USA > South Dakota > A brief history of South Dakota > Part 4
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When in 1819 the government began the WANETA military settlement at the head of navigation on the Mis- sissippi, which resulted in the founding of Fort Snelling, Waneta, as a good British subject, went down to see what was going on and protest against the enterprise. He remained about the post for several weeks, and became acquainted with the officers and men and all of the cabins
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SOUTH DAKOTA
and arrangements within and without the post. He then entered into a conspiracy to surprise the post and destroy the garrison, but as he was about to carry it into execution, Colonel Snelling, then in command, got information of it. Snelling promptly arrested Waneta, took him into the post, and put him through a sweating process which thoroughly naturalized him. Colonel Snelling took his British med- als and flags away from him, destroyed them before his eyes, and compelled him to swear allegiance to the Ameri- can flag. Waneta came out from the fort thoroughly re- formed in his views, and for the rest of his life was as proud of his Americanism as he formerly had been of his English allegiance.
When Major Long, in 1823, was sent out by the govern- ment to establish the boundary line between the United States and Canada where the Red River crosses the line, Waneta met him at Big Stone Lake, where he had pre- pared a great ovation for the military. He was dressed for the occasion in a magnificent array of finery in which he had combined the most striking features of civilized and savage clothing. In 1825 he signed the trade and inter- course treaty at Fort Pierre, and a few weeks later, signed the boundary treaty at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. In 1832 Catlin found him at Fort Pierre, where he painted a fine likeness of him.
Waneta was easily the most able and the most dis- tinguished chief of all the Sioux nation of his period. He was shrewd, crafty, and diplomatic. After the conquest of the Rees in 1823, Waneta removed his home from the Elm River, in northern South Dakota, to the mouth
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AN ENGLISH CAPTAIN FROM SOUTH DAKOTA
of the Warreconne River (Beaver Creek) on the Mis- souri, in southern North Dakota, where he set up a pro- tectorate over the Rees. He compelled them to pay him tribute in corn and horses and furs, which enabled him to live in great ease and splendor, and in consideration of this he protected the Rees from the Sioux tribes. He died in 1848 and was buried on the east bank of the Missouri River opposite Fort Rice in North Dakota.
CHAPTER XII
MANUEL LISA, AMERICAN
CAPTAIN WILLIAM CLARK, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, had before 1812 become General Clark, Indian agent and commander of the militia of the upper Louisiana territory (later called Missouri territory), which included South Dakota and all of the American Northwest. When Manuel Lisa, the wily Spanish trader, returned to St. Louis from his famous boat race to the Ree towns in the summer of 1811, he reported to General Clark that "the Wampum was carrying by British influence along the banks of the Missouri, and all the nations of this great river were excited to join the universal confederacy, then setting on foot, of which The Prophet was the instrument and the British traders the soul."
At this time the Sioux Indians of the Mississippi River were wholly under the influence of the British traders from Canada, from whom they obtained their goods. On the other hand, the Sioux Indians of the Missouri River were under the influence of the French Americans from St. Louis, with whom they traded. It was the British policy to secure the assistance of the Dakota Sioux in the War of 1812, first for whatever assistance they might be able to render in the war, but chiefly that through
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MANUEL LISA, AMERICAN
the alliance the British might secure the Dakota trade. Manuel saw this and at once imparted to General Clark a scheme by which he believed not only that the Dakota trade could be held for the Americans, but that the Missis- sippi Sioux as well could be made of no value to the Eng- lish. General Clark was pleased with the plan and gave the execution of it to the Spaniard, who, however bad his principles may have been as a trader, was always a loyal American.
Lisa was made the American agent for all of the Indians on the upper Missouri. He came among them and estab- lished a strong post somewhere in the vicinity of the Big Bend. It may have been on American Island at Chamberlain, and it may have been upon Cedar Island just above the bend. Here he maintained a large stock of goods for the Dakota trade, taught the women to raise vegetables, and supplied them with domestic fowls and cattle. He made of his post an asylum where the old men and women and the sick and defective were welcomed and cared for. Then with Spanish diplomacy he set about to create an impression in the minds of the Indians that the Sioux on the Mississippi were their enemies, and he skillfully fomented trouble between the two branches of the Sioux nation. Trusted runners were sent to the Mississippi to hint to the Sioux there that the Dakota Indians were very much incensed at their conduct and were likely to send war parties against them at any time. This kept the Mississippi Sioux at home to protect their families and camps. Lest the too frequent cry of wolf should make the Mississippi Sioux careless and get
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SOUTH DAKOTA
them to thinking there was no danger, he sent a war party of Omahas against a little band of Iowas, but was careful to see that no general war took place.
