Volume 1

BATTLES BETWEEN SIOUX AND SAULTEURS. 427
The same afternoon an express arrived from Grandes
Fourches, informing us that a large war-party of Sioux had
fallen upon our principal body of Saulteurs in camp at
Grosse Isle, near FoUe Avoine river, and killed our great
chief Tabashaw, his eldest son, and an old woman/ The
Saulteurs had fought like heroes against superior numbers,
and obliged them to retreat, by which means the camp was
saved ; the enemy left one of their men dead on the field,
and carried off several others severely wounded. We also
heard of another battle, fought by the Saulteurs of Leech
and Red lakes against 30 tents of Sioux, near Riviere de
ments of Mr. Donald Murray, there can be no doubt but that this
Orkney girl
had been here at least a year when Madame Lagimoniere [sic] arrived. Concealing
her true sex for three or four years, it was only revealed to one man,
John Scart, until after the birth of her child, in December, 1807. She was
sent home to the Orkneys, and I am informed became, with her daughter, public
characters, and were known as vagrants, under the name of the '
Norwesters.'
Mr. Murray stated ' this was undoubtedly the first white woman who lived in
the Red River country. I knew both Baptiste Lajimoniere and his wife, but
never before heard that it was claimed that she was the first white woman in
this country.'" On the same subject, compare Tanner, p. 200 : "The Scots
people, to the number of loo or more, arrived to settle at Red River, under the
protection of
the Hudson's Bay Company, and among these I saw, for the first
time in many years, since I had become a man, a white woman." The birth
our author records is no doubt that of the first all-white child on Red r.
^ Tanner, pp. 169-71, gives a circumstantial account of an affair which can
be no other than the one Henry thus briefly mentions. Tanner is diffuse about
it, and my calculated chronology fetches his story out of date a little ;
but I
think the identification can be made. Tanner is talking of a party of Ojibbeways
on Wild Rice (or FoUe Avoine) river, which included Ais-ainse (Little
Clam), his old wife, and her young son, who called out, " The Sioux are coming !"
The old woman " was no more heard of." A Sioux killed "a favorite son of
Ais-ainse."
Furthermore, there was " another considerable man of the Ojibbeways,
who was also named Ta-bush-shish." Tanner finally has it that " these
were all that were killed at that time, the old woman, Ta-bush-shish, and the son
of Ais-ainse." Such a Henry-Tanner concordance as this can hardly be fortuitous,
though Henry kills Tabashaw's son, instead of Little Clam's.
I also think
that Tanner, p. 171, indicates the other fight of which Henry speaks in the
same paragraph. For Tanner says "it was on the same day . . . that the
war-party from Leech Lake, which Wa-ge-tone had joined, fell upon 40 Sioux
lodges, ai the long prairie, . . . fought for two days, and many were killed on
each side."