History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 13

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

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The first official notice of LaFramboise is that he obtained a license to trade with the Indians on the waters of the Minnesota river, from the United States Indian agent at Mackinaw, on August 22, 1822. To have traded on the Missouri in 1817 he must have had a license from General Clarke at St. Louis, but no such license was issued. If the Wisconsin record of his birth is correct, the license which he se- cured in 1822 must have been issued when he was seventeen years of age, a rather precocious age for an independent trader. Joseph, Jr., says his father told him he left school when he was fifteen and at once entered the employment of Joseph Rolette at Prairie du Chien. The fair conclusion from all the evidence seems to be that the Wisconsin date is mistaken and that La-

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

Framboise at a very early age did engage in trade on the Missouri some time before 1820 and did, in 1822, under the license to trade on the waters of the Minnesota, locate and trade at Flandreau, his record thereafter being well established. It is fair to conclude that his sojourn on the Mis- souri was very brief and probably unlicensed. Joseph, Jr., says that many times in his child- hood he visited the old post at Flandreau and when he was a young man portions of the old building still remained. This testimony is cor- roborated by Greyfoot and other of the older Indians who also were familiar with the ruins of the Flandreau post. It appears too that the set- tlement made by LaFramboise at Pierre was thereafter continuous, being the oldest continuous settlement within the state and that fact has given to its founder a conspicuousness which is, save for that, unjustified by anything which he really accomplished. As the founder of the first continuous settlement, then, it is worth noting that LaFramboise came of a family long noted on the frontier. His grandfather, Alexis La- Framboise, was a pioneer at Macinaw as early as 1780 and his father, Francois, was trading at Milwaukee in 1802. Francois was a man of education, refinement and great piety. He mar- ried a half Ottawa girl named Madaline Marcotte. In 1809, when Joseph was but a young boy, the family was trading near Grand Haven, Michigan, when one evening, as the father was on his knees engaged in his prayers, he was shot and killed by a treacherous Winnebago. The Ottawa mother, who was a woman of unusual determina- tion and strength of character, took up the busi- ness where her husband left it and carried it forward with great success and soon became the manager of the great Astor interests at Macinaw. She educated her children and, although she had been without early opportunities for education, after she was fifty taught herself to read and before her death became proficient in French literature. Her highly accomplished daughter Josette, sister of the Dakota frontiersman, mar- ried Captain Benjamin K. Pierce, an officer of the United States army and a brother of Presi- dent Franklin Pierce. Of the subject of this

sketch, the son Joseph, who built the post at Fort Pierre, the Collections of the Wisconsin Historical Society, which deal copiously with his parents, give very little information. We learn that he had a college education and that through all of his sojourn in the western wilderness he kept with him a small but choice collection of books which he read dilligently. Catlin speaks of him as a gracious host and a delightful com- panion. Catlin found him trading on the south side of the Lynd woods in 1836, near the Red- wood river, in what is now Lyon county, Min- nesota, and LaFramboise accompanied the artist on his famous pioneer trip to the Pipestone quarry.

While trading on the Des Moines in 1828, LaFramboise married a daughter of the old Sis- seton chief Walking Day, who was a brother of Sleepy Eyes. This wife became the mother of Joseph, Jr., who was born at Bear Lake, Murray county, Minnesota, in 1829. She soon died and thereafter he married, successively, two daughters of Sleepy Eyes and the last of these having previously died he, in 1845, married Jane Dick- son, a daughter of Col. Robert Dickson.

The son Joseph, Jr., still resides at Veblin, Marshall county, South Dakota. He grew up as a member of his mother's tribe and in the times of the great massacre of 1862 distinguished him- self in behalf of the white settlers and the prisoners taken by Little Crow.

By 1820 the Missouri Fur Company had at least two posts in South Dakota, one of which was doubtless on American island and the other on Cedar island ; they are spoken of as being just above and just below the big bend. That year the Ree Indians came down on a raid and robbed both of these houses. There is no record that they engaged in any bloodshed at this time.

