USA > North Dakota > Early history of North Dakota: essential outlines of American history > Part 20
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General Ashley gave his loss as follows: Killed, John Mathews, John Collins, Aaron Stevens, James McDaniel, Westley Piper, George Flage, Benjamin F. Sweed, James Penn, Jr., John Miller, John S. Gardner, Ellis Ogle, David Howard. Wounded, Reece Gibson (died of wounds), Joseph Monse, John Law- son, Abraham Ricketts, Robert Tucker. Joseph Thompson, Jacob Miller, Daniel McClain, Hugh Glass, August Duffer, and Willis, a colored man.
This company was succeeded by Smith, Jackson & Sublette, in 1826. They had great success, though they met with numerous mishaps. On one of their expeditions, nineteen of a party of twenty-two men were killed by the Indians, and their property taken, but through the Hudson's Bay Company, in this instance also, most of the property was recovered. Later the firm became Fitz- patrick, Sublette & Bridger.
PUNISHING THE ARIKARAS
June 18, 1823, Col. Henry Leavenworth left Fort Atkinson (Nebraska, near Council Bluffs, Iowa) with Companies A, B, D, E, F, and G, Sixth United States Infantry, for the purpose of punishing the Arikaras. He took with him several pieces of light artillery. manned by details from his command, and was accom- panied by eighty volunteers, armed and equipped by the fur companies, and from 600 to 800 Sioux, organized by Joshua Pilcher, of the Missouri Fur Company ; the Sioux expecting a free hand in the matter of scalps and spoils.
The roster of officers of this expedition included Col. Henry Leavenworth, Maj. Adam R. Wooley, Brevet Maj. Daniel Ketchum, Captains Bennett Riley and William Armstrong, Lieutenants John Bradley, Nicholas John Cruger, William N. Wickliffe, William Walton Morris, Thomas Noel, and Surgeon John Gale.
The officers of the volunteer command and the Sioux Indian contingent were Gen. William H. Ashley, Captains Jedediah Smith and Horace Scott, Lieutenants Hiram Allen and David Jackson, Ensigns Charles Cunningham and Edward Rose, Surgeon Fleming, Quartermaster Thomas Fitzpatrick, and Serg .- Maj. Wil-
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liam L. Sublette, of the Ashley party, and of the Missouri Fur Company and Indian contingent, Maj. Joshua Pilcher, president of the Missouri Fur Company and sub-agent of the Sioux, Captains Henry Vanderburg and Angus McDonald, First Lieut. Moses B. Carson and Second Lieut. William Gordon.
The appointment of these officers was confirmed by Colonel Leavenworth, in special orders, except that of General Ashley, who was brigadier-general in the Missouri Militia. Pilcher, sub-agent of the Sioux, was appointed by Major O'Fallen.
The entire command, as organized, including regulars, mountaineers, voya- geurs, trappers, and Indians, mustering as variously estimated from 800 to 1,200, was styled the "Missouri Legion."
The distance from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to the Arikara villages, was said to be 655 miles, and the time consumed, including the stop for reorganization, was forty-eight days.
There were two Arikara villages, a short distance apart, overlooking the river, and so situated as to fully command the channel, fortified by a stockade of timbers 6 to 8 inches thick and 15 feet in height, with earth thrown up on the inside to a height of about 18 inches. About three-fourths of the Indians were armed with London fusils (flint-lock), procured through British traders; the others with bows and arrows, and war axes. The warriors belonging to the villages numbered about six hundred.
The ground covered by these villages was above the mouth of the Grand River that flows through the Standing Rock Indian Reservation to join the Mis- souri in South Dakota, near the border line between South and North Dakota, and, in 1811, was about three-quarters of a mile from the channel of the Mis- souri, on Dead Man's Creek, which now flows through a timbered bottom, where, in 1823, there were sand-bars and the river channel.
The Sioux auxiliaries awaited the arrival of Colonel Leavenworth at the mouth of the Cheyenne River, whence the advance was made. They arrived at the Arikara villages August 9th, and the Arikaras coming out to meet the Sioux, an engagement took place, in which the whites did not participate, as the Sioux were between them and the enemy.
August roth Capt. Bennett Riley, with a company of riflemen, and Lieut. John Bradley, with a company of infantry, were posted on a hill within 100 paces of the upper village, screened from the enemy's fire. Lieut. William Walton Morris, with one 6-pounder and a 51/2-inch brass piece, commenced an attack on the lower town. Sergeant Perkins, with one 6-pounder, was assigned to Capt. Henry Vanderburg, of the Missouri Fur Company, who was in command of the volunteers. Maj. Daniel Ketchum was ordered to the upper village with his command.
