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Gc 978.3 R56b 1521494
M. L
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01066 7175
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SOUTH DAKOTA'S PRAYER
Make me, O God, a loving mother-state, Whose sturdy sons and comely daughters leal With selfless pride shall count maternal weal The chiefest end - the certain way and straight; Through which to win the chaplets of the great. Make me, O God, essentially to feel My children's loyal love, the perfect, real, Supremest gift bestowed by Gracious Fate Make mine, O God, in truth a commonwealth, Wherein each heir shall share and share partake, And none shall fail and none shall take by stealth ; My all for them ; and they for Mother's sake Shall deem it good both gear and life to give. In love and trust, may Heaven let us live.
I
THE NEW STATE CAPITOL OF SOUTH DAKOTA
A BRIEF HISTORY
OF
SOUTH DAKOTA
BY -
DOANE ROBINSON
SECRETARY OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF SOUTH DAKOTA
NEW YORK ·:· CINCINNATI .:. CHICAGO AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY DOANE ROBINSON.
ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL, LONDON
- SOUTH DAKOTA. E - P 6
1521494
PREFACE
The student who learns the story of his community, the sacrifices and successes of the pioneers, the worthy accomplishments of his relatives of an earlier generation, the history of the soil upon which he lives, will hardly fail to develop pride in his locality, and that pride is an almost certain guaranty of good citizenship. The following stories of South Dakota are written in the belief that they will contribute something to the development of an intel- ligent and patriotic citizenship in our state.
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5
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE STORY TOLD BY THE ROCKS . . 9
II. THE STORY OF THE MOUNDS . 14
III. THE ABORIGINAL INDIANS .
17
IV. WHITE EXPLORERS ·
22
V. SOME LAND CLAIMS . 27
VI. LEWIS AND CLARK .
.
· 30
VII. LEWIS AND CLARK WITH THE TETONS .
. 37
VIII. THE FIRST BLOODSHED . 48 6
IX. A NOTABLE BOAT RACE .
· 53
X. A PATRIOTIC CELEBRATION D 1 61 -
XI. AN ENGLISH CAPTAIN FROM SOUTH DAKOTA 67
XII. MANUEL LISA, AMERICAN €
72
XIII. THE REE CONQUEST . 78
XIV. A FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION .
,
C
85
XV. SOME TALES OF TRAVELERS . . 88 0
XVI. A BAD BARGAIN . 0
.
95
XVII. THE SPIRIT LAKE MASSACRE 5 . IO2
XVIII. A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED .
.
107
XIX. PERMANENT SETTLEMENT .
. II3
XX. THE NEW TERRITORY IS BORN IĪ7 ,
XXI. THE WAR OF THE OUTBREAK I24 .
XXII. A DAKOTA PAUL REVERE I31 XXIII. THE RED CLOUD WAR . . . .
·
I34
E
A BRIEF HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA
CHAPTER I
THE STORY TOLD BY THE ROCKS
IT is very easy to read the story of the rocks in South Dakota, for here more than anywhere else the several formations are exposed to view: and we can readily sec what must have happened in that time very long ago, before men, or even animals, inhabited the Dakota land. The rock formations can be seen more or less all over the state, but-their story is clearly shown especially in that section near the head waters of the White River at the foot of the Black Hills, known as the Bad Lands.
We learn there that in an ancient time a great ocean rolled over South Dakota; that some great convulsion must have occurred deep in the earth which threw up the Black Hills and other western mountains; that the ocean swept over these hills, grinding them up and washing them down across its floor toward the castern part of the state, thus laying down a formation or stratum now compressed into hard rock which is the lowest of the many forma- tions studied by the geologist. We learn that again and again the rocks and hills were raised up, each time to be
9
IO
SOUTH DAKOTA
washed down by the ocean, each washing making a new stratum, until finally there came a time when the ocean could not overcome the hills and the latter became high and solid earth somewhat as we now know them. In this time the earliest evidences of life appeared, in the form of snails and other low orders of creatures.
Then the ocean seems to have come back and swept down another stratum of soil from the mountain bases, and after it had again subsided came a race of monstrous reptiles, the remains of which are found quite generally over the state wherever the formation of that period is exposed. It is quite certain that at this time South Dakota was in the main a vast steaming swamp, for the climate was tropical, and out of the swamp grew tropical verdure.
