Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/269

Rh the greatest quantity. A keg of fire water being discovered in the course of the ransacking the sick trader's outfit, added greatly to the excitement and lawlessness of the scene, and the men soon becoming unmanageable and dangerous, the rifled trader was obliged quickly to embark in his empty canoe, and leave the inhospitable camp of the Ojibways to save his life. It is said that he died of the sickness from which he was suffering, at Sauk Rapids, on his way down the Mississippi.

From this circumstance, this band of the Ojibways became known amongst their fellows (who generally very much deprecated this foolish act), by the name of Pillagers, and the creek on which the scene we have described was enacted, is known to this day as Pillage Creek.

At this time the Upper Mississippi bands had no regular trader to winter among them, and they were obliged to make visits each summer to La Pointe, Sault Ste. Marie, and Mackinaw, to procure the necessaries which their intercourse with the whites had learned them to stand in absolute need, such as clothing, arms, and ammunition, and to want, such as fire water. The few traders who had occasionally paid them visits, during this period in their history, had come from the direction of Lake Superior, and the trader who was pillaged, is the first they tell of having come from the Lower Mississippi.

The conduct of the Pillagers in this affair, was generally censured by their more peaceful fellows as foolish and impolitic, as it would tend to prevent traders from coming amongst them for fear of meeting with the same treatment. To make up, therefore, for their misconduct, as well as to avert the evil consequences that might arise from it, the Pillagers on the ensuing spring, gathered a number of packs of beaver skins and sent a delegation headed by one of their principal men to the British fort at Mackinaw, to appease the ill-will of the whites, by returning an ample