County of Project: Saint Charles County.
Location of Project: LeSieur St. & Common Field St., Portage des Sioux.
Benches and side walk provided by: Troop 964 & Community Kids Club.
Funding for Project Provided by: Palisades Yacht Club; My River Home; Landscape Maintenance, Inc.; Frisella Nursery; VFW Post #4219
Portage des Sioux Text;
The seal of this town is a circle with two bands encircling a field, with an extended view representing a portion of that plane of country immediately above the junction of the rivers. [The Missouri River and Mississippi River] The "armorial achievement" is simple, yet highly suggestive, and commemorates the incident related below [The Naming of Portage des Sioux]. It consists of a party of Sioux with canoes on their shoulders, and is surrounded with the words "Seal of the town of Portage des Sioux."
During the thirty year period following the Louisiana Purchase, the tribes living in Missouri relinquished their claims to Missouri lands by a series of treaties, and moved south and west into the Kansas and Oklahoma region. The first of these treaties, entered into November 3, 1804, between the United States and the Sauk and Fox at Portage des Sioux, was, according to Black Hawk, made without authority having been given to the chiefs who negotiated it. Ill feeling among the Indians over this treaty, which ceded an extensive territory, caused a schism between Sauk and Fox, and was the alleged cause for the depredations on white settlers during the War of 1812.
The Naming of Portage des Sioux Text:
The name of Portage des Sioux had been given to this place by the Indians, and was adopted by the French settlers. Here the distance between the Missouri River and the Mississippi River is scarcely two miles. Bands of Indians were accustomed to disembark, carry their canoes across the narrow neck from one river to the other and thus save the long journey of twenty-five miles around the point of land, which runs up from the confluence of the two rivers. Frequently the Mississippi, in front of town, would be covered with fleets of canoes, while the village would swarm with swarthy voyagers. For many years after the settlement of the country the old trail could be distinctly traced. Perhaps an incident, which tradition still preserves was of service in establishing the name, particularly in reference to the tribe of Sioux.
The Osage Indians occupied a village on the Missouri, at or near the mouth of the Kansas. The Sioux lived on the Mississippi, above the mouth of the Des Moines. A hunting party of the Osage wandered over towards the country of the Sioux, and fell in with some hunters of that tribe, and killed one or more of their number. This greatly incensed the Sioux, and they resolved on Indian revenge. They formed a war party, fitted out a fleet of bark canoes, descended the Mississippi to the mouth of the Missouri, and ascended the latter river to the neighborhood of the Osages. Here they secreted their canoes and made a night attack upon their unsuspecting enemies, of whom they massacred a large number. Their revenge was single, terrific and complete.
The Sioux then returned to their canoes and fled, but in less time than Roderick Dhu could marshal his ready clansmen, a strong war party of Osages was formed, who, panting and thirsting for vengeance, launched their canoes upon the dark waters of the Missouri, and gave chase to their retreating foes. Both tribes were distinguished for their skill in water craft. The race was a contest for life and death. On they sped, the pursued and the pursuers. Each party employed all its skill and strength and cunning-the fugitives prompted by the love of life and hope of escape-the pursuers urged on by the desire for revenge and thirst for blood. The Sioux made great speed down the muddy river; but the Osages gained on them. The signs of the chase freshened; neither party stopped to rest, nor flagged; on, on they sped for days, the Osages still gaining, until in one of the long stretches of the river, they came in sight of the Sioux. A loud, wild cry of exultation from the pursuers rang out upon the welkin, and was echoed back by a shout of defiance from the Sioux. The last trail of strength and skill was now made, and every nerve strained to its utmost capacity. On they sped until a certain bend of the river concealed the fugitives from their pursuers. Under this cover they soon reached a point on the Missouri, about twelve miles above its mouth and only a mile from the Mississippi, nearly opposite a point on the Mississippi where Portage des Sioux stands, and, taking advantage of this sudden turn of fortune, disembarked, withdrew their canoes from the water, and concealed themselves from their pursuers. Soon, however, the party of Osages came, noiselessly, yet swiftly as an arrow in flight, gathering new life and fresh courage from the glimpse of a broken paddle, as it glided by them on the turbid waters, or some useless article of which the Sioux had disencumbered themselves in their flight.
A moment of breathless suspense, into which was crowded an age of hope and fear and anxiety, is now experienced by the fugitives as their pursuers are passed and lost to view in the next curve of the river. Manitto has smiled on the Sioux - the Osages foiled.
Hastily gathering up their canoes they bear them on their shoulders across the narrow portage, relaunching them in the Mississippi and resume their flight up that river, while the Osages continue down the Missouri to its mouth and then up the Mississippi. This successful stratagem enabled the Sioux to gain on their pursuers some twenty or thirty miles, and secured their escape. The point were they re-embarked is the sight of Portage des Sioux, the portage of the Sioux, by which name it has ever since been known.