OSHKOSH COURIER
George H. Read, Editor
Wednesday, July 16, 1856
From the Menasha Advocate.
The Affray near Mukwa.
We have received the following letter from Mr. Walter James, who, our readers will remember, was attacked by a party of drunken Indians, while out on a hunting excursion in the vicinity of Mukwa some time since, and would have been butchered but for the desperate resistance he made, and we cheer-fully give it a place in our paper. We perceive that many of our exchanges have allowed erroneous accounts of the affair to get into their columns, and in justice to Mr. James we ask them to correct their misstatements concerning the affray.
MENASHA, July 8th, 1856.
EDITOR OF THE ADVOCATE – Dear Sir: - My deposition relating to the attack made upon me by three Indians near Mukwa some weeks ago, having been published in your paper, I should feel obliged to you to insert the following statement of what has since passed in regard to that affair, particularly because the most infamous falsehoods have been industriously circulated by those very men to whose rascality both this affray and the present serious difficulties between the whites and Indians are chiefly to be charged.
On the 16th of June – immediately after providing medical assistance, etc., for the wounded Indians – I wrote to Mr. Hunkins, the agent at Shawano, requesting that he would at once investigate the matter and take means to prevent further mischief; to that letter no reply has been received, nor was any proper inquiry, so far as I can learn, made into the case. Considering it necessary to have some kind of a legal examination, I made affidavit of the assault, the 27th of June, before Ira Sumner, Justice of the Peace at Fremont (the most convenient point) and obtained a warrant from him to be served and returned on Monday, the 30th. On our arrival there on that day, Mr. Sumner was unaccountably absent; we therefore let the prisoners go and went home.
On the 1st of July, I got another warrant from A. Brandy, Esq., of Mukwa, by virtue of which the two surviving Indians were brought before him July 3rd, for an examination, which was gone through with, I being the complainant, and Mr. W.N. Davis, of Mukwa, acting as counsel for the prisoners. The magistrate’s decision was that they should be held to bail to appear before the circuit court to answer to the charge (assault with intent to kill) or be committed to jail in default.
On the same day we received certain information that some 40 or 50 Indians had come down from Shawano the previous night without their squaws and fully armed, and threatening the lives of myself and friends, especially of Dr. Linde, who, though he undoubtedly saved the life on one of those wounded, is more the object of their malice than myself, as it appears to have been put into their heads that the Indian who died was poisoned or maltreated purposely by him. Several more canoe loads of Indians arrived during the trial, at which some of them were present. The night after they were camped in and around the village, and all appeared exceedingly drunk.
I am now a resident of that part of the country, and it does not suit my business or convenience to leave it; moreover, I have friends there who by assisting me, have earned the hatred of the Indians equally with myself.
I have used and am using all reasonable means to induce the Indians who are down there hunting us (incited, as we have good reason to believe, by some of the unprincipled traders and liquor sellers of the place) to go home peaceably; have offered to settle the matter liberally with them, according to their customs, and not to press the charge against those who attacked me more than I am obliged to do.
If these means fail to disperse them, I intend to take to the woods with my friends, and whatever men will help us (not a few) and drive them from our neighborhood by any and every means in our power, well knowing that our only safety consists in so doing. I intend to go back to Mukwa tomorrow.
Yours, &c.,
WALTER JAMES