CHAPTER XV.

Mr. Schoolcraft makes a visit to the lead mines of Dubuque--Incidents of the trip--Description of the mines--The title of occupancy, and the mode of the mines being worked by the Fox tribe of Indians--Who are the Foxes?

I solicited permission of Gov. Cass to visit the lead mines of Dubuque, which are situated on the west bank of the Mississippi, at the computed distance of twenty-five leagues below Prairie du Chien. Furnished with a light canoe, manned by eight voyageurs, including a guide, I left the prairie at half past eleven A. M. (6th). Passed the entrance of the Wisconsin, on the left bank, at the distance of a league.[108] Opposite this point is the high elevation which Pike, in 1806, recommended to be occupied with a military work. The suggestion has not, however, been adopted; military men, probably, thinking that, however eligible the site might be for a work where civilized nations were likely to come into contact, a simpler style of defensive works would serve the purpose of keeping the Indian tribes in check. I proceeded nine leagues below, and encamped at the site of a Fox village,[109] located on the east bank, a mile below the entrance of Turkey River from the west. The village, consisting of twelve lodges, was now temporarily deserted, the Indians being probably absent on a hunt; but, if so, it was remarkable that not a soul or living thing was left behind, not even a dog. My guide, indeed, informed me that the cause of the desertion was the fears entertained of an attack from the Sioux, in retaliation for the massacre lately perpetrated by them on the heads of the St. Peter's, which was alluded to in the speech of the Little Crow, while we were at his village (_ante_, p. 160).

[108] It was at this spot, one hundred and thirty-seven years ago, that Marquette and M. Joliet, coming from the lakes, discovered the Mississippi.

[109] Now the site of Cassville, Grant County, Wisconsin. It is a post town, pleasantly situated, with a population of 200.

It was seven o'clock P. M. when I landed here, and having some hours of daylight, I walked back from the river to look at the village, and its fields, and to examine the geological structure of the adjacent cliffs. In their gardens I observed squashes, beans, and pumpkins, but the fields of corn, the principal article of cultivation, had been nearly all destroyed, probably by wild animals. I found an extensive field of water and musk melons, situated in an opening in a grove, detached from the other fields and gardens. None of the fruit was perfectly ripe, although it had been found so at Prairie du Chien; some of it had been bitten by wild animals.[110] The cliffs consisted of the same horizontal strata of sandstones and neutral colored limestone, prevailing at higher positions in this valley. Returning to the river beach, I perceived the same pebble drift which characterizes higher latitudes. This seems the only difference in its structure or form, namely, that the pieces of quartz pebble, limestone, and other fragments brought down, become smaller and smaller, as they are carried down.

[110] Fondness for melons, and annual vine fruits of the garden, is a striking trait of the Indians. Some curious facts on this head are published in the statistics.--_Indian Information_, vol. iii. p. 624, 1853, Philadelphia, Lippincott & Co.

There were frequent thunders, and a rain-storm, during the night, which, with a slight intermission, characterized the morning until noon. I embarked at half past three A. M. (7th), and landed at the Fox village of the Kettle chief, at the site of Dubuque's house,[111] at ten o'clock; a moderate rain having continued all the way. It ceased an hour after my arrival.

[111] This is now (1854) the site of the city of Dubuque, State of Iowa, which is reputed to be the oldest settlement in that State. This city is eligibly situated on a broad plateau, between limestone cliffs. The soil rests on a rock foundation, which renders it incapable of being undermined by the Mississippi. Its streets are broad and laid out at right angles. It has several Protestant churches, a Catholic cathedral, a public land office, two banks, four printing offices, and by the last census contains a population of 7,500, the county of which it is the seat of justice, has 10,840. Two railroads have their terminal points at this place. At the time of my visit, in 1820, the house which had been built by Mr. Dubuque, had been burnt down; and there was not a dwelling superior to the Indian wigwam within the present limits of Iowa. The State of Iowa was admitted into the Union in 1837. By the 7th U. S. census, the population of this State, in 1850, is shown to be 192,214. The number of square miles is 50,914. No Western State is believed to contain a less proportionate quantity of land unsuited to the plough, and its population and resources must have a rapid development.