Lisa kept his Indians busy hunting and trapping and gave them good trade so that they were generally pros- perous, while the Mississippi Sioux, between their expe- ditions to help the English, and their fear of trouble from the Tetons, neglected their hunting; the British found it very difficult to bring goods to them for trade, owing to the war, and they were thus left very poor and in a miser- able condition. By these methods Lisa held the Sioux of the Missouri very strongly to the American interests and was perfectly successful in his plan to make the Mis- sissippi Sioux not only of no value to the English, but actually a burden to them.
When the war was finally over, Manuel perfectly under- stood conditions among the Indians on both rivers, and he hurried to St. Louis to propose that a great council be immediately called in which all of the Sioux should be invited to participate and that they be thereby drawn to the American interest, both for citizenship and for trade. Clark, now governor of Missouri territory, fully agreed with him, and authorized a council to be held at Portage des Sioux, at the mouth of the Missouri River. Manuel went back to the upper Missouri and gathered up forty of the chiefs and head men of his Dakota Sioux, while Lieutenant Kennerly went to the Mississippi Sioux and secured representatives of all of the bands residing there. The council was called for the fifteenth day of July, 1815, and was within ninety days of the close of hostilities
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MANUEL LISA, AMERICAN
between the English and Americans on the Mississippi. All of the bands joined heartily in a treaty of peace and friendship with the Americans.
Among the chiefs whom Manuel Lisa took down for this council was Black Buffalo, who, while waiting for the council to assemble, died on the night of July 14. He was a Minneconjou and a man of a great deal of power. It will be recalled that he was the principal chief with whom Lewis and Clark counciled, feasted, and quarreled at the mouth of the Teton (at the site of Fort Pierre), from September 25 to 28, 1804, when upon the up trip. He was with his band near Fort Randall when the explorers returned in 1806, and fearing trouble and delay they did not stop to hold communion with him. In 1807 he was in league with the Rees and present in the Ree villages when the attack was made upon the party of Sergeant Pryor and Pierre Chouteau, Sr., who were endeavoring to get Big White to his home, and in the skirmish Black Buffalo was dangerously wounded, the whites supposing he was killed. We next find him at the head of a party of Dakotas whom the Astorians met at the Big Bend in 18II, protesting against the carrying of arms to the Rees and Mandans, with whom the Sioux were then at war. At this time, by reason of his appearance and mild de- portment, he made a very favorable impression upon Brakenridge, who was the historian of the expedition. During the ensuing war with Great Britain, Black Buffalo was one of the men upon whom Manuel Lisa relied in his efforts to keep the Missouri River Dakotas friendly to the United States.
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Colonel John Miller, with a detachment of the Third Infantry, was present at the council, and at the request of Governor Clark, Black Buffalo was buried with military honors. Indeed he was given the honors of an officer of high rank, and the ceremonies evidently made a deep impression upon the assembled red men, for Big Elk, chief of the Omahas, who delivered one of the funeral orations, said: -
"Do not grieve. Misfortunes will happen to the wisest and best of men. Death will come and always comes out of season. It is the command of the Great Spirit, and all nations and people must obey. What is past and can not be prevented should not be grieved for. Be not displeased or discouraged that in visiting your father here you have lost your chief. A misfortune of this kind may never again befall you, but this would have come to you, perhaps at your own village. Five times have I visited this land and never returned with sorrow or pain. Misfortunes do not flourish particularly in our path. They grow every- where. What a misfortune for me that I could not have died to-day, instead of the chief who lies before us. The trifling loss my nation would have sustained in my death would have been doubly paid for in the honors of my burial. They would have wiped off everything like regret. In- stead of being covered with a cloud of sorrow my warriors would have felt the sunshine of joy in their hearts. To me it would have been a most glorious occurrence. Here- after, when I die at home, instead of a noble grave and a grand procession, the rolling music and the thunderous cannon, with a flag waving at my head, I shall be wrapped
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MANUEL LISA, AMERICAN
in a robe (an old robe, perhaps), and hoisted on a slender scaffold to the whistling winds, soon to be blown to the earth, my flesh to be devoured by the wolves and my bones rattled on the plains by the wild beasts. Chief of the sol- diers, your labors have not been in vain. Your attention shall not be forgotten. My nation shall know the respect that is paid to the dead. When I return, I shall echo the sound of your guns."
