Shakopee I

The chief usually referred to today as Shakopee I was known to American explorers and Indian agents as the third-highest ranking leader of the Mdewakanton Dakota, after Chief Wabasha II and Chief Little Crow I. and they had the largest village on the Minnesota River, located in the 1820s on the river's north bank, later moved to the south bank in present-day Shakopee.

Relations with Americans and British

Council with Pike Chief Shakopee was one of the seven Dakota who attended a council with U.S. Lieutenant Zebulon Pike on September 23, 1805. Pike, whose written French was full of errors, referred to Shakopee in his journal as "Le Demi Douzen." Shakopee, however, did not end up signing the Treaty of St. Peters, which granted the United States approximately 100,000 acres of land at the mouth of the Minnesota River, for the purposes of building a fort. Historian Gary Clayton Anderson suggests that the two chiefs who did sign the treaty, Little Crow I and Penichon, probably had the best claims to the land which would later form the Fort Snelling military reservation.

In the fall of 1817, Chief Shakopee went to Prairie du Chien to meet with U.S. Indian agent Benjamin O'Fallon. O'Fallon reported that Shakopee expressed strong friendship for the American people. He quoted Shakopee as saying, "Bad Birds", [meaning the British], "have attempted to whisper in my ears. They told me to turn my back upon the smooth face chief [O'Fallon]." Forsyth, who was generally unimpressed with the upper Mississippi River valley, was highly critical of most of the Dakota he met during his expedition.

William H. Keating, who accompanied Long on the expedition but traveled in a separate boat, referred to Shakopee's band as "Taoapa," and wrote:The chief of this part is called Shakpa, which means six. He inherited his station, and is a distinguished man, ranking in the nation third only to Wapasha and Petit Corbeau. He has but one village; it is situated on the St. Peter, between which river and the Mississippi he hunts.

1825 Treaty of Prairie du Chien

On August 19, 1825, Chief Shakopee signed the 1825 Treaty of Prairie du Chien as "Sha-co-pe (the Sixth)" under the section marked "Sioux."

The chiefs and headmen from tribes including the Dakota Sioux, the Ojibwe, the Sauk and Meskwaki (Fox), the Menomonee, the Iowa, the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago), and the Odawa gathered at Prairie du Chien. The United States treaty commissioners were Governor William Clark of Missouri Territory and Governor Lewis Cass of Michigan Territory.

After lengthy negotiations, the Dakota and Ojibwe tribes finally agreed to define rather complicated boundary lines between their tribes. They also agreed in principle to maintain "a firm and perpetual peace between the Sioux and Chippewas." And then the last, "Little Six," whom, at a distance, we children readily recognize from his commanding height and graceful form; he is our friend, and we hope he will get home. He starts; they fire; the smoke clears away, and still he is running. We clap our hands and say, "He will get home!" but, another volley, and our favorite, almost at the goal, springs into the air and comes down—dead! I cover my face, and shed tears of real sorrow for our friend... We talk with quivering lips and tearful eyes of "Little Six," and the many kind things he has done for us—the bows and arrows, the mocauks of sugar, the pretty beaded moccasins he has given us; and we wish, oh! we wish he could have run faster, or that the Chippewa rifles had missed fire. And we sleep and dream of scalps, and rifles, and war-whoops, and frightful yells, and wake wishing it had all been a dream. William J. Snelling, son of Colonel Josiah Snelling, was 23 years old at the time of the execution. His first-person account of the execution names only Tooponca Zeze, a member of Shakopee's band, as one of the four men executed. According to Snelling, Tooponca Zeze had been brought in by an old man named Eagle Head, a highly influential man who was not a chief.