Summary

The Battle of Kathio, or Battle of Izatys, was an oral tradition of the Chippewa reporting a battle fought in 1750 between Chippewas and the Sioux

Sioux

The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...

 at the village of Kathio

Mille Lacs Kathio State Park

Mille Lacs Kathio State Park, also known as Kathio Site, is a Minnesota state park on Mille Lacs Lake. The park preserves habitation sites and mound groups, believed to date between 3000 BC and 1750 AD, that document Sioux Indian culture and Ojibwe-Sioux relationships...

, or Izatys, on the Rum River

Rum River

The Rum River is a slow, meandering channel that connects Minnesota's Mille Lacs Lake with the Mississippi River. It runs for through the farming communities of Onamia, Milaca, Princeton, Cambridge, and Isanti before ending at the Twin Cities suburb of Anoka, roughly 20 miles northwest of downtown...

 next to Mille Lacs Lake

Mille Lacs Lake

Mille Lacs Lake is a lake in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is located in the counties of Mille Lacs, Aitkin and Crow Wing, roughly 100 miles north of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area....

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According to tradition an old man, living in a Chippewa village at the Fond du Lac

Fond du Lac (Duluth)

Fond du Lac is a neighborhood in Duluth, Minnesota, United States.Evergreen Memorial Highway serves as a main arterial route in the community.-History:...

 (end of the lake), had four adult sons. They frequently made trips to visit the Sioux and they often returned home with gifts. During one particular trip one of the sons was killed in a quarrel over a Sioux woman. The remaining three brothers returned home for a short while, then returned to the Sioux, convinced the death of their brother was a mistake. However, upon this trip, only one brother returned home to his father safely. The last son, filled with forgiveness, went to seek the Sioux and reconcile their differences, but only met his death in the Sioux village.

For two years after, the father hunted and worked hard to obtain enough ammunition and supplies to raid the Sioux village and seek his revenge. As was the custom, he sent his tobacco and war club to the other Chippewa villages asking for help to accompany him “in search of his sons”. The response was overwhelming and a large war party assembled at Fond du Lac. The Chippewas were victorious, and gained control of the northern part of what became modern day Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

 as a result.

To date no archaeological evidence has been found to support the historical validity of this story, although French explorer Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut

Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut

Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut was a French soldier and explorer who is the first European known to have visited the area where the city of Duluth, Minnesota is now located and the headwaters of the Mississippi River near Grand Rapids...

 did, in 1679, record the existence of 40 Sioux villages in the vicinity.

The last vestige of Sioux domination in this area was broken with the destruction, in about the year 1750, of the great Sioux village of Kathio on the Rum River, near the present village of Vineland

Vineland, Minnesota

Vineland is a census-designated place in Mille Lacs County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 607 at the 2000 census. As with other CDPs, the area and population values are included in aggregate values for its township...

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External references

• National Historic Landmarks program of the National Park Service
• National Park Service
  National Park Service
  The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...
  
  's Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings: Kathio Site
• Transcript of Radiograms of Minnesota History: Sioux versus Chippewa, courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society
  Minnesota Historical Society
  The Minnesota Historical Society is a private, non-profit educational and cultural institution dedicated to preserving the history of the U.S. state of Minnesota. It was founded by the territorial legislature in 1849, almost a decade before statehood. The Society is named in the Minnesota...
  
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