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Before this was a condominium complex, it was the site of a fire in abandoned limestone buildings…. 

Before that it was a twine factory and school bus parking lot….  

Before that it was used as a creamery…. 

Before that it was Minnesota’s first territorial prison…. 

Before that it was a hollow enclosed by high limestone walls at the north end of Stillwater, one of the first cities in Minnesota and a major lumbering town…  

And before that, it was the site of a deadly conflict between two embattled Indigenous groups, each at a historical turning point.  

Table of Contents

The Setting | Background | The United States | The Battle | Aftermath

The Setting

The St. Croix and Namekagon rivers form the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway consisting of more than 200 miles of clean water and shorelines protected from development. The St. Croix River forms part of the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Though portions of the river’s natural environment have been protected, much of the Native American history of this area has been neglected, lost, and erased, including many sites destroyed by residential and commercial developments. The river valley was once a border territory between the Dakota (usually referred to as “Sioux” by settlers) and Ojibwe (usually referred to as “Chippewa”) tribes. Native American pictographs once adorned the limestone walls of the river bluffs, but they were destroyed, without regard to their cultural or historic value, to make room for a logging operation. (Source 1)

Only this plaque memorialized the site of the Battle Hollow conflict between the Ojibwe and Dakota. Like the site of Battle Hollow, the plaque and the conflict’s history have become tarnished by time and even those who pass by closely can easily miss it.

The current plaque reads, “Indian Battle Ground. In this ravine at daybreak July 3, 1839, a war party of Sioux overtook a body of Chippewa returning from Fort Snelling where a Sioux had been killed by other Chippewa. A bloody battle took place in which the Chippewa losses were about 50 killed and wounded. The Sioux losses were small.”

This extremely short narrative gives little indication of the complex interactions that led to the conflict, or what it meant to its participants. The rich Indigenous history of this landscape remains hidden and merely sketched in downtown Stillwater, as it is across much of the United States.

How was that history is lost? And what can this history tell us about this place and its peoples, past and present?

Background

Battle Hollow represents a striking moment in a long series of historical events that brought the Dakota and Ojibwe peoples together in both violent and peaceful interactions.

The arrival of European fur traders in the Great Lakes region in the 1600s marked a shift in the economies of the Indigenous people living in the area from subsistence and inter-tribal trading to a focus on fur trading to acquire European goods, including firearms. Beaver skins became the currency to acquire goods, and firearms became the new warfare technology for Native Americans to defend or perhaps expand their territories.

French and English fur traders courted the tribes to acquire beaver pelts in exchange for European goods and weapons. This created fierce competition for the limited beaver within their own territories as the animals became necessary to acquire increasingly larger amounts of goods and weapons. As tribes depleted their own beaver populations, they expanded into the territories of neighboring tribes. Tribes with more access to firearms were able to expand hunting territories, sometimes at the expense of their rivals. For survival, it became imperative for tribes to trade with Europeans, which disrupted traditional economies and solidified Native dependence on European fur traders for goods.

The depletion of beaver and increasing encroachment of the European settlers pressured Eastern tribes to expand west and south. The Haudenosaunee (or Iroquois Confederacy), pushed west and south from the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario into the territories of the Algonquian speaking tribes that occupied territory around Lakes Michigan and Superior. The Anishinaabe, including the Ojibwe, were the largest Algonquian group and among the largest of all North American tribes. The Haudenosaunee expansion into Ojibwe territory and other factors brought about the Beaver Wars in the early 1600s that would last until 1701 and the signing of The Great Peace of Montreal treaty by France and 39 Native American tribes.

By the early 1600s, the Ojibwe began their own westward expansion into areas that had retained much of their beaver population. As the Ojibwe moved west, they increased contact with the Dakota people, part of a larger region of Siouan-speaking tribes that occupied what is today Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Montana, and Nebraska. The Dakota, ranging along the upper Mississippi river network to the edge of Lake Superior subsisted on corn, wild rice, fishing, and hunting for deer, elk, bison, and other woodland animals.

