APPENDIX. 549 



had been committed by the Chippewas and by the Sioux. These 

 murders had reached the ears of the President, and he was re- 

 solved to put a stop to them. I did not doubt but tliat the advice 

 of the old chiefs, on each side, had been pacific. I did not doubt 

 but that his course had been particularly so. But rash young 

 men, of each party, had raised the war-club; and when thoy could 

 not go openly, they went secretly. A stop must be put to this 

 course, and it was necessary the first movement should be made 

 somewhere. It was proper it should be made here, and be made 

 at this, time. Nothing could be lost by it; much might be gained; 

 and if a negotiation was opened with the Sioux chiefs while I 

 remained, I would second it by sending an explanatory message 

 to the chiefs and to their agent. I recommended that Kabamappa 

 and Shakoba, the war-chief of Snake Eiver, should send jointly 

 wampum and tobacco to the Petite Corbeau and to Wabisha, the 

 leading Sioux chiefs on the Mississippi, inviting them to renew 

 the league of friendship, and protesting their own sincerity in the 

 offer. I concluded by presenting him with a flag, tobacco, wam- 

 pum, and ribbons, to be used in the negotiation. After a con- 

 sultation, he said he would not only send the messages, but, as he 

 now had the protection of a flag, he Avould himself go with the 

 chief Shakoba to the Petite Corbeau's village. I accompanied 

 these renewed offers of peace with explanatory messages, in my 

 own name, to Petite Corbeau and to Wabisha, and a letter to Mr. 

 Taliaferro, the Indian agent at St. Peter's, informing him of these 

 ste'ps, and soliciting his co-operation. A copy of this letter is 

 hereunto annexed. I closed the council by the distribution of 

 presents ; after which the Indians called my attention to the con- 

 duct of their trader, &c. 



Information was given me immediately after my arrival at Yel- 

 low Eiver, that Neenaba, a popular war-leader from the Red 

 Cedar f6rk of Chippewa River, had very recently danced the war- 

 dance with thirty men at Rice Lake of Yellow River, and that 

 his object was to enlist the young men of that place in a war- 

 party against the Sioux. I also learned that my message for 

 Ottowa Lake had been promptly transmitted through ISTeenaba, 

 whom I was now anxious to see. I lost not an hour in reascend- 

 ing the St. Croix and the Namakagon. I purchased two addi- 

 tional canoes of the Indians, and distributed my men in them, to 



