USA > North Dakota > Early history of North Dakota: essential outlines of American history > Part 64
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In the meantime the buffalo were breaking prairie and raising dust enough to create a cyclone. In the race each will average killing from eight to ten ani- mals, and some of the best shooters as high as twenty. In shooting to make dead sure, aim about half way up the ribs behind the left shoulder into the heart, the runner being from five to ten feet from the animal. Sometimes they have to shoot from either side of the victim, but always behind the shoulder. So on to the end of the race from the time they get into the herd, say one mile or a mile and a half. The women follow right up with the carts to load the meat and take back to camp. The race ended the hunters return to the beginning of the chase, each man taking his own row. Each gun charge has the mark of the runner, one buck shot, or whatever his mark may be; others two buck shot, some with shot of different sizes, and others slugs, so there is very seldom a dispute as to the killing of the animal.
Some of the hunters with poor horses, not fast enough to run in the chase, when they find runners with more cows than they want or can take care of, buy an animal for five shillings and in that way all, in starting for home, when the hunt has been good, return loaded. The men then skin and cut up the animals, leaving mostly bones for the wolves to fight over. The meat is then loaded into the carts and drawn home by the women, boys and girls.
For eighteen days we were in sight of buffalo and chased, as we required the meat for making pemmican, and dried meat enough to fill the carts for our return home.
In all we were among the buffalo for six or eight weeks. Full loaded we turned faces homeward, rejoicing and thankful that no serious mishaps had befallen us. * *
Arriving, each one takes the meat from the carts and piles it in a good place. The women then cut it into thin slabs about a quarter of an inch thick, two feet wide and four feet long. They then make a long rack with poles. After this stakes are driven in the ground and the poles are tied on with cords cut from the parchment skin of dry buffalo hide. The slabs of meat are put on these poles commencing on the lower and so on to the top. In this way it is dried in the
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sun, and in good favorable weather will dry in a day and a half. It is then put in bales two and a half feet long, eighteen inches wide and eighteen high. Then tied with buffalo cord in a solid pack and it is ready for the carts to be taken to a chosen place where water and wood is convenient as well as grazing for the horses and cattle.
The long, thin, dry strips are then taken and placed on the flesh side of a buffalo hide, or the cart cover, and beaten into a mass of shreds with flails. Then it is thrown into large kettles of hot tallow and when thoroughly mixed is poured hot into sacks prepared for it, made from buffalo hide and sewn up with sinews which hold from fifty to a hundred and fifty pounds each. These sacks were permitted to keep the fur on but as a rule the less valuable hides are used to make them. After the pemmican is cooled it becomes so hard that it often requires a heavy blow to break it. It will keep many years if properly taken care of, and contains a vast amount of nutriment to the pound. It is eaten in this form, or can be cooked with vegetables, or in other ways. Tongues were made into berry pemmican. They were treated with marrow fat, berries and maple sugar and thus made a very palatable dish. Tenderloin whipped into shreds and served with marrow fat was a feast for the epicure. The buffalo tongues were dried sliced or whole, and often buffalo were killed for the tongues alone .- Charles Cavileer, in The Record, April, 1896.
HALF-BLOOD WEDDINGS
Entering the church, the bride and groom with their best fellows march up to the altar. The priest joins them together, pronounces them man and wife and gives them a benediction. Then everybody comes to the front to kiss the bride, and to refuse would be considered a gross insult and probably cause a scrap with the groom at some future time. After the ceremony they go en masse to the bride's home where a bounteous repast is spread, consisting of pemmican, raw and hashed with onions, dried meat in slabs and hashed with onions or garlic, fresh fish from the Pembina River, game from the prairies and woods, "gallette" as flour is scarce, potatoes and vegetables, with a dessert of pies, puddings and wild berries, topped off with the always present wedding cake which is always a stunner. Sometimes when the bride is sitting in a chair with one foot crossed over the other, in deep thought, probably dreaming of the happy future, some rude scamp quietly slips off one of her slippers, leaving her to stump around with one shoeless foot. The moccasin is then put up at auction to the highest bidder, the groom buying it at two pound sterling, which he had to pay, the money being spent for the good of the company.