The Kettle chief's village is situated fifteen miles below the entrance of the Little Makokety River, consisting of nineteen lodges, built in two rows, pretty compact, and having a population of two hundred and fifty souls. There is a large island in the Mississippi, directly opposite this village, which is occupied by traders. I first landed there to get an interpreter of the Fox language, and obtain some necessary information respecting the location of the mines, and the best means of accomplishing my object. Meantime the rain had ceased. I then proceeded across the Mississippi to the Kettle chief's lodge, to solicit his permission to visit the mines, and obtain Indian guides. I succeeded in getting Mr. Gates, as interpreter; and was accompanied by Dr. S. Muir, a trader, who politely offered to go with me. On entering the lodge of Aquoqua, the chief, I found him suffering under a severe attack of bilious fever. As I approached him, he sat upon his pallet, being unable to stand, and bid me welcome; but soon became exhausted by the labor of conversation, and was obliged to resume his former position. He appeared to be a man of eighty years of age, had a venerable look, but was reduced to the last stage of physical debility. Yet he retained his faculties of sight and hearing unimpaired, together with his mental powers. He spoke to me of his death with calm resignation, as a thing to be desired. On stating the object of my visit, some objections were made by the chiefs who surrounded him, and they required further time to consider the proposition. In the mean time, I learned from another source, that since the death of Dubuque, to whom the Indians had formerly granted the privilege of working the mines, they had manifested great jealousy of the whites, were afraid they would encroach on their rights, denied all former grants, and did not make it a practice even to allow strangers to view their diggings. Apprehending some difficulties of this kind, I had provided myself with some presents, and concluding this to be the time, because of the reluctance manifested, directed one of my voyageurs to bring in a present of tobacco and whiskey; and in a few moments I received their assent, and two guides were furnished. One of these was a minor chief, called Scabass, or the Yelling Wolf; the other, Wa-ba-say-ah, or the White Foxskin. They led me up the cliff, where I understood the Indian woman, Peosta, first found lead ore; after reaching the level of the river bluffs, we pursued a path over undulating hills, exhibiting a half prairie, and quite picturesque rural aspect. On reaching the diggings, the most striking part of them, but not all of them, exhibited excavations such as the Indians only do not seem persevering enough in labor to have made.

The district of country called Dubuque's Mines, embraces an area of about twenty-one square leagues, commencing at the mouth of the Little Maquaquity River, sixty miles below Prairie du Chien, and extending along the west bank of the Mississippi River, seven leagues in front by three in depth. The principal mines are situated on a tract of one square league, beginning immediately at the Fox village of Aquoqua, or the Kettle chief, and extending westwardly. This is the seat of the mining operations carried on by Dubuque, as well as of what are called the Indian Diggings.

Geologically it is the same formation that characterizes the mines of Missouri; but there are some peculiarities. The ore found is the common sulphuret of lead, with a broad foliated, or lamellated structure, and high metallic lustre. It occurs massive and disseminated, in a red loam, resting on a horizontal limestone rock. Sometimes small veins of the ore are seen in the rock, but it has been generally explored in the soil. It generally occurs in narrow beds, which have a fixed direction; these beds extend three or four hundred feet, when they cease, or are traced into crevices in the rock. At this stage, the pursuit of ore, at most of the diggings, has been abandoned, frequently with small veins of the metal in view. No matrix, so far as I observed, is found with the ore which is dug out of the soil, unless we may consider such an ochery oxide of iron, with which it is slightly incrusted. Occasionally, pieces of calcareous spar are thrown out with the earth in digging after ore. I picked up from one of these heaps of earth a specimen of transparent crystallized sulphate of barytes; but this mineral appears to be rare. There appears to be none of the radiated quartz, or white opaque heavy spar, which are so abundantly found at the Missouri mines.[112]

[112] _Vide_ my View of the Lead Mines of Missouri, &c., New York, 1819.

The ore at these mines is now exclusively dug by the Indian women. Old and superannuated men also partake in the mining labor, but the warriors and men hold themselves above it. In this labor, the persons who engage in it employ the hoe, shovel, pick-axe, and crow-bar. These implements are supplied by the traders at the island, who are the purchasers of the crude ore. With these implements they dig trenches, till they are arrested by the solid rock. There are no shafts, even of the simplest kind, and the windlass and bucket are unknown to them--far more so the use of gunpowder in the mining operations. Their mode of going down into the deepest pits, and coming up from them, is by digging an inclined way, which permits the women to keep an erect position in walking.[113] I descended into one of these inclined excavations, which had probably been carried down forty feet, at the perpendicular angle.

