The Chiefs Wapahasha: Three Generations of Dakota Leadership, 1740-1876

This book is a collective biography of three generations of Mdewakanton Dakota chiefs named Wapahasha (often spelled "Wabasha"). The first Wapahasha was born in present-day Minnesota and became one of the leading warriors and spokesmen of his tribe during the French dominion of Canada and the upper Great Lakes. When the British took over, they negotiated with Wapahasha, now an elderly man, who aided them in the American Revolutionary War. After the war Wapahasha started his own band and village on the Upper Iowa River in present-day Iowa. He was succeeded as chief by his son, Wapahasha II. He, like his father, supported the British, and hoped, along with Tecumthe, that the Americans could be defeated in the War of 1812. When the British lost the war, Wapahasha tried to adjust to early inroads by the American government on the Upper Mississippi. He moved his village to the site of present-day Winona, Minnesota. After much trouble in dealing with the Sac and Fox and Ojibway tribes, he died of smallpox in 1836. His son, Wapahasha III, succeeded him. In the early years of his chieftainship he was angry with the Americans' ever increasing domination of his people. However, after making the Treaty of 1851, he tried to accomodate the whites. He eventually was influenced to try to become acculturated. He therefore opposed the war of 1862 and was baptized by Bishop Henry B. Whipple of the Episcopal Church. In 1863 he was removed with a remainder of his people to Crow Creek Reserve in Dakota Territory. A few years later, he was removed again to Niobrara River in present day Nebraska. Here he tried to gain a reserve for his people and went to Washington in 1867. Through further years of hardship, the Santee Dakotas (by which they were now known) settled in permanently on their reserve. But he died in obscurity in 1876, many feeling that the days of the old hereditary chiefs had passed usefulness.