History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 10

Author: Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946. cn
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 998

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HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

"Meanwhile the chief of the upper village came on board of Ensign Pryor's boat and de- manded that the Mandan chief go on shore with him. The request was peremptorily refused. The Indians now became insolent and aggressive. They demanded a surrender of all the arms and ammunition. The chief to whom the medal had been given threw it on the ground and one of Chouteau's men was struck down with a gun. Raising a general war whoop, they fired on the boats and on Chouteau and a few of his men who were on the shore and then withdrew to a fringe of willows along the bank, some fifty yards back. Ensign Pryor had prepared himself for this con- tingency and immediately replied with the fire of his entire force. The willows were more of a concealment than a protection and the Indians probably suffered considerably. The contest was maintained for a quarter of an hour, but as the number of Indians was so great as to threaten destruction to his party if the fight was con- tinued, Pryor ordered a retreat. This in itself was a difficult thing to execute, for Chouteau's barge had stuck fast on a bar, and the men were compelled to get into the water and drag it for some distance, all the while under the fire of the Indians. At length the boats were gotten off and floated down the current, the Indians following along the bank and maintaining the fight for up- ward of an hour. It was not until sunset that the pursuit was finally abandoned, and then only on account of the death of one of the Sioux chiefs, the very man who had been in Ensign Pryor's boat. He wore a white bandage around his head and this mark served to distinguish him among his followers, with whom, to the number of about forty, he was trying to reach a project- ing point which the boats must pass. He was singled out by those in the boats and instantly killed. His followers gathered around him and abandoned the pursuit of the boats, which soon passed out of sight."

This was the first engagement between troops of the United States and the Indians upon South Dakota soil.

"The losses in the conflict were three of Chouteau's men killed and seven wounded, one

mortally. Three of Pryor's men were wounded, including the interpreter, Rene Jesseaume.

"Ensign Pryor now proposed to Big White that they attempt to make the rest of the distance, about three days' march, by land, going well back from the river into the prairies, and thus passing around the hostile Indians. The chief would not consent on account of the wounded condition of the interpreter and the encum- brances of their wives and children." George Shannon, one of Lewis and Clarke's men, the same who was lost while hunting the horses from Meckling to Bijou hills, was among the wounded in the fight with the Rees and the Sioux chief killed by Pryor's men was old Black Buffalo, the man who had made Lewis and Clarke trouble at Pierre, three years before, when they were going up the river."

The return of Pryor and Chouteau to St. Louis with Big White created a sensation throughout the country. Not only had the Ameri- can flag been fired upon, but it was the firm con- viction everywhere that the hostility among the Rees had been incited by the British and at that period no other thing would so greatly excite America as English interference. Without the slightest proof of this charge, the people were ready to declare war. There was one exception to the general belief of English duplicity ; that was in the mind of Pierre Chouteau, who could always find a reason for his troubles in the duplicity of the Spaniard, Manuel Lisa, and in this instance he was no doubt right. To every suggestion of English interference he replied : "This is a trick of Manuel Lisa. His boats passed in safety ; why not ours ?"

From the wound which George Shannon re- ceived at the Ree fight. Grand river, South Dakota, September 9, 1807, blood poisoning set. in and when the expedition returned to St. Louis, October 16th, he was at the point of death. His leg was amputated at the thigh, without anes- thetics, by old Dr. Saugrin, the man who made the thermometer for Captain Lewis, and a young doctor named Farrar, the first operation of the character in the Mississippi valley. Shannon's recovery was slow, but at the end of eighteen

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

months he was out and went to Lexington, where he studied law and became an eminent lawyer and judge and left an honored line of posterity.

"Thus ended the first attempt to return Big White to his people. Ensign Pryor expressed the opinion that it would require a force of not less than four hundred men to accomplish the expedition with the temper of the Indians as it then was." At any rate Big White was still in St. Louis and the government had upon its hands the responsibility of getting him home. So far as the record divulges, the year 1808 was spent in pondering upon the problem, for when 1809 came Mr. Big White was still the guest of his great father at St. Louis and the officials were properly worried about what was to be done with him.