The fire was continued from early in the morning until 3 o'clock in the after- noon. The Sioux lost two killed and thirteen wounded. Some of their number were in the meantime harvesting the crop of the Arikaras, assisted in their work, later in the day, by the soldiers, for the purpose of obtaining supplies; General Ashley's men having had no food for two days. Colonel Leavenworth lost two men wounded during the engagement. The Arikara loss was heavy; Chief Grey Eyes being among the killed.
When the Sioux discovered that they were not to be given a free hand in the
UPPER MISSOURI RIVER SCENE AT "DROWNED MAN'S RAPIDS" Steamer "Rosebud" homeward bound
STEAMER "JOSEPHINE"
Type of Missouri River Steamboats, 1876.
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attack upon the Arikaras, they commenced to parley with them and finally dis- appeared altogether. The Arikaras were much terrified and hastily made a treaty of peace, but failing to surrender the property taken from General Ashley, Colonel Leavenworth threatened to attack them again, when they fled. He tried to induce them to return and re-occupy their villages, but did not succeed. They left the mother of Chief Grey Eyes, old and infirm, in one of the lodges, sup- plied with water and food. Colonel Leavenworth placed her in one of the best lodges, with an increased supply, and left the village undisturbed, but before he was out of sight, the lodges, numbering 141, were all fired and quickly destroyed, except the one occupied by the Indian woman, whose domicile was not invaded. It was charged that the lodges were burned by Lieut. William Gordon and Capt. Angus McDonald, employes of the Missouri Fur Company. Gordon was one of the survivors of the Blackfeet attack on the Big Horn, and was noted as one of the most intrepid of the frontiersmen. In 1824 he had some further bloody experiences on the Yellowstone, again spending the winter on the Big Horn, with a band of Crows, causing a number of the Blackfeet, in various encounters, to take up their abode in the "Happy Hunting Grounds," whence none have as yet returned.
When in their villages on the Cheyenne and Grand rivers, the Arikaras depended upon agriculture, rather than the chase, for food, bartering corn with the Cheyenne and other tribes for buffalo robes, skins and meat, hunting in the fall and winter, exchanging the skins obtained by barter and the chase, with the traders for cloth and other things required for their ornament and comfort.
Before the traders came, they made cooking utensils of pottery, mortars of stone for grinding their corn, hoes from the shoulder blade of the buffalo and elk, spoons from the horn of the buffalo, wedges for splitting wood from horn, brou ns from stiff grass, knives, spear and arrow heads from flint, and were com- paratively a well-dressed, well-fed and happy people.
After the destruction of their villages in 1823, they rejoined their relations in Nebraska, sojourning there two years, returning to the Heart River, and to Knife River, in 1837, and finally settling at Fort Berthold, in 1862.
LEAVENWORTH AND THE TRADERS
The Missouri Fur Company had furnished about forty men for the expedi- tion of 1823, to punish the Arikaras, and had operated with the troops in the attack upon the villages, but Colonel Leavenworth reported that in making the treaty of peace, he met with every possible obstacle which it was in the power of that company to throw in his way. He was very indignant because of the destruction of the Indian villages, and severely censured the officers of the Mis- souri Fur Company for their interference, excepting from blame Capt. Henry Vanderburg and Lieut. Moses B. Carson, of that company. These gentlemen, in turn, stated that they were extremely mortified at having been selected as the object of Colonel Leavenworth's approbation, and claimed that he had left impassable barriers to the restoration of peace. Major Pilcher's criticism was that the treaty of peace had been made before the Indians had been properly punished.
In reply to these adverse views of Major Pilcher, Gen. Edmund Pendleton Vol. I-11
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Gaines, in his report to the secretary of war, fully sustained Colonel Leaven- worth, claiming it was his right and duty to determine the degree of punishment due the enemy, and to dictate terms of capitulation, and insisting that the victory most acceptable to the enlightened and victorious nation was that obtained at the least expense of blood. The general-in-chief of the army, and the President also, sustained Colonel Leavenworth.
It will be remembered that Lewis and Clark were received by the Arikaras with cordial friendship. Their changed attitude was attributed to the influence of the Sioux. They were dependent upon the Sioux for arms and ammunition and were gradually led astray by them, and after the affair with Colonel Leaven- worth, they became intensely bitter in their hostility.