At the table none but the men or braves sit down, while the women sit on the floor in the corners, and when the onslaught commenced it was a thing of joy and beauty to behold, but when finished the scraps are few and lean. They eat, fiddle and dance, and dance, fiddle and eat at the bride's home as long as the eat- ables last, when they depart for the groom's home where the same performance is gone through, then the old style, until another wedding or something else turns up to change the scene or program .- Charles Cavileer.
The halfblood Indians who were the first occupants of the country had ranged over the country from the days of the old Hudson's Bay voyageurs, sometimes on
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one side of the line and sometimes on the other. Now they were on the Pembina Hills, again on the headwaters of the James, and then here or perhaps on the woody mountains on the British side. The prairies and hills were their home, hunting and fishing their occupation, and for a time it was very doubtful as to whether Canada or the United States was their country; but after the halfbreed troubles in Canada they settled down in the Turtle Mountains to the number of about three thousand, of whom the greater number have been recognized as American Indians. Some of those Canadian born have become naturalized and are good citizens and good farmers.
JARED W. DANIELS
Jared W. Daniels was appointed agent of all of the treaty Sioux in 1868 and went to Fort Totten and established the Indian agency there in the spring of 1869. General Joseph N. G. Whistler, a veteran of the Mexican war, was then in command of the fort which had been built there in 1867. In the spring of 1869, Doctor Daniels also established the Sisseton Agency at the Sisseton Reservation. Finding Devils Lake required additional care, he recommended the appointment of a special agent there, and Doctor Forbes of St. Paul was appointed, but Doctor Daniels remained as the agent at Fort Wadsworth on the Coteaux till 1872. Fort Ransom, at the bend of the Sheyenne, was occupied by troops under Colonel Hall. Guards were sent with all supplies, but the doctor traveled everywhere with an ambulance and a couple of Indian guides.
ROLETTE'S CART LINE-PEMBINA AND ST. PAUL
Hon. Charles E. Flandrau, writing of Joseph Rolette, gives facts of historic interest in relation to Rolette and the creation of the cart line from Pembina to St. Paul, which sometimes embraced as many as six hundred carts :
"In his boyhood, young Joe Rolette was sent to New York City to be edu- cated under the supervision of Ramsey Crooks, at that time president of the American Fur Company. Judge Flandrau relates that when the pioneer boy first appeared on the streets of the metropolis he was dressed in a full suit. of buckskin and carried a rifle on his shoulder. Tradition has it that he was a sort of a madcap young fellow, fonder of adventure than of books and study, though in one of his letters among the Sibley papers Mr. Crooks speaks of him as 'getting on very well' and 'giving promise of becoming a useful man.' When he left New York for his home on the frontier he had a good education and some accom- plishments, in addition to his natural bright, buoyant spirits, enthusiasm and quick wit.
"On his return from New York young Rolette entered the service of his father in the fur trade. About 1840, he was sent up into the Red River country and located at a post on the present site of Pembina. He was then under the direction of General Sibley, who was in general charge of the fur company's business in this region, and whose headquarters were at Mendota, Minn., or St. Peter's, as it was then called. In 1843, in connection with his mother's brother, a Mr. Fisher, he started a line of carts between Pembina and St. Paul. About this time General Sibley sent Norman W. Kittson to take charge of the fur trade in the
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Red River country, and Rolette became Kittson's lieutenant. Kittson indorsed Joe's project for a cart line between Pembina and St. Peter's and added another line. In 1844 six carts came down during the year.
"In 1858 this number had increased to 600, and in the meantime a very important part of the fur traffic had been diverted from the routes of the Hud- son's Bay Company to St. Paul. It is not too much to say that it was this species of commerce that made St. Paul a city. In the conduct of his business Joe was not very careful or methodical, but always meant to be faithful to the interests of his company. He was always alert in protecting its rights. The American traders at the Red River posts suffered great losses from time to time from the aggres- sion of the Hudson's Bay Company's men. The latter, no doubt encouraged by their superiors, frequently passed over the boundary between Canada and the United States and engaged in unrestricted traffic with the Indians on American soil, furnishing the savages with unlimited quantities of whisky, which the American traders were forbidden under severe penalties to sell. In vain did Kittson protest and remonstrate and ask for protection and redress. General Sibley could not help him and the Government would not. At last, in 1847, some Canadian traders came down near Pembina and set up a post two miles from Joe Rolette's so-called factory and sent out runners to the Indians that they wanted their furs and that they had plenty of money and whisky galore. Before they had fairly begun operations Rolette took a dozen or so of his plucky retain- ers, half-breed Indians for the most part, marched against the intruding Brit- ishers, tumbled their goods out of their houses, burned their houses to the ground and drove the traders and their retainers in dismay back into Canada. It is needless to say that this put a check on the trespassing for a considerable time, and there were no internal arbitrations or deliberations, or any sort of complica- tions over the matter, either. Writing of this incident to Sibley, Kittson said: 'I fully approve of Joseph's conduct, though I do not know what the result may be. But if the H. B. Company returns again they will be taught a severe lesson, and one they will not soon forget.'"
