History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 23

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

USA > South Dakota > History of South Dakota, Vol. I > Part 23

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).

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water adjoining. Therefore the settlers, knowing that there must be unanimity of action in the matter, decided with us and on Tuesday morning we began building our fort. We have erected, of sod and logs, a perpendicular wall, eighty feet square, ten feet high, and four feet thick, with a deep ditch surround- ing the exterior base; port holes are arranged every few feet in the walls and an inner platform to stand upon. Also have an enclosure of three acres securely fenced for the herding of cattle. We now feel safe and are determined to resist the Indians and if ne- cessary to fight them. We want to teach them that they cannot every season drive off the settlers on this disputed land. The new settlers, Mr. Goodwin and his wife, have moved into our old cabin, which is now a wing of the store house, and Mrs. Goodwin has made a large flag out of all the old flannel shirts we could find and we now have the stars and stripes proudly waving over Fort Sod. All the property of the place is now deposited with us, including the movable portions of the sawmill machinery.

We are on a military basis, having organized a military company, the undersigned first lieutenant. Sentries and scouting parties do duty day and night. All told, we number thirty-five men for defense, not including the woman, who can shoot as well as any man.

The Dubuque Company's agent, Brookings, whose feet were frozen off last winter, will be brought to our house as soon as the Indians are reported in sight. We feel secure now and could fight six hundred In- dians and, even if the walls could be scaled, which is almost impossible, we could retreat to our store house, which is impregnable.

These Yanktonaise occupy the country northwest towards the British possessions and pretend to claim an interest in all the country. owned and ceded by the Sioux nation. The chiefs who were in Washington last winter are not with them. They have been told that a treaty has been made with the Yanktons, but they will not recognize it until the first payment has been made, and they even threaten to kill the chiefs for making it.

All the troops in this section of the country (Forts Randall and Ridgley) are on the Mormon ex- pedition and the result is the settlers are left to pro- tect themselves.

The news of this Indian difficulty will travel all over the country and we cannot expect any more im- migration this way before next spring; and from all accounts there were large numbers enroute to settle in the Big Sioux valley who will now turn back. I fear immigration will be retarded for sev- eral years.

Four Sissetons came in last night, but hurried off when they heard of the Yanktonaise coming. We

sent letters by them to the agency. Weather hot, ninety odd degrees in the shade.

JAMES M. ALLEN.

There is little left to tell not covered by the above letter. Hisayu was unable to accomplish more with his Yanktonais friends than to induce them to forego bloodshed, provided the settlers left at once. This Major DeWitt and his party at Medary were compelled to do, as we have seen,

SPOTTED TAIL.

first going east into Minnesota and then the Major, with characteristic courage and tenacity of purpose, hurrying around the Indians into Iowa and thence reaching Sioux Falls with needed supplies. The Indians did not carry out their threat of visiting Sioux Falls, doubtless learning of the arrangements for defense there and feeling that they would be unable to prevail against it. The scare, however, not only retarded immigration but discouraged many who were in the settlement so that they went away and the

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that the country was his and he would give them autumn of 1858 found conditions anything but prosperous.

H. L. Back, of Couer d'Alene, Idaho, in a recent letter to Prof. Robert F. Kerr, contributes some additional light upon affairs at Medary at the date named: "The party of us immigrants front Minnesota camped on a small lake, we called it Cottonwood lake, sixteen miles east of Medary. A man came in and reported Indians at Medary. Several of our party, myself in- cluded, left our camp and went to Medary that night. We found fifteen hundred Indians hold- ing a talk with Mr. Dewitt and his men. DeWitt had sixteen men who intended to trap there and hold the town site. Two brothers named Mc- Carty were interpreters. They were from St. Peter, Minnesota. Lean Dog, the chief, told them he and his band never signed any treaty,

until sundown to get out. The squaws were turning the sod back on several acres of potatoes and eating the seed. The plow was thrown in the well and only grub enough for four days allowed to be taken away. We left before sun- down. Mr. DeWitt received the next year six thousand dollars from Indian payment in pay- ment of losses. There was no fight at Medary ; the Indians had no guns; all bows and arrows. Many of them never saw white men before. They were wild and wooly, dressed in buffalo skin complete. Lean Dog and Smutty Bear made brilliant speeches, answered very boldly by a red-headed, undersized lad about twenty, who offered to fight any six Indians there, at which offer the braves smiled. Our party broke up at Cottonwood lake, some going south to Yantkon City and some to Redwood agency."

