Aysh-ke-bah-ke-ko-zhay (or Aish-Ke-Vo-Go-Zhe, from Eshkibagikoonzhe, "[bird] having a leaf-green bill" in Anishinaabe language; also known as "Flat Mouth" (Gueule Platte), a nickname given by French fur traders (1774 – after 1862), was a powerful Ojibwe chief and diplomat during the 19th century. He was a lifelong advocate for continued Ojibwe aggression in the Dakota-Ojibwe War.
On May 28, 1827, he was visiting neutral Fort Snelling when he and his company were fired upon. He was unharmed. In 1830, he encouraged the Ojibwe to continue their attacks on the Dakota.
In 1855, he traveled to Washington, D.C. along with Beshekee and other Ojibwe leaders, to negotiate the cession of ten million acres (40,000 km2) including the headwaters of the Mississippi River in northern Minnesota."Biography of Aysh-ke-bah-ke-ko-zhay." United States Senate. (retrieved 31 October 2022)
On 15 September 1862 the Chief met Governor Ramsey at the Crow Wing Agency and offered to fight the Sioux along with a number of other Chiefs during the Santee Sioux Uprising.Chippewa Embassy, Hole in the Day, the Buffalo, Flat-mouth list of Chiefs The Weekly Pioneer and Democrat 26 Sept 1862, p.6, Newspapers.com, 2023
Quotes "We are endlessly told to bury the war hatchet, and if we dig it up we are threatened with rods and ropes, or with being placed under the ground, we the Missinabes, the Eagles, the Bears [totems], free in our own forests... Thus the Americans plan to treat us as they treat their black people...I am not an animal. I am not like those in the East whom they call their children and whom they treat like three or six-year-olds, rod in their hand. They purchased their lands, and now they hold them prisoner and treat them as slaves."
— Eshkebugecoshe, head chief of the Pillager Band of Chippewa Indians, to French geographer Joseph Nicollet in the 1830s, speaking of his people's feelings that they were losing control of their lives
Notes
References Schenck, Theresa M. William W. Warren: The Life, Letters, and Times of an Ojibwe Leader. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007. .