USA > South Dakota > A brief history of South Dakota > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11
The next morning they traded one of their guns to a Yanktonais, who had joined the party, for his horse, to which they lashed one end of an arrangement of poles
I29
THE WAR OF THE OUTBREAK
carrying a sort of basket upon which the children could ride (the other end of the poles dragging on the ground), and started down the river for the Yanktonais camp. Mrs. Duly was lame, having been shot in the foot, and had to ride the horse. Mrs. Wright was strong and able to walk, but had no shoes. Martin Charger took the moccasins from his own feet and gave them to her. As they were making their way slowly down the river, White Lodge, with a few warriors, came down to carry his threat into execution.
The rear guard was placed under command of Swift Bird, and he made the most of a display of the two guns in the party. Marching as rapidly as they could, parley- ing and arguing with the old chief, they finally bluffed him off and got safely away with the captives.
The Yanktonais, for the boys' last remaining gun, traded them an old cart and harness, fed them, and gave them a supply of food to last them until Fort Pierre was reached. The children were packed into the cart, Mrs. Duly continued to ride the pony, and the re- mainder of the party walked, dividing into squads who assisted the pony by pushing the cart along. In this way in two days they reached Fort Pierre, where with great difficulty they crossed the freezing river and were kindly received by their own people and the trader. Charles E. Primeau, the Indian trader, dressed the captives as well as he could from his rough stock of goods, and after a short rest they were taken to Fort Randall by Louis La Plant and Frederick Dupree, two well-known frontiersmen. ,
SO. DAK. - 9
I 30
SOUTH DAKOTA
Probably there is not in history another circumstance similar to this, where young, untutored savages, who never had been under missionary influence, at such sacrifice of effort and of property, and with real hardship, so exerted themselves through sentiments of humanity. Martin Charger and his heroic comrades should always be held in veneration by the people of South Dakota. They were true heroes, and their brave and generous deed should be properly commemorated.
The government at once undertook a strong military movement against the hostile Santees, who fled from their Minnesota homes into the Dakota country. Two companies of South Dakota men, under the command respectively of Captains Nelson Miner and William Tripp, and known as the Dakota Cavalry, joined in the move- ment, and rendered excellent service until the end of the War of the Outbreak, in 1865. Most of their service was rendered in North Dakota, as there were no engage- ments of any moment within the South Dakota bound- aries.
CHAPTER XXII
A DAKOTA PAUL REVERE
THERE were four bands of the Santee Sioux, two of whom, known as the Medewakantans and the Wakpeku- tas, were the leaders in the outbreak. The other two bands, the Wahpetons and the Sissetons, were opposed to the outbreak and as a rule did all that they could to protect and assist the whites. When the government sent the troops against the Santees, most of the able-bodied Sissetons enlisted in the government service as scouts. The hostiles who fled into Dakota were constantly organ- izing raiding parties and sending them down to the Min- nesota settlements to secure provisions, steal horses, and occasionally kill settlers. To prevent this the Sisseton scouts were divided up into small parties and located in camps, at frequent intervals, from the neighborhood of Devils Lake in North Dakota down to the central portion of South Dakota.
Among these friendlies was a mixed-blood Sisseton named Samuel J. Brown, who was then a boy about nineteen years of age, educated, intelligent, and influen- tial. In the last years of the war he was made chief of scouts, with headquarters at Fort Sisseton, whence he looked after the Indian scouting camps above mentioned. In the month of April, 1866, at sundown one bright even-
131
I32
SOUTH DAKOTA
ing, an Indian runner came to Brown, with information that moccasin tracks had been found at a crossing of the James River, near Lamoure, in North Dakota, and that the indications were that a hostile party had gone down toward the settle-
ments.
Brown wrote a dis- patch, stating the
facts, to the com-
mandant at Fort Abercrombie, on the Red River, which was to be sent there the following morn- ing; then, mounting his pony, he set out across the prairie di- rectly west, to reach a scouting camp fifty- SAMUEL J. BROWN five miles distant, on the site of the village of Ordway, in Brown County. He reached this scouting camp at midnight, and was informed that the moccasin tracks which had caused the alarm were made by a party of friendly Indians who were going out to the Missouri River to meet the peace commissioners, that the peace treaties made the previous fall had been ratified by the government and the Indians, and that the war was over.
