinafter described. In the mean time the Winnebagoes, a migratory tribe from Mexico, to escape the Spaniards came among the Sioux, who gave them lands near Green Bay, probably to shield themselves from the Chippewas. But the Sac and Fox came up from the South and took forcible possession of their territory and compelled them to 'Go West,' and they in turn were crowded out by the Menomonee's. In consequence of these immigrations and predatory wars the claims of several Indian Nations to their respective territories became very complicated and the cause of almost incessant war amongst them. To prevent this as much as possible the United States Government, in 1825, authorized a general treaty to be held at Prairie du Chien between all the Indian tribes within a distance of five hundred miles each way. This joint treaty, was signed on the part of the government by Generals William Clark and Lewis Cass, and by Wabasha and Red Wing, Little Crow and twenty-three other chiefs and braves of the Sioux, and by Hole-in-the-Day and forty other Chiefs and braves on the part of the Chippewas. The names of the other chiefs and omitted an unnecessary and not specially interesting to my readers. To fix the boundaries between the various nations definitely was the first and principle object of this treaty. The eastern boundary of the Sioux commenced opposite the mouth of the Iowa River on the Mississippi, runs back two or three miles to the bluffs, following the bluffs to, and crossing the Bad Axe River to the Black River, from which point the line described is the boundary between the Sioux and the Winnebagoes, and extends in a direction nearly north to a point on the Chippewa River, half a day march from Chippewa Falls. From this point on the Chippewa, and runs to the Red Cedar just below the Falls, from thence to the St. Croix River at a place called the Standing Cedar, about a day's paddle in a canoe above the Lake on the river, thence passing between two lakes called by the Chippewas "Green Lakes," and by the Sioux "The Lake they Bury the Eagles in," from thence to the Standing Cedar that the Sioux split, and thence to the mouth of the Rum River on the Mississippi. The boundary lines between the Chippewas and the Winnebagoes was also defined at this treaty, as commencing at this same point on the Chippewa River, half a day's march below the Falls, and thence to the source of the Clear Water (Eau Claire) River, a branch of the Chippewa River, thence south to the Black River, thence to a point where the woods project into the meadows, and thence to the Plover portage of the Wisconsin River. Thus we see the boundaries of the Sioux, Chippewas, and Winnebagoes, were brought to a point at the famous half a day's march below the Falls; we see also that the permit granted Street and Lockwood, and mentioned in the preceding chapter, was entirely within the limits of the Sioux territory, unless they had occasion to go above the Falls of the Red Cedar, which was not the case as an abundance of pine was found near and by the creeks that drove those mills. The boundaries above were pretty carefully observed by the respective parties to the treaty a foresaid, except when war parties were fitted out by the Sioux or Chippewas (the Winnebagoes remained perfectly neutral,) when the intervening territory between the Mississippi and the first described boundary became the theatre of many a hard fought battle, and hunting here was regarded as very unsafe by all three of those tribes. On July 29, 1837, at Fort Snelling, Governor Dodge on the part of the United States, and Hole-in-the-Day with forty-seven other Chiefs and braves, on the part of the Chippewas, signed a treaty ceding to the United states, the lands as follows: Beginning at the confluence of the Crow Wing and Mississippi rivers, and running north to the point Lake St. Croix, one of the sources of the river of that name, thence along the dividing ridge between the waters of Lake Superior and Mississippi to the source of the Ocha-sua-sepe, (Couderay River) a tributary of the Chippewa River, Thence to a point on the river twenty miles below the outlet of Lac du Flambeau, thence to the confluence of the Wisconsin and Pelican Rivers, and thence by various points named, to Plover Portage , thence back along the boundary between the Winnebagoes and Chippewas, to a point on the Chippewa River a half a day march below Chippewa Falls, thence to the mouth of the Rum River and up the Mississippi to the place of beginning. On the September 29, 1837, at Washington City, D.C., Joel R. Poinsett, Secretary of War on the part of the United States, and Big Thunder with twenty other Chiefs and braves on the part of the Sioux, made a treaty, when they ceded to the United States all their lands east of the Mississippi, and all their islands in said river. On October 4, 1842, at La Pointe, Madeline Island, Lake Superior, Robert Stewart on the part of the United States, and Po-go-ne-ge-shik with forty other Chiefs and braves of the Chippewas held a treaty at which all the Chippewa lands in Wisconsin were ceded to the United States. It is proper to state, however, that immediately subsequent to the cession of the last named lands, several bands of the Chippewas became very much dissatisfied with the treaty, and with the reservation set apart for them above Sandy Lake, Minnesota, and begged so hard to come back, that the Government, in 1854, gave them back several townships and half townships of the land on the Couderay and other branches of the Chippewa River, and established an agency there for the distribution of part of the annuities promised them by the terms of the treaty, and a consideration for the value of their land. One thing will strike the reader as remarkable in regard to the treaty of 1825, namely, the geographical accuracy with which the boundaries between the tribes are defined, especially when we consider that eleven years later when Congress annexed the northern peninsula of Michigan; the maps of these territories were so imperfect that great difficulty arose in defining the boundaries between that State and this.

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