CHAPTER XXV

THE YANKTON TREATY OF 1858.

The spirit for speculation and the oppor- tunities offered in a new territory induced a powerful pressure to be brought to secure the relinquishment of the Indian title to the soil in . southern South Dakota and this motive was sup- plemented by the reasonable argument that the safety of the Minnesota and Iowa frontiers de- manded that the Indians be brought under reservation control in localities near to military posts. Yielding to this pressure, the Indian office, in 1857, appointed Capt. J. B. S. Todd to negotiate a treaty with the Yanktons for the sale of their lands. The Indians appeared reluctant to trade and sent for Charles F. Picotte, an in- telligent half-Indian son of Honore Picotte, one of the best-known Missouri river traders of the old days, to appear in their behalf, but Todd re- fused to recognize him as the counsel for the Indians. Picotte then sent the Indians away and himself repaired to Fort Pierre, where he re- mained until Todd, in despair, sent for him to come down to Yankton and help him out. Picotte and Zephyr Recontre induced a party of fifteen of the head men, including the famous old chiefs, Struck by the Ree and Smutty Bear, to accompany them to Washington, where a treaty was negotiated on April 19, 1858, by which the Yanktons relinquished all of their lands except four hundred thousand acres reserved for their own occupancy in Charles Mix county. The description of the lands relinquished is as fol- lows: "Beginning at the mouth of the Tchan- kasandata, or Calumet, or Big Sioux river ;

thence up the Missouri river to the mouth of the Pahahwakan or East Medicine Knoll river; thence up said river to its head; thence in a direction to the head of the main fork of the Wandushkahfor, or Snake river; thence down said river to its junction with the Tchan-sansan, or Jacques, or James river ; thence in a direct line to the northern point of Lake Kampęska, thence along the northern shore of said lake and its outlet to the junction of said outlet with the Big Sioux river; thence down the Big Sioux river to its junction with the Missouri river."

The foregoing cession excepted from the lands described the Yankton reservation in Charles Mix county, which was described as follows: "Beginning at the mouth of Nawizi- wakoopah, or Chouteau, river and extending up the Missouri river thirty miles; thence due north to a point, thence easterly to a point on the said Chouteau river, thence down said river to the place of beginning, so as to include the quantity of four hundred thousand acres."

The treaty price for the cession was the sum of one million six hundred thousand dollars, to be paid in annuities during the ensuing fifty years. There were stipulations requiring the Indians to remove within one year to the reser- vation and thereafter to reside there, and pro- vision for the establishment among them of schools, mills, stores and the opening of farms for their use. Charles Picotte and Zephyr Ren- contre, "in consideration of their valuable services and liberality to the Yanktons," were each per-

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mitted to select a section of land which was to them granted in fee, and Paul Dorion, grandson of that Pierre who guided Lewis and Clarke up the Big Muddy, and to Mrs. Charles Reulo, Mrs. Eli Bedaud and Mrs. Augustus Traverse, a half section each. The treaty contained the following provision, which is a matter of controversy to this day :

Article 8. The said Yanktons shall he secured in the free and unrestricted use of the red pipestone quarry or so much thereof as they have been accus- tomed to frequent and use for the purpose of secur- ing stones for pipes; and the United States hereby stipulate and agree to cause to be surveyed and marked so much thereof as shall be necessary for that purpose and retain the same and keep it open and free to the Indians to visit and procure stone for pipes so long as they shall desire."

Under this provision the Indians claim to believe that they actually reserved the quarry to themselves in fee and have a good right to sell and convey the same, a right which the govern- ment disputes and the matter is- the subject of much discussion. Senator Robert J. Gamble, in the senate for 1902, prepared a brief upon the subject in which he ably sustained the contention of the Yanktons.

This treaty led to much dissatisfaction among the Yanktons, who claim the chiefs and delegates had exceeded their powers in making it and fifteen months elapsed before the tribe came to formally ratify it. The opposition ran so high that at times it is said the lives of the signers were imperiled.