Fearing that the dispatch which he had written to be sent to Fort Abercrombie would create unnecessary
133
A DAKOTA PAUL REVERE
trouble and alarm, Brown at once mounted another pony and started back to Fort Sisseton, hoping to reach it before the messenger left for Abercrombie in the morning. When he had crossed the James River and was galloping rapidly across the broad, flat bottom, he was overtaken by one of those severe spring storms which sometimes sweep over Dakota, a genuine furious, blinding winter blizzard. It came from the northwest and he believed he could make his way before it. In fact, on the bare, unprotected prairie there was nothing else to do; so he forced his way along, doing his best to keep in the direct course to Fort Sisseton.
+
When daylight came, however, he found that he had drifted far out of his way, and was down in the vicinity of the Waubay Lakes, twenty-five miles south of the fort. He turned his little pony in the face of the storm, which was increasing in severity, and fought his way to Sisse- ton, where he arrived before nine o'clock in the morning, - having since sundown the previous evening traveled a distance of more than one hundred and fifty miles. He fell from his pony exhausted and paralyzed, but he had accomplished his purpose in the line of his duty.
Mr. Brown, in 1905, was still living, a respected citizen of the town which bears his name, Brown Valley, Minne- sota, between Lakes Traverse and Big Stone. He never recovered from the evil effects of his awful exertion, and was never able to take a natural step from that day. Mr. Brown was born in South Dakota, but a few miles from his present home. His ride merits a place in history beside those famous ones which have been preserved in the songs and stories of the people.
1911
CHAPTER XXIII
THE RED CLOUD WAR
IN 1865, about the time that the War of the Outbreak ended, the government undertook to build a highway from the Califor- nia trail, in the Powder R. Fellowstone NORTH DAKOTA vicinity of Fort M O T N A Laramie, across R. Crook's x Battlefield Ft. C.F.Smith River by way of the Horn Custer's Rosebud Tongue Missouri R. OTA Powder River Big Littleg Rig Hong G + Ft. Phil. Kearney BLACK CHORN valley to the gold MTS. North Fork of Cheyenne Powder R mines in Mon- Little Powder Ft. Reno+ tana and Idaho. H Little Big Horn Sout 0 M I This road was necessarily run through the rich- Sweet wat Platte est buffalo range North! Ft.Laramie left to the Sioux NEBRASKA K Indians. Red SCENE OF THE RED CLOUD WAR Cloud was then
fast coming into prominence as the principal chief of the Oglala Sioux. The construction of the road was intrusted to Colonel Sawyer, and he began work with a party of surveyors and an escort of only twenty-five men, from Company B of the Dakota Cavalry. Red Cloud met
134
135
THE RED CLOUD WAR
them near the Black Hills and protested against their entering the buffalo country. They paid no attention to his protest and went forward. Red Cloud then gathered a large body of the Oglalas and Cheyennes and, over- taking Sawyer's party at the Powder River, surrounded them and held them in siege for a period of fifteen days.
Red Cloud used no force, his intention being, by a show of strength, to bluff the roadmakers out of his country. At the end of two weeks the young Indians were becom- ing so unruly and threatening that Red Cloud did not longer dare continue the siege, fearing that his young men would get beyond his control and massacre the white men. He therefore withdrew his Indians, and the expedition moved on to the Tongue River. By this time Red Cloud had his young men again well in hand, and he again sur- rounded Sawyer and held him for three days, and then withdrew. He had failed in his attempt to stop the road building. Sawyer went on to the Yellowstone and then returned without molestation, but Red Cloud had resolved that the road should not be built.
That fall (1865) commissioners undertook to treat with the Oglalas for the opening of the road, but Red Cloud would not permit a treaty to be made, - in fact did not attend the council. A new attempt was made to se- cure the consent of the Indians to the opening of the road, and at Fort Laramie on June 30, 1866, Red Cloud ad- dressed the commissioners in a council held under an improvised arbor near the fort. Mildly but firmly he told them that the Oglalas' last hope of subsistence lay in pre- serving the buffalo pastures of the Powder River country,
136
SOUTH DAKOTA
and that they could not under any consideration consent to the opening of a highway through that region. While he was speaking, General Carrington, with a strong force of soldiers, arrived at the fort.
"Why do these soldiers come?" asked Red Cloud.
"They have come to build forts and open the Montana road," was the reply.