CHAPTER XIII
THE REE CONQUEST
THE War of 1812 ruined the fur trade for the time being, and it did not begin to revive until about 1817. The rec- ords are strangely silent about Lisa's post in the Dakota
R.80 W.
Chantier
ECHO
R.81 W.
T.112 N.
Navy
CT.
HARNEY'S TROOPS
(1856)
LOST
T.6 N.
Oahe Mission.
T.PRIMEAU.
(1862)
Middle
82 Ree Village
FT. GALPIN ( 185 7)
NEWIFT.PIERRE.
T.111 N. R.79 W.
(1859=)
Lower Ree Village"
TR.31 E.
OLD FJ.PIERRES
T.5 N.
(1832)
FOR
Pierre
PAMBOSE mertcan Fur Co.
.OLD PI SULLY
R.78 W.
R.77 W.
( 1822-)-
Sublette & Campbel!'
Post ( 1862)
FT. LA FRAMBOISE
(1817)
&
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R. R
Medicine
River
T.4 N.
Teton or Bad R/
R.31 E.
R.32 E.
R.33 E.
OLD FT. GEORGE
LOWER BRULE INDIAN RESERVATION
FUR AND MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS NEAR FORT PIERRE FROM 1817 TO 1865
country at this time, but in the autumn of 1817 Joseph La Framboise, a mixed blood, French-Ottawa, established a post at the mouth of the Teton River, where Fort Pierre now stands, and the settlement at that point has been continuous since, making Fort Pierre the oldest continuous settlement in the state.
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7.110 N.
PIERRE
· ( 1963)
1863)
ne Knoll Cr.
TETON POST (1828)
FARM T.
Missouri
FT. TECUMSEH
Snake Butte
R.29 E
American Fur Co. Winter Quarters
R.30 E (1869-6
FT. LA FRAMBOISE
Peoria Bottom-
+ 1 HARNEY'S TROOPS (1656)
. Upper Kee Village
MARION I.
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THE REE CONQUEST
The revival of the fur trade led to the organization of several fur companies in St. Louis. Among these was the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, organized by Gen- eral William H. Ashley, a very prominent man, lieuten- ant governor of Missouri, and afterward for many years a member of Congress. Associated with Ashley was Major Andrew Henry, another man distinguished in his time. In 1822 Ashley and Henry went to the head waters of the Missouri and established trade there with the native tribes. Henry, with a considerable party of men, remained during the ensuing winter upon the Yellowstone, while Ashley returned to St. Louis to recruit more men and bring up additional cargoes of goods in the spring.
Early in the spring of 1823 Ashley set out from St. Louis to return to the mountains with a party of one hun- runel dred hunters, trappers, and river men, and a large stock of merchandise. At the end of May they had arrived safely at the Ree towns at the mouth of Grand River, where they stopped to trade and to purchase horses, for Ashley had determined to send half of his party overland to the Yellowstone by the Grand River route, which had been opened by the Astorians in 1811. The Rees gave them a hearty welcome, and they traded upon the most friendly terms for several days. Finally, on the evening of June I, Ashley had secured all the horses he desired, and prepared to leave in the morning. Forty men were to go up Grand River, with the horses, and they vere encamped on the shore just outside of the lower town. Ashley, with the remainder of the men, slept in the boats anchored in the stream near by.
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Just before daylight a violent thunderstorm passed over, and just as the thunder and lightning was dying away, the Rees, without warning, made a desperate attack upon the white men. Ashley rallied his men to the de- fense as best he could, but the advantage was all with the Indians. The fight lasted fifteen minutes, and at its close twelve white men lay dead and eleven others were severely wounded, at least one of them mortally. Ashley got the survivors into his boats, cut loose, and allowed them to drift down river, out of range of the enemy. There he attempted to reorganize his forces and boldly push by the towns, and go on upstream, but to his dismay he found that the courage of his men was gone, and scarcely one would assist him in the enterprise; they openly declared that if he insisted upon it, they would all desert and make their way as best they could down the river. In this emergency Ashley made terms with them, by which he agreed to drift down to the mouth of the Cheyenne and there fortify a camp, until messengers could be sent to the nearest military post, which was located at Fort Atkinson, sixteen miles north of Omaha.