For how long the reptiles reigned no one can ever know, but their period was followed by another, in which great animals, much larger than anything now in existence, roamed throughout the land. They have been given hard names by scientific men who study their remains; as titanotheres, brontotheres, and eleotheres. The titano- theres and brontotheres were evidently of the elephant or rhinoceros family, and the eleotheres were giant pigs. While remains of these animals are most common in the Bad Lands, they are found in many other localities, show- ing that they roamed generally throughout the state. At this time we can be very sure, from the signs which are left, that South Dakota was a great swampy, tropical plain which sloped gently down from the Black Hills on the west to the great central river flowing through the
II
STORY TOLD BY THE ROCKS
present James River valley, and from this river sloped up to the top of the coteau at the east line of the state.
By this time several agencies were at work which re- sulted in a great change in the climate of the region. The uplifting of the Black Hills and the Rocky Mountains had cut off the warm breezes from the Pacific Ocean, and in the far north vast heaps of ice were being piled up by the almost continual freezing of the frigid climate. These heaps of ice had become so deep that they could not sup- port their own weight, and so began to run or spread out as you may have seen a large lump of dough spread when turned from the kneading pan to the table. When we ex- amine a piece of ice, it seems to be so hard and brittle that it does not seem possible for ice to spread in this way; nevertheless, scientific men have shown beyond doubt that ice does spread when placed under a great weight.
The spreading of this ice sent it down from the north- east until it had run far down into the South Dakota country. It was so thick and heavy that it completely dammed up the valley of the great river, so that its waters became a great lake, lying north of the ice and extending far back into the Rocky Mountains. The ice pushed along until its western edge had traveled as far as the line now occupied by the Missouri River, when it began to melt away. The waters which were dammed up in the upper part of the great valley began to seep about the western edge of the ice, until they ran entirely around it and reached the old bed of the stream below Yankton.
Thus the ice quite changed the surface of South Dakota. Before it came the Grand River extended east from its
A PASS IN THE BAD LANDS (WASHINGTON COUNTY)
12
I3
STORY TOLD BY THE ROCKS
present course until it reached the great river near where Aberdeen now is. The Cheyenne ran down to Redfield, the Teton or Bad River to Huron, and the White to Mitchell. The great animals, the titanotheres, masto- dons, and eleotheres, were destroyed by the ice, and when it had melted away, it left new conditions in climate, soil, and river courses, not greatly different from what exist to-day.
Of the Bad Lands from which much of this story is learned Professor Charles E. Holmes, a poet whom all South Dakotans delight to honor, has written the following verses : -
THE BAD LANDS
A stillness sleeps on the broken plain, And the sun beats down, with a fiery rain, On the crust that covers the sand that is rife With the bleaching bones of the old world life.
'Tis a sea of sand, and over the waves Are the wind-blown tops of the Cyclops' caves; And the mountain-sheep and the antelopes Graze cautiously over the sun-burnt slopes.
And here in the sport of the wild wind's play A thousand years are as yesterday, And a million more in these barren lands Have run themselves in the shifting sands.
Oh, the struggle and strife and the passion and pain Since the bones lay bleached on the sandy plain, And a stillness fell on the shifting sea, And a silence that tells of eternity !
CHAPTER II
THE STORY OF THE MOUNDS
WHEN human beings first came to live in the South Dakota country, is now unknown. Whether or not other men lived here before the Indian tribes is not certain. Those who have studied the subject most carefully believe there was no one here before the Indians came. In various localities there are a number of mounds evidently the work of man, but it is believed that they were all built by Indians.
All along the Missouri River, at the best points for defense, and for the control of the passage of the stream, are mounds that are the remains of fortresses. Their builders must have labored industriously to construct them. It is believed they were built by the ancestors of the Ree Indians, who still occupied the section when white men first came to it. The most important of these mounds are in the vicinity of Pierre, where it is known the Rees had a very large settlement which they aban- doned a little more than a century ago. Here are the remains of four very important forts, two on each shore of the river, completely protecting the approach, from above and below, to the extensive region between, which was occupied by the Rees for their homes and gardens.
14
15
THE STORY OF THE MOUNDS
Along the Big Sioux River, especially in the vicinity of Sioux Falls, and about the lakes on the coteau in Roberts and Marshall counties, are many mounds which chiefly were burial places. From them have been taken many curious stone implements which were used by the In- dians in hunting and for domestic purposes before white men brought them implements of iron and steel. Some of these implements are very similar to those used by the Chickasaws and other tribes of the southern United States, and are not at all like the implements of the Ree and Sioux Indians; and this fact leads scientific men to sup- pose that those southern tribes may at one time have occupied the Dakota country.