Red Cloud sprang from the platform, caught up his rifle and brandished it before the commission, and cried, "In this and the Great Spirit, I trust for the right." Call- ing his people to follow him, he left the commission sitting without an audience.
General Carrington was instructed to go out on the Montana road, to rebuild and garrison Fort Reno, and then to go on to the head waters of the Powder River, where he was to build a strong post. Immediately after leaving Fort Laramie on this mission Carrington was met by Red Cloud, who protested against his going into the country. Of course Carrington was a soldier under orders, and paid no attention to this protest. Red Cloud began a campaign of annoyance and attacks upon the soldiers, which rendered their mission very hazardous and exceedingly difficult.
Leaving a small garrison at Fort Reno, the main body went on to the foot of the Big Horn Mountains, where Fort Phil Kearney was built. There, throughout the season, while the soldiers were engaged in building Fort Kearney and supplying it with fuel, Red Cloud kept up the most tantalizing tactics, and it was soon unsafe for any white person to be outside of the stockade unless
I37
THE RED CLOUD WAR
protected by a large detachment of military. General Carrington reported that "a team could not be sent to the wood yard nor a load of hay brought in from the meadows unless it was accompanied by a strong guard. The first hunters sent out came in themselves hunted, and though there was an abundance of game in the vicinity no hunter was brave enough to stalk it." A reign of terror grew up among the civilians so that none of the teamsters would leave the stockade for wood or supplies unless accompanied by many soldiers. Attacks upon the wood guard were of almost daily occurrence, and the result was always to the advantage of the Indians.
Red Cloud had by this time assembled an army of not less than three thousand men, with their families, and this vast concourse of people he fed and clothed while keeping Fort Phil Kearney almost in a state of siege. Finally, on the twenty-first day of December, 1866, Red Cloud ap- peared in force between Fort Phil Kearney and the wood camp seven miles distant. Captain Fetterman, with a force of eighty-one men, was sent out to drive him away. The Indians craftily led Fetterman into an ambush and his entire force was destroyed. Not one man lived to come back and tell the story. Throughout the following year the Indians kept up this mode of warfare and were per- fectly successful in preventing the opening of the Montana road. Not a single wagon was ever able to pass over it. On the Ist of August, 1867, another severe battle was fought between the whites and Indians at the wood camp; both parties lost heavily, but the Indians' loss was much the greater.
138
SOUTH DAKOTA
By this time the people of the country had begun to think that perhaps Red Cloud was fighting for a principle, and the President was prevailed upon to send out a com- mission whose duty it was to ascertain the real occasion of the war, and to negotiate a treaty of peace if it was thought wise to do so. Generals Sherman, Harney, Terry, and Auger were members of this commission. The commission sent Swift Bear, a friendly Brule Indian, to Red Cloud's army on the Powder River, and in- vited Red Cloud to meet the commission- ers at Fort Laramie. Red Cloud declined to come down, but sent word to the commis- sioners by the well- known chief Man Afraid of His Horses, RED CLOUD that his war against the whites was to save the valley of the Powder River, the only hunting ground left to his nation, from white intrusion. He told the commissioners that whenever the military garrisons at Fort Phil Kearney, Fort C. F. Smith, and Fort Reno were withdrawn, the war on his part would cease. The commissioners sent word to him, asking for a truce until a council could be held. Red Cloud replied that he would meet them the next spring or summer.
139
THE RED CLOUD WAR
Early in the spring of 1868 the commissioners returned to Fort Laramie and met there some leading Indians whom Red Cloud had sent to them, but he did not himself come down. On the 29th of April a treaty was signed, which provided that the troops should be withdrawn from Forts Phil Kearney, C. F. Smith, and Reno, and that all attempts to open the Montana road should be abandoned. A great reservation' was made for the use of the Indians, extending from the mouth of the Niobrara River west to the Big Horn Mountains, thence north to the Yellowstone River, then east by the Cannonball to the Missouri and down the Missouri to the Niobrara. All of the Sioux tribes joined in giving up to the government all of the lands they possessed outside of this great reservation. The government agreed that no white men or soldiers should at any time enter this reservation without the con- sent of the Indians. 1
It was particularly important that Red Cloud should sign this treaty, but he failed to come in for the purpose. Messengers were sent to him, but he sent back word that he thought he should wait until the forts were aban- doned, and the roads closed up, before he signed; and so matters dragged along month after month. Finally, at the end of August, upon the advice of the peace commis- sioners, the government determined to take the chief at his word, and on the 27th of that month all of the troops were withdrawn.
