276 APPENDIX. 



relatives to avenge her real or supposed murder. This is the 

 account delivered by the Chippewas, and it is corroborated by 

 reports from the traders of that section of the country. Her 

 singular disappearance and secret death at the Clover Portage, is 

 undisputed ; and whether caused or not by any agency of the 

 Menomonies, the belief of such agency, and that of the most 

 direct kind, is fixed in the minds of the Chippewas, and has fur- 

 nished the basis of their subsequent acts in relation to the Meno- 

 monie hunting-parties who have visited the lower part of Chippewa 

 River. Two women belonging to one of these parties were 

 killed by a Chippewa war-party traversing that part of the country 

 the ensuing year. The act was disclaimed by them as not being 

 intentional, and it was declared they supposed the women to be 

 Sioux.* On a close inquiry, however, I found the persons who 

 committed this act were relatives of Okunzewug, which renders 

 it probable that the murder was intentionally perpetrated. This 

 act further widened the breach between the two hitherto fraternal 

 tribes ; and the Chippewas of this quarter began to regard the 

 Menomonie hunting-parties, who entered the mouth of the Chip- 

 pewa River, as intruders on their lands. Among a people whose 

 means of verbal information is speedy, and whose natural sense 

 of right and wrong is acute, the more than usual friendship and 

 apparent alliance which have taken place between the Menomo- 

 nies and Sioux, in the contest between the Sacs and Foxes, and 

 the murder by them jointly of the Fox chief White Skin and his 

 companions at a smoking council, in 1830, have operated to in- 

 crease the feeling of distrust ; so much so, that it was openly 

 reported at Chegoimegon, at Yellow River, and Ottowa Lake, 

 that the Menomonies had formed a league with the Sioux against 

 the Chippewas also, and they were fearful of an attack from them. 

 A circumstance that had given point to this fear, and made it a 

 subject of absorbing interest, when I arrived at Ottowa Lake, was 

 the recent murder of a Menomonie chief by a Chippewa of that 

 quarter, and the demand of satisfaction which had been made (it 

 was sometimes said) by the Indian agent at Prairie du Chien, 

 and sometimes by the commanding officer, with a threat to march 



* I annex the speech of Mozobodo, chief of Torch Lake, on this 

 subject. 