It was not until about 1821 that a general revival of the fur trade occurred in the Dakota country. This was largely brought about by the amalgamation of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Nor'westers, which resulted in turning loose a large number of experienced hunters and traders who drifted down from the British possessions into the less occupied American

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

country, and, being energetic and adventurous men, they soon had large enterprises in operation. The first of these was the Columbia Company, which came nearer to being a South Dakota enterprise pure and simple than any other which ever operated in this locality. They established their chief post and general depot of supplies on Lake Traverse. This post was located on the Minnesota side at the head of Lake Traverse, not very far from the present site of Brown's valley. Major Long's party visited it in 1823 and speak of the hospitality with which they were enter- tained. At the same date the American Fur Company had a post at the foot of Big Stone lake in charge of Henry Moers ; this post was established soon after the Columbia entered the field and was intended to counteract the influence of the Columbia, but the latter from the very inception was too large and too energetic to be injured by competition ; it was to live to make its opponents wince, for in 1826 Ramsey Crooks declared that the Columbia was "injuring the business of the American to the extent of ten thousand dollars per annum at the least."

Joseph Renville, the half-breed captain who enlisted the Sissetons in the English service, was the founder of this company. After the war England gave him. a pension and he was em- ployed by the Hudson's Bay Company. This compelled him to live north of the national boundary, for he could not live on American soil and draw an English pension. Rather than to be exiled from his loved Dakota land he gave up his pension and moved home, settling on Lake Traverse, and his operations were so successful that by 1812 he was doing a large business all over the west. When the amalgamation of the two big British companies threw a lot of his old companions out of employment he invited Kenneth Mckenzie and William Laidlaw to join him in business and they organized the Columbia Fur Company, as before stated. Captain Chit- tenden says: "The capital of the Columbia Fur Company was not large, but the partners were all bold, experienced and enterprising men. They rapidly extended their trade over a large tract of country. Their principal establishment was at

Lake Traverse, almost on the divide between two important rivers, the St. Peters and the Red River of the North. Another post was at Prairie du Chien, on the Mississippi, and a third as far east as Green bay on the western shore of Lake Michigan. The most important outposts, how- ever, were on the Missouri river. In 1823 James Kipp and a Mr. Tilton visited the Mandans, where they conducted trade until 1827. The necessary supplies were brought from Fort Traverse." The most important of the Columbia Fur Company's posts on the Missouri was just above the mouth of the Teton river, or Little Missouri as it was then called. It bore the name of Fort Tecumseh. At the same time the Ameri- can Fur Company had a post there, but its name is not now known. Fort Lookout, eight miles above American island, was another Columbia Fur Company post and Fort Kiowa, the Ameri- can Fur Company's post, stood very near to it. The Columbia also had posts at the mouths of the Niobrara, James and Vermilion rivers, and it is very probable that the post which Joseph La- Framboise conducted at this period on the Sioux at Flandreau, was really an outpost of the Colum- bia's. At this time too the Missouri Fur Com- pany, Manuel Lisa being dead, had passed into the control of Joshua Pilcher and had built at least one additional post in Dakota, Fort Re- covery, on American island. It is not impossible that Recovery is the post referred to by Manuel Lisa in his letter of resignation as being "at the Sioux, six hundred miles further still." It is suggested that after the burning of the Loisell post on Cedar island in 1810, in which the com- pany lost fifteen thousand dollars' worth of fur, that they rebuilt on American island and for an apparent reason called the new plant Recovery. On this point the record is obscure. At any rate Fort Recovery was built by the Missouri Fur Company prior to 1823.

The Rocky Mountain Fur Company was also in the South Dakota field at this time, with at least one post, which was situated at the mouth of White river and called Fort Brasseaux. The Rocky Mountain was organized in 1822 by Gen. William H. Ashley and his principal partner was

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

Maj. Andrew Henry. The intention of the com- pany was to trade chiefly at the head of the Missouri and beyond, but it also aspired to a portion of the Sioux trade. Major Henry left St. Louis for up-river about April 15, 1822. He had two keel boats heavily laden with merchan- dise, but near Franklin, Missouri, one struck a snag and was lost with more than ten thousand dollars' worth of goods. He went on with the other, and probably left a party with goods to build Fort Brasseaux at the White river. He

reached the headwaters of the river and spent the winter there. The Missouri Fur Company sent a party also to the head of the river the summer of 1822 and from all accounts, though we have little detailed information that is definite about the South Dakota field, it must, with the Columbia, American, Missouri, and Rocky Mountain Fur Companies, in addition to several private outfits trading here at that time, have been an exceedingly active year in primitive South Dakota.

