USA > South Dakota > A brief history of South Dakota > Part 5
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This successful navigation of the Missouri, to its head, was one of the great sensations of that period. There- after many distinguished travelers visited the Dakota country. Even on the trip of 1832 Chouteau was accom-
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panied by George Catlin, the famous artist, who came to study the Indian in his primitive condition; and to the pictures which he painted at Fort Pierre and along the Missouri we are indebted for the preservation of clear representations of the life, habits, and fashions of the early red men.
Another famous traveler, who came out the next year, 1833, was Maximilian, Prince of Wied. He, too, was a student of native con- ditions; he was much more careful and accu- rate than Catlin. He spent but little time, however, in South Da- kota, doing most of his work in the vicinity of Fort Union.
In 1839 Dr. Joseph N. Nicollet, the famous French scientist, came up the river to Fort Pierre, accompanied by GENERAL JOHN C. FRÉMONT 1 General John C. Fré- mont, thena youngman. They were in the employ of the government and had been sent out to map the Dakota country, the first official action of this kind. They remained at Pierre for several weeks, preparing for their work, and then set out for the James River and arrived at Medicine Knoll, near Blunt, on the evening of July 3. At midnight Frémont went to the top
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SOME TALES OF TRAVELERS
of Medicine Knoll and fired guns and rockets in cele- bration of the national anniversary. After traveling part way to the James they stopped to fish at Scatterwood Lake, finally reaching the river at Armadale Grove, in Spink County. This grove was a famous camping place for the Indians and early travelers. Thence they passed up the James and across to Devils Lake, and thence back down the coteau to Lakes Traverse and Big Stone, whence they left the state, going down the Minnesota to St. Paul.
While at Fort Pierre Nicollet and Frémont went out to a Yankton camp not far from the post, where they were received with great ceremony. A feast was prepared for them, and having made the customary presents which ratified the covenants of good will and free passage over their country, the chiefs escorted the visitors back to the fort.
A few days later one of the chiefs came to Fort Pierre, bringing with him his pretty daughter handsomely dressed. Accompanied by an interpreter he came to the room where the scientists were employed with their books and maps, and formally offered her to Mr. Nicollet as a wife. This placed the old Frenchman, for a moment, in an embar- rassing position, but with ready tact he explained to the chief that he already had a wife and that the Great Father would not let him have two. "But here," he said, "is Mr. Frémont, who has no wife at all." This put Frémont in a worse situation, but he too made a tactful reply. He said that he was going far away and was not coming back, and did not like to take the girl away from her people, as it might bring bad luck to them; but that he was greatly pleased with the offer and would be glad to give the girl
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a suitable present. Accordingly an attractive package of scarlet and blue cloth, beads of various colors, and a mirror was made up and given to her, and the two Indians went away, the girl apparently quite satisfied with her parcel and the father likewise pleased with other suitable presents made to him. While the matrimonial conference was in progress, the girl had looked on well pleased, leaning composedly against the door post.
The previous year, 1838, Nicollet and Frémont had visited the eastern part of South Dakota, coming in by way of Pipestone Quarry, and they mapped the Coteau region and gave to many of the lakes the names which they still bear. Lake Preston was named by Frémont for Senator Preston; Lake Abert (Albert) for Colonel Abert, chief of the topographical engineers; and Lake Poinsett for the then Secretary of War.
In 1840 Rev. Stephen R. Riggs drove across country from the missionary settlement at Lac qui Parle, Minne- sota, to Fort Pierre, where he preached a sermon to the traders and Indians. This was the first sermon preached within South Dakota.