Notwithstanding the outrage of the Blackfeet, there was no attempt made to punish them, and the Missouri Fur Company soon afterward retired from the Upper Missouri, and was succeeded by the American Fur Company, which had posts at the Forks of the Sheyenne, and three posts in the Valley of the James. Lisa's Fort, occupied by him, and acquired by Joshua Pilcher, the head of the Missouri Fur Company in 1812, was on the right or south bank of the Missouri, about twelve miles from Fort Clark. After the Leavenworth campaign Major Pilcher named it Fort Vanderburg in honor of Capt. Henry Vanderburg.
THE PURPOSE OF THE CAMPAIGN
The following extract from the dispatch of Major-General Edmund P. Gaines to John C. Calhoun, United States secretary of war, dated July 28, 1823, discloses the real purpose of the Leavenworth expedition :
"The trade itself, however valuable, is relatively little or nothing when con- pared with the decided advantage of that harmonious influence or control, which is acquired and preserved, in a degree, if not wholly, by the constant friendly intercourse which the trade necessarily affords, and by which it is principally cher- ished and preserved. If we quietly give up this trade, we shall at once throw it. and with it the friendship and physical power of near thirty thousand warriors, into the arms of England, who has taught us in letters of blood (which we have the magnanimity to forgive, but which it would be treason to forget), that this trade forms rein and curb by which the turbulent and towering spirit of these lords of the forest can alone be governed. I say alone, because I am decidedly of the opinion that if there existed no such rivalship in the trade as that of the English, with which we have always been obliged to contend, under the disad- vantage of restrictions such as have never been imposed upon our rival adver- sary, we should, with one-tenth the force and expense to which we have been subjected. preserve the relations of peace with the Indians more effectively than they have been at any former period. But, to suffer outrages such as have been perpetrated by the Ricaras and Blackfeet Indians to go unpunished, would be to surrender the trade, and with it our strong hold upon the Indians, to England."
MISSOURI RIVER TRADERS
Thomas Forsythe, a St. Louis trader, visited the Upper Missouri country in 1797. There was then a post known as "Trudeau's" or the Pawnee House, near
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what is now Fort Randall. There were clerks representing British traders at the Mandan villages near Knife River and at other points, but no permanent estab- lishments.
Lewis and Clark, in 1804, found traders, mentioned elsewhere more particu- larly, at the Arikara villages, and after they passed up the Missouri River Loisell's post was established thirty-five miles below Fort Pierre in South Dakota, and was found in full operation by them on their return from the Pacific coast in 1806.
Ramsey Crooks, afterwards general agent of the American Fur Company, and Robert McClellan, were also found in the Missouri River trade at this time, and Robert Dickson, then also operating at the headwaters of the Mississippi and on the Minnesota River and at Vermilion, midway between the mouth of the James and that of the Vermilion River. There was a post also at the mouth of the Big Sioux (now Sioux City) which forms part of the border line between South Dakota and Iowa, with headwaters far above Sioux Falls.
Cedar Post, established and destroyed by fire as early as 1810, was near what is now Chamberlain on the Missouri in South Dakota, on Cedar Island. Fort Atkinson, in Nebraska, was near the Council Bluffs, which are in Iowa, about twenty five miles above the modern city of that name, which is across the river from Omaha. It was established in 1819 and abandoned in 1827, and was, in its day, an important military post. St. Joseph, Mo., in the early history of the fur trade, was known as Black Snake Hills. J. P. Cabanna's early post was ten miles above Omaha. This locality was the theater of activity in the fur trade for many years.
A new post, built by the Missouri Fur Company in 1822, was known as Fort Recovery. Charles Bent, Lucien Fontenelle and James Dripps were members of this company. Dripps built several posts on the Missouri River. Fontenelle went to the mountains and became prominent in the fur trade in that region, shipping one season 6,000 pounds of beaver skins down the Yellowstone by macki- naws. This fur was largely used in the manufacture of hats, until about 1834, when silk came into use in its place. There was a trading post on the Missouri known as Fort Lucien, but its exact location cannot now be given. One of the early posts, known as Hanley's, was at Fort Randall, and Brasseau's was in the same vicinity.
