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[MUSIC PLAYING] LORNA BENSON: It's All Things Considered on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Lorna Benson. Americans often remember the battle at Wounded Knee, South Dakota in 1890 as the last armed conflict between the US Army and American Indians. But a forgotten battle that took place on Minnesota's Leech Lake Indian Reservation eight years later actually holds that place in history. The story of sugar point is the first in a series of reports over the coming year on All Things Considered. Looking back on life in Minnesota 100 years ago, It's our way of marking both the end of the 20th century and the end of a Millennium.
In the late 19th century, relations between the Leech Lake Ojibwe and the US government were deteriorating due to conflicts over timber sales on the reservation. The Indians at Leech Lake subsisted mainly on the sale of the reservation's timber. But timber companies were exploiting a loophole in the law that allowed them to take dead pine from the reservation and pay the tribe just a fraction of what it was worth. Loggers set brush fires to Akers of reservation land to scorch trees, make them appear dead, and harvest the wood inside. Frustrated Indian leaders at Leech Lake, pleaded with the US government to stop the practice.
SPEAKER: We, the undersigned chiefs and headmen of the pillager band of Chippewa Indians of Minnesota respectfully represent that our people are carrying a heavy burden, and in order they may not be crushed by it, we humbly petition you to send a commission to investigate the existing troubles here.
The Chippewa Indians of Minnesota have always been loyal to the United States and friendly to the whites, and they desire this friendship to be perpetual. We now have only the pinelands of our reservations for our future subsistence and support. But the manner in which we are being defrauded out of these has alarmed us. We trust that you will protect us when the truth reaches you.
LORNA BENSON: The US government did little to respond to the Ojibwe's concerns. Meanwhile, in an unrelated event, a US Deputy Marshal arrived on the reservation with orders to arrest two band members for a crime-related to a liquor violation. As many as 40 Indians quickly overtook the marshal and freed the pair. The deputy Marshal went back to his base in Walker, Minnesota and sent a telegraph to Saint Paul, asking for military assistance to arrest everyone who helped free the men.
SPEAKER 2: Come on. Move along.
LORNA BENSON: On the morning of October 5, a company of about 80 mostly inexperienced US soldiers ate a breakfast of bacon and eggs then boarded boats for sugar point.
CECELIA MCKEIG: Nobody anticipated it was going to turn into a real battle.
LORNA BENSON: Cecelia McKeig is writing a book on the battle and is helping to develop an interpretive center at Leech Lake to memorialize the conflict.
CECELIA MCKEIG: This was more of an adventure in the style of going off to the frontier. There was a lot of laughing, a lot of joking by the soldiers. They didn't take it that seriously.
LORNA BENSON: When the soldiers arrived at sugar point, they spent nearly three hours trying to find the suspects.
CECELIA MCKEIG: The soldiers had specific men in mind that they wanted to serve these warrants to. There were Indian men who had weapons. The soldiers saw them did not attempt to arrest them, and those warriors also did not make any effort to take the offensive. So it was a standoff. One of the Indian men approached the soldiers and asked them why they were there, and they said they were there for sport. They were there for duck hunting.
LORNA BENSON: The soldiers gathered in a small clearing to have lunch. According to newspaper accounts, when a young recruit went to stack his gun, it fell out of his hands and fired off a shot as it hit the ground.
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CECELIA MCKEIG: When the gun went off, the Indian men surrounding the area could not see what happened. They took it as a signal to return fire. And that's what happened, and that's when a lot of the casualties happened, was because the Indians shot into the clearing, and the soldiers didn't have time to even take cover.
WILLIAM BRILL: The Indians were in the underbrush, and our little band of 70 soldiers fought stubbornly all day. We lost nine killed, including Captain Wilkinson, who was in command, and 14 severely wounded. But we were unable to dislodge the Indians.
LORNA BENSON: William Brill, a reporter at the Saint Paul Pioneer Press followed the troops into battle. The commander in charge felt confident enough about the incident to allow for reporters from the major dailies to witness the action firsthand. The officers and reporters took refuge in a log hut, while soldiers slept in the trenches around it.
WILLIAM BRILL: The log house the abode of an old Indian was dirty and ill-smelling. We carried the bodies of the dead into the house and laid them in one corner. The wounded were placed in another corner, and everything possible was done for them. But the lack of medicines and appliances made it impossible to assist them to any great extent. After everything possible had been done to make our position more secure and more comfortable, General Bacon Lieutenant Ross, three newspapermen, and an old sergeant, who had been in a score of Indian fights held a conference.
It was the most serious conference I ever took part in. The result of it was that all came solemnly to the conclusion that our usefulness, either as soldiers or correspondents, was at an end. We were evidently greatly outnumbered. Our men were nearly new recruits. The Indians were well-hidden and could not be dislodged. And worst of all, our ammunition was almost gone.
It was hundreds of miles to the nearest military post, and held from there, at least help in the time of any use to us was out of the question. While we were discussing the chances of escape, a bullet came through the window and after passing through General Bacon's hat, embedded itself in the wall. That settled it. It isn't often that men find themselves in a more desperate position. We could hold out but a few hours longer, and when the Indians should make their attack at daybreak as is their usual custom, escape would be impossible.
We didn't talk much after that. There wasn't anything to say. We stretched ourselves on the floor and thought. The hut was dark and cold. From one corner came the moans of a man shot through the body who was dying all too slowly. From the woods came the crash of the Winchesters, which was answered by the cracks of our rifles in the trenches, the bullets came like dull thuds against the log walls of the hut, and every few minutes sounded a low weird yell of the Indians, the war whoop.
There is no more hair raising sound made by man or beast. Daylight came at last, but there was no firing from the woods. The expected attack did not materialize. Why? None of us have ever been able to discover. But that night in the old log house and the ring of those Indian yells will remain in my memory as long as memory lasts.
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CECELIA MCKEIG: There were preparations being made on both sides for a much larger conflict. I think what probably happened in my mind is that after the initial conflict, the Indian Wars did not pursue their advantage, even though the boats left the soldiers on the shore without provisions, without blankets, without food, without ammunition. There must have been a decision by the Indian warriors at the site that they were not going to push this advantage.
LORNA BENSON: Boats came to rescue the troops, and most of the warriors eventually turned themselves in and face trial in Duluth. A judge sentenced the men to prison terms ranging from 60 days to 10 months. But no one in the group served out their entire term. A missionary from a neighboring tribe negotiated for the men to receive full pardons from President McKinley in early January of 1899.
By 1902, Congress had passed a law requiring timber companies to pay for any tree that was taken from the reservation. But the Sugar Point Battle of 1898 did more than just halt destructive timber practices at Leech Lake. It marked a relatively quiet and largely forgotten end to almost three centuries of warfare that had decimated Indian populations and forced tribes onto smaller and smaller parcels of land. The Battle of Sugar Point with its accidental beginning handed a small victory to a group of American-Indian Warriors who had already lost the larger battle to preserve their way of life.
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For more information and to see photographs of the battle scene, log on to our website at www.MPR.org. Our story on the Leech Lake Battle was produced by Annie Feidt with help from Sasha Aslanian and Kate Kuhn. We had reporting help from Tom Robertson in Bemidji. Jim Northrup read the Ojibwe letter. Dan Hopen read the part of Reporter William Brill. Our story was edited by Stephen Smith. I'm Lorna Benson. The Minnesota century project on NPR is supported by Sarah Kinney professional real estate services, matching people with property for 21 years. Coldwell Banker Burnet crocus Hill office.
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