France and England in North America, Part III: The Discovery of the Great West (1870)Parkman, Francis
History
France and England in North America, Part III: The Discovery of the Great West (1870)
Parkman, Francis
Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France)
Rev. Stephen R. Riggs, for many years a missionary among the Issanti
Sioux, says that this division consists of four distinct bands. They ceded
all their lands east of the Mississippi to the United States in 1837, and
lived on the St. Peter's till driven thence in consequence of the
massacres of 1862, 1863. The Yankton Sioux consist of two bands, which are
again subdivided. The Assiniboins, or Hohays, are an offshoot from the
Yanktons, with whom they are now at war. The Titonwan or Teton Sioux,
forming the most western division, and the largest, comprise seven bands,
and are among the bravest and fiercest tenants of the prairie.
The earliest French writers estimate the total number of the Sioux at
forty thousand. Mr. Riggs, in 1852, placed it at about twenty-five
thousand. Lake many other Indian tribes, they seem practically incapable
of civilization.]
This soothed his fears: but, as he allayed his famished appetite, he
listened with anxious interest to the vehement jargon of the chiefs and
warriors, who were disputing among themselves to whom the three captives
should respectively belong; for it seems that, as far as related to them,
the question of distribution had not yet been definitely settled. The
debate ended in the assigning of Hennepin to his old enemy Aquipaguetin;
who, however, far from persisting in his evil designs, adopted him on the
spot as his son. The three companions must now part company. Du Gay, not
yet quite reassured of his safety, hastened to confess himself to
Hennepin, but Accau proved refractory and refused the offices of religion,
which did not prevent the friar from embracing them both, as he says, with
an extreme tenderness. Tired as he was, he was forced to set out with his
self-styled father to his village, which was fortunately not far off. An
unpleasant walk of a few miles through woods and marshes brought them to
the borders of a sheet of water, apparently Lake Buade, where five of
Aquipaguetin's wives received the party in three canoes, and ferried them
to an island on which the village stood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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