Azayamankawin
Azayamankawin, also known as Hazaiyankawin, Betsey St. Clair, Old Bets, or Old Betz, was one of the most photographed Native American women of the 19th century. She was a Mdewakanton Dakota woman well known in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where she once ran a canoe ferry service. Old Bets was said to have helped many women and children taken captive during the Dakota War of 1862.
Photographs of "Old Betz" were used extensively in carte-de-visite prints now held in museum collections worldwide, including the United States Library of Congress; the National Portrait Gallery in the United Kingdom; and the Minnesota Historical Society.
Early life and family
Betsey's Dakota name is usually given as Azayamankawin and translated as “Berry Picker.” Biographer Mark Diedrich calls her Hazaiyankawin, which he translates as “Woman Who Runs Toward Huckleberries.” She was given the name “Betsey” or “Bets” by the soldiers who built Fort Snelling.Azayamankawin was born around 1803, most likely in the Mdewakanton Dakota village of Kaposia. Kaposia, also known as Little Crow's village, was then located on the east bank of the Mississippi River near present-day St. Paul, Minnesota.
Her mother was Itahotawin, translated as “Grey Face Woman.” According to Mary Henderson Eastman, Itahotawin was an Ojibwe woman who had been taken prisoner by the Dakota and was later adopted by them. She married a Dakota Sioux warrior, whose name is unknown.
Azayamankawin had at least five siblings. Her brother Ticawakeya, became known as “One-Legged Jim” after he was wounded in a battle with the Ojibwe in 1839.
Her other brothers were Hinhdaku, a medicine man and war prophet, and Kahdaya, a headman of the Kaposia band called “Rattler.” Her two sisters were Pahadutawin and Huntka, who was known as “Ellen."
Employment as nurse
Azayamankawin herself stated that she was a teenager when American soldiers first arrived in Mendota in 1819, led by Colonel Henry Leavenworth.One of the few recorded facts about “Young Bets” around this time was that she was employed by a military family as a nurse to an infant who was born on Pike Island. According to Reverend Frank C. Coolbaugh:
In Lafayette, Indiana, I met a lady parishioner, who chanced to show me a daguerreotype which she cherished with the fondest attachment. To my great surprise, it was that of "Old Bets." The lady was the daughter of an army officer who had been sent with his company to occupy Fort Snelling. She was born while the company was in winter quarters on the little island in the Mississippi just below the Fort. The company was there encamped because of the insufficient barracks of the uncompleted fort. Strange to say, upon this lady's birth, "Old Bets" or "Young Bets," as it was then, was summoned and acted as nurse to mother and child. So kind and so gentle, so efficient were the services of the Indian girl, that the lieutenant and his family ever cherished the kindest thoughts and warmest affection for her.
Stories about her romantic life
Numerous stories were written about the romantic life of Young Bets, some explicitly fictional. She was usually portrayed as a beautiful young woman who had many suitors. As Thomas McLean Newson wrote:Old Bets was once young and handsome, and she drew after her many lovers… Young Bets was greatly loved, not only for her beauty, but for her kind disposition, as well as for her bravery.In one version, she was said to have fallen in love with the son of an Ojibwe chief when the Dakota and Ojibwe were at peace. When hostilities broke out between the two tribes, the man she had planned to marry tried to kill her. Her life was saved by a Sioux warrior, who killed the Chippewa man, brought her his scalp, and married her. A variation of this story was that Young Bets was once married to a cousin of the Ojibwe chief, Hole-in-the-Day the Elder.
In another version, she was said to have fallen in love with Cegoniya, a young Dakota warrior who had “won great renown in the tribe.” However, her brother Hinhdaku refused to allow them to marry because Cegoniya had wronged him in the past. Cegoniya and Young Bets tried to elope, but Hinhdaku chased them on horseback and killed Cegoniya with a tomahawk.
Marriages
First marriage
Most sources state that Azayamankawin's first husband was a Dakota warrior called “Iron Sword” or Mazasagya. Iron Sword is said to have married Azayamankawin around 1818, and died in Mendota after they had already had several children. However, there are no historical records verifying the existence of a man named Iron Sword.Biographer Mark Diedrich suggests that instead, Betsey's first husband may have been “Flying Sword”, who is mentioned by Indian agent Lawrence Taliaferro in 1828. Flying Sword was a member of the Little Crow band, and was the son of Little Soldier. Diedrich argues that this is a strong possibility, based on the fact that Betsey's great-grandson Henry St. Clair was also called Little Soldier.