It will be recalled that Manuel Lisa succeeded in passing the hostiles in 1807, whether by fair means or foul, and, arriving at the mouth of the Big Horn, built a fort and engaged in trade and, with his usual facility for squirming out of tight places, got back to St. Louis in August, 1808, with his scalp intact, and the reports he brought back were so glowing that the business men of St. Louis flocked to join him in a company to trade up the Missouri. Thus was formed the Missouri Fur Company, which was to be so important a factor in the trade of the Dakota country and beyond. . Even Pierre Chouteau, probably feeling that he could not be worse off associated with Lisa than in competi- tion with him, became a leading partner in the new company. The first act of this company was to enter into a contract with Merriweather Lewis, our old friend, the captain, then governor of Louisiana territory, on the part of the United States, for safely transporting to his tribe Big White and his family. The company by this con- tract agreed to engage one hundred twenty-five men, of whom forty should be Americans and expert riflemen, to constitute a body of militia of the territory of Missouri, for the specific purpose of escorting the Mandan chief home, after which they were to be discharged. The force was to be suitably equipped with firearms, of which

there should be not less than fifty rifles. The command of the escort was assigned to Pierre Chouteau, who had already given evidence of his determined spirit in the battle before the Arickara villages in 1807. The com- pany was to provide suitable quarters on the boat for the chief, his wife and child, the interpreter, Jessaume, and his wife and child and two other interpreters. It bound itself to protect with its utmost care and power the chief and his party from all danger enroute and to report at once their safe arrival at the Mandan villages. It was also to transport the necessary presents to the Indians. The start from St. Louis was fixed for April 20, 1809, and might not be delayed beyond May Ioth under a penalty of three thousand dollars. The compensation agreed upon for this service was seven thousand dollars, one-half to be paid on the date of starting and the balance when a report was received of the satisfactory completion of the journey. Governor Lewis also agreed that before the departure of the ex- pedition he would not license any other traders to ascend the Missouri higher than the mouth of the Platte.

The expedition actually got off about May 15th, though it may have been as late as June 15th. They got through without mishap. Our old friends, the Rees, were tickled to death to see them and fairly exhausted themselves in hos- pitality. They reached the Mandans on Septem- ber 24th and Big White was finally at home.

The Lewis and Clarke expedition cost the government the sum of two thousand five hun- dred dollars. How much the government in- vested in Big White has never been computed. However, the expensive effort on the part of the government to carry out its contract was most commendable and made an excellent impression upon the Indians.

Two trading posts were established in South Dakota by the Missouri Fur Company, while passing northward on this trip, one on Cedar island, which was probably but the remantling of the Loisell post, and another at the Ree towns.

CHAPTER VIII

THE STORY OF THE ASTORIANS.

If white men made any history in South Dakota in the year 1810 the record of it is so meager as to be scarcely worth mentioning. It will be recalled that the newly incorporated St. Louis, Missouri, Fur Company, when it went up the river in the summer of 1809 to return the Big White to the Mandans, took up a strong party of traders and trappers, located several trading posts and engaged energetically in the fur business on the upper Missouri. They were not very fortunate, had many serious adventures with the Blackfeet, in one of which George Druillard, the Lewis and Clarke guide, was killed. All of this occurred far above South Dakota, but that spring Pierre Menard and Auguste Chouteau returned down the river to St. Louis, whether together or singly is not quite certain, though it appears that they may have gone down at different times. However that may be, Auguste was entrusted with bringing down the small amount of fur secured. He had gathered up such amounts as had been secured at the up- river points and expected to get his largest con- tribution from the Loisell post on Cedar island, just below Pierre, but just as he was arriving there that historic post burned down and with it went up in smoke the entire year's take of furs, estimated to have been worth fifteen thousand dollars. This single circumstance is, so far as any available record reveals, the sole occurrence in South Dakota history for 1810, except that the winter counts of the Dakota Indians recite that "Little Beaver, a white trader, was burned to

death in his trading house on White river (one account says Teton river), which was blown up by an accidental discharge of powder, the de- struction of the house by fire resulting." No verification of this statement has been found.

