History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 32

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 32

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Company F, Yankton, forty-one men. W. W. Benedict, captain; C. G. Irish and W. Lean- ing, lieutenants.

Company G, Elk Point, eighty-five men. Harvey Fairchild, captain.

Company H, Brule Creek, eighty men. Thomas C. Watson, captain ; W. H. H. Fate and H. J. Coykendall, lieutenants.

Since the outbreak of 1862 the Sisseton and Wahpeton Indians had been without an abiding place, or means of support, except the precarious chances of the chase, save that until the close of the war a large number of them were em- ployed by the government as scouts. During the winter of 1866-7 Gabriel Renville and others of the head men visited Washington and on the 19th of February entered into a treaty, which was proclaimed on the 2d of the following May, by the terms of which they secured the "flatiron" reservation on the coteau between Lake Kamp- eska and Lake Traverse. The treaty provided that the Sissetons and Wahpetons should entirely give up the chase and subsist themselves by agri- culture, the government agreeing to supplement their efforts, if found necessary, with provisions, and also agreed to supply schools. The Indians were to receive no goods, money or supplies from the government except in payment for labor performed. An agency was to be established and maintained for their benefit. The majority of the tribe were already residing upon the reservation tract or at Fort Wadsworth, adjoining, and they

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at once entered upon their lands. They made good progress in the schools, but accomplished very little in an agricultural way, nor have they done much to cultivate their lands to this day.

It required but little in those days to create an Indian scare and when, on August 17th, seven Yankton Indians visiting Yankton were killed in their tepee by a bolt of lightning many of the timid ones confidently expected the tribe would visit its vengeance upon the whites for the loss of its fellows.

That summer the historic International Hotel at Yankton, which was opened by Henry C. Ash on Christmas day, 1859, passed into the possession of James Witherspoon. He had be- come opulent upon the turning of the land con- test in his favor. He paid seven thousand dollars for the property, which was the largest private trade which up to that date had been made in the settlement.

The grasshoppers made another raid upon the harvest and what had promised to be the best crop yet produced was very nearly destroyed in a day. From a "boom letter," written by Thomas C. Watson, of Brule Creek, and pub- lished by direction of the legislature, we get an idea of the extent to which farming was car- ried on at that period. The presentment is really pathetic when viewed by the acreage of modern days. Mr. Watson himself boasts a spread of thirteen acres of wheat. He seems to have placed his eggs all in one basket, but his neighbor, Ira Seward, was a diversifier. He had three and one-half acres of wheat, the same of oats and twelve acres of corn. Julius Fletcher was likewise a corn man, with one of his thirteen acres devoted to that cereal, the remainder being in wheat. John Reams and Caleb Cummings were the bonanza farmers of the locality, with twenty-eight and twenty acres of wheat, respect- ively. Hopkins Lutes had five acres of wheat and four of oats, and so the crops of the district ranged. The legislative committee, to gather agricultural statistics, announces that "Governor Edmunds has the largest flock of sheep in the territory. He has about seventeen hundred of

the best kind of fine wooled sheep, brought three years ago from Michigan."

Notwithstanding the hardships through which the people had come, educational interests were not neglected. There were now twenty- nine organized school districts in the territory and seven private schools. Five hundred eighty- one children were regularly attending school. The first teachers' institute held in the territory was opened at Elk Point on November 11th and continued five days. The instructors were Rev. Thomas Stuart, E. C. Collins (father of the late superintendent of public instruction of South Dakota), Henry W. McNiell and James S. Fos- ter; Hon. W. W. Brookings and S. L. Spink delivered lectures. The attendance is not given, but Superintendent Foster says it was not large.

The report of the territorial auditor shows in detail the warrants issued during the year, the total being three hundred seventy-two dollars and sixty cents. The auditors and treasurers' annual salaries were fifty dollars each and the hard-working superintendent of public instruc- tion. who really was exerting himself to perfect the school system and was tireless in behalf of the schools, reecived twenty dollars per year.