The Sioux Indians, too, made many small earthworks, and light stone works, usually on prominent hills and along the streams, but these are chiefly memorials of some strik- ing tribal event. Some of the more important ones are at the hill known as Big Tom, near Big Stone Lake; at Snake Butte, near Pierre; at Medicine Knoll, near Blunt; at Turtle Peak, near Wessington Springs; at Punished Woman's Lake in Codington County; and near Armadale Grove, Ashton, and Huron, on the James River. Almost invariably as a feature of these memo- rials the image of some bird, animal, or reptile has been made out of small bowlders to indicate the lodge or cult of the person whose deeds are-commemorated.
Lewis and Clark, the explorers, found at Bon Homme Island, near Yankton, a very extensive embankment of earth which they measured carefully and described very fully, and which for eighty years afterward was supposed
16
SOUTH DAKOTA
to be proof that the region had been occupied by a pre- historic people. It is now known, however, that this embankment was produced by the action of wind and water.
The South Dakota mounds that were erected by In- dians are of less importance than similar mounds found in some other parts of the great Mississippi valley; but they are of great interest as the oldest works of man in our state.
CHAPTER III
THE ABORIGINAL INDIANS
THE Ree, or Aricara, Indians were possibly the first human inhabitants of South Dakota. These Indians
REE INDIAN LODGE
built permanent villages, of earth lodges, and lived by agriculture and the chase. Their homes were always near SO. DAK. - 2 17
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18
SOUTH DAKOTA
the Missouri River or some other large stream. Their lodges were built by digging a round hole, like a cellar, in the earth, over which a roof was made by setting up forked timbers, which were covered with poles and brush and then buried in earth. A hole was left in the top of the lodge for ventilation, light, and the escape of smoke. These lodges were very comfortable and do not seem to have been unhealthful. Farming by the Rees was limited to the raising of corn, beans, pumpkins, squashes, and tobacco. Each family had its own tract of ground, fenced off with bushes and rushes, and the only implement used in the cultivation of the crop was a sort of shovel made from the shoulder blade of the buffalo. For very many years, how long is not known, but probably nearly a century, their chief settlement was in the immediate vicinity of Pierre, but in 1792, being driven away by the Sioux, they settled in the northern part of the state near the mouth of Grand River, where part of the tribe was already established.
When white men first had knowledge of the Dakota country, the Omaha Indians occupied the Big Sioux valley and the Missouri valley as far as the mouth of the James River, while at that time, or very soon thereafter, a settle- ment of Sisseton Sioux was made at Big Stone Lake, and the Kiowas occupied the Black Hills. All of these tribes, unlike the Rees, were nomadic; that is, they lived in tents and moved about from place to place as suited their convenience.
Sometime in the latter part of the seventeenth century the Sioux Indians who were natives of the timbered coun-
3
19
THE ABORIGINAL INDIANS
try about the lakes in northern Minnesota, were forced away from their homes by the Chippewas, and some of their bands came out to the prairie. For many years they remained upon the upper Minnesota River and Big Stone and Traverse lakes, and, having secured horses, began to hunt the buffalo far out on the plains of South Dakota. In the course of time they learned that west of the Mis- souri River the snowfall was very light, and that the buffalo gathered there in the winter season to feed upon the rich grasses of what are now the fa- mous South Da- kota ranges. This fact made the BUFFALO Sioux wish to live there, where they could secure plenty of buffalo meat with little effort both summer and winter. But the country which they wished to occupy was the home and hunting ground of the Rees, who stubbornly fought off the invading Sioux. It was before 1750 that these prairie or Teton Sioux undertook to conquer the buffalo ranges west of the Missouri. A war of more than forty years followed, in which the Sioux were finally suc- cessful. They could not dislodge the Rees from their strong forts on the Missouri, but having succeeded in crossing the river, they were able to keep the buffalo so far
20
SOUTH DAKOTA
away that the Ree hunters could not get them, and thus they really starved out their enemies, who, as we have seen, moved to a new home on the Grand River. As military men would say, the Rees were flanked out of their position by the Sioux.
In 1775 the enterprising Og- lala branch of the Teton Sioux had penetrated as far as the Black Hills, where they paid their compliments to the Kiowas and before the end of the eighteenth century had driven them away, and settled in their territory.
