Inkpaduta #1--The Nearsighted Renegade Who Never Surrendered

The Nearsighted Renegade Who Never Surrendered

Inkpaduta (Scarlet Point) was a Wahpekute Dakota. An eastern Sioux chief who earned a bloody reputation as the leader of the Spirit Lake Massacre in northwest Iowa in 1857. Inkpaduta was reportedly very near-sighted and his face was pocked with smallpox scars.

The Spirit Lake Massacre was the culminating episode of a series of provocative events against the Indians. Over 3 dozen settlers were killed at Spirit Lake and associated events in southern Minnesota.

Four female captives were also taken by Inkpaduta's band with 2 of these women being killed during captivity and the other 2 survived. One wrote a well-known narrative of her captivity.

Inkpaduta's life encompassed the entire frontier history of the Sioux Nation in ways that no other leader's life did.

From pre-settlement life in Minnesota with wars against the Sac and Fox Indians to refuge on the Dakota Plains and large battles against the US Army in 1863 and 1864 to the Little Bighorn and finally refuge and a natural death in Canada; he was there for it all.

He is even mentioned as a great man of the Santees and Yanktonais who was present at the Little Bighorn by Black Elk in the famous work Black Elk Speaks.

He interacted with all the main Sioux leaders from Little Crow in Minnesota to Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull on the buffalo ranges. He was welcomed in many Sioux bands because of kinship ties and/or recognition of his status as a warrior and leader.

As much as his real deeds and and misdeeds and historical persona, a fascinating part of Inkpaduta's story is his reputation and how he was viewed by White settlers on the Frontier.

He is not very well-known today, but at the time of the Indian Wars, he was viewed by White settlers, and the first generations that followed, as the epitome of evil and considered the quintessential renegade.

Every Indian attack on the Northwest Frontier was assigned to Inkpaduta and he was said to be raiding from Canada to Kansas. Other Sioux used him as a scapegoat to escape blame for their own attacks.

The headline in the image below shows how Inkpaduta was still viewed many years after the events at Spirit Lake.

It is hard to read more than the headline, but it seems to be heralding the publication of a history of the Sioux by South Dakota State Historian Doane Robinson. The "Abaddon" of the headline refers to Inkpaduta and means "Destruction" or "Destroyer." He is a demon who works under Satan. 

It is striking that the editors of the newspaper expected their readership to know the definition of "Abaddon." The same assumption could not be made today.

It has to be recognized that after 1857, Inkpaduta had very little direct contact with whites and therefore, primary sources on his life, other than Indian accounts, are very scarce. 

Because the first generations of historians painted such a denigrating portrait of him and his association with the Spirit Lake Massacre, his reputation as an evil renegade persisted into recent times much more so than is the case for most other Indian leaders.

However, modern accounts tend to take a more balanced view of Inkpaduta and recognize that he is a hero to the Dakota.

Note on sources: Too numerous to mention. I have many "Sioux" books open to pages on Inkpaduta scattered on my dining room table, but the core source for this series on Inkpaduta is a 2008 book by Paul Beck "Inkpaduta: Dakota Leader."