“This tribe is characterized by frugality, thrift, and industry to an extent unequalled by any other tribe of Indians in the North-west. Loyal to the Government, and peaceable toward their neighbors, they are entitled to the fostering care of the General Government. The improvement of the homes which they have voluntarily selected for their future residence will place them in a short time beyond the reach of want, and take from the Government the burden of supplying their wants at an actual expense of $100,000.”
It was in May, 1863, that the Winnebagoes gathered at Fort Snelling, ready for their journey. The chiefs are said to have “acquiesced in the move as a matter of necessity, for the protection of their people,” but some of them “actually shed tears on taking leave.” Colonel Mix, who was in charge of this removal, wrote to Washington, urgently entreating that tents at least might be provided for them on their arrival at their new homes in the wilderness. He also suggests that it is a question whether they ought to be settled so near the hostile Sioux, especially as just before leaving Minnesota some of the tribe had “scalped three Sioux Indians, thinking it would propitiate them in the kind regards of their Great Father at Washington, and, as a consequence, they would perhaps be permitted to remain in Minnesota.”
The removal was accomplished in May and June. There were, all told, 1945 of the Winnebagoes. They arrived to find themselves in an almost barren wilderness—a dry, hard soil, “too strong for ploughs;” so much so, that it was “difficult to get a plough to run a whole day without breaking.” A drought had parched the grass, so that in many places where the previous year several tons of good hay to an acre had been raised there was not now “pasturage for a horse.” The cottonwood timber, all which could be procured, was “crooked, difficult to handle, fall of wind-shakes, rots, etc.” The channel of the Missouri River here was so “changeable,” and the banks so low,