An earlier start in trading with Europeans gave the Ojibwe an initial edge; they had firearms and the knowledge of how to use them. The Dakota had only weapons of stone, bone, and copper. By the late 1600s, the Dakota had entered their own alliances with French traders to acquire goods and firearms. (Source 2)

This combination of material interests and territorial encroachment led to a cycle of attacks, counterattacks, and sometimes pitched battles that would continue for more than two hundred years.

Ojibwe advanced into northern Minnesota by the mid-1700s, and the St. Croix and Mississippi river valleys became important contested frontiers between the two groups as well as hunting grounds for each.

The United States

In 1783, the new United States acquired the land east of the Mississippi River in the Treaty of Paris. Twenty years later, the 1803 Louisiana Purchase added extensive lands west of the Mississippi to the United States’ ever-growing territory.

By the early 1800s, the beaver pelt market was in rapid decline due to over-harvesting and a growing preference for silk hats in the international market. These changes, in addition to the traders’ use of credit, left Indigenous trappers and nations in debt to European traders. The United States leveraged this debt to acquire Indigenous lands.

In 1805, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike of the U.S. Army explored the upper Mississippi to reconnoiter potential sites for military posts. Though he had no authority to do so, Pike negotiated a treaty to acquire 151,000 acres of land along the Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers. Although the treaty was technically invalid, Congress authorized a $2,000 payment in 1808, which was a fraction of the land’s value that Pike had estimated at $100,000. The first troops arrived in 1819, and construction of Fort Snelling began in haste in 1820, and was completed by 1825. Missionaries and government agents followed, often operating in and around the fort. (Source 3)

From 1785 to 1867 the United States government signed more than 40 treaties with the Ojibwe people. The treaties nearly always exchanged Ojibwe land for annuity payments and promises, many of which were not upheld. In the 1837 Treaty, the Ojibwe were offered perpetual hunting and fishing rights on land they ceded to the U.S., but these rights were later denied. It would not be until 1999 that the U.S. Supreme Court would reaffirm those rights and restore them to the Ojibwe. (Source 4)

In 1837, a delegation of Mdewakanton Dakota traveled to Washington, D.C., believing the purpose of the meeting was to settle their southern boundary. However, after arriving they were coerced into signing a treaty that ceded all their lands east of the Mississippi. The value of the land was estimated at $1,600,000, but the government paid far less. (Source 5)

**For more information about the treaties, refer to this interactive map from the Minnesota Historical Society.

The U.S. paid annual payments, or annuities, in the form of money and goods to compensate the tribes for the sale of their lands. The payments reflected a small fraction of the value of the land, and the provided goods were frequently expensive, delayed, and of poor quality. As the Dakota’s dependence on annuities increased and their self-sufficiency decreased, the tribes were forced to trade more of their lands to survive. By 1839, both the Ojibwe and the Dakota within the Minnesota Territory were receiving annuities from the U.S. government distributed out of Fort Snelling and its surrounding agencies.

Gideon Pond and Samuel Pond were brothers who had become missionaries in New England, and they arrived at Fort Snelling by way of the river steamer The Warrior in 1834. The Dakota named them Red Eagle and Grizzly Bear. Over time, the brothers would go on to successfully develop a written Dakota language. Dakota leader Cloud Man accepted aid from Fort Snelling and the missionary brothers to establish a village at Lake Bde maka Ska that would practice a more European style of agricultural life. (Source 6)

The Battle

As U.S. policy increasingly hemmed in the Dakota and Ojibwe people through land cessions (like those in 1837) and made them more and more dependent on annuities and trade goods, tensions between the two groups only increased. In this world of greater scarcity and embattled sovereignty, raids and counter-raids continued, and were punctuated by truces and periods of cooperation. Rivalries between traders and trading firms also manifested in intertribal violence. The events leading up to the battle on the St. Croix in the summer of 1839 were a product of all that the two groups had lost.

