Shakopee II (d. 1860) was a Mdewakanton Dakota chief who was known as "The Orator of the Sioux." [1] He was described by Reverend Samuel W. Pond of the First Presbyterian Church of Shakopee as "a man of marked ability in council and one of the ablest and most effective orators in the whole Dakota Nation." [2] He was also called "Little Six" during his lifetime. [3]
The city of Shakopee, Minnesota was named after Chief Shakopee II when it was first founded in 1851. [2]
In 1846, Chief Shakopee II invited missionary Samuel Pond to move to his village, Tintonwan, near present-day Shakopee, Minnesota. [2] Shakopee asked Pond to open a school and mission on the recommendation of Oliver Faribault, the "mixed-blood" son of trader Jean-Baptiste Faribault. [4]
Shakopee promised that children from his village would attend the school, and that Pond would be provided with pasture and fuel. Pond finally consented and built a house at what he called "Prairieville" in 1847, and lived there until he died in 1891. [4] Pond went on to found the oldest church in Shakopee, the First Presbyterian Church, in 1855. [5]
Although Pond held "Shakpay" in high regard for his oratorical skills, he also described as an enigmatic man who was "at the same time admired and despised by all who knew him." [3]
As a speaker in council he had no equal among his contemporary chiefs. But while the advice he gave was generally good, the example set by him was often pernicious. He was of a nervous, excitable temperament... He was not remarkably malicious or revengeful and was easily reconciled to those who had offended him. At times he seemed magnanimous, and some of his speeches contained sage counsel and noble sentiments; but falsehood and truth were both alike to him, and he was often detected in the commission of petty thefts... [3]
At the same time, Samuel Pond suggested that Chief Shakopee II could have prevented the initial attacks in the Dakota uprising of 1862, if he had been alive, [3] a view that was also expressed separately by Chief Big Eagle. [6] Pond explained:
Shakpay died before the massacre of the whites; if he had been living at the time, he might perhaps have prevented it, for his influence with his people was great and he always advocated the cultivation of peace and friendship with the white people. He sometimes alarmed the timid by the use of threatening language, but never seemed disposed to do serious injury to anyone. With all his faults, he was neither quarrelsome nor vindictive. [3]
Shakopee was a signatory to the Treaty of Mendota of August 5, 1851, (as "Sha-k'pay"); he and other Dakota chiefs were pressured into selling 24 million acres (97,000 km2) for pennies an acre.
In 1858, Chief Shakopee traveled to Washington, D.C. as one of the major chiefs in the Mdewakanton and Wahpekute treaty delegation. [7]
Annuities of food and money were to be distributed from the federal government to the Indians as part of the treaty, but several years later after the outbreak of the American Civil War, United States broke their treaty obligations.
The Battle of Shakopee took place in 1858, and was the last major conflict between the Dakota and Ojibwe. Dozens of warriors engaged in fighting, resulting in deaths on both sides, with no clear victor. [8]
The death of "Old Shakopee" was announced on October 16, 1860 in the St. Paul Pioneer and Democrat. [9]
Henry Hastings Sibley was a fur trader with the American Fur Company, the first U.S. Congressional representative for Minnesota Territory, the first governor of the state of Minnesota, and a U.S. military leader in the Dakota War of 1862 and a subsequent expedition into Dakota Territory in 1863.
The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community is a federally recognized, sovereign Indian tribe of Mdewakanton Dakota people, located southwest of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, within parts of the cities of Prior Lake and Shakopee in Scott County, Minnesota. Mdewakanton, pronounced Mid-ah-wah-kah-ton, means "dwellers at the spirit waters."
Little Crow III was a Mdewakanton Dakota chief who led a faction of the Dakota in a five-week war against the United States in 1862.
The Mdewakanton or Mdewakantonwan are one of the sub-tribes of the Isanti (Santee) Dakota (Sioux). Their historic home is Mille Lacs Lake in central Minnesota. Together with the Wahpekute, they form the so-called Upper Council of the Dakota or Santee Sioux. Today their descendants are members of federally recognized tribes in Minnesota, South Dakota and Nebraska of the United States, and First Nations in Manitoba, Canada.
Big Eagle was the chief of a band of Mdewakanton Dakota in Minnesota. He played an important role as a military leader in the Dakota War of 1862. Big Eagle surrendered soon after the Battle of Wood Lake and was sentenced to death and imprisoned, but was pardoned by President Abraham Lincoln in 1864. Big Eagle's narrative, "A Sioux Story of the War" was first published in 1894, and is one of the most widely cited first-person accounts of the 1862 war in Minnesota from a Dakota point of view.
The Treaty of Traverse des Sioux was signed on July 23, 1851, at Traverse des Sioux in Minnesota Territory between the United States government and the Upper Dakota Sioux bands. In this land cession treaty, the Sisseton and Wahpeton Dakota bands sold 21 million acres of land in present-day Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota to the U.S. for $1,665,000.