The other tribes too took exceptions to it and asserted an interest in the soil which the Yanktons could not alienate; this was particu- larly true of the Yanktonais and the Tetons. As we have seen, the Yanktonais had entered upon a portion of the ceded lands and driven away the settlers at Medary and Sioux Falls who were stopping on the border lands. It is somewhat difficult to arrive at the real contention of these outside tribes, but it appears that from their traditions the Yanktons were the last of the Dakotas to come into the Dakota territory. That they had lost their original lands on the Mis- sissippi and, coming up the Missouri, they were

given a right of occupancy of the ceded lands by- the other Sioux tribes who were joint pro- prietors. The best statement of this proposition is found in a speech by the intelligent old Uncpapa, Bear's Rib, made at Fort Pierre in June, 1859, and is reported by Captain W. F. Reynolds, who heard it and took it down from the interpreter, Jean LaFrambois. Captain Reynolds, by way of preface, says that nine bands of the Sioux contend that the treaty was made without their consent and deny the right of the Yanktons to sell the lands without their per- mission. Bear's Rib said :

My Brother: To whom does this land belong? I believe it belongs to me. Look at me and at the ground. Which do you think is the oldest? The ground, and on it I was born. I have no instruction; I give my own ideas. I do not know how many years. It is much older than I. Here we are. We are nine nations. Here are our principal men gathered to- gether. When you tell us anything we wish to say "yes" to what we like, and you will do the same. There are none of the Yanktons here. Where are they? It is said I have a father (agent), and when he tells me anything I say "yes." And when I ask him anything I want him to say "yes." I call you my brother. What you told me yesterday I believe is true. The Yanktons below us are poor people. I don't know where their land is. I pity them. These lower Yanktons, I know, did own a piece of land, but they sold it long ago. I do not know where they got any more. Since I have been born I do not know who owns two, three, four more pieces of land. When I get land it is all in one piece and we were born and still live on it. These Yanktons, we took pity on them. They had no land; we lent them what they had, to grow corn on it. We gave them a thou- sand horses to keep that land for us. But I never told them to steal it and go and sell it. I call you my brother and I want you to take pity on me, and if any one steals anything from me I want the privi- lege of calling for it. If those men who did it se- cretly had asked me to make a treaty for its sale I should not have consented. We who are here all un- derstand each other, but I do not agree that they should steal the land and sell it. If the white people want my land and I should give it to them where should I stay. I have no place else to go. * * * * * * I hear that a reservation has been kept for the Yanktons below. I will speak again on this subject. If you were to ask me for a piece of land I would not give it. I cannot spare it and I like it very much. All this country on each side of the river belongs to me. I know that from the Missis-

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sippi to this river the country all belongs to us and that we have traveled from the Yellowstone to the Platte. All this country, as I have said, is ours. If you, my brother, was to ask me for it I would not give it to you, for I like it and I hope you will listen to me.

Luckily no serious trouble grew out of the counter-claim of the "nine bands," but among themselves the Yanktons were sorely wrought up. With characteristic inconsistency, Old Smutty Bear, now an old man who had for fifty years or more enjoyed distinction as a head man (he signed the treaty of 1825 and was present at the Grand Traverse in 1815, when the Chou- teau-Edwards treaty was negotiated at the in- stance of Captain Clarke), although he was one of the delegates to Washington and helped make and sign the treaty of 1858, took up the cause of the malcontents and led in the opposition to the ratification. In 1858 he was in the party of Yanktonaise who drove Major DeWitt away from Medary and there openly repudiated the treaty. Council after council was held over the matter in the tribe, Smutty Bear opposing and Struck by the Ree favoring ratification. The Yanktons were gathered at Yankton in July, 1859, ready to remove to the reservation, but still discussing and fighting the treaty, when Smutty Bear, understanding the power of long association over the Indian mind, was harangue-

ing his people against giving up the hunting grounds of their fathers and the graves of their relatives, when Major Redfield, the agent for the Yanktons, came along upon the steamboat "Wayfarer," which was loaded to the guards with goods for the Indians, and proceeded along up river to the reservation and the present lo- cation of the Yankton agency. This was an argument which quite overbalanced the eloquence of Smutty Bear; the tribe followed along the banks and arrived at the agency as soon as did the agent with the goods, and so the ratification of the treaty was complete, and, to the great credit of the Yanktons, it must be said that its terms were never broken by them as a tribe, but were faithfully observed, and to the fidelity and friendliness of these people the settlers of South Dakota owe a large debt of gratitude.

