Legend of Minnehaha from an Interesting Source

I have a weakness for books, especially free books.

My county genealogical society announced at our meeting a week ago they had several books available for free because they were outdated, had copyright issues, or were duplicates--issues that that made them inappropriate to be in a county library repository.

I found some interesting genealogical sources, but mostly I felt drawn to the HISTORICAL books. Among them was the following book:

NARRATIVE of the MARCH of

MORGAN'S MOUNTED  VOLUNTEERS

From Fort Atkinson, Iowa to Long Prairie, Minn.

Guarding Removal of Winnebago Indians

By William E. Read

Private in Morgan's company

This narrative, which was transcribed from handwritten pages, was originally written about 1848 at the close of the Mexican-American War. In the middle, the author told an interesting account of the legend of Minnehaha.

I looked this up on Wikipedia, and here is what the first paragraph read:

Minnehaha is a fictional Native American woman documented in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1855 epic poem The Song of Hiawatha. She is the lover of the titular protagonist Hiawatha and comes to a tragic end. The name, often said to mean "laughing water", literally translates to "waterfall" or "rapid water" in Dakota.

Yet, in this narrative, the author wrote it as an actual event he heard from the last living witness. Here is the transcribed story from the ca. 1848 narrative listed above, including the original spelling and punctuation:

Now we are approaching the rocky cliff, or precipice, where Minnehaha took her fatal leap that immortalized her name. As I am, perhaps the only white man now living who met and talked with an eye witness of that tragic scene, I will tell what he told me. He was a small Indian, not more than 4 and one half feet high, rather lean and sparely built, tolerably gray; and, I should think, about seventy-five years old. The interpreter I had was a young half-breed, by the name of Balige, who lived in the vicinity of Reed’s Landing, below Wabasha, on the Mississippi. He was not an expert in the language of the Dakotas, but could converse with them pretty well. The old Indian said, and showed with his hands:

“A good many years, or moons, ago,” pointing north west, “up a river”, (which we understood to be the St, Peters river) lived a young chief. He married another chiefs daughter; and, after so many moons, came with his wife to a big falls on this river and went down a little ways to a little falls. That here his wife was delivered of a daughter (paplaspapoose), it being near enough the little falls so that they could hear the noise. The woman, waking up once, and a kind of dreamy state, and hearing the sound of the water falling, thought it was a band of Indians laughing, and she asked her husband, “Who is that laughing?” He answered “It is the water laughing (Menaukuanuahuawah).” The name has grown into Minnehaha in the same way that Ouisconsin has grown into Wisconsin, and Maquoquetois into Maquoketa. When little Menauhuawah grew up to womanhood, she was the fairest of fair daughters of the northwestern tribes and just as good as she was handsome. She was beloved by all the Indians far and wide and had lovers, who sought her hand in marriage by the score. 

John Henry Bufford's cover for The Death of Minnehaha, 1856.

One young brave, from away east on the Wisconsin river wooed her and won her heart. But her father had grown to be a big chief -- Head Chief of a good many tribes, and it was beneath his dignity to give his daughter in marriage to a low grade hunter. She must marry a chief, and he forbade the young brave’s coming about his lodge. The Old Chief had located his village some way up the ridge from where Menauhuawah made her fatal leap. Finding that his orders had been disobeyed, and that the lovers had met, against his will, he flew into a passion and sold his daughter to a young chief that lived away up the St. Peter river. The time arrive when the young chief was to come and claim his bride. All preparations were made, and the ceremony was to take place at sundown. When the groom came in sight, everyone was on alert, and Menauhuawah slipped out and her absence was not discovered until she was half way to the river. The Big Chief ordered some young braves to run after her and fetch her back. A good many ran, but three of the swiftest outran the others, and were within a few bounds of her when she leaped from the precipice. They ran to the edge and looked down, but could see nothing of her. They had to go back some distance before they could found a place where they could get down. They got down and went to the place where she went over, but could find no sign of her whatsoever, not even blood on the rocks where she must have fallen. For two days, the whole tribe and the bridegroom with all his retinue made search, but could find no trace or sign of Menauhuawah’s body. 