Red Cloud at the time was watching operations from his buffalo camp on the Powder River, and when a mes- senger was sent to him to tell him that the troops had been
I40
SOUTH DAKOTA
taken away, he said it was so late in the season that he thought he would make his winter's meat before he came down to meet the commissioners. This caused great un- easiness in military quarters and in the Indian department, for it was feared that Red Cloud did not intend to keep faith. However, when he had finished his fall's work, he appeared at Fort Laramie (November 6) and signed the treaty, which was duly ratified by the Senate on Feb- ruary 16, 1869, and was proclaimed by President Andrew Johnson on February 24. Thus the great Red Cloud War came to an end.
Red Cloud had been entirely successful and obtained everything he was fighting for. It is the only instance in the history of the United States in which the govern- ment has gone to war and afterward made a peace con- ceding everything demanded by the enemy and exacting nothing in return. From the date of this peace Red Cloud faithfully observed its terms and, according to In- dian standards, lived a good life. At more than-eighty years of age, in 1905, he was still living at Pine Ridge agency, near the Black Hills.
1 1
CHAPTER XXIV
THE PRICE OF GOLD
DURING the period from 1862 until 1875 the white settlements in South Dakota made little progress. Popu- lation was increasing somewhat, but farmers had diffi- culty in learning the way of the soil, and got but small return for their labor.
The prairie soil in a comparatively dry climate requires different methods of cultivation from the heavy clay soils of the more humid eastern states. The time of year when it should be plowed, the quantity and variety of seed to be sown, and the manner of cultivation of the growing crop are all different, but the new settlers of those early days did not quite understand these facts, and for a long time tried to farm in the same way their fathers had done in the eastern states. Only after long and painful experi- ence did they work out methods adapted to our soil and climate. For instance, they had learned to make high beds or ridges in the vegetable gardens, on the top of which the crop was planted, and the cornfields were worked up in high ridges that the rain water might drain away. Here experience finally taught them to work their soil flat, so that all of the water falling may be husbanded for the benefit of the growing crop.
141
142
SOUTH DAKOTA
These first Dakota pioneers also were plagued with invasions of grasshoppers which came in great clouds and ate up their scanty crops. This occurred in five different years : 1863, 1864, 1867, 1874, and 1876.' Since then the grasshoppers have made no ravages in the Da- kota country.
The Indians behaved very well, after the close of the Red Cloud War, until, in violation of the treaty, the sur- veyors for the Northern Pacific Railroad began to extend the survey for that line through the reservation, along the south bank of the Yellowstone, and the government sent soldiers to protect the surveyors in their work. The Uncpapa Sioux were the wildest of the nation and as yet had come very little under reservation or agency in- fluence, but chiefly roamed back in the buffalo country on the Powder and Rosebud rivers. They were much alarmed by the approach of the surveyors, and organized under Gall and Sitting Bull to resist the encroachments upon their land. There were several sharp encounters along the Yellowstone River, with a loss of but few men on either side.
In 1874 General George A. Custer was sent out from Fort Abraham Lincoln, on the Missouri River opposite Bismarck, with a force of twelve hundred soldiers, to make an examination of the Black Hills region. Custer did this without encountering any Indians until he reached the Custer Park in the Black Hills, when he came upon a small band who were there stripping lodge poles. These Indians were greatly alarmed at the ap- proach of Custer's army in the heart of their reservation,
I43
THE PRICE OF GOLD
and they hastened off with the news to their home camps on the Cheyenne River. The news flew rapidly among the Indians at the various agencies, and caused much excitement.
Custer found gold in the Black Hills, on the 2d day of August, and he immediately sent the report to army headquarters, whence it was published to the world, and men everywhere set out to enter the new eldorado. The army was instructed to keep all white men out of the Black Hills until a treaty had been negotiated with the Indians, and the Sioux were notified that no one would be allowed to enter their reservation until such a treaty was made. With this assurance the Indians sensibly decided to let matters take their course. The military used every means possible to keep the gold hunters out of the Hills, but many of them succeeded in entering, and the reports they sent out only served to increase the gold fever, and the determination of others to enter.