Too much credit cannot be given to the legis- lators of those early days for their conservatism in the matter of finances. They had it in their power to have involved Dakota in debts which would have been a tax upon the people even to this day, but they paid as they went along and at the end of the first fifteen years of territorial life it was the proud boast of the people that Dakota territory did not owe any one a cent. Listen to the ring of the boast in the concluding item in the report of Moses K. Armstrong, ter- ritorial treasurer for 1867: "Assets in treasury above all outstanding indebtedness, $14.85." The outstanding indebtedness to which he refers is the sum of $13.89, due upon a warrant issued and not yet presented for payment.

The year 1867 was an off one in politics, only a legislature being elected, and that without ex- citing any special interest. Colonel Moody and

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Colonel Jolly appeared as members of the house, their first elective offices in the territory. The session convened December 2d and organized with Horace J. Austin and George I. Foster as president and secretary of the council and Enos Stutsman and Pack Halnan as speaker and chief clerk of the house. The session was uneventful, the only feature of particular interest being the amendment of the election law; by striking out

the word white, in conformity to the fifteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States.

A good deal of time was devoted to consider- ing the eligibility of delegates who appeared from Laramie county (Wyoming). They had been irregularly elected by mass meetings of citizens and in the end one delegate was admitted to a seat as a matter of courtesy.

CHAPTER XL

THE TREATIES OF 1868-OTHER EVENTS.

Since the ratification of the Yankton treaty of 1858 there had been no change in the land tenure in South Dakota, the Indian title continuing unbroken to all that portion north of the line from Pierre to Watertown, as well as all west of the Missouri. The treaties of 1865, as we have seen, did not undertake to deal with land rights at all, except so far as the Indians relinquished rights of way over their country. In the early spring of 1868, however, what was known as the General Sherman peace commission undertook to assemble the headmen of all the Sioux tribes at Fort Laramie, where, on the 29th of April, the signing of a new treaty was concluded. It will be remembered that Red Cloud had refused to sign the Edmunds treaty at Fort Sully in 1865, and had declared to the peace commissioners of 1866 that he would not consent to the building of the Montana road from Fort Laramie through eastern Wyoming. He immediately thereafter took the warpath to drive the white men out of his country and rallied to his standard practically all of the western Indians, except a small party who adhered to Spotted Tail, and who abided by the treaty of 1865. Red Cloud conducted a masterful campaign against the military and against immigrants on the Montana trail. Col- onel Fetterman and his command met a disas- trous defeat on the Powder river and Major Powell suffered a long and severe attack, from which he emerged something less than a victor. Red Cloud's position was that the building of the road would frighten away all of the game, the

redman's last hope for sustenance. After two years of this warfare General Sherman and his commission, consisting of himself and Generals Harney, Terry, Sanborn and Messrs. Nathaniel G. Taylor, S. F. Tappan and C. C. Augur, suc- ceeded in getting Red Cloud to come into a gen- eral council of all the Sioux and, as above stated, an agreement was reached on the 29th of April which is known as the treaty of 1868. It pro- vided in the first instance for a perpetual peace between the whites and Indians. It defined as a permanent reservation all reservations hitherto set apart on the east of the Missouri and in ad- dition thereto all the territory between the north line of Nebraska and the forty-sixth parallel (the line dividing North and South Dakota) and from the east bank of the Missouri river to the one hundred fourth meridian, the Indians re- linquishing all claim to all other lands. Thus it was that the lands in the northern part of east- ern South Dakota became public property. In this connection it may be well to call attention to what is known as the Drifting Goose lands in the James valley. Drifting Goose was the chief of a considerable band of Yanktonaise whose chief camp was on the James river at Armadale in Spink county and claiming all of the adjacent country. He was not invited to the Laramie council and had no knowledge of what action was taken there for a long time afterward. He disputed the right of anyone assuming to rep- resent the Yanktonaise to relinquish and give away his lands without his knowledge or con-

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sent and refused to vacate. For fourteen years he clung to his lands, but finally yielded to force of circumstances and permitted the military to escort him and his band to the Crow Creek reser- vation where he still (1903) resides, but still claiming title to his lands on the Jim, to which by no act of his has the government obtained title. The government in the new treaty agreed to establish an agency for all of the Indians on the Missouri and to provide them with schools, and to provide physicians, and in lieu of all an- nuities provided for in any previous treaty to give them annually the following goods, for a period of thirty years: Each male person over fourteen a complete suit of clothes and to each woman the cloth for a complete outfit of clothing ; each child was to be provided with goods for one complete suit. Each Indian over four years of age was to receive for the period of four years one pound of meat and one pound of flour per day, and each family was to be given one good American cow and one well-broken yoke of American oxen.