Fort Clark, mentioned in the Osage treaties of 1808 and 1822, was forty miles below the mouth of the Kansas River where it joins the Missouri between the states of kansas and Missouri, and was subsequently known as Fort Osage. Fort Lookout, built by the Columbia Fur Company in 1822, was on the west bank of the Missouri near what is now Chamberlain, S. Dakota. There was an Indian agency at this point for a number of years. This company had posts at the mouths of the Niobrara, White, Cherry, James, Sheyenne, Little Sheyenne, and Heart rivers.
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN FUR COMPANY
In March, 1822, Andrew Henry and William H. Ashley advertised for and obtained 100 young men to go to the source of the Missouri River, on a contract of from one to three years. They left St. Louis on the 15th, in two keel boats.
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One of the boats was sunk, and much property lost. Near the mouth of the Yellowstone, the Assiniboines ran off about fifty head of horses that were being led along the bank, compelling the party to stop at the mouth of the Yellowstone, where they established a trading post. Out of this beginning grew the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. The membership consisted of William H. Ashley, Andrew Henry, Jedediah S. Smith, David E. Jackson, William L. Sublette, Robert Campbell, James Bridger, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Samuel Tulloch, James P. Beckworth, Etienne Provost, and others. Ashley, who takes various titles in history, from captain to general, from his connection with the Missouri Militia, was a member of Congress several times from Missouri, and at this time lieu- tenant governor of that state. The number of men who lost their lives with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company is estimated to be about one hundred.
April 14, 1822, President James Monroe granted a license to trade on the Upper Missouri to Gen. William H. Ashley and Maj. Andrew Henry. These appointments caused considerable anxiety on the part of Gen. William Clark, in his capacity of United States superintendent of Indian affairs at St. Louis, and to his anxious inquiries, John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, then United States secretary of war, expressed the hope that their conduct would be such as not to disturb the peace and harmony then existing between the Government and the Indians on the Missouri, but rather to strengthen and confirm them.
INDIAN TREATIES OF 1825
Treaties between the United States and the Arikaras, Gros-Ventres, Mandans, Sioux, and Poncas were made in 1825, by the authority of the United States Congress, through a commission composed of Gen. Henry Atkinson, United States army, and Maj. Benjamin O'Fallon, United States Indian agent in charge of the Sioux on the Missouri River.
The commission left St. Louis March 25, 1825, arriving at Council Bluffs, on the Missouri in Southwest Iowa, on the border of Nebraska, April 19th, and remaining at that point until May 12th; their equipment consisting of eight keel boats, supplied with sails, cordelles, poles and paddles.
The "cordelle" was a long line by which from twenty to forty men, on shore, towed the boat when necessary. It was attached to the top of a high mast which served to lift the line above the brush and other obstructions on the bank and was the main reliance, especially when the current was strong and the winds adverse.
The boats were named Beaver, Buffalo, Elk, Mink, Muskrat, Otter, Raccoon, and White Bear, all familiar names in the fur trade, which governed the pre- dominating thought on the frontier at that time.
There were in the expedition convoying the Indian Commissioners 476 men, forty of whom were mounted and kept the boats company by land. Gen. Henry Atkinson was in command of the expedition, with Col. Henry Leavenworth sec- ond in command.
TREATY WITH THE ARIKARAS
The expedition arrived at the Arikara villages July 18th, and a treaty with the tribe was concluded, in which they agreed to remain at peace with the whites,
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to surrender to the United States authorities any one trading unlawfully in the Indian country, and to aid in apprehending horse-thieves, with which the country was infested. Since then they have been at peace with the whites.
After this treaty, the Arikaras recognized the right of the Sioux to the country south of the Cannonball River, which joins the Missouri south of Mandan and Bismarck, and retired to the Knife River region, northwest of that point, which they have continued to occupy.
The expedition arrived at the Mandan villages on the 26th of July, where they made treaties of the same import with the Mandans, Gros-Ventres, and Crows. Trouble was imminent with the Crows at this point. They had found the cannon unguarded, and had succeeded in spiking it with mud, rendering it useless for the time being, and had become very insolent and unreasonable in their demands; whereupon Major O'Fallon knocked one chief down with his pistol, and Interpreter Edward Rose broke his gunstock over the head of another. General Atkinson assembled his troops at once, and the affair was over.
They left the Mandan villages August 6th, and arriving at the mouth of the Yellowstone on the 17th, found three sides of General Ashley's fort, established in 1822, standing, and relative to the site it was recorded in the journal :
"The position is the most beautiful spot we have seen on the river; being a tongue of land between the two rivers, a perfectly level plain, elevated above high water, and extending back to a gentle ascent at a distance of two miles."
