Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2021
Now-we-ke-shick (or Noon Day) was one of the people killed during a long series of conflicts between Dakota and Anishinaabe (sometimes called Ojibwe) that took place on the banks of the Minnesota River north of the village of the Dakota leader Ṡakpedaŋ (Little Six) on May 27, 1858.
Now-we-ke-shick was a leader of the Ojibwe (Chippewa).
By the late 1850s, treaties with the U.S. government had confined the Dakota to a reservation straddling the upper Minnesota River and the Ojibwe to lands further north and east. White immigration and reliance on the fur trade intensified the two groups’ competition for resources. The addition of guns made the fighting even deadlier. The Ojibwe – Dakota tensions turned violent again in 1858.
E. Judson Pond, the son of Rev. Samuel W. Pond, Jr., was about ten years old on May 27, 1858 when a battle occurred between the Dakota and Ojibwe people on the north side of the Minnesota River, not far from Shakopee. “I saw the Indians and whites pass our house, the former rushing into battle ten minutes after the first shot was fired,” said E. Judson in “E.J. Pond, Pioneer, Shakopee Citizen: Energetic Shakopee Citizen Relates Happenings of Early Days,” in Recollection of Early Pioneers, 1925, available from the Shakopee Heritage Society.
The Dakota headed toward Major Murphy’s ferry, which is located today in The Landing in Shakopee. The two sides faced off on either end of the river and began firing upon each other. Because their attackers were beyond the range of their weapons, the Dakota climbed aboard Murphy’s ferry and began to cross the river. Once they were across, the battle began in earnest.
The Battle of Shakopee began and lasted about two hours, according to The Southern Minnesotan, Vol. 2, No. 4, 8-9. “The warfare was conducted in regular Indian style – a running fight amongst the trees and logs, and grass, interspersed with a few hand-to-hand conflicts with tomahawks and war clubs,” according to “The Minnesotan,” in Hennepin County History, Winter, 1970.
The Dakota had old men, boys, and even some men who were disabled in the battle, a total of 65 men. According to the History of Carver County, “There were but few good guns among them, all being common fowling pieces, some of them old and unreliable, while a dozen or more men had no guns at all. But the white men of Shakopee supplied this deficiency; they gave the Indians every gun in town.”
“The ammunition of the Indians ran low and the stores loaded a young stout Indian woman with a blanket-full, which she conveyed, under fire, to her warrior brothers on the field,” according to the Compendium of History and Biography of Carver and Hennepin Counties, Minnesota by R. I. Holcombe.
The number killed is not known but Now-we-ke-shick, a young leader of the Ojibwe, was killed according to the Eden Prairie Historical Society. The body was horribly mutilated by Wau-ma-nung, according to the Eden Prairie Historical Society.
Now-we-ke-shick was one of the people killed, according to the History of Hennepin County and the City of Minneapolis by George E. Warner and Edward Duffield.
Phillip Collins, who was an eyewitness, states that a Dakota cut the heart from his fallen foe and drank its blood, then after taking the scalp, cut off the head and carried it on a pole to Tínṫa Otuŋwe. Then the victory was celebrated by the scalp dance, lasting several days, characterized by their usual barbarity.
The Ojibwe fighting stopped. The Ojibwe retreated toward Lake Minnetonka, reportedly leaving behind four dead.
An article in the Cambridge Chronicle on June 5, 1858, noted “Shakopee, the place mentioned in the following letter from our correspondent, is one of the most important places in Minnesota; important from its favorable location on the Minnesota River, and near what is to be permanently the center of movement and influence in that new state. An Indian fight there must add considerably to the ordinary excitements of that new region, although our correspondent says the affair is generally regarded with much indifference. A telegraph dispatch containing news from St. Paul by way of Chicago, states that the Sioux have beaten the Chippewa and driven them off. A most remarkable spectacle has been witnessed, within thirty miles of this city of fifteen thousand inhabitants, within the past few days.”
Bibliography
Cambridge Chronicle, 5 June 1858.
“E.J. Pond, Pioneer, Shakopee Citizen: Energetic Shakopee Citizen Relates Happenings of Early Days.” Recollection of Early Pioneers, 1925. Shakopee Heritage Society.
History of Carver County.
“History of Eden Prairie.” Eden Prairie Historical Society. https://www.edenprairiehistory.org/learn.
Holcombe, R. I. Compendium of History and Biography of Carver and Hennepin Counties, Minnesota, 1914, p. 221-223.
“The Minnesotan.” Hennepin County History, Winter 1970.
The Miriam and Ira D. D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. Now we ke shick (Noon Day), a Chippewa chief. Joel E. Whitney Collection. New York Public Library Digital Collections. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-8c74-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99.
The Southern Minnesotan, vol. 2, no. 4, p. 8–9.
Warner, George E. and Neill, Edward D. History of Hennepin County and the City of Minneapolis. North Star Publishers, 1881.