On June 20th, 1839, Ojibwe leader Hole-in-the-Day arrived at Fort Snelling alongside the St. Croix band of Ojibwe to demand their annuities, which had been delayed in previous years by the Panic of 1837 that had shaken the U.S. economy. He was joined by members from his own area, and even the Pillager Band of Ojibwe that lived around Leech Lake that had not signed the 1837 Treaty. They were supposed to receive their annuities at the agency at La Pointe, but Hole-in-the-Day chose the more prominent Fort Snelling. Hole-in-the-Day’s choice to travel to Fort Snelling may have resulted from a simple miscommunication with U.S. officials, or perhaps he meant this gathering of up to nine-hundred Ojibwe to be a statement, a reminder of the United States’ obligations. (Source 7)

Local Dakota leaders Little Crow from Kaposia and Cloud Man from Lake Bde Maka Ska saw Hole-in-the-Day’s arrival in their territory as a provocation, and the next day the large encampment of nearly nine hundred Ojibwe were met with a similarly sized camp of twelve hundred Dakota. That night, a council was held between the two groups that was interpreted by the skilled mixed-race trader Stephen Bonga. The two groups lived next to each other for the rest of June with mostly friendly interactions, including foot races and dances. Despite this, there was still tension brewing due to the consistent revenge killings committed by both parties in years past . Indian Agent Lawrence Taliaferro sensed enough hostility between them that he called upon mixed-race trader Stephen Bonga to try to intervene. (Source 8)

On the 30th of June, Hole-in-the-Day announced his intentions to return home, and on the first day of July the Ojibwe and Dakota smoked the peace pipe before they departed the following day. The Ojibwe had broken into two groups, and left their encampment by Fort Snelling to return to their northern homes. One group went north along the Mississippi River while the other group moved north along the St. Croix River (Source 9).

Early on July 2nd, 1839, two Pillager Ojibwe separated from the group without telling anyone of their plans and killed Ne-Ka (or Badger) near Lake Harriet, who was the son-in-law of Dakota chief Cloud Man of Lake Bde Maka Ska. The Pillagers did this as an act of retaliation, as one of their men had been shot by the Dakota the year prior. Within a day of the incident, nearly all the able-bodied men of several bands of the Dakota tribe had assembled near St. Anthony falls, where their leaders explicitly ordered them not to take captives in their impending battle with the Ojibwe.

The Ojibwe were unaware that they were being pursued by a multitude of Dakota bands. The Dakota found the second group of Ojibwe camped in a ravine on the St. Croix River with high limestone walls on three sides. They postponed their attack until a white trader named William Aitkin had left the encampment. Early on the morning of July 3rd, the Dakota attacked the Ojibwe and managed to kill 40 to 50 people while losing 10 to 15 of their own men. The surviving Ojibwe escaped on their canoes. (Source 10)

The Ojibwe group returning home by the Mississippi River were also attacked and another 95 to 100 people were killed by the Dakota at a site on the Rum River. Like the initial group of Ojibwe traveling along the St. Croix, they too were unsuspecting of an attack. The Ojibwe men had gone ahead to look for food and the women had been slowly following behind with the children and packs. The Dakota attacked at the mouth of the Rum River, and by the time the men heard the shots and were able to arrive on the scene of the attack, the Dakota warriors had already retreated. The result being around 70 Ojibwe casualties that mainly consisted of women and children.

Aftermath

Cloud Man, a Mdewakanton Dakota leader, recognized that reprisal attacks by the Ojibwe were forthcoming, and elected to move his band from Lake Bde Maka Ska to an area south along the Minnesota River that was farther from the Ojibwe’s territory. A series of raids and counterattacks motivated by vengeance occurred over the following years. In 1842, the Ojibwe of the St. Croix planned a deadly blow at the Dakota village of Kaposia while the Dakota warriors were unaware. Ultimately, this attack was thwarted by warnings from some of the villagers. Skirmishes such as these would continue in the years that followed, but major battles had ceased. (Source 11)

By the 1840s, the United states sought to remove the Ojibwe from their lands in Wisconsin and Minnesota, even though previous treaties had granted them the land. Negotiations continued until 1854, when they ceded the last of their land in these two states to the federal government in return for reservations. However, the reservation lands given to the various Ojibwe groups were too limited in size to sustain their traditional methods of hunting and gathering. The tribes became more dependent on the annuities from the U.S. Government. At the same time, many agents of the government became corrupt and stole much from the Ojibwe for their own personal gain. (Source 12)

The Dakota had signed their first treaty in 1825, the Treaty of Prairie du Chien that included land within present-day Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota. By 1851, new treaties signed at Mendota and Traverse de Sioux diminished Dakota lands to a ten-mile piece of territory on either side of the Minnesota River. In 1858, the U.S. government coerced the Dakota to give up their remaining lands north of the Minnesota River. Despite the many detailed promises of past treaties, the U.S. frequently failed to provide food, supplies, and money to the Dakota people. Just like with the Ojibwe, the reservation land was not large enough to support enough game for hunting.