CHAPTER XI

THE CONQUEST OF THE REE INDIANS.

It is noteworthy that, while before the be- ginning of the nineteenth century the Sioux In- dians occupied alnost the entire South Dakota country and the Rees had been driven to occupy a little patch near the north line of the present state, not more than a single township in extent, still, as will be seen from the preceding chapters, by far the larger portion of the history of South Dakota down to 1825 had to do with this little, fast diminishing band of Rees. For convenience, and in the absence of a better name, the home of the Rees. comprising three villages on the west bank of the Missouri, about six miles above the mouth of Grand river, will in the following nar- rative be called Arickara, thus avoiding the con- stant repetition of the term "Ree villages."

As will be seen from the preceding chapter, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company was organized at St. Louis in 1822 and that summer Maj. Andrew Henry, representing the new company, took an expedition to the mountains, where he remained over winter on the Yellowstone. The same summer General Ashley, for the company, took a boat load of goods to the mouth of the Yellowstone and then returned to St. Louis for the winter of 1822-3. That winter he advertised in the Missouri Republican for a hundred en- terprising young men to accompany him to the headwaters of the Missouri river. Through this advertisement he drew about him ninety young mncn. many of whom were to become identified as leading spirits in Missouri river history dur- ing a long term of years.

March 10, 1823, General Ashley started with this expedition up river. He had ninety men and the large keel boat "Yellowstone," loaded with goods for the Indian trade. About the time he started from St. Louis, the Rees from Arickara came down the river to the post of the Missouri Fur Company, probably Fort Recovery, though it may have been a post above the big bend, where they robbed a party of traders, and finally, one hundred fifteen strong, attacked the trading house, but were repulsed with the loss of two killed, including the son of a principal chief, and several others severely wounded.

General Ashley had been on the river more than ten weeks when, on May 30th, they reached Arickara, where it was his intention to buy horses and send about half of the party to the mountains by the Grand river route, while with the remainder he intended to proceed up river with the boat. The Rees met the General in the most friendly spirit and desired him to stop and trade with them. He communicated his purpose to them and they were highly delighted and at once called a council to fix upon the price of the thirty or forty horses which Ashley desired to buy. That afternoon they met Ashley on the sand beach before the town and having agreed on a price they entered into a trade. The Rees alluded to the scrap down at the Missouri Fur Com- pany's post and expressed deep regret for the oc- currence. They said that they considered Ameri- cans as their friends and that they had and would furnish as many horses as Ashley wished to buy

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

at the price named. All day the 31st of May and June Ist the trading was kept up, when the req- uisite number of horses had been secured. Ar- rangement's were then made for forty of the men to go across country with the horses and plans were laid for an early start. The overland party left the boat and camped on the evening of the Ist about forty yards from the boats. The re- lations with the Indians continued to be of the most cordial nature.

At three o'clock on the morning of the 2d, just as the sky was clearing from a heavy thunder storm, General Ashley was awakened from his bed in the cabin of the "Yellowstone" with the in- formation that the Rees had attacked the land party and killed one man and that they were evidently preparing to attack the boats. He arose to find the men already under arms, in which situation they waited until sunrise when the Indians began a well-directed fire from the picket- ing of the town and from the adjoining ravine. Their shot were principally directed against the men on the beach, who were making a desperate resistance, using the bodies of the horses which had already been killed as breastworks. The Indians were so well protected that the return shot manifestly did little execution. General Ashley then laid the big boats well up to the shore, and sent off two skiffs for the purpose of embarking the men, but they were fighting stub- bornly and refused to give way to the Indians and therefore did not promptly avail themselves of the opportunity to get away afforded them. The fight lasted but fifteen minutes, but so des- perate was it that at its close twelve men lay dead and eleven others severely wounded, at least one of them mortally. The killed were John Matthews, John Collins, Aaron Stevens, James McDaniel, Westley Piper, George Flage, Benja- min F. Sweed, James Penn, Jr., John Miller, John S. Gardner, Ellis Ogle, David Howard. Stevens was killed in the fort at the time General Ashley was first aroused. The wounded were Reece Gibson, who died next day, Joseph Monse, John Lawson, Abraham Ricketts, Robert Tucker, Joseph Thompson, Jacob Miller, Daniel McLain, Hugh Glass, August Duffier, Willis, a colored

man. General Ashley thought that not more than seven or eight Indians were killed by the white men.