Whatever injustice to the other tribes may have been involved in the action of the Yanktons in disposing of their lands, the others, after a good deal of growling, as 'has been indicated, acquiesced in the sale and there is no record that the question was ever again raised. Later all of the other bands accepted specific reservations and relinquished all outlying lands or claims thereto and so it came about that the title to all of South Dakota from the state line to the Missouri river, as far north as Pierre and Watertown, was quieted in the general government.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE BEGINNING OF POLITICS.

It is fair to assert that the settlement at Sioux Falls was very largely actuated by political motives. This is essentially true of the St. Paul party, represented in the Dakota Land Company, which was composed almost exclusively of politicians who had enjoyed the perquisites of territorial patronage in Minnesota and sought enlarged opportunities in the Dakotaland.

Minnesota was admitted to statehood May 29, 1858, and on that very day Alpheus G. Fuller presented his credentials, signed by the officers of "Midway county in Dakota territory," con- stituting him the delegate to congress from Dakota territory, and, as such delegate, de- manded a seat. This demand was contested by W. W. Kingsbury, the regularly elected dele- gate to congress from Minnesota territory, and the whole matter was referred to the committee on elections and privileges and was the subject of majority and minority reports. Chairman T. L. Harris, on behalf of the majority, reported that the admission of Minnesota state had not destroyed Minnesota territory so far as it per- tained to that portion thereof not within the boundaries of the state of Minnesota, and there- fore that Kingsbury was entitled to the seat. Representative Gilmer, for the minority, reported favorably to the claims of Fuller, but the majority report was promptly adopted, thus determining the political status of the Dakota country during the period from the admission of Minnesota, on May 29, 1858, to the creation of Dakota ter- ritory, on March 2, 1861. Fuller, however, re-

mained at Washington during the winter of 1859-60, lobbying for the creation of Dakota as a territory.

The ambitious settlers at Sioux Falls, how- ever, were too active and too persistent to permit their political ardor to be subdued by any ad- verse action of congress ; therefore they called a mass convention of the citizens of Dakota to meet at Sioux Falls on September 18, 1858. This convention was duly held, but unfortunately the record of its proceedings has been lost. Its important action, however, was the calling of a general election. The notice for this election is said to have been the first piece of printing ever executed in Dakota, and was in the following form :

ELECTION NOTICE.

At a mass convention of the people of Dakota territory held in the town of Sioux Falls, in the coun- ty of Big Sioux, on Saturday, September 18, 1858, all portions of the territory being represented, it was resolved and ordered that an election should be held for members to compose a territorial legislature.

In pursuance of said resolution, notice is hereby given that on Monday, the fourth day of October next, at the house of the town of in the county of .. an election will be held for

members of the council, and ....

.members of the house of representa- tives for said legislature.

The polls will open at nine o'clock in the morn- ing and close at four o'clock in the afternoon of said day.

Dated at this 20th day of September, A. D. 1858.

(Dakota Democrat Print, Sioux Falls City.)

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Judge Bailey, in his History of Minnehaha County, thus describes the manner of holding and conducting this momentous election : "With the thirty or forty souls who composed the popu- lation at that time, it required considerable ingenuity to arrange matters and the elections were conducted in a somewhat peculiar manner. We learn from one of the members that on the morning of the election the whole population organized into parties of three or four, elected each other judges and clerks of election, and then started off with their teams for a pleasure trip, and wherever a rest was taken, which occurred frequently, an election precinct was established and tlie votes not only of the party, but of their uncles, cousins, relatives and friends were cast, until as a result of the election the total of several hundred votes was rolled up and properly certified to."

Unfortunately no record of the membership or transactions of the legislature so elected has been left to us. We only know that a session was held, that it was conducted "with dignity and decorum," and that it elected Samuel J. Albright speaker of the house and Henry Masters president of the council and at the close of the session Henry Masters was duly elected and inaugurated "Governor of Dakota Terri- tory." The session also memorialized congress for the recognition of the territory. It has been stated that Alpheus G. Fuller was elected dele- gate to congress by this session, but, as has been seen, he derived his title from an appointment made months before by the officers of "Midway county."

