Battle of Sugar Point

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The Battle of Sugar Point was fought on October 5, 1898 between the 3rd U.S. Infantry and members of the Bear Island Pillager Indians in a failed attempt to apprehend Pillager-Ojibwe chieftain Bugonaygeshig ("Old Bug" or "Hole-In-The-Day"), following a dispute with local officials in Cass County, Minnesota.

Often referred to as "the last Indian Uprising in the United States", the engagement is also the first battle to be fought in the old Northwest Territory since the Dakota War of 1862. It is subsequently the last major battle fought between Native Americans and the United States Army.^[1] The last Medal of Honor issued during the Indian Wars was awarded to Private Oscar Burkard of the 3rd US Infantry Regiment. ^[2]

[edit] Background

The main issue between the Pillagers and local officials was mistreatment of the tribe and its members, which included the frequent arrests of tribal members on trivial charges and transporting them far from the Leech Lake Reservation for trial. This was often the case for members who had witnessed criminal acts.

During the 1880s, the United States Army Corps of Engineers began constructing dams in the Mississippi Headwaters. One of the dams was built on Leech Lake, flooding parts of the Pillager reservation, causing the displacement of villages and ruining the soil. However, nearby logging companies caused the greatest resentment. Although the logging companies agreed to annuity payments in exchange for harvesting dead and fallen trees on the reservation, the value of the timber was often underestimated and payments were frequently late. Some loggers set fire to the foundation of living trees in order to pass them off as dead timber.

A Pillager chieftain, Bugonaygeshig, began protesting against these practices on the reservation in early 1898. However, when he and Sha-Boon-Day-Shkong traveled to the nearby Indian village of Onigum on September 15, they were seized by U.S. Deputy Marshal Robert Morrison and U.S. Indian Agent Arthur M. Tinker as witnesses to a bootlegging operation and were going to be transported to Duluth. (Bugonaygeshig had previously testified at another bootlegging trial in the port city on Lake Superior five months earlier.) As the two were being led away, several Pillagers attacked Morrison and Tinker, allowing Bugonaygeshig and Sha-Boon-Day-Shkong to escape custody.

After the escape, authorities requested military assistance at Fort Snelling. A small force of 20 soldiers from the 3rd Regiment United States Infantry under Lieutenant Chauncey B. Humphreys were dispatched to Onigum. When his scouts reported Bugonaygeshig was refusing to surrender, Humphreys decided to send for reinforcements.

A larger force was soon raised and included 77 soldiers under Brevet Major Melville C. Wilkinson, who was accompanied by General John M. Bacon, acting commander of the Department of Dakota. Others who took part in the expedition included U.S. Marshals and deputy marshals, Indian Police officers and several reporters.

The small force had boarded two small steamships, the Flora and the Chief of Duluth, and sailed from Walker, Minnesota across Leech Lake to Sugar Point, a small peninsula in the northeast section of the lake.

[edit] The battle

Following the battle, a number of Pillagers claimed they had witnessed US soldiers firing from steamships at women in an indian canoe much like this one.

Soon after the troops' landing at the village, two of the Pillagers who were involved in Bugonaygeshig's escape were recognized and arrested. Bugonaygeshig himself was not found, apparently having escaped prior to the soldiers' arrival. The government force made camp and began searching the surrounding woods and neighboring villages to arrest any Pillagers with outstanding warrants. None of those with arrest warrants were found and, in fact, few male Pillagers were present in the area.

The matter of which side fired the first shot was disputed. General Bacon claimed that one of the soldier's rifles accidentally discharged, causing the Pillagers hiding in the woods to think that they were being attacked, while the Pillagers said the battle started when several soldiers were seen firing at an Indian canoe carrying several women as their steamship approached Sugar Point.

Around 11:30 am, the Pillagers began firing upon the soldiers from the surrounding woods. The soldiers, many of them young recruits, dropped to the ground. Their officers subsequently managed to get them to form a crescent-shaped skirmish line around Bugonaygeshig's cabin. During the first half-hour, a number of Wilkinson's men were killed or wounded. After Wilkinson himself was shot in the leg, he and some of the other wounded were moved to the lake side of the cabin, which provided some protective cover.

Recovering behind the cabin for only a few moments, Major Wilkinson returned outside after his leg had been bandaged and began encouraging the young troopers. He was soon shot again, this time through the abdomen, and was carried back into the cabin where he died an hour later. Another officer under his command, Sergeant William Butler, was also killed as he went off to inform General Bacon of Major Wilkinson's mortal wound. Gunfire from the Pillagers became less frequent after this point, though some would take occasional shots throughout the rest of the day.

That evening, an Indian agent was killed by a soldier who mistook him for one of the Pillagers. The following morning, a soldier was killed while trying to dig some potatoes from a garden patch. He was the last official casualty of the battle.

The Pillagers finally dispersed early the next day and the soldiers headed back to St. Paul. Although there was initial panic about the possibility of Indian attacks among the neighboring settlements of Deer River, Grand Rapids, Bemidji and Aitkin, public fears of another Indian uprising subsided after newspapers began reporting the circumstances of the attack. The day after the battle, the Cass County Pioneer published a letter by the Pillagers which said the following:

Six soldiers, including Major Wilkinson, had been killed and ten others wounded. No civilians had been killed during the battle, with the exception of one Indian Police officer, although four had been wounded. After his escape, Bugonaygeshig was never captured. ^[4]

[edit] Aftermath

Several days following the incident, U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs William A. Jones negotiated with Pillager leaders in a council held at the Leech Lake Reservation from October 10-15. After the council concluded, Commissioner Jones criticized local and state officials for "the frequent arrests of Indians on trivial causes, often for no cause at all, taking them down to Duluth and Minneapolis for trial, two hundred miles away from their agency, and then turning them adrift without means to return home". Jones later said in a report to the Secretary of the Interior Cornelius Newton Bliss,

[edit] References