The government abandoned all claim to the Montana road and withdrew the military from that section, while the Indians bound themselves not to interfere with immigrants or railroads on the plains outside of the reservation above de- fined. Another important advantage secured by the Indians was a stipulation that in the future no treaty should be deemed valid unless it was signed by at least three-fourths of the adult male Indians interested in the same. In every respect the treaty was a victory for Red Cloud and his party. To his great credit, it must be said that the old warrior has faithfully abided by its terms ever since and has ever advised his people to ob- serve its requirements.

The harvest of 1868 was bountiful and there was a marked increase in immigration and a hopeful spirit pervaded the settlements. The Indian trade readily absorbed any surplus of products which the people might have, though in fact up to this time little more than enough for home consumption in the way of crops were grown, and consequently the question of markets was not a very material one. The schools

increased in number and efficiency and in every way the outlook was more favorable for the hardy pioneers who had stuck it out in the Dakota land.

It was a presidential year. General Grant was the Republican candidate for the presidency and patriotic feeling ran high. Dr. Burleigh, who had united his fortunes with the Johnson wing of the party, suffered in consequence and when the Republican territorial convention con- vened at Elk Point the straight Republicans were largely in the majority. S. L. Spink, whom President Lincoln had appointed secretary of Dakota, one of the last appointments made by the martyred President, was chosen candidate for delegate to congress. Dr. Burleigh ran as a Johnson Republican, with the Democratic en- dorsement, but Spink was elected by a large ma- jority, and this time a contest was not even threatened.

The legislature convened in its last annual session on the 7th of December. Judge Brook- ings was president of the council and Amos F. Shaw, the pioneer school teacher, was secretary. Judge Moody was speaker of the house and George I. Foster was chief clerk.

Governor Faulk's message dwelt upon the improved outlook, the excellent crops, and pro- tested against the ratification of the treaty of 1868, which entirely cut off any immediate hope of entering the Black Hills and therefore re- duced us to a simply agricultural community. In this connection he spoke of Wyoming, then about to be made a territory, whose advantages he compared with those of Dakota, and con- cluded : "Under such auspicious circumstances, in view of the railroad facilities possessed by that territory, and the vast beds of coal and deposits of precious metals, which have already been de- veloped, we may reasonably anticipate for Wyo- ming a career of prosperity which eastern Dakota, with all its advantages, might well envy." The message was general in its terms and con- tained no specific recommendations for legisla- tion, except that provision be made for the pro- tection of the public arms which the government had provided for the use of the militia. The

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total receipts into the territorial treasury for the year were $920.65, and the disbursements were $915.40, leaving a net $5.25 to the good.

The striking feature of the session was the passage of a bill by the house, granting to women the full right of suffrage and to hold office. The bill was introduced on December 19th by Enos Stutsman, who, if not gallant, was nothing at all ; it was referred to the committee on elections, which the next day reported : "While your com- mittee favor the bill, they believe that a measure so far in advance of 'old fogy' notions should be submitted to general discussion," and therefore recommended that it be committed to general orders on the 23d. On that day it was taken up in committee of the whole and its passage recom- mended and, on motion of Col. John L. Jolley, the report was adopted and the bill was placed upon final passage. There were fourteen ayes and nine noes, receiving the support of such prominent men as Colonel Jolley, Colonel Moody, Enos Stutsman, and was opposed by Jacob Brouch, Jimmie Keegan and M. H. Somers. The bill failed of favorable consideration in the coun- cil.