Rolette died at Pembina, May 16, 1871.
AN OLD TIME TRADING EXCURSION
In gathering the data for "North Dakota History," this writer met at Bottineau S. B. Flowers, who accompanied Captain Shelton's trading expedition through North Dakota in 1843. They left St. Louis in March. The party consisted of Captain Shelton, with a corps of doctors and surveyors and other assistants, and an armed guard of fifty men accompanying a pack train of 175 mules loaded with beads and trinkets and merchandise of various kinds, especially those articles looked upon with favor among the Indians, including a liberal supply of whisky and blankets.
Captain Shelton would display his wares on the bright colored blankets and found no trouble in obtaining $100 worth of furs for a cup of glass beads. The Indians were rich in the supplies the chase afforded. One could go to any high point, says Captain Flowers, and range a glass over the prairies in different directions and thousands of buffalo would be brought to view. The Indians made no complaint in those days about unfulfilled treaties, no claim that they
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were starving, but instead they were proud and independent, well armed and contented.
Captain Shelton's party met the Indians in their villages and travelled from place to place, gathering up their furs, packing them to the mouth of the Yellow- stone where a French trader, named Sarpee, was located and was running a line of boats down the Missouri to St. Louis. The boats were made of skins, made waterproof by treatment in oil, stretched over a skeleton boat about eight feet wide and fifty feet long. Two of these lashed together would carry nearly one hundred tons and, to use the language of Captain Flowers, would skim over the waters like a bird. The current in the Missouri River is seven miles an hour and St. Louis could be reached in sixty days from the time of leaving. The Sarpees, one brother at Council Bluffs and the one at what afterwards became Fort Buford, became enormously wealthy, worth a million or more, from trading with the Indians.
Shelton's party left St. Louis in March, came up the Missouri visiting out- lying trading points, to the mouth of the Yellowstone, up that stream to what is now Billings, over to Brown Hole, Limkin River and Sweetwater, and then south and east, reaching Omaha in the autumn from the Platte with his pack animals, loaded with the fruits of the expedition.
In all of North Dakota, excepting Chas. Cavileer at Pembina, Fred Gerard over on the Missouri, and Sarpee at the mouth of the Yellowstone, there were no white inhabitants, excepting a few of the old voyageurs intermarried with the Indians, from whom came the tribe of half-bloods heretofore mentioned.
THE BATTLE OF BIG MEADOW
In March, 1876, Oscar Ward led a party from Bismarck to the Black Hills consisting of Andrew Collins, Joe Mitchell, Hite Stoyell, and eight others. They were joined on the Little Heart by William Budge, D. M. Holmes, J. S. Eschel- man, Thomas C. Hall, A. F. McKinley, G. H. McFadden, James Williams, Peter Grenden, William Myric, James Jenks, and fifty-three others. The party were scattered along the trail covering a distance of about four miles. Camping at Big Meadow the Indians stampeded twenty-seven head of stock and a party of fourteen went out to search for them. Thomas Cushing was in charge of this. Oscar Ward gave this writer the following account of the battle on his return from the Black Hills :
"We saw three Indians; one disappeared. Smith continued on the trail of the cattle, and the Indians fired on him, Smith returning the fire. George and I came up and advanced toward the Indians, skulking around the hills. We finally raised up quickly in order to draw their fire. Both fired, and then we raised up and gave it to them. One Indian rode away, and the pony of the other followed. Smith said we had downed one of them. Others of our party had come up, and we followed up and retook the cattle. There were many Indians off on the hills. We formed a guard around the cattle and the Indians began to circle around us. We drove the cattle from one hill to another, fighting all the way. We saw thirty-five Indians, and there were but fourteen of us. Scat- tered as we were, the Indians were too much for us.
