Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/121

 HISTORY OF GOODHUE < OUNTY 8? dota treaties, duly signed and attested, were forwarded to Wash- ington to be acted upon by the senate at the ensuing session of Congress. An unreasonably long delay resulted. Final action was not had until the following summer, when, on July 23, the senate ratified both treaties with important amendments. The provisions for reservations for both the upper and lower bands were stricken out, and substitutes adopted, agreeing to pay ten cents an acre for both reservations, and authorizing the president, with the assent of the Indians, to cause to be set apart other reservations, which were to be within the limits of the original great session. The provision to pay $150,000 to the half-bloods of the lower bands was also stricken out. The treaties, with the changes, came back to the Indians for final ratification and agreement to the alterations. The chiefs of the lower bands at first objected very strenuously, but finally, on Saturday, September 1, 1852, at Governor Ramsey's residence in St. Paul, they signed the amended articles, and the following Monday the chiefs and head men of the upper bands affixed their marks. As amended, the treaties were proclaimed by President Fillmore February 24, 1853. The Indians were allowed to remain in their old villages, or if they preferred, to occupy their reservations as originally designated, until the president selected their new homes. That selection was never made, and the original reservations were finally allowed them. The removal of the lower Indians to their designated reservation began in 1853, but was intermittent, interrupted, and extended over a period of several years. The Indians weat up in detachments,, as they felt inclined. After living on the reservation for a time, some of them returned to their old hunting grounds about Men- dota, Kaposia, Wabasha, Red Wing and the Cannon river country, where they lived continuously for some time, visiting their reservation and agency only at the time of the payment of their annuities. Finally, by the offer of cabins to live in, or other substantial inducements, nearly all of them were induced to settle on the Redwood Reserve, so that in 1862, at the time of the outbreak, less than twenty families of the Medawakantons and Wahpakootas were living off their reservation. AA'ith the subsequent history of these Indians this volume will not deal in detail; the purpose of dealing with the Indians thus far in this chapter having been to show the various negotiations by which Goodhue county and the surrounding territory came into the possession of the whites and was thus opened for settlement and development. A few of the descendants of the original Goodhue county Sioux now live at Prairie Island, where they have a settlement of their own and a small Episcopal chapel. It will be recalled