Samuel J. Albright had been chief clerk of the last session of the legislature of Minnesota territory, which concluded its sessions just as the state was admitted, and when he came to the speakership of the Dakota legislature that illustrious body found themselves in the wilder- ness without a manual of parliamentary pro- cedure until Speaker Albright, in digging over his bag of "perquisites" inherited from his re- lations with the Minnesota solons, came upon a copy of Jefferson's Manual, indelibly inscribed : "Property of Minnesota Territory," which he

brought into the Dakota body and it was duly adopted to govern the deliberations of that august assembly. This copy of Jefferson's Manual has come into the collections of the State Historical Society and may now be seen at the capitol.

"Congressman" Fuller, if he failed of his mission to create Dakota territory, at least was successful in getting a postoffice established at Sioux Falls, the first in Dakota. James M. Allen was appointed postmaster and he opened the office in the stone building of the Dakota Land Company.

Two elements militated against the organiza- tion of Dakota territory at this time, the first being the slavery question. The determination of the South to so arrange matters that they could carry their slaves into any new territory and the determination of the North to keep all new territory as free soil; and the second being the more potent opposition of the Missouri river traders, particularly represented by Frost, Todd & Company to prevent the organization of the territory until the Yankton treaty was ratified and the land opened to settlement, that they might have a chance at the capital location. The election of 1858 had resulted in returning a Re- publican congress. Captain J. B. S. Todd, the political end of Frost, Todd & Company, was a non-partisan, while the entire Sioux Falls con- tingent was Democratic, and this situation prob- ably had something to do with the defeat of their long and well-laid plans.

It will be noted that the election notice above reproduced purports to have been printed by the Dakota Democrat. Now it was part of the plan of St. Paul men to establish a newspaper in Dakota that it might secure the territorial printing, but in point of fact, while the material was already on the ground, the Dakota Democrat was not established for more than nine months after the printing of the notice of the election mentioned. It is, however, worth while to state that a com- plete printing plant was brought to Dakota as carly as the summer of 1858 and too that the press in question enjoyed a most unique history. The press was a Washington, of the Smith pat-

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tern, manufactured in Cincinnati, Ohio, by Charles Mallett. It was purchased of the manu- facturer in 1834 by John King. In the spring of 1836 King brought it to Dubuque, Iowa, and the first paper in Iowa, "The Visitor," was es- tablished and printed upon it. In 1842 Gen. H. A. Wiltse bought the press and removed it to Lancaster, Grant county, Wisconsin, where he established the first newspaper in western Wis- consin, the Grant County Herald, and it was printed upon this press. Wiltse sold the press to J. M. Goodhue, who, in the spring of 1849, re- moved it to St. Paul, Minnesota, and established and printed upon it the Minnesota Pioneer, the first newspaper in Minnesota, and which has been continued to this day in the well-known St. Paul Pioneer Press. In 1858 Samuel J. Albright, Samuel Medary, late governor of Minnesota ter- ritory, and Col. John Harmon, of Detroit, Michigan, purchased the press and a full printing outfit and removed it to Sioux Falls where it was kept about one year, that is until July 2, 1859, when the Dakota Democrat was established and printed upon it. It continued in this service with more or less regularity until the Indian out- break of 1862 drove the settlers from Sioux Falls, when the old press was abandoned. The Indians, during the absence of the settlers,

amused themselves by breaking it up as far as they could do so without too great effort and left the fragments lying on the rocks where they were found by the soldiers in 1865. The platen was not broken and when Hon. R. F. Pettigrew came to the Falls in 1870 he appropriated it for a door- step to his house, but during his absence one day some one carried it off. Many years later, while out in the county upon a political campaign, lie discovered it doing service as a doorstep to the home of Mr. Hiram Caldwell, a few miles from Sioux Falls, and he paid Mrs. Caldwell five dollars to induce her husband to return it to him. Mr. Caldwell delivered the platen at Senator Pet- tigrew's house in Sioux Falls and he still has it in his possession. Judge F. W. Pettigrew se- cured the spindle to the old press and that is in the extensive collection of specimens and curios which he made and left to his children. There has been much contention as to the identity of this press, several claims being made for its possession by publishers in Minnesota and Wis- consin, but the facts above stated have been established by this writer beyond any question of doubt and are given as the true history of this historic press. Tlie story of the first Dakota newspaper venture is of sufficient interest to merit a seperate chapter.

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History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 23

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