"James Jenks and I were together. Billy Budge was in the party. All
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started, but we succeeded in stopping them, and we all made for the top of a high ridge. Smith and Jim Williams were ahead and got over the ridge about two hundred yards, when the Indians shot both Williams and his horse. His thigh was broken by an arrow. The Indians closed in on all sides, and we fought it out right there. Jenks shot one Indian as they attempted to cut off Collins, whose horse was shot, and who was also shot through the knee. It was wonder- ful what a jump that Indian made when the ball hit him. He went off hopping on one leg, making fearful leaps. Brother George was shot through the shoulder and his pony killed. He and Budge stood together. Another shot struck my brother, and Budge called to me that he was killed.
"George was the only one killed, Williams and Collins were the only ones seriously wounded. We lost seven horses on the hill and made breastworks of them when they fell. There were but two of the fourteen which were not injured.
"We saw one Indian strapped to his horse. Two were holding another . on his horse. Another could not carry his gun and had one helping to hold him on his horse and another we knew Budge killed. Budge shot the chief. They seemed to get tired and went away. Williams fought like a tiger after he was down. We carried him and the body of my brother to camp, fourteen miles away, and buried him at Big Meadow.
"As we were about to start Tom Cushing said he would bet a horse that the Indians would be on the knoll where we were fighting before we got three hun- dred yards away. We were not two hundred yards away before there were two Indians on the knoll.
"Budge's horse played out on the way to the knoll. He had a narrow escape but he was a good shot and downed his Indian. Joe Mitchell and Smith rode around to our Indian, the one we had shot in the beginning of the fight. They found him badly wounded and finished him.
"We recovered seven or eight of the cattle but the Indians got away with the most of them. We saw Indian signs near the hills but we got through without much further trouble. We had a fight coming back in the fall and found one man, who, with a companion had formed a barricade of their goods and were fighting from under their wagon. One was killed and the other wounded, and yet they had stood off the Indians. We could not tell how many there were and yet their axle was shot all to pieces from the many shots that struck it.
"I never knew better fighters than Budge, Jenks and Collins. After this bat- tle the boys were willing enough to stand their trick at guard duty."
DON STEVENSON, FREIGHTER
Don Stevenson, in a letter to Colonel Lounsberry in 1897, said :
"I was the contractor at Fort Rice until that was abandoned in 1877, when Fort Yates was built. I was the contractor at Fort Wadsworth in 1868, then . known as Kettle Lakes. Wadsworth was built in 1864, with material hauled from Fort Ridgeley. It was located in the coteaus, twenty-two miles west of Big Stone Lake. I was contractor at Fort Abercrombie in connection with Judge McCauley. I freighted from St. Cloud to Fort Totten in 1866, and from Fort Stevenson to
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Fort Totten, the supplies having been brought up the Missouri to that point by steamer.
"In 1876 I engaged in freighting to the Black Hills, running twenty teams, and established a supply store at Crook City, the first town in the Black Hills. That year I brought to Bismarck several hundred pounds of gold ore, which I delivered to Colonel Lounsberry, who sent it to the Smithsonion Institution at Washington. This and some rock brought to him by Capt. John W. Smith fur- nished the first conclusive evidence to the Government of the existence of gold in the Black Hills.
"I arrived at Big Meadow with my train from Bismarck just after the Oscar Ward party, of which Billy Budge was a member, had their great battle with the Indians. Theirs was the first train from Bismarck to the Hills. We found the remains of fourteen of their horses killed by Indians. We also found their abandoned wagons and the body of George Ward, killed in their battle. The Indians had dug it up and stripped it of clothing. Their marks were still fresh where they had struck it with their "coo" sticks. They had made a breastwork of their dead horses, and had fought with desperation, driving off the Indians. The fight was going against them until Billy Budge shot White Fish, their leading chief, when the Indians left and the party went on to the Hills.