Though there was no open rupture between the legislature and the executive, still they were not in accord, Governor Faulk being a Johnson man, while the legislature was strongly straight out. Governor Faulk sent in three vetoes during the session, the most important being the bill for the repeal of the charter of the Dakota & Northwestern Railway. This proposed line conflicted with another enterprise, the Dakota Southern. The Governor's objection to the re- peal was based on the ground that the company had vested rights, had complied with all the re- quirements of its charter and had already se- cured and recorded in Union, Clay and Yankton counties deeds to right of way. He is severe in condemnation of the action of the legislature, concluding : "Shall individual interests and jeal- ousies drive us to the extreme of trampling upon vested rights of an organized company, and by endless litigation, which is all I apprehend that can be accomplished by the repeal of this charter, delay for years the improvement of the Missouri

valley? This would not be worthy of the legis- lative power and authority of the territory, but would be most disastrous to our best hopes formed for our universal growth and prosperity as a people." The veto was sustained by reason of not securing a two-thirds vote against it, Col- onel Moody voting against the veto and Colonel Jolley and Enos Stutsman to sustain it, though Jolley, Moody and the Missouri valley men usually voted together. The vote stood fourteen against sustaining the veto and twelve for it. The feeling was shown also by the passage of a joint resolution requesting President Grant to appoint W. W. Brookings governor, which was supported by the entire house, except Colonel Moody and Jacob Brauch, who, though opposed to Faulk, were equally opposed to Brookings.

Fort Dakota being no longer needed for the protection of the southern territory, the legis- lature requested the war department to remove it to Medary. The protection afforded by this post had been the means of bringing a consider- able population into the Sioux valley in the vicinity of the post. As early as June, 1866, John Nelson, John Thompson, William Melvin, Sylvester Delaney and several other families settled on the Sioux north of the falls and with their families made permanent homes on the fer- tile soil where some of them still reside in the midst of abounding plenty and surrounded by every comfort. In 1867 Ole Foster, Martin Gunderson, John Larson, Ole Arnson and others joined the colony and in 1868 John J. Langsness, after visiting the valley, led a large colony from Minnesota and the fatherland to settle in the Baltic country on the Sioux. Among these set- tlers were many of the sturdy Norwegians who have made names for themselves in county and state history. The same year John Anderson and Ole and Gunder Thompson settled north of Dell Rapids.

The Indians still roamed through the valley upon hunting and visiting trips and, though they were not at all hostile, their presence was far from welcome and it is not at all surprising that the women and children lived in something of terror of them and occasionally an able bodied

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man found his pulse beating rather above the normal at sight of a band of painted redskins. John Thompson relates how the trail from Pipe- stone to Yankton agency crossed his land and one day when his first splendid crop of wheat was nearing the harvest he observed a very large delegation of Indians coming down the river bluff toward his field. He was at a loss to know how to prevent them from passing through and destroying the crop upon which he set so much store, but in his desperation seized his gun and started for the point where the trail had for- merly entered the field. There he stood with the gun cocked waiting the approach of the band, and when they came near he motioned them to go around the wheat. This, to his great relief, they good naturedly did, but when all the circum- stances are considered there was an exhibition of physical and moral courage in his action which must excite high admiration, for he was

practically alone in the country where the Indians still enjoyed the bad reputation they had acquired in the days of the outbreak of five years before.

The end of 1868 found a substantial settle- ment along the river from Dell Rapids to the Missouri and up the latter as far as Fort Ran- dall. Lincoln county had been settled by A. I. Linderman, near Fairview, in 1866 and he seems to have been the sole occupant of the county until the following summer when, in June, J. Q. Fitzgerald, Ben and William Hill, Jacob Sorter, the Hydes, Weaklies and others arrived and settled about the Canton townsite. The Halters came in the fall and some time dur- ing that year William Cuppett became a townsite proprietor at Canton. The next year there was a large influx of settlers into the locality. On the 30th of December, 1867, the county of Lincoln was duly organized, being the first to organize after the original counties of 1862.

CHAPTER XLI

A TIME OF PEACE-EVENTS OF 1869.