Pike Island is an island at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers in the southwestern-most part of Saint Paul in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The island is managed as part of Fort Snelling State Park and is within the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area. For centuries, Dakota people have considered the area of the island to be a sacred place known as Bdóte, where they moved with the seasons to find food and resources. The island is named after Zebulon Pike, who negotiated the United States government purchase of the area from Mdewakanton Sioux in 1805.
The Attack at the Lower Sioux Agency was the first organized attack led by Dakota leader Little Crow in Minnesota on August 18, 1862, and is considered the initial engagement of the Dakota War of 1862. It resulted in 13 settler deaths, with seven more killed while fleeing the agency for Fort Ridgely.
The Dakota are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government in North America. They compose two of the three main subcultures of the Sioux people, and are typically divided into the Eastern Dakota and the Western Dakota.
Gabriel Renville, also known as Ti'wakan, was a US-government appointed chief of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Sioux Tribe from 1866 until his death in 1892. He opposed conflict with the United States during the Dakota War of 1862 and was a driving force within the Dakota Peace Party. In 1863, Renville volunteered to serve as a Dakota scout serving in US military leader Henry Hastings Sibley's punitive expedition against Dakota escapees, hunting those considered "hostile" including Little Crow. Renville would become chief and superintendent of scouts in 1864. Gabrielle Renville's influence and political leadership were critical to the eventual creation of the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation, which lies mainly in present-day South Dakota.
The Shakopee Historic District is a historic district in Shakopee, Minnesota, United States. Stretching along the south bank of the Minnesota River, it encompasses pre-contact Native American habitation and burial sites, a contact-era Dakota village, early Euro-American buildings, and a ferry landing. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 for its significance in the themes of prehistoric archaeology, aboriginal historical archaeology, non-aboriginal historical archaeology, and architecture.
Shakopee or Chief Shakopee may refer to one of at least three Mdewakanton Dakota leaders who lived in the area that became Minnesota from the late 18th century through 1865:
Wabasha II, also known as Wapahasha, Wapasha, or "The Leaf," succeeded his father as head chief of the Mdewakanton Dakota tribe in the early 1800s. He led the Dakota forces fighting with the British in the War of 1812, but sided with the United States in the Black Hawk War of 1832. Chief Wabasha II signed the Treaties of Prairie du Chien in 1825 and 1830.
Wabasha III (Wapahaśa) was a prominent Dakota Sioux chief, also known as Joseph Wabasha. He succeeded his father as head chief of the Mdewakanton Dakota in 1836. Following the Dakota War of 1862 and the forced removal of the Dakota to Crow Creek Reservation, Wabasha became known as head chief of the Santee Sioux. In the final years of his life, Chief Wabasha helped his people rebuild their lives at the Santee Reservation in Nebraska.
Alexander Faribault was an American trading post operator and territorial legislator who helped to found Faribault, Minnesota, and was its first postmaster.
Cloud Man was a Dakota chief. The child of French and Mdewakanton parents, he founded the agricultural community Ḣeyate Otuŋwe on the shores of Bde Maka Ska in 1829 after being trapped in a snowstorm for three days. The village was seen by white settlers as a progressive step towards assimilation, yet members of the community maintained a distinctly Dakota way of life. The community was abandoned in 1839 and Cloud Man's band moved along the Minnesota River to join the Hazelwood Republic.
Snana, also known as Maggie Brass, was a Mdewakanton Dakota woman who rescued and protected a fourteen-year-old German girl, Mary Schwandt, after she was taken captive during the Dakota War of 1862. She was reunited with Mary Schwandt Schmidt in 1894, leading to a feature article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Snana’s narrative of the war, “Narration of a Friendly Sioux,” was edited by historian Return Ira Holcombe and published in 1901.
Azayamankawin, also known as Hazaiyankawin, Betsey St. Clair, Old Bets, or Old Betz, was one of the most photographed Native American women of the 19th century. She was a Mdewakanton Dakota woman well known in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where she once ran a canoe ferry service. Old Bets was said to have helped many women and children taken captive during the Dakota War of 1862.
The chief usually referred to today as Shakopee I was known to American explorers and Indian agents as the third-highest ranking leader of the Mdewakanton Dakota, after Chief Wabasha II and Chief Little Crow I. He was the chief of a band of Mdewakanton Sioux called the Taoapa and they had the largest village on the Minnesota River, located in the 1820s on the river's north bank, later moved to the south bank in present-day Shakopee.
Shakopee III was a Mdewakanton Dakota chief who was involved at the start of the Dakota War of 1862. Born Eatoka, which means "Another Language," he became known as Shakpedan or Little Six after the death of his father in 1860.