"In 1877 I went to Fort Keogh, where I had a hay contract. I put in 3,800 tons of hay at $28 per ton, in 64 working days. I went across the plains from Fort Abraham Lincoln, making the first freight trail from the Missouri River to Fort Keogh. I had 95 wagons, 20 mowing machines and 10 horse rakes. There were 125 men in my party. I put in 2,200 tons of hay the same year at Fort Custer, and 5,000 cords of wood. McLean & Macnider, of Bismarck, were interested with me, and had put in $70,000 before they got a' cent in return. The contracts amounted to $104,000."
CANADA INVADED AND INDIAN MURDERERS CAPTURED
W. C. Nash came from St. Paul to Grand Forks in 1863, with an expedition to capture Little Six and Medicine Bottle, who were leaders in the 1862 mas- sacre. They camped where Major Hamilton now lives in Grand Forks. They found that Little Six and Medicine Bottle were on British North America soil, and as this was the time when our Government was having trouble in the Mason and Slidell affair, President Lincoln did not approve of doing anything to make greater complications between our country and England. The troops did not cross the line, but often individuals did. Nash's party sent out a Frenchman who brought the two Indians in. They were finally secured and bound and taken to Fort Pembina, where they were kept until spring, when they were taken to Fort Snelling, had a trial, were found guilty and hung.
The Indians were captured when drunk and were hurried across the line strapped to dog sledges. They awakened from their drunken stupor to find themselves in the log jail at Pembina. Frequent attempts were made to kill them by the apparently "accidental" discharge of firearms. Several times bullets passed through the clothing of Little Six, but the fates saved him for the gallows. Some of the crimes of which he was guilty were the most atrocious recorded in the annals of Indian warfare.
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DANGERS OF COURIERS IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY
June 27, 1877, George W. Elder and James Gunder left Fort Abraham Lin- coln bearing dispatches for the commanding officer at Fort Buford.
They left Fort Lincoln about 8 o'clock in the evening and were to ride by day or night, as they felt disposed, and reached Knife River on the 30th, about 5 o'clock; and after resting awhile, concluded to cross the Bad Lands and the Little Missouri before daylight the next morning. They had gone four miles when they saw eight Indians directly in front of them and about three-quarters of a mile off, and knowing it was impossible to run away, reached a butte some five hundred yards away. After dismounting and picketing their ponies on the side of the butte, they found shelter on top behind some rocks, when the Indians charged. They fired several shots, killing one pony and wounding an Indian. At this the Indians divided and rode on each side of the butte until they were within six hundred yards, when they dismounted and opened fire, but seeing the secure position the couriers were in, the Indians fired on their ponies, killing Gunder's and wounding Elder's. The Indians kept up a scattering fire till dark, when they withdrew.
Securing their rations and ammunition from their ponies, they continued their journey on foot, occasionally crawling short distances to escape observation. Reaching a place of supposed safety they waited until morning, when they observed two Indians on ponies a mile away. At dark they started again and made their way to the Missouri River, some thirty miles distant, where they hailed a passing steamer and were landed safely at Fort Stevenson and returned by stage to Bismarck and Fort A. Lincoln.
FAMOUS SCOUTS
William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill), famous scout and buffalo hunter, is frequently mentioned in these pages. He was a favorite of General George Crooks and other frontier commanders. He was assigned to assist the Indian Office in the attempted arrest of Sitting Bull on the occasion of his death. He passed away at Denver in 1917. His reputation was international and he was honored and feted by crowned heads in Europe and respected by all who knew him in the United States.
YELLOWSTONE KELLY
Luther Sage Kelly, residing on a ranch at Paradise, California, in 1917, known as Yellowstone Kelly, came to the Yellowstone region in 1868, and was engaged in carrying the military mail from Missouri River posts to Fort Buford at the mouth of the Yellowstone, and when attacked by two Sioux Indians on the Knife River, he killed both of them. Incidentally reporting the fact at a wood yard near Fort Stevenson, some visiting Arickaree Indians went to the locality of the fight, counted coos on the dead Indians and brought in their scalps, followed by the usual scalp dance and accompanying festivities. In 1870 he supplied the garrison at Fort Buford with wild meat. In 1873 he accompanied Colonel George A. Forsythe, of General Sheridan's staff, on a military reconnaissance up the
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