At this period John Jacob Astor, the million- aire fur merchant of New York,, resolved to ex- tend his operations into the far west. He had previously made overtures to the St. Louis merchants looking to co-operation with them, but the Missourians were resolved to keep the Mis- souri river business within a close corporation and they seem to have been especially fearful of the power of Astor, and therefore refused to as- sociate with him. Astor, however, was a law unto himself and determined to establish at the mouth of the Columbia river a great fur-trading depot from which he could not only command the fur trade of western America, but as well the great Chinese market for furs, at the same time, from his ships, supplying the Russian establish- ments in the Alaska country . with articles of commerce. According to the custom of the time, Mr. Astor made all of the men who were to be active in the management of the enterprise part- ners. These partners were as follows: John Jacob Astor, Wilson Price Hunt, of New Jersey, Alexander McKay, Duncan McDougal, Donald Mckenzie, Ramsey Crooks, Robert Mclellan, Joseph Miller, David Stuart, Robert Stuart and Jolin Clarke. To carry out the great enterprise Mr. Astor fitted out two expeditions, one to go by sea around the cape and another to go by the

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

route of Lewis and Clarke across the continent. The management of the latter was entrusted to Wilson Price Hunt, to be accompanied by Donald McKenzie, Ramsey Crooks, Robert Mc- Lellan and Joseph Miller.

The recruiting of men for the trip was begun at Montreal, continued at Mackinac and com- pleted at St. Louis. At every point the partners experienced the greatest difficulty in securing re- cruits, owing to the opposition of rival fur traders, but finally, in the autumn of 1810, they set out from the latter city and pushed up the Missouri to the vicinity of St. Joe, where they spent the winter. The party consisted of sixty men, forty of whom were French "engages." Their guide and interpreter was Pierre Dorion, the half-breed' son of old Pierre, the guide and interpreter of Lewis and Clarke as far as Yank- ton. It will be recalled that we first made the ac- quaintance of Young Pierre at the council and carouse which the captains' company indulged in at Yankton the Ist of September, 1804. They had a good deal of difficulty in closing the con- tract for the services of this enterprising young South Dakotan, owing to the interference of Manuel Lisa, who, in addition to his outspoken hostility to the Astorians, claimed that Pierre owed him a large sum for whiskey which he had consumed during his visit to St. Louis. Pierre, however, repudiated the debt with characteristic frankness and when Manuel was about to arrest him and hold his body in payment the resourceful Dorion took to the woods and joined the Astorians far up the river. Dorion was ac- companied by his Yankton wife and two hopeful young Dorions. Washington Irving tells of a bit of domestic infelicity in this Dakota house- hold which was not settled according to the mod- ern custom, in the divorce court, and which may, with edification, be recited here: During the winter Mr. Hunt returned to St. Louis to en- deavor to enlist more men; in fact, it was not until this time he secured the services of Dorion. In the spring he was proceeding up the river with his new recruits to join the camp at St. Joe and stopped for three days at Fort Osage, where they secured some new additions to the company

recruited there by Ramsey Crooks. It was on the Ioth of April when they again set out. "They had not proceeded far, however, when there was a great outcry from one of the boats; it was oc- casioned by a little domestic discipline in the Dorion family. The squaw of the worthy interpreter had been so delighted with the scalp dance and other festivities of the Osage village that she had taken a strong inclination to remain there. This had been as strongly opposed by her liege lord, who had compelled her to embark. The good dame had remained sulky ever since, whereupon Pierre, seeing no other method of exorcising the evil spirit out of her and being perhaps a little inspired by whiskey, had re- sorted to the cudgel, and before his neighbors could interfere had belabored her so soundly that there is no record of her having shown any refractory symptoms throughout the remainder of the expedition."

The winter camp was finally broken up on the 27th of April, 1811, and the great trip begun. They embarked in four boats, one of which was of large size and mounted two swivels and a howitzer. All were equipped with masts and sails, to be used when the wind was favorable. The expedition moved along prosperously and without incident affecting Dakota history, arriv- ing at the Omaha village, which was located across the river almost opposite Sioux City, on May 15th, where they were visited by a party of Yanktons who warned them that the Tetons were hostile and were awaiting the approach of this party with the avowed intention of stopping it.

