for
fifty years; it will be so again. _God's retributive justice always
has compelled a people to reap exactly what they have permitted to
be sown!_'

These extracts from the Bishop's Plea confirm what I have stated in the
preceding paragraphs; and the last sentence--which I have marked in
italics--is well worth the while of every reader to ponder well.

Mr. Heard dates the commencement of the massacre to the breaking of a
stray nest of hen's eggs on the prairie, and what came of the
transaction; but the date lies farther back than that, so far as the
resolution to seize the first favorable opportunity for slaughtering the
whites is concerned--and belongs to the era of the great crimes of our
Government against them, as shown in the forcible seizure of their lands
without their receiving any payment, even 'a farthing' for them; the
hucksters, under the connivance of the Government agents, getting the
whole of it, and, in the instance alluded to a while ago, keeping back
from them, as payment for old debts, about three hundred boxes of the
money upon which they had depended to keep themselves alive during the
winter and the following year.

Such enormous crimes were sure to reap a bloody harvest. The Indian is
no fool, although he can't do addition and subtraction. He knows when he
is _about_ fairly dealt with, and he knows when he is mightily plucked.
In this case of the 'old debt payment' he knew that he was robbed
wholesale, and through the mouth of Red Iron he proclaimed the fact to
Governor Ramsey, in council assembled. Alluding to this robbery, he
said:

'We don't think we owe them so much. We want to pay all our debts. We
want our Great Father to send three good men here, to tell us how much
we do owe; and whatever they say, we will pay; and (pointing to the
Indians) that's what all these braves say; our chiefs and all our people
say this!'

At which all the Indians present responded:

'Ho! ho!'

This Red Iron was the principal chief of the Sissetons, and his
indignation at the wrongs done to his race made him so 'boisterous' that
Governor Ramsey was imprudent enough to break him of his chieftainship.
The scene and its results were by no means creditable to the Governor.
This latter personage had summoned Red Iron to meet him at a council,
held December, 1852, and he did not turn up as expected. So, I suppose,
he was sent for, and brought in by the soldiers. He is described by one
who was