The Wisconsin Magazine of History, Volume 1, 1917-1918Various
History
The Wisconsin Magazine of History, Volume 1, 1917-1918
Various
Wisconsin -- History -- Periodicals
The British traders continued to trade on this river, notwithstanding
the danger caused by the fierce intertribal wars. In 1805 the United
States government sent Zebulon M. Pike, a young army lieutenant, to
ascend the Mississippi and warn British traders that this was then
American territory. It became so by the treaty of 1783, but the
British kept the forts on the Great Lakes until 1796, and all had
continued to act until Pike’s visit as if the upper Mississippi region
belonged to the British. Pike found that the traders avoided the
Chippewa River because of the danger of falling in with war parties of
contesting Indians. He passed the river’s mouth about dusk.
In 1820 an American expedition headed by Lewis Cass descended the
Mississippi, and from that time on there were numerous boats going up
and down. The first steamboat ascended to the Falls of St. Anthony in
1823. Some very early logging expeditions in 1822 and 1829 are
described in the _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, II, 132-41, and
V, 244-54.
The earliest permanent settlers were the Cadottes. See _Wisconsin
Historical Collections_, XIX, 171, and _Minnesota Historical
Collections_, volume five.
THE CAREER OF COLONEL G. W. MANYPENNY
Can you give me any reference to any publication or record
in your library relating to G. W. Manypenny, who was Indian
commissioner in 1855 and in that year made a treaty with the
Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin?
E. S. GAYLORD,
_Minneapolis, Minnesota_.
Colonel George W. Manypenny, who was Indian commissioner in President
Pierce’s administration, was not a Wisconsin man. He was born in
Pennsylvania, and appointed from Ohio. His home was in Columbus, Ohio,
and as early as 1835 he was editor of a prominent Democratic paper at
that place. His appointment was no doubt a reward for journalistic
services during the campaign; but he seems to have taken his duties
seriously and to have undertaken the rôle of a defender of the red men
against the extortions of unscrupulous speculators. In doing this he
incurred the enmity of a powerful political clique among whom was
Senator Benton.
Manypenny went west in August, 1853, and made the series of treaties
that opened up the territories of Kansas and Nebraska for settlement.
It is claimed that he acted in the interests of the South with regard
to the Pacific railroad. See Wisconsin Historical Society
_Proceedings_, 1912, 80. In 1855 Manypenny made the treaty with the
Mississippi bands of Chippewa at Washington, whither their chiefs had
been conducted by Henry M. Rice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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