CHAPTER V.
THE SIOUX.
The word Sioux is a contraction from the old French word “Nadouessioux,” or “Enemies,” the name given by the French traders to this most powerfal and warlike of all the North-western tribes. They called themselves “Dakota,” or “many in one,” because so many bands under different names were joined together. At the time of Captain Carver's travels among the North American Indians there were twelve known bands of these “Nadouwessies.” They entertained the captain most hospitably for seven months during the winter of 1766—'7; adopted him as one of their chiefs; and when the time came for him to depart, three hundred of them accompanied him for a distance on his journey, and took leave with expressions of friendship for him, and good-will toward the Great Father, the English king, of whom he had told them. The chiefs wished him to say to the king “how much we desire that traders may be sent to abide among us with such things as we need, that the hearts of our young men, our wives, and children may be made glad. And may peace subsist between us so long as the sun, the moon, the earth, and the waters shall endure;” and “acquaint the Great King how much the Nadouwessies wish to be counted among his good children.”
Nothing in all the history of the earliest intercourse between the friendly tribes of North American Indians and the Europeans coming among them is more pathetic than the accounts of their simple hospitality, their unstinted invitations, and their