In 1851 Father Peter John De Smet, a famous Catholic missionary, made his first visit especially to the Dakota Indians, though he had previously become interested in them while passing down the Missouri from a trip among the Indians of Oregon, and in 1839, also, had come up the river as far as the mouth of the Vermilion to endeavor to effect a peace between the outlaw band of Wamdesapa and the Potawatomies. From 1851 until his death in 1873 he devoted his attention principally to the spiritual
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and physical needs of these people. No other man has had so great influence with them, and even in the days of their greatest hostility and hatred for the white man, he was always a welcome visitor to their camps. When the authorities could get into communication with the hostile leaders in no other way, the devoted old missionary, alone and with great hardship and privation, would journey through the wilderness to carry the messages of the " Great- Father," as the Indians call all communications from the President or his representatives, to his dis- obedient children. Good fortune attended all of his rela- tions with the Sioux. During his first visit in 1851, Red Fish, an Oglala, had made an unprovoked war upon the Crows and had been soundly beaten for his pains, and in addition had lost his favorite daughter, a captive to his enemies. Humiliated and defeated, a butt of ridicule to his own people, he had hurried down to Fort Pierre to interest the traders in securing the recovery of his daugh- ter. Learning that " a black gown," the Indian name for a priest, was in the settlement, he went to the good father and implored him to invoke his "medicine" for the recovery of the child. Father De Smet severely rebuked him for his unnecessary war, and then made a fervid prayer for the safety and return of the girl. Red Fish returned to his camp comforted, and as he entered his tepee the lost child bounded into his arms. She had eluded her captors and followed her father's trail to the post. The circumstance was by the Indians deemed miraculous, and they attributed it entirely to the medicine (prayer) of Father De Smet.
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About this time (1850) eastern scientific people began to learn about the Bad Lands, and many men of note came out to visit and study that interesting region. The
CLAY BUTTES IN THE BAD LANDS (WASHABAUGH COUNTY)
great men who have' since then visited South Dakota, from General G. K. Warren to Theodore Roosevelt, are too numerous to mention.
CHAPTER XVI
A BAD BARGAIN
THE discovery of gold in California (1847) and the over land travel which followed greatly disturbed the Teton bands of the Sioux along the trail, which followed the valley of the upper Platte River to the Rocky Mountains; for the gold hunters ruthlessly shot down or frightened far away the game upon which the Indians lived. At first the Indians protested, and then began to retaliate by shooting the cattle of travelers. As time advanced they became more bold and frequently shot straggling horsemen ; and once in a while a train was surprised and men shot down and women and children carried into
captivity. This conduct made the government determine to establish a strong post on the Missouri River at the point nearest to the trail in the Dakota country, and with another post at Fort Laramie (in what is now Wyoming) it was thought the Indians could be held in subjection. A preliminary review of the situation led the war depart- ment to believe that the military post should be located at Fort Pierre, which was the point on the Missouri nearest to Laramie. As the fur animals had by 1855 been almost exterminated in the Dakota country the American Fur Company, which owned the post at Pierre, was glad to sell it to the government at a very large price.
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While negotiations were going on for the purchase of the post, the Indians became more unruly than ever, and it was thought necessary to send a strong force against them. This force was placed under the command of General W. S. Harney, the man who thirty years before read the Declaration of Independence at the Fourth of July celebration at Fort Pierre. He at once sent a por- tion of his men by steamboat to Fort Pierre, to take posses- sion of the post and place it in readiness to receive his main com- mand, which he in- tended to lead there overland, through the country of the unruly Indians, in the autumn.
With twelve hun- dred men Harney set out from Fort Leaven- worth, Kansas, on the GENERAL W. S. HARNEY 5th of August, and proceeded by way of Fort Kearney, Nebraska, without meeting any Indians, until the 2d of September, when he found a camp of Brule Sioux at Ash Hollow on the Blue Water, a northern affluent of the Platte in central north- ern Nebraska. The next morning before light, he divided his force, sending the cavalry far around to strike the Indians' camp from the rear, while with his infantry he
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approached the camp in front. He reached a point very near the camp before the Indians discovered his presence. Little Thunder, the chief, came out and desired to have a council. Harney, who was not yet sure that his cavalry was in position, humored him for a time, until information came that the cavalry was ready. Then he told Little Thunder that he had come to fight him and that he should go at once and get ready for war. The chief flew back to his camp, Harney. in hot pursuit with the infantry.