The express reached Fort Atkinson on June 18. Colonel Henry Leavenworth was in command of the post, which was garrisoned by a portion of the Sixth Infantry. Situ- ated as he was, without telegraph or other means of com- municating with his superiors, Leavenworth was forced to use his best judgment in the matter, and he determined to lead a detachment of troops up the river at once, and to punish the Rees severely for their conduct. The distance was about seven hundred miles by river. Four
-
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THE REE CONQUEST
days later, on June 22, with two hundred and twenty men and four keel boats laden with subsistence, ammunition, and two six-pound cannons, he started on the long journey.
The river was high, the winds unfavorable, and the only means of propelling the boats was by towing them with the cordelle. Under the circumstances they made very good time. When near Yankton on the 3d of July, one of the boats struck a sub- merged log and was capsized and broken in two, and Sergeant Samuel Stackpole and six privates were drowned. At Fort Re- covery, on American Island at Chamber- .. lain, Joshua Pilcher joined Leavenworth with a company of forty men, and at the Cheyenne, Ashley joined them witheighty GENERAL HENRY LEAVENWORTH additional men, mak- ing a total of three hundred and forty white men, soldiers, and volunteers all told. Seven hundred and fifty Sioux Indians - Yankton, Yanktonais, and Tetons-also vol- unteered to go along, but they proved to be a hindrance rather than an assistance. They reached the Ree towns on the 9th of August.
There were two of these villages, separated only by a
SO. DAK. - 6
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SOUTH DAKOTA
narrow ravine, both of which were stockaded. The lower village contained seventy-one and the upper seventy houses. The Rees came out to meet the soldiers, but were soon driven back to the inclosure of the towns, where they were at once attacked by the military. Pilcher had a howitzer, which with Leavenworth's cannon made three large guns for the siege. Two of these guns were planted before the lower town, and the other one on a hill
Sec. 26
Sec. 25
WOOLEY
Cottonwood Creek
ANOEBURG'S BATTERY 1ST POSITION
SCALE
2 ND POSITION
100
0
100
200
300
400 500 Yds.
1
Corn Fields
KETCHEM
LOWER VILLAGE
1823
Right
MISSOURI
RIVER
T.20 N.
Sec. 25
Sec. 36
R. 30 E. !
R. 31 E.
SIEGE OF THE REE TOWNS; DISPOSITION OF LEAVENWORTH'S FORCES
back of the upper town. They kept up an intermittent fire upon the town for two days, when the Rees came out and begged for terms.
Assuming that they had been severely punished, Leaven- worth told them that if they would restore the goods, or an equivalent in horses and furs for the goods and horses taken from Ashley, everything would be forgiven. This they promised to do, and they did bring out a few robes;
UPPER VILLAGE
LEAVENWORTH'S
ASHLEY =
MORRIS
ILEY
ENTRENCHED CAMP
Accretion now grown to Brush
Right Bank 1902
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THE REE CONQUEST
but in the darkness of the next night the entire nation abandoned their villages and escaped to the prairie, and though Leavenworth sent messengers after them with assurances of kindness and fair treatment, they could not be prevailed upon to return.
Having exhausted his provisions, Leavenworth was com- pelled to return to Fort Atkinson. His was the first general military movement in Dakota, and, while little was accomplished, it was really a very brave thing for Leavenworth to venture thus into a hostile country for the purpose of upholding the dignity of the American nation. .
One circumstance connected with this Ree outbreak should be borne in mind. Immediately after the massacre, and when it had been determined that Ashley could not go forward up river but must retire, he felt that it was most necessary that a messenger should be sent to Major Henry, who, it will be remembered, remained the previous winter on the Yellowstone. He called for a volunteer to carry this message, and the only response was by Jedediah S. Smith, a boy eighteen years of age. It was a most dan- gerous undertaking. The entire party were gathered on the deck of General Ashley's boat, the Yellowstone, when Smith received his commission. There, among the dead and dying men, the boy, who was a Methodist, knelt down and made a most eloquent prayer to Heaven for guidance and protection. This was the first recorded act of religious worship in South Dakota. He was suc- cessful in reaching Henry, and at once returned down the river to St. Louis and was back at the Ree town in time
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to command a company of men there in the fight in August. In sixty-six days he had traveled more than four thousand miles, having no means of transportation more rapid than an Indian pony or a canoe. Improbable as this achievement appears, it is substantiated by the military records.
The Rees never were an independent people after Leavenworth's campaign.