While the Teton Sioux were thus making a settlement west of the Missouri, their relatives the Yanktons, who like them- selves had been crowded out of the Minnesota timber, were V. 10. trying to find a home in the lower country between the SIOUX WARRIOR Mississippi and Missouri rivers. They settled among the Osages, but were driven away. Then they conquered a small territory in the Otto country in western Iowa, but finally were driven away from there with the loss of all their horses and other property. Be- fore the Teton Sioux went to the Missouri they had driven the Omahas from the Big Sioux and James rivers to a new home south of the Missouri, and the Teton Sioux claimed
2I
THE ABORIGINAL INDIANS
the Big Sioux and James valleys as conquered territory. Now, however, while the Tetons' hands were full with their forty years' war with the Rees, the Omahas were threat- ening to come back into their old South Dakota homes. Therefore when the Yanktons, whipped and robbed by the Ottos, came up the Missouri looking for a place to rest, they were warmly welcomed by the Tetons, who gladly gave them a large territory to occupy on the James River, and fitted them out with arms and horses to enable them to defend their new home from the threatened invasion of the Omahas.
So it came about that before the end of the eighteenth century all of South Dakota, except a very small territory, not more than four or five townships in extent, near the mouth of Grand River, which was occupied by the Rees, had passed into the possession and control of the power- ful Sioux tribes.
CHAPTER IV
WHITE EXPLORERS
CHARLES PIERRE LE SUEUR was one of the most enter- prising and energetic of the merchant explorers who came out from Canada and roamed all over the western country in search of trade in furs, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Le Sueur was a fur trader and a politician as well. He was a native of Montreal, and was a cousin of the famous D'Iberville and Bienville who were conspicuous in founding the French settlements in Louisiana and Alabama. He visited the upper Missis- sippi country as early as the year 1683, and from that time until 1700 spent most of his time upon that stream and westward.
It is claimed that when Le Sueur learned that La Salle had explored the Mississippi River to its mouth, he promptly saw the opportunity to enrich himself by collecting furs in the West and sending them to France and England by way of the Mississippi, thus escaping the payment of the heavy tax placed on the fur traffic by the Canadian government. Sending his cousin, D'Iberville, to the mouth of the Mississippi with a ship, Le Sueur came west of the Mississippi, collected a large amount of furs among the Omaha Indians on the Big Sioux River, and sent them on a flatboat down the Big Sioux
22
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WHITE EXPLORERS
and Missouri to the Mississippi, where D'Iberville took them aboard his ship and carried them to Europe, selling them at great profit. Le Sueur himself returned to the Mississippi, where he gathered a small quantity of furs, and taking them back to Canada, dutifully paid the tax upon them, as a good citizen should do. While there are reasons for believing that this story is true, it can not be verified from the records. If true, Le Sueur was the first white man to visit South Dakota.
In any event, Le Sueur in 1699 came back from France, to the West, by way of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, and built a fort on the Blue Earth River, a few miles from the site of Mankato, Minnesota, where for a year or two he mined for copper and at the same time carried on a trade with the neighboring Indians. He traded with the Omahas, who still resided on the Big Sioux River, and very probably visited them. He returned to France in 1701 and soon afterward furnished the infor- mation from which the geographer De l'Isle made a map of the central portion of North America, including the eastern portion of South Dakota. It is possible that Le Sueur obtained his knowledge of South Dakota from the Indians, but it is most likely that he gained it from personal observation of the ground. The map shows Big Stone Lake and Lake Traverse, the Big Sioux, James, and Missouri rivers in their proper relation and very well drawn. It locates the Omahas (Maha on the map, p. 24) on the Big Sioux, a village of Iowa Indians (Aiaouez) on the James, and the Yanktons on the Missouri in west- ern Iowa, where they were then residing in the Otto
24
SOUTH DAKOTA
country. There is a road shown on the map, extending westward from the mouth of the Wisconsin River, by way of Spirit Lake, Iowa, to Sioux Falls, and marked "track of the voyagers." From all of these things it is believed
Horheton
Ouidaufgeounaton
SIOUX DE
L'EST
Chippewas
A
Mechemeton Onghetgechaton
4
A Quidachenaton
SIOUX DE L'OUEST
Les Tintons errans
¢
Isantiton
Menostamenton
SautdeS!
PL. Pepin
Sourcedu Moingona
Mine de ChoMoon
Vieu Fort
Mines de Cuivre
Vicu Ft
L'Huillier
CR.aux Ailes
Vert de montagne et Cuivre
Aricara
Ara guez
.44
Isles à Tessier
R. Orasconsin
Azabuez
Maha
Village des AIAQUEZ ou Paoutez
Chenan des Voyageurs
Portage
Le
LES PANIMAHA 12. Villages
Mine de Plomb
A DA TETONS
Grandes prairies
Isle
1.1 ... Canots
& YANKTONS Octata
Christal de roche
LES PANIS 10 a12 Villages
& & PUNCAS
LES OCTOTATA
Les fansez
Grande
LES CANSEZ
YOWAYS
Le Mississipi
LPimitoa
LES PIMITOUI
LES MISSOURIS
Le Missouri
Salines
Mine de
Cuivre
Rio.