[113] This is believed to be an oriental mode of excavation, which appears to have been practised in digging wells.

When a quantity of ore has been got out, it is carried in baskets to the banks of the Mississippi, by the females, who are ferried over to the island. They receive at the rate of two dollars for a hundred and twenty pounds, payable in goods. At the profit at which these are usually sold, it may be presumed to cost the traders at the rate of seventy-five cents or a dollar, cash value, per hundred weight. The traders smelt the ore on the island, in furnaces of the same construction which I have described, and given plates of, in my treatise on the mines.[114] They observe that it yields the same per centum of metallic lead. Formerly, the Indians were in the habit of smelting the ore themselves on log heaps, by which an unusual proportion of it was converted into lead-ashes and lost. They are now induced to search about the sites of these old fires to collect these lead-ashes, which consist, for the most part, of desulphuretted ore, for which they receive a dollar per bushel.

[114] New York, 1819.

There are three mines in addition to those above mentioned, situated upon the Upper Mississippi, which are worked by the Indians. They are located at Sinsinaway, at Rivière au Fevre, and at the Little Makokety. 1. Sinsinaway mines. They are situated fifteen miles below Aquoqua's Village, on the east shore of the Mississippi, at the junction of the Sinsinaway River. 2. Mine au Fevre. Situated on the River au Fevre, which enters the Mississippi on its east banks, twenty-one miles below Dubuque's mines. The lead ore is found ten miles from its mouth. At this locality, the ore is accompanied by the sulphate of barytes, and is sometimes crystallized in cubes or octohedrons.[115] 3. Mine of the Makokety, or Maquoqueti. This small river enters the Mississippi fifteen miles above Dubuque's mines. The mineral character and value of the country has been but little explored.

[115] The city of Galena has subsequently been built on this river, at the distance of six miles from the Mississippi. The river is, indeed, thus far, an arm of the Mississippi, which permits steamboats freely to enter, converting the place into a commercial depot for a vast surrounding country. Not less than 40,000,000 pounds of lead were shipped from this place in 1852, valued at one million six hundred thousand dollars. It is the terminus of the Chicago and Galena Railroad, connecting it by a line of 180 miles with the lakes. It contains a bank, three newspaper offices, and several churches of various denominations, and has, by the census of 1850, a population of 6,004.

The history of the mines of Dubuque is brief and simple. In 1780, a discovery of lead ore was made by the wife of Peosta, a Fox Indian of Aquoqua's Village. This gave the hint for explorations, which resulted in extensive discoveries. The lands were formally granted by the Indians to Julien Dubuque, at a council held at Prairie du Chien in 1788, by virtue of which he permanently settled on them, erected buildings and furnaces, and continued to work them until 1810. In 1796, he received a confirmation of his grant from Carondelet, the governor of Louisiana, in which they are called "the mines of Spain." By a stone monument which stands on a hill near the mines, Dubuque died on the 24th March, 1810, aged forty-five years and six months. After his death, the Indians burnt down his house and fences--he leaving, I believe, no family[116]--and erased every vestige of civilized life; and they have since revoked, or at least denied the grant, and appear to set a very high value on the mines. Dubuque's claim was assigned to his creditors, by whom it was presented to the commissioners for deciding on land titles, in 1806. By a majority of the board it was determined to be valid, in which condition it was reported to Washington for final action. At this stage of the investigation, Mr. Gallatin, who was then Secretary of the Treasury, made a report on the subject, clearly stating the facts, and coming to the conclusion that it was not a perfect title, stating that no patent had ever been issued for it, at New Orleans, the seat of the Spanish authority, from which transcripts of the records of all grants had been transmitted to the Treasury.[117]

[116] There is believed to be no instance, in America, where the Indians have disannulled grants or privileges to persons settling among them, and leaving families founded on the Indian element.

[117] For the facts in this case, see _Collection of Land Laws of the United States_, printed at Washington, 1817.