CHAPTER XIV
A FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION
DESPITE the fact that nearly fifty years had passed since the Declaration of Independence, and ten years since the last peace treaty with England, nevertheless in 1825 the matter of trade on the western frontier was still un- settled, and there was a constant conflict between American and English interests there. For many reasons the Indians preferred the British trade. The chief of these was that England placed no restriction upon the use of intoxicating liquors in the Indian country, while it was entirely pro- hibited by American law and could be carried into the wilderness by American traders only at great hazard. The British traders naturally were very reluctant to give up the rich American field, and they constantly came in by way of Canada and the Lakes and across from the Hudson Bay country by way of the Assiniboine to the Missouri. Colonel Leavenworth was clearly of the opinion that the Rees had been incited to the massacre of General Ashley's men by English influence. This long-continued friction, and the Ree trouble, led the government to under- take once for all to keep the Englisnmen out of our terri- tory, and to secure all of the Indian trade for our merchants.
To this end, in the summer of 1825, General Atkinson
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and Dr. Benjamin O'Fallon, of St. Louis, were appointed special commissioners to visit all of the Indian tribes on the Missouri River, to secure from them trade and inter- course treaties which would be solely for the advantage of the American merchants. The expedition traveled in a fleet of eight keel boats, which in addition to the usual oars, sails, and cordelles, were equipped each with a set of paddle wheels operated by hand power. They were accompanied by four hundred and seventy-six soldiers, with Colonel Leavenworth in command. They reached the Dakota country early in June, and on the 18th held a great council near Chamberlain with the Yanktons, Yank- tonais, and some of the Teton bands, and after a grand military exhibition which greatly impressed the Indians, secured a treaty precisely in the terms desired by the government. They went on to Fort Pierre, where they arrived on the 2d of July, and there met several other bands of Tetons and waited several days for the Oglalas and some of the distant bands to come in.
When the 4th of July arrived, the officers determined to give the Indians the benefit of a genuine Fourth of July celebration, and this is the first recorded celebration of the Fourth within South Dakota. Colonel Leaven- worth was made officer of the day, cannon were fired at sunrise, there was a flag raising, and General Atkinson and Dr. O'Fallon delivered orations, which were inter- preted to the Indians. Lieutenant W. S. Harney, who thirty years later rendered distinguished service upon that very soil, read the Declaration of Independence, which was duly interpreted to the Sioux. At noon the
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A FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION
Oglalas made a feast of the "flesh of thirteen dogs, boiled in seven kettles, much done," to which the officers were invited. The remainder of the day was spent in games, races, etc., and in the evening there was a fine display of fireworks. The festivities were continued over the 5th and 6th; a grand military review took place on the 5th, which "struck the Indians with great awe, and on the 6th, after the treaties had been signed, Lieutenant Holmes threw six shells from the howitzer which exploded hand- somely and made a deep impression upon the savages." Among those present who took part in the Fourth of July celebration and festivities and who signed the treaty was Chief Waneta, the English captain.
When passing the mouth of the Little Cheyenne River, near the site of the present village of Forest City, the commissioners visited and examined the now celebrated footprints in a/rock there.
The expedition went on to the Rees and secured a similar treaty from those people, with an additional clause in which the Indians expressed deep regret for the occurrences of 1823. The treaties secured by this expe- dition had the desired effect. The British traders were excluded from the American field and there was no further friction on this account.
1
CHAPTER XV
SOME TALES OF TRAVELERS
AFTER the completion of the trade and intercourse treaties there was a very great increase in the American fur trade, and it continued to grow and expand until the
وقدبـ
....
OLD FORT PIERRE
fur-bearing animals and buffalo were practically exter- minated. The mouth of the Teton River was at the very center of the great fur country, and it was there, as we have scen, that the little post of Joseph La Framboise was built in 1817. Five years later this post was succeeded by
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SOME TALES OF TRAVELERS
Fort Tecumseh, and again in 1832 it was rebuilt near by as "Fort Pierre Chouteau," which was soon thereafter cur- tailed by common use to "Fort Pierre." Until the year before the erection of Fort Pierre the up-river trade was all carried on by means of the slow-going keel boats, but in 1831 the enterprising Pierre Chouteau, Jr., son of the man who had fought the Ree Indians in the Big White expedition, built a small, flat-bottomed steamboat, intended ex- pressly for navigation on the shallow Mis- souri, and with it brought a cargo of goods to Fort Tecum- seh. This steamboat trip entirely revolution- ized the Missouri River fur trade, and made it possible to accom- plish with great ease, PIERRE CHOUTEAU, JR. in a few weeks of time, what formerly had required an entire season. The next year Chouteau took his steam- boat, the Yellowstone, clear through to the forks of the Missouri and there built Fort Union.
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