Washington Irving adopts the view most popular at the time that the hostility of the Tetons was excited by the English and there . may have been reason for thinking so. This was but a year prior to the outbreak of the second war with England and all of our relations were strained, and it is certain that a little later the English did have emissaries among the Indians of South Dakota and actually induced some of them to take up arms against the Ameri- cans. Irving says: "The Sioux Tetons were at that time a sort of pirates of the Missouri, who considered the well freighted bark of the Ameri-

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

can trader fair game. They had their own traffic with the British merchants of the northwest, who brought them regular supplies of merchan- dise by the river St. Peters (Minnesota). Being thus independent of the Missouri for their sup- plies, they kept no terms with them, but plun- dered them whenever they had an opportunity. It has been insinuated that they were prompted to these outrages by the British merchants, who wished to keep off all rivals in the Indian trade ; but others allege another and deeper policy. The Sioux, by their intercourse with the British trad- ers, had acquired the use of firearms, which had given them vast superiority over other tribes higher up the Missouri. They had made them- selves also, in a manner, factors for the other tribes higher up the Missouri, supplying them at second-hand and at greatly advanced prices with goods derived from the white men. The Sioux, therefore, saw with jealousy the American traders pushing their way up the Missouri, fore- seeing that the upper tribes would be relieved from all dependence on them for supplies ; nay, what was worse, would be furnished with fire- arms and elevated into formidable rivals."

Usually sound and correct as was Washing- ton Irving in his historical works, he was un- mistakably wrong in his conclusions as to the commercial reasons assigned for the hostility of the Dakota Indians. The political reason is much more plausible. The Sioux were even more remote from the British traders than were the upper Indians. Lewis and Clarke found the upper tribes well supplied with firearms, while the Tetons were very illy furnished, the majority being dependent on the bow and arrow only. The fact was that the Sioux, being no farmers, wore compelled to trade their furs to the agri- cultural Rees and Mandans for corn, which doubly equipped the upper tribes for trade with the English, who reached the Missouri from the Hudson's bay region by way of the Assinoboin. Nor had the river trade suffered among the Sioux in previous years as much as might be inferred from the extract quoted from Irving's account. We have seen how the Lisa, Chouteau and Missouri Fur Company expedition of 1806-

7-8-9 and 1810 had passed through the Sioux country to up-river points without interference, while they had met with constant hostility from the Rees. The only record we have of interfer- ence on the part of the Sioux at any time is the slight trouble the Tetons made Lewis and Clarke at Pierre in 1804, and that they had stopped Mclellan and Crooks in an up-river trip with goods in or about 1808 and had demanded that they should remain and trade with them, but that the traders by a subterfuge had gotten away from them and returned to St. Louis. Irving is him- self the authority for this story, which sounds so much like the experience of the Pryor-Chou- teau set-back by the Rees in 1807, that it is prob- able that Irving has the two propositions mixed. At any rate the facts do not seem to justify the bad distinction which Irving gives to the Dakotas.

For the main facts of what followed we are chiefly indebted to Irving, the general location being determined by relation to certain definite points like the Little Bend at Bon Homme, the mouth of the Niobrara, the Big Bend and such positive locations as are fixed in the narrative supplemented by the journal of Mr. Brecken- ridge, who accompanied Manuel Lisa up that year and was more certain in his geography than is Irving. From every account the expedition entered the Sioux country in great apprehension, so that as far as possible they camped on the islands and were constantly on the lookout for lurking Indian foes. Somewhere between the Sioux and the Jim they met Benjamin Jones and Alexander Carson, two hunters who had been at the head of the Missouri for two years, in all likelihood being of the Missouri Fur Company party who went up with the Big White expedi- tion of 1809. At any rate Hunt hired them and they turned back and were deemed a great acquisition to the force.

Accompanying the expedition were two English naturalists, Messrs. Nuttall and Brad- bury, who had availed themselves of this oppor- tunity to study nature in the wilds of America. Nuttall was an enthusiastic botanist and the flora of the region filled him with delight. His zeal

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

for the collection of botanical specimens, tor which he would make long and dangerous tramps upon the prairie, gave the managers great concern and filled the French rivermen with disgust. When he would come in laden with specimens they were wont to make merry at his expense, regarding him as some whimsical sort of madman. Bradbury was a geologist, but was not so zealous as his companion. He loved sport and was a great hunter. On the morning of May 23d, being at the bend between Springfield and Bon Homme, Bradbury determined to hunt across the bend while the boats were going around, which was quite against the judgment of Mr. Hunt, who, if nothing else, was a very care- ful man. After noon he was accosted by an Indian who immediately drew his bow as if to shoot. Bradbury leveled his gun at the savage, which brought them into a position where they could arbitrate and it was soon discovered that they were both men with good hearts and above guile. The Indian was a Ponca. While they were conversing, three other Poncas arrived and, laying violent hands on Bradbury, demanded that he should accompany them back into the Nebraska hills, but he aroused their curiosity by showing them a pocket compass-a la Captain John Smith-and when they tired of that, ex- hibited to them a small microscope and so en- gaged their attention until the boats arrived when he cordially invited them down to the river to take something, an invitation which they were prompt to accept, thus demonstrating the aptitude of the Ponca for the ways of civilization. The next morning they re-appeared, accompanied by a white man who turned out to be an express from Manuel Lisa, with a message imploring them to wait his arrival that they might join forces for mutual protection through the hostile country. Manuel had started up the river early in the spring, probably with the intention of preceding the Hunt party, at any rate of getting into the Indian country as soon as the Astorians did. Hunt was as afraid of Lisa as he was of Satan and Lisa hated the Astorians and feared they would secure passage through the Indian country at his expense, probably reasoning from