When Harney was within hailing distance of the camp, he motioned to the Indians to run. They started to do so, and ran directly upon the cavalry. Then the Indians, finding themselves trapped, began a fight for their lives, but they were overwhelmed from the beginning. The battle of Ash Hollow was a cruel massacre of the Brules, but they died bravely. An Indian severely wounded, and supposed to be dead, rose up and shot a soldier. A dismounted cavalryman rushed up to finish the Indian with his saber, but, as he struck, the Indian threw up his gun and the saber broke off at the hilt. An officer came to the rescue, and the Indian caught up the broken saber and almost cut off the leg of the officer's horse. He was then killed with a revolver shot. This shows the spirit of the savages' defense. Upon the battlefield were a number of old caches (holes in which the Indians had buried food) in which the warriors took refuge and from which they succeeded in killing thirteen soldiers and wounding many more. One hundred and thirty-six Indians were killed and the entire camp, with all their property, was captured.
SO. DAK .- 7
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Though hailed as a great victory and an additional plume in Harney's crest of fame, the battle of Ash Hollow was a shameful affair, unworthy of American arms, and a disgrace to the officer who planned it. It of course had the effect of making the Indians fear Harney, and possibly in that way did result in a degree of protection
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to the California trail. There was no evidence whatever that Little Thunder's band had ever done any mischief, or been guilty of any conduct which warranted their punishment.
Harney took his prisoners on to Fort Laramie, and then turned by the old fur trail at the foot of the Black Hills,
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A BAD BARGAIN
by way of the White River, to Fort Pierre, which place he reached on October 19, 1855, where he reunited his entire force of more than twelve hundred men.
Fort Pierre was in no respect suitable for the accommo- dation of so large a force; in fact the government was very seriously imposed upon by the fur company and had made a very bad bargain in the purchase of the post. Harney was compelled to divide his men up into small companies, and most of them spent the winter in open cantonments, scattered from the present site of Oahe down to the Big Sioux River, wherever fuel and pasturage for the horses were convenient. Probably the first piece of doggerel rhyme ever composed in South Dakota was produced and sung as a barrack-room ballad by the soldier boys in that winter of 1855. It ran thus: -
Oh, we don't mind the marching Nor the fighting do we fear, But we'll never forgive old Harney For bringing us to Pierre.
They say old Shotto 1 built it, But we know it is not so, For the man who built this bloody ranch Is reigning down below.
In March, 1856, Harney assembled all of the bands of the Teton Sioux and of the Yanktons at Fort Pierre, and after a protracted council entered into a treaty with them, by which they agreed to respect the California trail, and
1 Chouteau.
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protect the travelers who passed over it. This treaty contained a very wise provision, to the effect that each of the bands should select one great chief and ten subordi- nate chiefs, whom the government should recognize as having full authority in the band. These chiefs were to select a sufficient number of young men to form a strong police force to preserve order in the camp. The govern- ment was to clothe and furnish food for these chiefs and policemen. In view of the experience of recent years it is very certain that, had this wise plan been carried out, the government would have had little more trouble with the Teton Sioux, but Congress refused to ratify the treaty, or make provision for the uniforms and subsistence of the chiefs and police.
At this treaty council, Sitting Bull, then a boy eighteen years of age, first came to the attention of white men. He was an overgrown, boorish, low-caste man, who came in the capacity of horse herder to Chief White Swan.
Captain La Barge relates an amusing circumstance which occurred at this council. Chloroform was just coming into use among physicians, and all of its properties were not then very well understood. Harney, to impress the Indians, was making some strong boasts of the su- perior knowledge of the white men. "Why," he said, "we can kill a man and then bring him back to life. Here, surgeon," he commanded, "kill this dog and restore it to life again." The surgeon caught up an Indian dog and administered to it a strong dose of chloroform. In a few moments he threw its body to the chiefs, who examined it and pronounced it "plenty dead." After an interval
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A BAD BARGAIN
Harney told the doctor to bring it back to life. The doc- tor took the dog in hand and applied all the known re- storatives, but without success. After an hour of diligent effort he gave up the task. The Indians laughed boister- ously.
"White man's medicine too strong," they said.