The foregoing is in effect General Ashley's account of the facts surrounding the massacre. Captain Chittenden throws the following addi- tional light upon it : "It should be stated, though Ashley makes no mention of it, that he was warned at this time (while the trading was still in progress) to be on his guard. His interpreter, the noted Edward Rose, cautioned him that from signs apparent to those versed in Indian wiles trouble of some sort was brewing. Ashley seems to have been about as suspicious of Rose as Hunt had been twelve years before and with just as little reason. He rejected Rose's advice to moor the boats for the night against the bar at the opposite side of the river and not only remained near the shore next to the villages, but even left his land party encamped on the beach. Among the latter were Smith, Sublette and Jackson ; this party numbered forty men and had with them all the horses they had purchased.

"The lower village where Ashley was en- camped was on the convex bend of the river with a large sand bar in front, forming nearly two- thirds of a circle. Between the bar and the shore on which the village stood ran the river. At the head of the bar the channel was very narrow and here the Indians had built a timber breastwork which entirely commanded the river. There were indications that a party of Indians was concealed on the opposite bank of the river at a point where the channel, just above the upper river, ran near the east shore.

"As soon as the firing commenced Ashley undertook to have the horses swum across to a submerged sandbar on the other side of the river, but before he accomplished anything the fire be- came so destructive that he abandoned the at- tempt. He then undertook to move his keel boats in shore a distance of only ninety feet in order to take on the men, but the boatmen were so panic- stricken that they refused to expose themselves in the least degree. Ashley then managed to get two skiffs ashore capable of holding about thirty men, but the land party was so determined not to

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

yield that only seven men, four of whom were wounded, took advantage of the opportunity. The small skiff, with two men wounded, one mortally, made for the opposite shore. The large skiff, after transferring its five men to the keel boat, was sent back, but before it reached the shore one of the men handling it was shot down and in some way the boat got adrift. The men on shore, seeing the uselessness of further re-

In fact the men promptly joined in a resolution to desert, but Ashley finally induced them to descend the river to some point not identified, but prob- ably about the mouth of the Moreau, where they fortified and awaited reinforcements. It is prob- able that the dead men were brought to near this camp for burial.

General Ashley at once sent an express to Major Henry, on the Yellowstone, with informa-

COL. HENRY LEAVENWORTH.

sistance, returned to the river and swam to the boats : several who tried to reach the boats after being wounded drowned."

General Ashley's first purpose was to push by the towns and go on to join Henry on the Yellowstone, but to his surprise and mortification he found his men, with a few exceptions, so panic- stricken that they positively refused to attempt to pass the towns without large reinforcements.

tion of the massacre and to warn him of his danger. This despatch was carried by Jedediah S. Smith, a boy of eighteen at the time, who was on his first trip up the river. Before starting he made an eloquent prayer, which was the first recorded act of worship within South Dakota. Smith made the trip to the Yellowstone, whence he returned to St. Louis and by the 10th of August was back at Arickara, having doubled

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HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

the Missouri river from the mouth of the Yel- lowstone, a distance of four thousand miles, in seventy days, at a time when there was no mode of traveling faster than a skiff or an Indian pony.

Ashley sent another express to Fort Atkinson, near Omaha, informing Colonel O'Fallon, the Indian agent on the Missouri, of the outbreak of the Rees and asking for assistance in punishing the miscreants. He must have suffered desertions, for he says he has but twenty-three effective men. He remained in the vicinity of his camp until Major Henry arrived, about the first of July. When Henry reached Arickara, when coming down, the Indians showed every evidence of friendship and begged him to stop, but he was too wary to be caught.