In accordance with the terms of the treaty of 1868, which was ratified and proclaimed on Feb- ruary 24, 1869, the government established an agency on the Missouri, at the mouth of Whet- stone creek, about ten miles above Fort Ran- dall, which was known as Whetstone, or Spotted Tail's agency. Red Cloud did not like to come to the Missouri and accordingly an agency for the accommodation of the Oglalas was established in northwestern Nebraska, close by Fort Robinson, which was known as Red Cloud's agency, and the Indians settled down to a life of ease and peace which was not broken until the Black Hills agi- tation precipitated the troubles of the middle 'seventies.

This year saw a general shaking up in politics and federal officers. The election of General Grant naturally made hard lines for the adherents and appointees of Johnson, and this was particu- larly true in Dakota where the Johnson ap- pointees were deprived of the assistance in con- gress of delegate Burleigh. One of the last official acts of Dr. Burleigh was to secure the appointment of George W. French, of Maine, as chief justice, to succeed Ara Bartlett, whose term had expired. French was not learned in the law, and though he held the position for the full four years he naturally did not distinguish himself for great learning upon the bench. S. L. Spink, dele- gate-elect and secretary of the territory, gave up the latter office at the end of his term, which ended just in time to permit him to enter upon his new office, and Turney M. Wilkins was ap-

pointed to the position of secretary. Governor Faulk was removed and John A. Burbank, of Indiana, succeeded him, and Wilmot W. Brook- ings, whom the legislature had nominated to General Grant for governor, was appointed as- sociate justice of the supreme court to succeed Judge Boyle, of Vermillion, whose term expired. George H. Hand, a citizen of Yankton, by choice, had been appointed to fill out the unexpired term of W. E. Gleason, United States district attorney, who had resigned in 1865 to become a justice of the supreme court, a place he had again resigned to accept a foreign consulate. Mr. Hand's term expired in 1869 and Warren Coles was appointed to succeed him. General Tripp, United States surveyor, was also retired from office at the close of his term and Gen. W. H. H. Beadle, of Indiana, came as his successor. Of the strictly territorial offices, Moses K. Armstrong, treasurer, was succeeded by T. K. Hovey, and James S. Foster, who for a brief period had given up the superintendency of the department of education to T. M. Stuart, was re-appointed to the position in which he had done so efficient work.

It was the first year in the history of the ter- ritory without an election, congress having pro- vided that in the future the legislature should meet biennially. It was another good crop year and the settlers had begun to increase their acreage and to build better homes. There was a vast deal of railroad talk, but the actual approach of the "iron stallion" seemed a long way off.

There was a great increase in immigration ;

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in fact, it is the opinion of many of the old timers that the white population was doubled in the season. Among those who this year made their first plant in the territory in addition to the federal officers before enumerated were Richard F. Pettigrew, Nye E. Phillips and Clark G. Coates, of Sioux Falls, Martin Trygstad, of Brookings county, and some sixty families, many of them now prominent at Canton and in the im- mediate vicinity. On June 18th Fort Dakota, at Sioux Falls, was finally abandoned and it has not since been necessary to call military into the Sioux valley for the protection of life or prop- erty. About this time a regular line of trade and immigration was established for Montana busi- ness across the northern portion of the state by way of Bigstone lake, Fort Wadsworth, the Elm river to Fort Rice on the Missouri, being in the main the route laid out by the Fiske expedition of I865.

John Otherday, the Christian Sioux, who res- cued Abbie Sharp from the Indians in Spink county in 1857 and who had been so effective in assisting the whites in the territorial days of the massacre of 1862, died from consumption at Fort Wadsworth on October 29th and was buried near Big Coule creek, on the eastern slope of the couteau, where his grave still lies, neglected and unmarked.

During the summer Colonel Moody and others made a settlement at Swan lake, in Turner county, which is notable as being the first settle- ment for agricultural development in an inland county.

Up to the time of this chapter no files of Dakota newspapers were preserved and the out- side newspapers paid very little attention to Dakota matters. Even the Sioux City papers only rarely published an item of interest to their neighbors across the line. The following items are taken from the columns of the Sioux City Times for the various dates given in the year 1869:

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History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 32

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