Harney was satisfied that Fort Pierre was too far up river for the best location of a military post, and he set out to find a more suitable one. He spent several months in examining the river and finally decided upon Handys Point, midway between Sioux City and Fort Pierre, where he located and built Fort Randall, which was named for Captain Daniel Randall, former paymaster of the army. Fort Pierre was abandoned, most of the material being floated down the river to be used in the construction of the new fort.
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CHAPTER XVII
THE SPIRIT LAKE MASSACRE
ABOUT 1825 the Wakpekuta band of Santee Sioux, living about the oxbow of the Minnesota River (in the vicinity of Mankato), was ruled by two brothers, Tasagi and Wamdesapa, meaning "the black eagle." Wam- desapa was a vicious man with an uncontrollable temper, and in a burst of passion he killed his brother, who was much beloved by his people. So outraged were the Wakpekutas at this murder that they arose against Wamdesapa and compelled him to flee from the band to save his life. A few renegade Indians accompanied him. From that time the Wakpekutas disowned him and refused to have any relations with him whatever. Wam- desapa wandered out into South Dakota and located about the lakes near the site of Madison, and hunted along the Vermilion River. As there were no settlers in that country he was left to his own devices.
A son was born to Wamdesapa, and was named Inkpa- duta, meaning " scarlet point " or " red end." Inkpaduta inherited his father's awful temper and all of his vices. He was intelligent, shrewd, treacherous, and without shame. All history does not reveal a more terrible charac- ter. Wamdesapa died in 1848 and Inkpaduta succeeded
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THE SPIRIT LAKE MASSACRE
to the chieftainship of the small band of bad Indians he had gathered about him. In the very first year of his chieftainship his cousin, The War Eagle That May Be Seen, chief of the Wakpekutas, was hunting in what is now Murray County, Minnesota, when Inkpaduta stole into his camp in the night time and killed the young chief and seventeen of his people. As the white settle- ments began to extend into western Iowa and western Minnesota Inkpaduta spent much of his time raiding the settlements, stealing stock, and annoying the settlers.
By the spring of 1857 a considerable settlement had grown up about Spirit Lake on the northern border of Iowa. In March of that year Inkpaduta visited this settlement with his entire band, consisting of eleven lodges. He fell upon the settlement and utterly destroyed it, killing forty- two persons in all. Four women - Mrs. Thatcher, Mrs. Marble, Mrs. Noble, and a young girl named Abbie Gardner - were carried into captivity. The suffering and abuse to which these victims were subjected can not be described. During the march into Dakota the very heavy snows were melting and the country was flooded. At Flandreau the party crossed the Big Sioux River upon a fallen tree. Mrs. Thatcher was pushed from this log into the river and tortured to death while in the icy flood. Time and again she was permitted to reach the shore, and while climbing the slippery bank was clubbed back into the water, until she was finally exhausted. The party then went into camp at Lake Herman, near Madison.
Two Christian Indians from the settlement at Lac qui Parle, Greyfoot and Sounding Heavens, who were hunt-
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ing on the Big Sioux, learned that Inkpaduta had white captives at Lake Herman and went out to attempt their rescue. They were able, with the means at hand, to secure the purchase of only one of the women. - Mrs. Marble was selected and they took her back to the settlements.
Two missionaries, Drs. Riggs and Wil- GREYFOOT liamson, and the Indian agent Judge Charles E. Flandrau, at once undertook to secure the rescue of the other cap-
JOHN OTHER DAY
tives. They knew it to be impossible for white men to approach Ink- paduta's camp, so they asked Indians to volunteer to go. Three Christian In- dians, John Other Day, Paul Mazakute- mane, and Iron Hawk, undertook the mission. They were well sup- plied with provisions and goods to trade for the captives. They
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followed Greyfoot's trail back to Lake Herman to find that Inkpaduta had abandoned that camp. They took his trail and followed him northwest from Lake Herman to the mouth of Snake River on the west side of the James River, two miles south of Ashton in Spink County, where they found the girl Abbie Gardner in a large camp of several hundred Yanktons. Mrs. Noble had been brutally murdered two days before, by Roaring Cloud, a worthy son of Inkpaduta's. The Christian Indians suc- ceeded in buying Abbie Gard- ner and safely conducted her to her friends. This lady, in 1905, was still living upon the old homestead at Spirit Lake, where her family was massacred.