It was not until the autumn of 1875 that all of the Sioux people were summoned to meet in council at Red Cloud's agency to make a treaty for the sale of their lands. Sena- tor William B. Allison, of Iowa, was the chairman of the commission sent out by the government to make such a treaty. Under the terms of the treaty of 1868, which had created the great Sioux reservation, it was provided that no part of that reservation should be sold or disposed of unless three fourths of all the adult male Indians inter- ested in the reservation should sign the treaty of sale or relinquishment. Feeling certain that it would be impos- sible to get three fourths of the Indians to sign the treaty
I 44
SOUTH DAKOTA
of sale, the commissioners decided not to ask the Indians to sell their lands at all, but to sell the right to mine gold and other metals in the Black Hills. Senator Allison, in opening the treaty council, said, "We have now to ask you if you are willing to give our people the right to mine in the Black Hills, as long as gold or other valuable metals are found, for a fair and just sum. When the gold or other valuable minerals are taken away, the country will again be yours to dispose of in any manner you may wish."
After nearly three weeks of counciling and bargaining and speechmaking the commissioners found it impossible to make any treaty whatever, upon what were deemed reasonable terms by the government. The Indians, too, had scattered until much less than the necessary three fourths remained at the council. Therefore, the council was broken up without accomplishing anything.
Immediately thereafter the army withdrew all opposi- tion to the miners entering the Black Hills, and within a few months at least fifteen thousand men were hunting for gold upon the Indian lands. The Indians were alarmed and indignant. They believed their lands were to be taken from them without any payment whatever, and they resolved to organize a grand army and drive the invaders away. No one may say that theirs was not a brave and patriotic undertaking. They were to fight for their homes, their lands, and the graves of their kindred.
At once the young men began to slip away from the agencies and to assemble in great camps, near the Big
145
THE PRICE OF GOLD
Horn Mountains, in the buffalo country along the Powder, the Tongue, and the Rosebud. They were led by great war chiefs, - Crazy Horse, Black Moon, Gall, Inkpa- duta, the brutal old Wakpekuta who had murdered the settlers at Spirit Lake, - and they were counseled and advised by Sitting Bull and other crafty medicine men. It was their purpose, when their plans had been per- fected, to descend upon the Black Hills and drive out the miners. There is much dispute about the number of warriors gathered in these camps, but there certainly were not less than twenty-five hundred, and possibly there were thirty-five hundred.
The government sent word to these Indians to come in at once to their reservations and settle down as good Indians should, or they would be regarded as hostile and must suffer the consequences. A great campaign was planned against them. General Crook was to lead an army up from Fort Laramie, General Gibbon was to bring another column down from Fort Ellis, Montana, and General Terry was to lead a third division out from Fort Abraham Lincoln. The hostiles were to be caught between the three converging armies and crushed.
Crook was first to come in contact with the Indians. He met a large body of them, under Crazy Horse, on the Rosebud on the 17th of June, 1876, and a hard battle was fought. Crook suffered so seriously that he was compelled to return to his base of supplies, near old Fort Phil Kearney, and so his part of the campaign proved a failure.
Terry reached the Yellowstone at the mouth of the SO. DAK. - IO
1.46
SOUTH DAKOTA
Rosebud on the 21st of June, and then sent General Custer up the Yellowstone to locate the hostile tribes, while he himself went on with his steamboat to the mouth of the Big Horn, to ferry Gibbon's column across. Custer went up the Rosebud until he found where the trail of the hostiles led over the divide, westward, into the valley of the Little Big Horn. There, on the 26th of June, he came upon the entire hostile camp.
Custer divided his force of about eight hundred men into three columns: one, under Captain Benteen, was sent across the valley of the Little Big Horn, south of the camp, to cut off a retreat in that direction; the second column, under Major Reno, was to attack the upper or south end of the camp, where it lay along the west bank of the Little Big Horn; and the third column, under Custer himself, went down the east side of the Little Big Horn, expecting to attack the north or lower end of the camp. Reno made the attack, and was quickly re- pulsed by overwhelming numbers. Though driven back, he made a junction with Benteen, and the two columns fortified for defense. Custer went down to the lower end of the camp and rode into an ambush, where his entire command of two hundred sixty-three men was destroyed. Benteen and Reno were besieged in their camp, and the Indians fought desperately until their ammunition was exhausted. Then they retreated into the Big Horn Mountains, broke up into little parties, and scattered over the Indian country, many of them return- ing to the agencies.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.