UNFRIENDLY RELATIONS 35 band back to the main tribe. At any rate the numerical strength of the band became rapidly depleted. What had been a tribe of respectable strength was soon reduced to a few families of stragglers. The strength of the band, after the death of Sidominadotah, has been variously estimated at from fifty to one hundred and fifty. In 1856 it dwindled down below the lowest figure. Judge Flandrau, who was Indian Agent at that time, says of them: "By 1857 all that remained of Wamdisappi's band was under the chieftainship of Inkpadutah, or Scarlet Point, sometimes called Red End. In August, 1856, I received the appointment of United States Indian Agent for the Sioux of the Mississippi. The agencies for these Indians were on the Minnesota River at Redwood and on the Yellow Medicine River a few miles from its mouth. Having been on the frontier sometime previous to such appointment, I had become quite familiar with the Sioux and knew in a general way of Inkpadutah and his band, its habits and whereabouts. They ranged the country far and wide and were considered a bad lot of vagabonds. In 1856 they came to the payment and demanded a share of the money of the Wahpekutahs, and made a great deal of trouble, but were forced to return to their haunts on the Big Sioux and adjoining country. To this Mrs. Sharp adds: 'According to the most authentic testimony collected by Major Prichette, Inkpadutah came to the Sioux Agency in the fall of 1855 and received annuities for eleven persons, although he was not identified with any band.'" It may seem singular to some that in preparing a history of Dickinson County so much time and space should be given to people and events wholly outside of the county. It may also seem that too much space has been given in endeavoring to set forth who Inkpadutah and his band were, their relations to the Agency Indians, also the strained relations between them and the settlers, and the cause thereof. This may be true, but it is the experience of the writer that many of the tourists who visit the lakes from year to year are entirely ignorant of the facts in the matter and are also desirous of correct information on all of these points, and more questions are asked first and last involving a knowledge of them than any others. Many have expressed surprise that more has not been preserved, and that more is not known of the personal character and personal history of individual Indians who in an early day made these lakes their favorite rendezvous. This is accounted for in the strained and unfriendly relations existing between the settlers and the Sioux. The fraternal relations which so long existed between the Sacs and Foxes on the one side and the pioneer settlers of eastern and central Iowa on the other, were entirely wanting on the northwestern frontier, and consequently very little is or can be known of the individual Indians who pitched their tepees in the groves, fished in the lakes and hunted on the prairies of northwestern Iowa. However, some enterprising real estate and hotel men have recently endeavored to supply this lack of real knowledge on these points by fictitious inventions of their own. Of late a great many questions are asked about Okoboji. Who was he? Where were the headquarters of his band? How many warriors were among his followers? and a thousand and one other questions which nobody but inquisitive summer tourists would think of. as A large mound on the west side of the lake has been pointed out to the credulous and unsuspecting summer resorter being the last resting place of the great chief, or, in other words, as the grave of Okoboji. Ambitious correspondents of the Capital City papers have, at different times, tried their hands at writing up glowing accounts of their visits to the grave of the mythical chief, and many doubtless believe that the INKPADUTAH AND HIS BAND 37 representations made to them are true, and that the lake was actually named for a brave and powerful warrior who once lived in its groves and was buried in the mound on its western border, where his supposed resting place is pointed out by the obliging guide to the unsophisticated and inquisitive traveler. Now this is all pure fiction. There is not one particle of truth in it. So far as can be ascertained, no such chief as Okoboji was ever known to the Sioux, and no such Indian ever lived in the neighborhood of the lakes. It will be remembered that the death of Sidominadotah occurred in January, 1854, and that the chieftainship fell to Inkpadutah at that time. We know but little of the wanderings of Inkpadutah's band from then until the fall of 1856. The troubles in the neighborhood of Clear Lake, which finally culminated in what is known as the "Grindstone War," were in the summer of 1854. Harvey Ingham, in an article in the Midland Monthly, has this to say of their movements in 1855: "Major Williams expresses the opinion that but for the rapid influx of settlers an attack would have been made on Fort Dodge in 1855. As it was, Inkpadutah and his followers contented themselves with stripping trappers and surveyors, stealing horses, and foraging on scattered settlers, always maintaining a hostile and threatening attitude. Many pages of the Midland would be required for a brief enumeration of the petty annoyances, pilferings and more serious assaults which occurred. At Dakota City, in Humboldt County, the cabin of E. McKnight was rifled in the spring of 1855. Further north, within a few miles of Algona, the cabin of Malachi Clark was entered, and the settlers gathered in great alarm to drive out the Indians—a band of eighty braves led by Inkpadutah in person. Still further north, near where Bancroft stands, W. H. Ingham was captured by Umpashota, a leader under Ink pudatah in the massacre, and was held a prisoner for three days." Judge Fulton writes of this same period as follows: "During the same summer (1855) Chief Inkpadutah and his band, comprising about fifty lodges, encamped in the timber near where Algona now stands. They occasionally pillaged the cabins of the white settlers in that vicinity. At last the whites notified them to leave, which they did reluctantly. They returned no more to that vicinity except in small hunting par ties." DICKINSON CHAPTER III. COUNTY-NAME-FIRST EXPLORA TION-FRENCH TRADERS-LEWIS AND CLARKE NICOLLET AND FREMONT-THE FAMOUS ASTRO NOMICAL OBSERVATION-THE FIRST ATTEMPT AT ING COUNTIES. ICKINSON COUNTY was named in honor of Hon. Daniel S. Dickinson, formerly United States Senator from the state of New York. The student of political history will be at no loss to fix the date of the naming of the counties of Iowa, fully fifteen per cent, or about one-sixth, of which were named for prominent the nation about the mid men in the councils of |