Second marriage
Azayamankawin is believed to have been married a second time, to Chief Good Road, in the 1840s. Good Road's village was at the mouth of Nine Mile Creek in present-day Bloomington. According to Mary Henderson Eastman, Good Road's two wives were always quarreling, but he preferred Old Bets, who was his second wife. In fact, she wrote, “the chief thought that she was the handsomest squaw in the village.”Eastman also wrote that Azayamankawin's life was once threatened by eight to ten young men in Good Road's band who recalled that she was part-Ojibwe and wanted to kill her. She left the band temporarily for her safety.
After enduring years of domestic tension, Good Road finally sent off his first wife and disinherited their children. According to Eastman, the sons of Good Road's first wife exacted revenge by killing Betsey's son Shining Iron and wounding one of her daughters. Azayamankawin probably left Good Road's village following this incident.
Chief Good Road died in 1852. After his death, Betsey and her relatives received government annuities as members of the Little Crow's band, rather than Good Road's band.
Children
Azayamankawin may have had up to twelve children. By far her most famous son was Taopi. Taopi was born around 1824 and was known as Nagioskan, until he was wounded by an Ojibwe firing into his tepee around 1838.Other notable sons included Wakandikaga, later known as Job St. Clair, who was born around 1827; Wicahnhpihiyaye, who may have been born during a meteor shower in 1832; and Ruyapaduta.
Two of Betsey's confirmed daughters included Dutawin and Pazutawin. Another possible daughter was Anpahdiwin, later known as Nancy St. Clair.
Role in the Battle of Kaposia
On June 25, 1842, a war party of 100 Ojibwe men from the area around Lake St. Croix approached Kaposia for a retaliatory raid. At this time, Little Crow's village was located on the west side of the Mississippi River. Before crossing the river, however, the Ojibwe encountered two Dakota women working on a farm owned by Francois Gammel, one of the French Canadians who had settled on the east side of the Mississippi, about two miles south of Pig's Eye's trading post.Gammel's wife and several Dakota, including Betsey's sister-in-law and nephew, were killed before Gammel finally reached his house and fired shots at the Ojibwe. According to one account, Betsey, who had been nearby with one of her brothers, heard the shots and signaled to the Kaposian villagers across the river to warn them of the attack by waving a blanket. The Dakota warriors then hurried across the river in their canoes, armed only with war spears because their guns had been hidden away during their medicine feast. Intoxicated and distracted by a decoy, their advance party headed into an ambush. After extended hand-to-hand combat, the Ojibwe finally retreated.
The Dakota casualties included at least twelve dead, with many more wounded, while the Ojibwe left behind four or five bodies on the field. Numerous accounts state that Betsey took part in pounding the heads of the dead attackers with a club, or in dismembering a dead man with a hatchet. Betsey's son Lightning Maker, who was fifteen years old at the time, later stated that one of his brothers had been killed in the attack, and that he had cut off a man's head to avenge his death.
Betsey's son Taopi was severely wounded in the Battle of Kaposia, which is also referred to as the Battle of Pine Coulie. Fur trader Henry Hastings Sibley, who was on the scene following the battle, wrote that he believed at the time that Taopi would die. Taopi survived. Although he had already been known as Taopi or “Wounded Man” previously, he became most famous for the heavy injuries he sustained in 1842.
Canoe-related activities
In the early 1850s, Betsey often ferried people across the Mississippi River in her canoe. Although few details of her ferry business are available, there are many stories documenting her “excellent command of the waterway” over the years.On May 25, 1839, Indian agent Lawrence Taliaferro noted in his journal that Jacob Fahlström had visited his office to report the loss of his bark canoe. Fahlström went to Little Crow's village and saw that “Betts, sister of the Rattler” had the canoe in her possession. Betsey had refused to return the canoe unless paid in 1 1/2 yards of stroud. Taliaferro noted that he planned to deal with retrieving the canoe the following Monday.
In November 1849, the Pioneer posted a notice that James M. Goodhue and Isaac N. Goodhue were applying for a license to operate a ferry at the lower landing in St. Paul. In response, on April 13, 1850, the Minnesota Chronicle and Register printed a newspaper advertisement in Betsey's name:
New Ferry. The subscriber would respectfully announce, that having procured from His Majesty Little Crow a license to keep a ferry, she is now prepared to carry passengers at the rates fixed by law, and for as much more as the public choose to give her.Also in 1850, Betsey rescued two white men who overturned their canoe near the steamboat landing in St. Paul. The men, Peter M. Caleff and D. W. Strickland, were partners in a shingle mill. Betsey and a boy, thought to be her grandson, were in a canoe nearby and spotted the men who had fallen into the water, struggling to stay afloat. They paddled vigorously toward the men and saved them from drowning, just as they were about to go under.
—‘Old Betsey.’ ‘The connecting link between the Indians and the whites’ N. B. — This Ferry is in opposition to Goodhue.