Ashley's express to Fort Atkinson reached that post on June 18th. It is hard to account for this long delay in reaching Atkinson, when the need for speed was so urgent ; it is very manifest that a man of Jedediah Smith's energy was not entrusted with it. At that date Colonel Henry Leavenworth was in command at Fort Atkinson, which was garrisoned by the Sixth Infantry. Leavenworth, being far from any superior of- ficer, was compelled to act upon his own judg- ment, and leaving the fort under the command of Major William S. Foster, with four companies, gathered up companies A, B, D, E, F and G, and on June 22d started up river with three keel boats laden with subsistence, ammunition and two six- pound cannon. It was before the day of steam- boats. The water was high and winds unfavor- able, so that the only means of propelling the boat was by the cordelle, and to do this the men were compelled to wade, much of the time in deep water. On the 27th they were overtaken by Joshua Pilcher, who after the death of Manuel Lisa became the manager of the Missouri Fur Company ; Pilcher was upon the annual up-river excursion of the company, with two loads of merchandise. At Fort Atkinson, hearing of the Ree outbreak, he had taken on a howitzer ; after joining the Leavenworth party on the 27th he continued in company with it. O'Fallon also made him special sub-agent for the Missouri river Indians. Majors Ketchum and Wooley were to

follow by land and overtake the river party at some upper point.

It was the 3d of July when the expedition reached Yankton, where a distressing accident occurred resulting in the drowning of Sergeant Samuel Stackpole and six privates, through the upsetting of a boat upon a submerged tree. They also lost all of the pork brought for subsistence and fifty-seven muskets. The boat was lost. Pilcher came to their assistance and took on such supplies as were saved, until, on the 6th, they met Bernard Pratte with a government boat which he had borrowed to bring out some furs, and taking this craft they were able to relieve the other boats and proceed. On the night of the 8th, again they met with misfortune in a severe gale which came suddenly and without warning at ten o'clock in the evening. The "Yellowstone" was sunk and much property lost, including more muskets. The boat was little injured and they righted her and were able to start again on the IIth. At ten o'clock on the morning of July 19th they reached Fort Recovery, on American island, near Chamberlain. They remained there until the 22d, reorganizing and rearming their men, which they were able to do through the kindness of the fur companies, who loaned them rifles from their stocks kept for sale to the Indians. At Fort Recovery the men were sub- jected to regular inspection and drill. From this point, too, Leavenworth and Pilcher wrote' ex- tended letters reporting upon the progress of the expedition and of affairs at the head of the river respectively. At Fort Recovery about six hundred Yankton and Teton Sioux volunteered to join the expedition and to share in the fast diminishing rations.

On the 22d the expedition proceeded on its way and that day, at Fort Kiowa, eight miles up river, they were joined by Majors Ketchem and Wooley. On the 31st they were enabled to add to their supplies two thousand pounds of buffalo beef in exchange for ten gallons of whiskey. It seems that this whiskey was traded to the Unc- papas, but this is not certain. The next day they arrived at General Ashley's camp, where he tendered to them a company of eighty men.

IOI

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

Pilcher also tendered the services of forty men. Each tender was accepted and organized in a separate company with officers nominated for each by Ashley and Pilcher respectively. The officers of Ashley's company were Jedediah Smith, cap- tain ; Hiram Scott, Hiram Allen and George C. (David E.) Jackson, lieutenants ; Charles Cun- ningham and Edward Rose, ensigns ;

Fleming, surgeon ; T. Fitzpatrick, quartermaster ; William Sublette, major. The Missouri Fur Company men were officered as follows, upon nomination of Mr. Pilcher : William H. Vander- burgh, captain ; Angus McDonald, as captain for the Indian volunteers ; Moses Carson and William Gordon, lieutenants. It will be observed that almost every one of these men became famous in the annals of the frontier. The united parties were denominated the Missouri Legion. Of course this auxiliary force was not amenable to martial law, but each pledged his honor to obey the orders of Colonel Leavenworth.

They proceeded up the stream and on the night of August 8th camped fifteen miles below Arickara. At this time the force consisted of officers and men as follows: Leavenworth's de- tachment of the Sixth Regulars, two hundred and fifteen men; Missouri Legion, volunteers under General Ashley, one hundred and twenty men : Indian volunteers, under general super- vison of Joshua Pilcher as special sub-agent, seven hundred and fifty men in all, making a total strength of one thousand and eighty-five, but, as will later appear, the Indian strength was worse thar useless. The effective strength of Leaven- worth was the three hundred and thirty-five white men, fairly well armed and provided with two six- pounders and a howitzer. The troops were now disembarked to go by land, moving up the west side of the river, Major Wooley being detailed to bring up the boats.

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History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 13

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