When
first visited by white men, and for many years afterwards, the Falls of
St. Anthony (by them called the _Ha Ha_) was the center of their
country. They cultivated corn and tobacco, and hunted the elk, the
beaver and the bison. They were open-hearted, truthful and brave. In
their wars with other tribes they seldom slew women or children, and
rarely sacrificed the lives of their prisoners.
For many years their chiefs and head men successfully resisted the
attempts to introduce spirituous liquors among them. More than a century
ago an English trader was killed at Mendota, near the present city of
St. Paul, because he persisted, after repeated warnings by the chiefs,
in dealing out _mini wakan_ (Devil-water) to the Dakota braves.
With open arms and generous hospitality they welcomed the first white
men to their land, and were ever faithful in their friendship, till
years of wrong and robbery, and want and insult, drove them to
desperation and to war. They were barbarians, and their warfare was
barbarous, but not more barbarous than the warfare of our Saxon, Celtic
and Norman ancestors. They were ignorant and superstitious. Their
condition closely resembled the condition of our British forefathers at
the beginning of the Christian era.
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