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SAUK HEAD & YELLOW DOG

Dark history of two Marquette County place names recalled

Story by Adam Berger • Sketch by Mike McKinney

Homer Kidder (1874-1950) took a health break from studying at Harvard from 1893-1895. He came home to Marquette, summering at the Huron Mountain Club. His father, Alfred Kidder (1840-1923), a mining engineer who served as a wilderness guide for famous anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881) in Marquette County, was deeply interested in Native history, and passed this passion to his sons.

While home from Harvard, Homer Kidder collected oral histories from local Ojibwe elders. The stories he wrote down were eventually published in 1994 as Ojibwa Narratives, a book worth exploring for glimpses into local Native history.

Three informants helped Homer Kidder. Charlotte Kawbawgam (circa 1836-1904) was the daughter of Ojibwe leader Mah-je-ge-zhik (died circa 1857), the man who guided mineral explorers to iron deposits near Teal Lake in Negaunee in 1845. Charlie Kawbawgam (circa 1815-1902) hosted early Marquette settlers such as Peter White (1830-1908) in their first years living on Iron Bay. Francis Nolan (circa 1820-1911), known by his jocular nickname Jacques LePique, French for Jack of Spades, was Mah-je-gezhik’s other son-in-law. He guided with Alfred Kidder when Lewis Henry Morgan came to the Upper Peninsula in the 1850s, and for George Shiras III (1859-1942), who became a famous wildlife photographer.

One story Jacques LePique told Kidder described events that took place about a century earlier, around the 1780s. An Ojibwe man named Yellow Dog, his wife, their infant, and teen-aged son were paddling north across Iron Bay. Unbeknownst to them, a group of Sauk raiders who had come up from Lake Michigan via a trail near the Chocolay River were scanning the lake from the tall crag just south of Marquette commonly called the Rock Cut. There was thick fog on Lake Superior, so the Sauk could not see the Ojibwe family, but they heard the baby cry.

The Ojibwe family paddled on and camped along a river near what is now Big Bay. The teen-aged son had an uneasy feeling that enemies were close, and thought he saw a canoe on the horizon, but his father told him it was probably just seagulls on a log.

The young man, about 16 years old, went to look around, taking his father’s gun. As he walked along the lake shore, a Sauk canoe pulled up and raiders rushed him. He fired the gun, killing two Sauk attackers, then hid in the woods. While hiding, he heard Sauk warriors murder his family and saw flames as his family’s camp burned. The river became known as the river where Yellow Dog was killed, or the Yellow Dog River.

From concealment, the Ojibwe teenager watched Sauk raiders load their fallen compatriots into canoes, blacken their faces to grieve, and slowly paddle back the way they had come, singing mourning chants. The Ojibwe young man was almost able to keep up by running along Lake Superior for about ten miles. He watched the Sauk

land on a small island close to shore and bury their two dead companions. Once the Sauk passed Garlic Point, he swam to the island, dug up the bodies, cut off their heads, and hung them on trees. This place was thereafter named Sauks Head Island, since washed away by waves. The memory of the raid endures in the place names of nearby Saux Head Point and Saux Head Lake.

As in the story told to Homer Kidder by Jacques LePique, the Sauk are too often remembered as generic enemies. Diplomatic relations between the Ojibwe and Sauk were in fact more complicated, and the Sauk were not simply aggressors, but displaced people probing for opportunities along Lake Superior.

Sauk, or Sac, are not Anishinaabe, the culture mainly consisting of Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi people. However, they speak a related Algonquian language and migrated to the Great Lakes from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, like the Anishinaabe. They also participated in Midewiwin ceremonies, as did many other Algonquian-language speakers in the Great Lakes.

The Sauk were closely related to the Meskwaki, often called Fox. The two groups may have been a single culture in an earlier era. Meskwaki and Sauk intermarried but were distinct when contacted by Europeans in the 1600s. In the beginning of that century, the Sauk probably lived around Saginaw Bay; the place name comes from the word Sauk. The Meskwaki held territory in the eastern Upper Peninsula.

The Sauk and Meskwaki faced pressure from Native rivals throughout the 1600s. Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) aggression disrupted the balance of power in the Great Lakes region. Anishinaabe groups pushed into Sauk territories around Saginaw Bay and challenged the Meskwaki in the eastern Upper Peninsula. Sauk and Meskwaki populations moved to Green Bay.

Jesuit Jean Claude Allouez (16201689) encountered Sauk and Meskwaki in Wisconsin in 1670. He noted that the Meskwaki recently suffered a brutal Haudenosaunee raid near the site of Chicago by Seneca warriors and were also at war with the Dakota in northwestern Wisconsin and Minnesota.

The Meskwaki, never populous, maintained a reputation for ferocity in the 1700s. They put up strong fights against their Native enemies, attacking Ojibwe territories along southeastern Lake Superior in 1703

Sauk raiders were perched atop what Marquette-area residents know today as the rock cut looking to make trouble. Due to the fog that concealed view of the lake, they could not see the Ojibwe family paddling their canoe off shore, but they could hear the baby’s cry, which would lead to tragedy later that day.

and 1708. Ojibwe counter raids were supported by Odawa warriors. The Meskwaki opposed cooperation with the French fur trade. The French launched the so-called Fox Wars that lasted into the late 1730s.

Anishinaabe participation in the Fox Wars was strategic, intended to weaken a dangerous adversary. The Fox Wars ended when Anishinaabe people petitioned the government of New France, sending delegations to Montreal in 1736 and 1737. The decimated Meskwaki people sought refuge with Sauk relatives who were living among Potawatomi people. Ojibwe and Odawa warriors did not want to fight the Potawatomi, fellow members of the Anishinaabe culture.

In the wake of the Fox Wars, the Sauk and Meskwaki were pushed into western Wisconsin. Meskwaki survivors maintained a separate identity for a time, then mixed with the larger Sauk culture. They alternatively warred and allied with the powerful Dakota to their northwest, who also contested Ojibwe control of western Lake Superior. Sauk and Ojibwe relations reached an interesting place in 1763. They

“Diplomatic relations between the Ojibwe and Sauk were in fact more complicated, and the Sauk were not simply aggressors, but displaced people probing for opportunities along Lake Superior. came together to seize Fort Michilimackinac from the newly arrived British. The surprise attack was part of the pan-tribal uprising largely inspired by Odawa leader Pontiac (circa 1720-1769). Native forces assaulted British forts throughout the Great Lakes from May through October. On June 2, Ojibwe and Sauk warriors played baggataway, or lacrosse, a sport favored by Great Lakes Native peoples. During the game, players flung the ball inside the fort, grabbed concealed weapons, and rushed inside, slaughtering British soldiers.

The Ojibwe cooperation with the Sauk in 1763 possibly reflected Ojibwe concerns that Sauk and Meskwaki people might ally with the Dakota. Indeed, this is what happened. Meskwaki warriors joined the Dakota in an unsuccessful effort to defeat Ojibwe forces at the St. Croix Falls in northwestern Wisconsin circa 1780.

When Sauk warriors attacked Yellow Dog’s family around the 1780s, they may have been acting in support of an alliance with the Dakota intended to push the Ojibwe out of western Lake Superior. When this strategy failed, the Sauk moved southwest into southern Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, and Oklahoma, leaving behind the Great Lakes region for the prairies and plains. About the author: Adam Berger holds a PhD in social anthropology, an MA in educational psychology, and has professional experience in the nonprofit field. Keenly interested in Upper Peninsula local history and ecology, Adam believes that teaching younger generations about the land and its past is the way to protect our unique region.