Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/431



The settlements at Okoboji and Spirit Lake, in Dickinson County had been made in 1856 and embraced about fifty persons. Most of the Indians had by this time removed from northwestern Iowa, but parties frequently returned to hunt and fish at their favorite resorts of former years. Ink-pa-du-tah, who often came with his band, had professed friendship for the whites in these isolated settlements, but those familiar with the Indian character were apprehensive that some day he would take revenge upon them for the massacre of his relatives by Lott.

The winter of 1856-7 was one of unusual severity. Frequent storms had swept over the prairies, covering them with a depth of snow that made travel very difficult. They continued late into March, filling the ravines with drifts so deep that communication between the scattered settlements was almost impossible for weeks and months. Provisions were for the most part consumed during the long blockade by the fierce blizzards. Ink-pa-du-tah had carefully noted the condition of the settlers and with the relentless cruelty of his race, laid his plans to visit an awful retribution upon the countrymen of Henry Lott. It mattered not to him that these settlers were wholly innocent of any part, knowledge, or sympathy with the murders; they were of the white race to which Lott belonged and their lives must atone for his crime.

During the summer of 1856, Ink-pa-du-tah, with a portion of his band, had visited most of these frontier settlements and carefully noted their helplessness in case of a sudden attack. In February, 1857, the Sioux chief selected about thirty of his warriors and, accompanied by their squaws, to allay suspicion on part of the settlers, started up the Little Sioux Valley. The chief sent detached parties to the settler’s cabins to take their arms, ammunition, provisions and cattle, and leave them defenseless and destitute. The snow was deep, the cold intense, the settlers few and widely separated, beyond reach of aid, and were compelled to submit to every outrage the