Editor's Note:
Doty resumed regular entries on this day, given at left. Schoolcraft also described the caves: "About twelve miles below the new garrison at St. Peter's, we stopped to examine a remarkable cavern on the east banks of the Mississippi, called Wakon-teebe, by the Narcotah or Sioux Indians, but which, in compliment to the memory of its first European visitor, should be denominated Carver's cave... This cave has been visited by most persons who have passed up the Mississippi, if we may judge from the number of names found upon the walls. Among then we were informed was that of Captain Carver, who visited it in 1768, but we did not observe it..."
He also left more details about Little Crow: "Four miles below Carver's cave, we landed at the village of La Petit Corbeau, or the Little Raven. Here is a Sioux band of twelve lodges, and consisting of about two hundred souls, who plant corn upon the adjoining plain, and cultivate the cucumber, and pumpkin. They sallied from their lodges on seeing us approach, and gathering upon the bank of the river fired a kind offeu-de-joie, and manifested the utmost satisfaction on our landing. La Petit Corbeau was among the first to greet us. He is a man below the common size, but brawny and well proportioned, and although rising of fifty years of age, retains the looks and vigour of forty. There is a great deal of fire in his eyes which are black and piercing -- his nose is prominent and has the aquiline curve, his forehead falling a little from the facial angle, and his whole countenance animated, and expressive of a shrewd mind. .. He acquiesced in the treaty which had lately been concluded with the Chippeways, and was happy that a stop had been put to the effusion of human blood."
Location: modern South St. Paul, Minn.
View Schoolcraft's complete description in his 1821 Narrative
View Doty's handwritten manuscript of this page
View page in the 1895 printed edition