his own conduct under like circumstances. Lisa passed St. Joe nineteen days after the Astorians left and his messenger was dispatched from the Omaha village opposite Sioux City just four days behind them. Manuel Lisa's race up the river is one of the sensational events in early Missouri river history. He had a large keel boat, manned with twenty oarsmen, and he had set out with the determination that he would overtake the Astorians at any cost. Hunt sent back word that he would proceed a short distance further to the Ponca village, at the mouth of the Niobrara. where he would wait for the arrival of Lisa, but no sooner had the' messenger disappeared than he pushed forward with redoubled energy, feeling that he had less to apprehend from the treachery of the Indians than from the strategy of the Spaniard.

That night, May 24th, they camped just north of the Niobrara. The Poncas had given them further information relating to the hostility of the Sioux. They said five bands of the Sioux had united and were then waiting further up stream to intercept the expedition. So terrorized were the men over this report that two men deserted that night. a general pursuit was instituted the next day and although precious time was lost no trace of the deserters was secured. The loss was, however, made good on the morning of the 26th by the appearance of two canoes coming down river and bearing three veteran frontiers- men, Edward Robinson, John Hoback and Jacob Rizner. Robinson was a well-known Ken- tuckian, sixty-six years of age. He was an old Indian fighter of the George Rodgers Clarke era and had been scalped, and therefore habitually wore a handkerchief over his cranium to protect the part. They had been at the headwaters of the Missouri in the employ of the Missouri Fur Company and were now returning to Kentucky, but were persuaded by the generous offer of the Astorians to turn back. It may be noted that the impunity with which these canoemen passed down the river does not bear out the suggestions of the extreme hostility of the Indians. From the advice given them by Robinson and Hoback, Hunt decided to leave the Missouri at the Ree

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

towns and proceed westward by way of Grand river, a route then and later much traveled by the furmen.

On the morning of May 31st, as the party was seated at breakfast at a point somewhere near old Fort Lookout, they felt that all they had feared was to be realized, for two Indians actually appeared on the bluff across the river and harangued them in a loud but, at the distance, unintelligible voice. Hunt and Pierre Dorion went across to see what the fuss was about. The two Indians proved to be scouts of a large war party encamped about three miles away, composed of about six hundred warriors of the Yanktonais, Brules and Minneconjous. They had been waiting eleven days for the ar- rival of the traders, whom they had determined should not go north to trade with their enemies, the Rees and Mandans. Having obtained this in- formation, Hunt and Pierre returned to camp to report. It now appeared that they were certainly in for trouble, but they resolved to put on a bold face and started along, but as they pulled up from behind an island, which at first obstructed the view of the opposite shore. they were appalled to see the hillside covered with savages in war paint, who were pouring down to the river. Their weapons were bows and arrows and a few short carbines, and most of them had round shields. Altogether they had a wild and gallant appear- ance and, taking possession of a point which commanded the river, ranged themselves along the bank as if prepared to dispute their passage. When the voyagers discovered this their decision was instantaneous : they could not afford to temporize nor turn back, neither could they hope to go on without a fight and they therefore re- solved to fight at once. While the Sioux were vastly superior in numbers. the whites were much better armed and, besides, they had the two swivels and howitzer. Everything was placed in fighting trim and the big guns were discharged that the savages might hear them bark, and the fighting men stood up with their rifles at their shoulders. This warlike display and the awful thunder of the little cannon were too much for the Sioux, who instantly swung their buffalo

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History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 10

Author: Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946. cn Publication date: 1904 Publisher: [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen Number of Pages: 998

Author: Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946. cn
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 998