Death of Minnehaha by William de Leftwich Dodge, 1885

On the third morning, as there were many old squaws and others around the precipice, mourning for the lost, when the sun rose and shown over the hills on the east side of the river, and its rays struck the rocks of the precipice, they began to send forth a dismal sound that increase in volume till it made the stoutest heart quail, and the boldest brave tremble with fear. And, although many years have gone by, and the sound diminished, nothing would induce an Indian to go near the cliff at early sunrise. The name Menauhuawah (now Minnehaha) will exist as long as the world stands. The English Mina, the Dutch Mena, and the Indian Menau you, have all merged into the Scotch Minnie in form, but retain the meaning of the Indian Menau, when attached to counties, towns, lakes, etc., such as Minnehaha, Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnetonka, etc. And long after the last Indian has passed from the wide domain of North America, and he exists only in history, the name of Minnehaha will stand as a monument to remind us of the once numerous and noble red men of the forest.

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The Dakota War & The Mankato Thirty-Eight

 It’s no secret that the government of these United States has a long history of disregarding its treaties with Native Americans, and the Dakota treaties of 1851 were no exception.   This includes two, both with the Dakota Sioux:  the Traverse des Sioux MN treaty of 23^rd July, and the August 6^th Mendota MN treaty, in which the Dakota people sold 35,000 square miles at twelve cents an acre.   .

Fueled by both land speculators and a declining fur trade, which had previously been the main enterprise in Minnesota Territory (then including parts of both the Dakotas and Iowa), the U.S. government representatives justified these treaties as a way to satisfy the rising tide of migration west.  In fact, the tide did not begin until the land was handed over; at the time, an area of 9,000 square miles held just over 6,000 settlers—hardly a rising tide of humanity. The treaties stipulated the Dakota would retain a twenty mile swath of land, and receive $3,750,000.  Of that amount, debts owed to the fur traders were paid off, another $60,000 was to be paid to blacksmiths to help with the natives’ switch to farming, and five per cent of the remainder would be paid annually to the Dakota—with half of that to buy goods and services from the traders.  In fact, the government hoped to change the Dakota culture away from communal property to individual ownership.

By 1862, four years after Minnesota had become a state, the 8,000 Dakota affected by these treaties were starving. In 1858, the Dakotas had been forced to give up the northern half of the small band of land they had been left.  Delayed payments and the refusal of the traders to give any more credit resulted in hunting parties going out.  On August 17, 1862, while the Civil War raged back east, one such hunting party killed five white settlers.  That night a council of Dakota led by Chief Little Crow decided to drive the settlers out of the Minnesota River valley. Over the next six weeks, what is now called the Dakota War of 1862 raged with massacres and atrocities committed on both sides.

The war ended with the Dakota Sioux surrender at Camp Release.  The Army had captured more than 1,000 Native Americans.  Some eight hundred white settlers were said to have died. Subsequently, 392 prisoners were tried, 303 were condemned to death, and sixteen were given prison terms.  The cases, which had purportedly been handled with unseemly haste and little attention to detail, were then handed on to President Lincoln for his approval.

Lincoln found himself under intense political pressure to let these death sentences go forward. Keeping in mind that this had been called a War—a situation in which opposing sides do not normally thereafter hold executions of soldiers unless there is a further crime—and also remembering Lincoln had other things on his mind, it is amazing that the President was able to go over these cases and reduce the condemned to just thirty-nine (one sentence was later commuted). He did this by narrowing the guilty to those convicted of rape and massacre, as opposed to just taking part in battles.

The executions took place in Mankato, Minnesota, on 26 December, 1862.   It was the largest mass execution ever held in the United States. More than one quarter of the Dakota Sioux who had surrendered died the following year.  Others were sent to reservations in Nebraska, North Dakota, or left for Canada.

Print, Library of Congress

In 2012, 150 years after the executions, a memorial was unveiled in Reconciliation Park, Mankato.  It was preceded by a sixteen day horseback trek of Dakota from South Dakota to MN. This ride has been repeated every year since 2005.  In addition, a documentary about the hangings and the commemorative ride was brought out in 2010.  More recently, in 2017, a so-called sculpture of the scaffold on which thirty-eight men died was erected by the Walker Art Center in Mankato.  After numerous protests that the sculpture was a reminder of a “bad past,” it was taken down and burned.

A Minnesota Yankee’s Southern Roots

This month I’m going to get personal. Rather than talk about the Old West, I’d like to share some facts about me and my dad’s family. Daddy hailed from Denison, Texas, the birth place of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He came from a big family. His parents had at least thirteen children. Can you imagine birthing that many babies, let alone raising them? Not me! But times were different then. Families needed to be large to work their land, and to ensure some offspring would survive into adulthood. Several of my dad’s siblings didn’t. 

Nevertheless, I have relatives all over Texas and the South, but I knew next to nothing about them until a few years ago because I grew up in Minnesota, my mother’s home state. My dad traveled a great deal in his youth, especially across the western states. He met my mom in San Francisco, where I was born, but we moved to Minnesota when I was not quite four to be near Mama’s family.