General Ashley, with twenty-four men, came down the Yellowstone while they were there, on his way to St. Louis, and went down the river with General Atkinson. He had 100 packs of beaver; a "pack" containing about eighty skins, dependent upon the size of the skin. A portion of the expedition had been 120 miles above the mouth of the Yellowstone, in the hope of meeting and treating with the Assiniboines, but those Indians were absent on the summer hunt. The expedition left the mouth of the Yellowstone August 26th, on their return trip, which was accomplished without having had any trouble with the Indians.
General Atkinson reported that he found no interference by the British of any sort. He did not favor the establishment of a military post in that region, but if that policy should be adopted, he recommended the mouth of the Yellow- stone as the proper place for it, and that a dependent post be established near Great Falls.
In all the treaties made with the Indians by General Atkinson and Major Benjamin O'Fallon, embracing the Poncas, Sioux, Mandans, Gros-Ventres, and Arikaras, it was stipulated that the Indians might be accommodated with such articles of merchandise, etc., as their necessities might demand, and the United States agreed to admit and license traders, under mild and equitable regulations, the Indians agreeing to protect such persons.
The leading idea of the treaties was trade with the Indians, and the pro- tection of the persons engaged in it. There was no thought of benefiting or civilizing the Indian.
MORE RECENT TREATIES
Under these treaties the United States, in a measure at least, became re- sponsible for the debts of the Indians to the traders, and as a result of the
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treaty of 1837, with the Sioux, $90,000 was appropriated for the payment of such debts. One hundred thousand dollars was provided for the same purpose in the treaty with the Sacs and Foxes, and $200,000 to the Winnebagos, and, in 1851, $495,000 was provided to pay the debts of the Sioux to their traders; the distribution of the latter sum becoming the leading element in the Sioux massacre of 1862.
It is the old story over again-the loss of homes to pay for unnecessary and unwise expenditure of borrowed money, or goods purchased on credit-for in all cases the money was taken from the purchase price of the Indian lands, and was claimed by their creditors.
INDIAN DEBTS TO TRADERS
Illustrating the credit system which these treaties tended to encourage, an imported three-point blanket costing $3.50, was sold to the Indians at $Io, to be paid for in furs at traders' prices; guns costing $13, were sold for $30; gunpowder costing 20 cents a pound, was sold at $1, and all other goods required by the Indians at proportionate prices The Indian dollars were in the form of furs; one buckskin, one or two doe skins, or four rat skins, being acceptable for a dollar. Three dollars were allowed for an otter skin, and $2 a pound for beaver skins. The price for goods was about one-half lower when the Indians returned in the spring with their catch of furs, and could exchange furs in hand for goods.
It was estimated that if the traders were paid the full credit price for one-fourth of the goods they sold in that way, they would be amply remunerated for all goods sold on credit.
The usual articles of merchandise taken into the Indian country were three- point blankets, red and blue in color, red and blue stroud-a coarse cloth for clothing-domestic calicos, rifles, shotguns, gunpowder, flints, lead, hoes, axes, tomahawks, knives, looking-glasses, red and green paint, copper, brass and tin kettles, beaver and other traps, bridles, saddles, spurs, silver ornaments, beads, thread, needles, wampum, horses, etc.
There was a struggle among all the traders to obtain the beaver skins. Thomas Biddle, writing from personal knowledge of the fur trade, to Gen. Henry Atkinson, gives the following account of the bickerings between traders :-
"The Indians, witnessing the efforts of these people to cheat and injure each other, and knowing no more important white men, readily imbibe the idea that all white men are bad. The imposing appearance of the army equipment of the white men (reference to the Yellowstone Expedition of 1819), and the novelty and convenience of their merchandise, had impressed the Indians with a high idea of their power and importance, but the avidity with which beaver skins are sought after, the tricks and wrangling made use of, and the degradations sub- mitted to in obtaining them, have induced a belief that the whites cannot exist without them, and have made a great change in their opinion of our importance, our justice, and our power."
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INDIAN OPPOSITION TO SETTLERS
The ability of the Indians to find a ready market for their furs, and other products of the chase, and to obtain credit, led them to bitterly oppose the encroachment of settlers, and in this they were encouraged by the traders, whose interests were identical with the Indians' in this respect. In some instances the Indians refused annuities dne them from the United States Government, and murdered their fellow tribesmen for accepting presents from the United States officials, believing that they had, in some manner, betrayed their interests.
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