Les PotsaFleurs
A
Les Chateaux ruines
Riv. des Ogages
Mine®
LA& TMAROIS et CAEUQUIAS Caskaguias
RAYS DES OSAGES
DE L'ISLE'S MAP, MADE FROM INFORMATION SUPPLIED BY LE SUEUR
that Le Sueur was the first white man to enter the South Dakota country, but if he did not come here himself, it is quite certain that other white men in his employ did do so, at or before the beginning of the eighteenth century.
.
ILLINOIS
Padoucas
Riviere des Cansez
Montagnes pelées
4
Des Moines ou le Moingona R.
R.des Panıs
Missouri ou R. de Pekitanoni
.2 Forts
Prairies
Le Moingona R
R. St Pierre ou Mini-Sola
Antoine
R.S. Croix
Tout ce canton est plein de mines
Riv. des Arkansas ou Tordi
Les
CHAPTER V
SOME LAND CLAIMS
ON the strength of the discoveries of Columbus, and especially of Coronado, who came from Mexico up through New Mexico and into Kansas in 1540-1541, Spain claimed all of the interior of the American continent, including the South Dakota country. She did nothing, however, in the way of exploration or occupancy, to make the claim good, though for more than a hundred years her right was undisputed, until the French from Canada began to trade with the Sioux Indians and claimed for France all of the territory which they entered.
On September 18, 1712, the king of France granted the monopoly of trade in all of the territory lying in the Mississippi valley to Anthony Crozat, a banker of Paris, for the term of sixteen years. The action of the French led the Spaniards to take measures to assert their claims, and they sent men from Santa Fé to drive the French from the lower Missouri and Mississippi rivers. The Spanish plan was to excite the Osage Indians to make war on the Missouri Indians, who were friendly to the French, but by a mistake the Spaniards went directly to the Mis- souri camp, where the entire party, with one exception, were killed. This led the French to build a fort near the mouth of the Missouri.
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SOUTH DAKOTA
In 1732 the king of France reasserted his sovereignty over the Mississippi and Missouri valleys, and governed the section through a governor general who lived at New Orleans. There is no record or probability that either France or Spain took any actual possession of the South Dakota country until young Verendrye claimed it for France in March, 1743.
For nearly twenty years after Verendrye claimed the land France's title seems to have been undisputed, but in 1762 she ceded all of Louisiana, which included South Dakota, to Spain, in return for certain political favors. Spain took possession and governed the land west of the Mississippi for nearly forty years thereafter; then in 1800 she secretly deeded it back to France.
When the American people learned of this secret cession of the Louisiana country to France, the western pioneers in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee were greatly concerned and aroused. The great Napoleon had just made himself the head of the French govern- ment; his fame as a soldier and conqueror had spread over the world, and the American frontiersman did not like to have him for a near neighbor.
Thomas Jefferson was then President of the United States. The importance of the control of the Mississippi River was clear to his far-seeing eye. He determined that we must, at least, have a joint right to its free passage and must have a site for a commercial city at its mouth, and he undertook, by sending special representatives to France, to secure these rights. At the same time he pre- vailed upon Congress to permit him to undertake the
20
SOME LAND CLAIMS
exploration of the far West with a view to finding a means of crossing the continent to the Pacific Ocean, and while his ambassadors were at Paris, bargaining for free rights on the Mississippi, Jefferson was pushing his plan to send an exploring party across the American continent. He had his party organized and his plans well matured when, to his surprise, and the surprise of all America, the news came from Paris that the American ministers had bought not only the desired free rights on the Mississippi, but all of the great Louisiana territory as well. Thus it came about that, as a part of Louisiana, South Dakota came into the possession of the United States, having been first claimed by Spain, then by France, again by Spain, again passing to France, and finally falling to the American common- wealth.
CHAPTER VI
LEWIS AND CLARK
JEFFERSON selected to head his party of explorers his private secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, a cousin of George Washington. Scientific knowledge was not very far advanced in America at this time, but early in the spring of 1803, a few days before the bargain with Na- poleon had been made and months before it had been thought of in America, Lewis hurried from Washington to Philadelphia to take a brief course in the natural sciences and mathematics, hoping to gain enough to enable him to make scientific observations of the country through which he was to pass, and to determine the latitude and longitude of various places.
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