On the arrival of Lieut. Pike at Mr. Dubuque's on the 1st of September, 1805, he endeavored to obtain information necessary to judge of the value and extent and the nature of the grant of the mines; but he was not able to visit them. To the inquiries which he addressed to Mr. Dubuque on the subject, the latter replied in writing that a copy of the grant was filed at the proper office in St. Louis, which would show its date, together with the date of its confirmation by the Spanish authority, and the extent of the grant to him. He states the mine to be twenty-seven or twenty-eight leagues long, and from one to three leagues broad. He represents the per centum of metal to be yielded from the ore to be seventy-five, and the quantity smelted per annum at from 20,000 to 40,000 pounds. He stated that the whole product was cast into pig lead, and that there were no other metals at the mines but copper, of the value of which he could not judge.

Having examined the mines with as much minuteness as the time allowed me would permit, and obtained specimens of its ores and minerals, I returned to the banks of the Mississippi, before the daylight departed, and, immediately embarking, went up the river two leagues and encamped on an island.

It may be proper to add to this narrative of my mineralogical visit to these mines, a few words respecting the Fox Indians, by whom the country is owned. The first we hear of these people is from early missionaries of New France, who call them, in a list drawn up for the government in 1736, "Gens du Sang," and Miskaukis. The latter I found to be the name they apply to themselves. We get nothing, however, by it. It means Red-earths, being a compound from _misk-wau_, red, and _auki_, earth. They are a branch of the great Algonquin family. The French, who formed a bad opinion of them, as their history opened, bestowed on them the name of Renouard, from which we derive their long-standing popular name. Their traditions attribute their origin to eastern portions of America. Mr. Gates, who acted as my interpreter, and is well acquainted with their language and customs, informs me that their traditions refer to their residence on the north banks of the St. Lawrence, near the ancient Cataraqui. They appear to have been a very erratic, spirited, warlike, and treacherous tribe; dwelling but a short time at a spot, and pushing westward, as their affairs led them, till they finally reached the Mississippi, which they must have crossed after 1766, for Carver found them living in villages on the Wisconsin. At Saginaw, they appear to have formed a fast alliance with the Saucs, a tribe to whom they are closely allied by language and history. They figure in the history of Indian events about old Michilimackinac, where they played pranks under the not very definite title of Muscodainsug, but are first conspicuously noted while they dwelt on the river bearing their name, which falls into Green Bay, Wisconsin.[118] The Chippewas, with whom they have strong affinity of language, call them Otagami, and ever deemed them a sanguinary and unreliable tribe. The French defeated them in a sanguinary battle at Butte de Mort, and by this defeat drove them from Fox River.

[118] This name was first applied to a territory in 1836.

Their present numbers cannot be accurately given. I was informed that the village I visited contained two hundred and fifty souls. They have a large village at Rock Island, where the Foxes and Saucs live together, which consists of sixty lodges, and numbers three hundred souls. One-half of these may be Saucs. They have another village at the mouth of Turkey River; altogether, they may muster from 460 to 500 souls. Yet, they are at war with most of the tribes around them, except the Iowas, Saucs, and Kickapoos. They are engaged in a deadly, and apparently successful war against the Sioux tribes. They recently killed nine men of that nation, on the Terre Blue River; and a party of twenty men are now absent, in the same direction, under a half-breed named Morgan. They are on bad terms with the Osages and Pawnees of the Missouri, and not on the best terms with their neighbors the Winnebagoes.

I again embarked at four o'clock A. M. (8th). My men were stout fellows, and worked with hearty will, and it was thought possible to reach the Prairie during the day, by hard and late pushing. We passed Turkey River at two o'clock, and they boldly plied their paddles, sometimes animating their labors with a song; but the Mississippi proved too stout for us; and some time after nightfall we put ashore on an island, before reaching the Wisconsin. In ascending the river this day, observed the pelican, which exhibited itself in a flock, standing on a low sandy spot of an island. This bird has a clumsy and unwieldy look, from the duplicate membrane attached to its lower mandible, which is constructed so as when inflated to give it a bag-like appearance. A short sleep served to restore the men, and we were again in our canoes the next morning (9th) before I could certainly tell the time by my watch. Daylight had not yet broke when we passed the influx of the Wisconsin, and we reached the Prairie under a full chorus, and landed at six o'clock.