The government took no suitable action to punish Ink- paduta for his horrible outrage. LITTLE CROW Though more than forty years had passed since the Wakpekutas drove away and disowned the Inkpaduta band, the government determined to hold the band re- sponsible for Inkpaduta's conduct, and to withhold their annuities until he had been brought in and punished. The Indians thought this most unfair, but agreed to do their best to punish the outlaw. Just at this time Roar- ing Cloud, the young fiend who had murdered Mrs. Noble, appeared at Yellow Medicine Agency, on the Minnesota River, and he was shot and killed by a posse under Judge Flandrau, who attempted his arrest. A war
11
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party of Santees was organized, under the command of the famous chief Little Crow, and they proceeded from the Minnesota River into South Dakota in pursuit of Inkpaduta. After trailing him for a long distance, they finally located the outlaw and his band at Lake Thomp- son, in what is now Kingsbury County, where a sharp battle occurred. Two of Inkpaduta's sons and two of his soldiers were killed, but Inkpaduta escaped. The Indians, regarding this as a sufficient punishment, returned to the Minnesota, and no further action was taken by the government.
CHAPTER XVIII
A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED
As related in earlier chapters, the land now occupied by the state of South Dakota was acquired by the United States as part of the Louisiana purchase (1803) and was included in the territory of Missouri, organized in 1812. But this land remained the property of Indian tribes, and was not settled by white men for more than forty years. The part east of the Missouri River, meanwhile, was made successively part of Michigan territory (1834), Wisconsin territory (1836), Iowa territory (1838), and Minnesota territory (1849). The part west of the Missouri was included in the original limits of Nebraska territory (1854).
When it became apparent that the state of Minnesota was to be admitted to the Union with its western boundary as at present located, and not upon the Big Sioux River as had been anticipated, a party of democratic politicians at St. Paul, believing that a new territory would speedily be organized out of the portion of Minnesota territory not within the state boundaries, formed a company for the purpose of securing control of all of the desirable town sites and water powers in the proposed new terri- tory, and for the purpose of securing the location of the territorial capital, with the expectation of securing the
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offices and the control of the rich territorial contracts, such as for printing and Indian supplies. It was a far- reaching scheme in the hands of shrewd and intelligent men, who stood very high in the confidence of the polit- ical party then in power. They organized as the Dakota Land Company, and in the spring of 1857 sent a party of men, under the lead of Major Franklin De Witt, into the South Dakota country to claim the town sites. At Sioux Falls it was expected to establish the territorial capital, and there a city was to be immediately built. Governor Medary of Minnesota territory, a very influential politician, holding his appointment from the President of the United States and having large influence at Washington, was the president of the company.
Settlements were made at Sioux Falls, Flandreau, Medary (on the Big Sioux in the southern part of Brook- ings County), and Renshaw (on the Big Sioux, near the site of Estelline in Hamlin County) ; also at the mouth of the Split Rock River and near the site of Fairview in Lincoln County. When the settlers of the Dakota Land Company arrived at Sioux Falls, they found that a party from Dubuque, known as the Western Towns Company, had preceded them and taken possession of the water power at the Falls, but they secured the upper water power and the two parties worked in harmony. Thus . was made the first settlement in the Big Sioux valley. Governor Medary, in furtherance of their plans, immedi- ately organized Big Sioux County and appointed for it a full set of officers, taking them in about equal numbers from the St. Paul and Dubuque parties.
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A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED
When Minnesota was admitted as a state in 1858, the commissioners of Big Sioux County at once appointed Alpheus G. Fuller as delegate in Congress from Dakota territory, but Congress refused to recognize him. The settlers, however, proceeded to organize a territorial
SIOUX FALLS (PRESENT VIEW)
government. They elected a legislature, which convened and passed some memorials to Congress and declared the laws of Minnesota in force until others were provided. The legislature elected Henry Masters governor, and James Allen secretary of state.
In the spring of 1858 the Yankton Indians, under the lead of Smutty Bear, visited the settlement at Medary,
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