The Battle of Sugar Point, or the Battle of Leech Lake, was fought on October 5, 1898 between the 3rd U.S. Infantry and members of the Pillager Band of Chippewa Indians in a failed attempt to apprehend Pillager Ojibwe Bugonaygeshig ("Old Bug" or "Hole-In-The-Day"), as the result of a dispute with Indian Service officials on the Leech Lake Reservation in Cass County, Minnesota.
Bugonaygeshig (from Ojibwe Bagonegiizhig: "Hole/Opening in the Sky/Day", referring to the constellation Pleiades) was an Anishinaabe leader of the late 19th century and early 20th century.
The Battle of Sugar Point, or the Battle of Leech Lake, was fought on October 5, 1898 between the 3rd Infantry and members of the Pillager Band of Chippewa Indians in a failed attempt to apprehend Pillager Ojibwe Bugonaygeshig ("Old Bug" or "Hole-In-The-Day"), as the result of a dispute with Indian Service officials on the Leech Lake Reservation in Cass County, Minnesota.
When Mille Lacs Indians Chief Máza-mani (Iron-Walker) learned of the plans of Gull Lake Band Chief Bagonegiizhig (Hole in the Day) to attack Fort Ripley, Chief Máza-mani raised a party of 200 men and they set out to aid the Fort in advance of Chief Bagonegiizhig, thus adverting Chief Bagonegiizhigs attack onto the Fort.
However, when he and Sha-Boon-Day-Shkong traveled to the nearby Indian village of Onigum on September 15, they were seized by U.S. Deputy Marshal Robert Morrison and U.S. Indian Agent Arthur M. Tinker as witnesses to a bootlegging operation and were going to be transported to Duluth (Bugonaygeshig had previously testified at another bootlegging trial in the port city on Lake Superior five months earlier).