The crops cultivated by the Dakota in 1861 had poor yields, leaving the Dakota without enough food for the “starving winter” of 1861-1862. Little Crow of the Mdewakanton Dakota wrote to the U.S. Indian Agent Thomas Galbraith: “We have waited a long time. The money is ours but we cannot get it. We have no food but here these stores are filled with food. We ask that you, the agent, make some arrangement so we can get food from the stores, or else we may take our own way to keep ourselves from starving. When men are hungry, they help themselves.”

By the summer of 1862, the Dakota were encircled by settlers, without land to sustain themselves, without money to buy food and goods, and feeling deceived and betrayed by the U.S. government. The Dakota revolted in an armed rebellion against settlers. (Source 13)

The U.S.-Dakota War officially began on August 17th, 1862, with four Dakota hunters killing five white settlers in Acton Township. Little Crow of Kaposia reluctantly agreed to lead the Dakota in a war on settlers. The Dakota people were completely divided between being supportive of the war and being opposed to it. Of the estimated 6,500 Dakota people living on Minnesota reservations at the time, it is believed that no more than 1,000 actively participated in the fighting; but all of them would suffer dearly.

During the same period, on August 18, 1862, some Ojibwe warriors under Chief Hole In The Day the Younger (Hole In The Day’s son) took seven white settlers’ hostage at Gull Lake as a hostile act against the Government. These measures were taken because of the U.S. government’s inaction towards Hole in the Day’s attempts to work with both St. Paul and Washington D.C. officials on receiving compensation for embezzled money taken from the Ojibwe. Over the next several days runners spread the word to the other Ojibwe tribes in the area to gather at Gull Lake in arms against the government. During these first few days Hole In The Day was pursued for capture and his house was burned down. He escaped with his family and continued to rally his people to demand fair treatment at the Gull Lake gathering. By August 20th, all white hostages had been released, but the Ojibwe kept to their demands to have their complaints heard. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, William Dole agreed to meet with Hole In The Day and traveled to Fort Ripley in central Minnesota.

From August 17th to September 26th, 600 settlers were killed. Approximately 70 of them were soldiers and about 50 were armed civilians. The remaining casualties were predominantly recent immigrants to Minnesota. Of the Dakota people who surrendered in 1862, one-quarter died by the end of 1863 from measles and other diseases. (Source 14)

Back in central Minnesota, tensions between the U.S. military and Ojibwe were high, as over 300 Ojibwe warriors were in the area around Crow Wing and Gull Lake. Hole In The Day made his demands clear as the meeting finally occurred on September 15th. With the Civil War already under way, and the Dakota already having attacked, the U.S. government was adamant to avoid any further hostilities on other fronts, so Dole had little option but to cave to Ojibwe demands. Hole In The Day was able to use the situation of the U.S.-Dakota War to gain some concessions from the United States. The Dawes Act of 1887 divided up reservation land into individual farms for the Ojibwe. However, they were not given sufficient resources to succeed in farming this land, which resulted in 90% of the Ojibwe selling their land to lumber companies out of necessity. (Source 15)

By November 5th, 1862, 392 Dakota prisoners had been charged and tried. In December, 38 Dakota men were hanged in front of 4,000 spectators. Two of those men were mistakenly killed. In response to the war, the U.S. Congress revoked all treaties between the U.S. government and the Dakota by early 1863. This resulted in most of the Dakota people being exiled from the state of Minnesota. Some fled to Canada and 1,300 were sent by steamboat to Crow Creek reservation in South Dakota. Within six months, 200 Dakota had died; most of them being children.

The Dakota lands were reduced to small reservations.

The complex causes, rooted in the changes that arrived with the United States government and the traders and settlers it protected, were obscured by the settlers own histories, just as the site of this battle was built over by a prison and condominiums.