We did visit Grandma Horner (Horner is my maiden name) once when I was about six or seven, but sadly I don’t remember her. That’s Grandma in the photo with my dad behind her and me next to my half-brother Ronnie, who I barely knew. He was adopted by my Uncle Walter and Aunt Jewel after Daddy’s first marriage broke up. (He was a traveling salesman back then and couldn’t care for Ronnie.)

Growing up in the north, I always saw myself as a Yankee even though I knew Daddy came from the south. Even after my husband and I and our two children moved to Texas in the 1980s, thanks to a company job transfer, I considered myself a transplanted northerner. I still do, to be honest, but I can no longer ignore my southern roots.

When I started researching my dad’s ancestors on a whim back in 2009, I wasn’t prepared for some surprising revelations. For one thing, I learned my gr grandfather, James Knox Polk (JKP) Leggett, fought for the Confederacy. He enlisted in 1862 in Bienville Parish, LA, joining the 28^th Regiment, Louisiana Infantry (Gray’s). I eventually received photocopies of his enlistment packet(s) thanks to a Georgia cousin who accessed them on footnote.com. See, I told yuh, relatives all over the south! Sorry the image is so hard to read. It’s very faded.

Another shocking tidbit I unearthed: JKP and his wife Mary were almost certainly first cousins. But I think I’d better back up here. You see, JKP was the son of John D. Leggett, who migrated west from Randolf County, GA, in the late 1840s. He and his family are listed on the 1850 census from Barbour County, Alabama. By 1860, John D. shows up in Bienville Parish, LA. At the Dallas Public Library, I discovered a parish map showing his parcel of land. Boy, was that exciting!

Meanwhile, John D’s younger brother, Wiley S. Leggett, had become a preacher back in Georgia. He migrated west to Louisiana around the same time as his brother, turning up on the 1860 census from Bossier Parish, LA, where he founded more than one church. Wiley had a daughter named Mary, born in 1848, in GA. She, I believe, was my great grandmother Mary. Gr Granny had Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a neuromuscular disorder that runs in my dad’s family. He had it, his mother had it, and her mother, Mary Leggett had it. (So do I and my daughter.) It’s a known fact that Rev. Wiley S. Leggett’s oldest daughter, Elizabeth Gertrude Leggett, also had CMT. Like Mary, she has living descendants who inherited the disorder. For me, that clinches my belief that Mary and Elizabeth were sisters who inherited the faulty CMT gene from one of their parents and that Mary and JKP were indeed first cousins.

Marion inviting a British officer to share his meal (from Wikipedia Commons) 

A third astonishing suspicion: Jeremiah Leggett, father of John D. and Wiley S. Leggett, may have fought in the Revolutionary War under the command of Colonel Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox. Do you remember reading about him in history class? Mel Gibson’s character in The Patriot is loosely based upon Col. Marion. The Swamp Fox and his men fought the British in South Carolina, and there happens to be a Jeremiah Leggett listed in A Roster of Patriots Who Served with Francis Marion by John M. Gregg. A few years after the war, my gr gr gr granddad Jeremiah shows up in records from the northern part of Georgia, which was being settled (the indigenous Cherokees would say invaded) by whites from the Carolinas and Virginia. See how I came by my suspicion? Just wish I could prove it.

Getting back to Mary and JKP Leggett, they wed on October 15, 1865, only a few months after the Civil War ended – in Bossier Parish, LA. I wonder if Rev. Wiley S. Leggett conducted the ceremony.

Eventually, Mary and JKP moved to Van Zandt County,Texas, where they raised their family. My Grandma Bessie Mae was the ninth of their eleven children. JKP died in 1888 in the state hospital in Terrell, Koffman County, TX. Mary remarried, had another son and lived to the venerable age of ninety-one. She spent her last few years with my grandparents in Denison. A cousin of mine, the daughter of my dad’s oldest brother, told me her father recalled his Granny Mary sitting and rocking the little ones (my dad possibly among them.) He also said she had long dark braids and looked like a squaw. His word, not mine. She was either half Cherokee or half Choctaw, depending upon which family story I choose to believe.

It’s amazing what we can learn about ourselves from ancestry research. For sure, those southern roots of mine go deep, deeper than I ever would have guessed.

If you’re in the mood for western romance with a touch of the Irish, or a photo illustrated memoir about cats, kids and life with a disability, I invite you to stop by my Amazon author page for a complete list of my books. My novels are also available for Nook on Barnes & Noble.

http://www.amazon.com/author/lyn.horner.award-winning.books