History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 5

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.

differing little from the Omahas in character- istics and habits. In 1700 LeSener placed them south of the Platte river in Nebraska. If they ever resided in South Dakota they failed to leave any impression upon the soil which affects our history.

So far' as the relations between white men and Indians are concerned the Dakotas are the aboriginal inhabitants of South Dakota. These people are the chief representatives of the Siouan family and for centuries occupied the valley of the Mississippi from Lake Pipin northward to Sauk Rapids and the entire valley of the Min- nesota to Bigstone lake. Early in the eighteenth century they became aggressive and pushed out to the westward, and, as has been above stated, displaced the Omahas and the Rees who pre- viously occupied the South Dakota country. The Dakotas were divided into seven principal bands, as follows:

M'dewakantonwans, living on the Mississippi near St. Paul.

Wakpekutas, living on Minnesota near St. Peter. Wahpetons, living on Minnesota near Lacqui Parle.

Sissetons, living on Big Stone Lake.

These four bands, the M'dewakontons, Wakpeku- tes, Wahpetons and Sissetons, were called Santees, because tradition said they once lived on Isantee, or Knife lake, in northern Minnesota.

Yanktonaise, living on upper James river.

Yanktons, living on Missouri at mouth of James. Tetons, living west of Missouri.

The Tetons were also divided into seven bands, the Minneconjous, the Blackfeet, Oglalas, Brules, Two Kettles, Sans Arcs and Uncpa- pas. The Sissetons already claimed a portion of South Dakota when the Dakota invasion oc- curred. The Sisseton claim was as follows : From the foot of Lake Traverse to the head of the coteau, thence to the James river at the mouth of the Moccasin, thence to Lake Kampeska, thence down the Sioux to the bend at Flandreau, thence east into Minnesota. The Yanktonaise laid claim to all of the country east of the Missouri from a line drawn from Lake Kampeska to Pierre, north to Devil's Lake and

east to the Red river. They disputed the claim of the Sissetons to the territory between the coteau and the James river and when the Sisse- tons finally sold it, a hundred or more years later, they demanded a share in the proceeds. The Yanktons claimed all of the country between the Missouri and the Sioux as far north as Lake Kampeska and also to the pipestone quarry in western Minnesota east of the Sioux. The Te- ton bands crossed the Missouri and occupied that region about 1760 and have since occupied the section. The Uncpapas, Blackfeet and Sans Arcs resided on Grand river, the Minneconjous lived south of the Black Hills, the Oglalas along the Niobrara, the Brules along White river, the Two Kettles on Teton river near Fort Pierre. All of these Dakotas lived wholly by the chase and consequently required large ranges for their comparatively small population. The most of these people still reside within the state. In 1840 Dr. Stephen R. Riggs visited Fort Pierre and at that date estimated the total Indian population of the South Dakota region at nine- teen thousand five hundred. This estimate did not include the Sissetons, who then, as now, re- sided about Big Stone lake. The last census places the Indian population of South Dakota at seventeen thousand six hundred and eighty-three without counting the Sissetons nor Yanktons, so that it appears that there has been little or no change in the Indian population of South Dakota in the past sixty-five years.

At present the Yanktons, living on lands in severalty, reside in Charles Mix county and num- ber about nineteen hundred. The Sissetons re- side in the vicinity of Big Stone lake, are civilized and number nineteen hundred. That portion of the Yanktonaise who were South Dakotans are at Crow Creek agency in Buffalo county. The Teton bands, as above stated, are at the various agencies west of the Missouri. They are more or less mixed in the assignment to the several reservations, but in a general classification may be found as follows: Black- feet, divided between Cheyenne and Standing Rock; Brules, at Lower Brule and Rosebud ; Minneconjous, at Cheyenne and Rosebud ;

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

Oglalas, at Pine Ridge ; Sans Arcs, at Cheyenne ; Two Kettles, at Cheyenne river and Rosebud ; Uncpapas, at Standing Rock.

When the Yanktonaise invaded the North Dakota country they, after a good many hard- fought battles, displaced the Cheyennes, who then resided along the stream which still bears their name, the Sheyenne tributary to the Red river. Cheyenne is a corruption of a Sioux word and probably means "enemy," "sha," meaning red, being the root word. The name has stuck to these people. When they were driven from their North Dakota homes and hunting grounds they crossed the Missouri and, after a short stop at the mouth of the Warreconne, found an abid- ing place near the Black Hills, on the Cheyenne river, and for a long period of time they occupied that locality, coming down to the Missouri river occasionally, to trade, but for the most part kceping away from the Sioux and the traders who came into the country within a few years of their western emigration. These people are neither Siouan nor Caddoan, but are of the Algonquin stock of the east and their traditions are of a once powerful tribe living on Lake Superior. About 1830 the band divided, a por- tion going south and located in Kansas and are known as the Southern Cheyennes. The North- ern, or Dakota, Cheyennes took an active and leading part in the wars of 1875-6 at the period of the opening of the Black Hills and proved to be splendid and fearless soldiers, excelling par- ticularly as cavalrymen. Dr. Robinson says that as a body they are superior in intellect and physique to most Indians. The Cheyenne women have always been noted for their beauty and their chastity. The small remnant of the Northern Cheyenne are chiefly at Pine Ridge agency. They number about five hundred.

About the year 1700, according to the De- Isle map, a small village of the Iowas-a Sioux tribe-lived upon the lower James river. I find no other historical reference to the Iowas having at any time lived in this state and have some doubts about the accuracy of DeIsle's chart. At any event these people, like the Poncas, left no impress upon the history of the state.

From an early period until a very recent date the Chippewas, of northern Minnesota, made frequent excursions into South Dakota for war or to hunt buffalo, but I find nothing to in- dicate that they ever made a home here. The Sisseton Sioux have some very interesting stories and traditions relating to these forays of the Chippewas, in one of which, within the nine- teenth century, occurred the circumstance which gave the unique name to the beautiful wooded lake of the coteau in Day county known as Enemy Swim. The story is that a party of Dakotas-Sissetons-were encamped on the co- teau a short distance south of Enemy Swim, when they were surprised and attacked by a band of marauding Chippewas. Rallying, the Sissetons soon put the Chippewas to flight and so hard pressed were the enemy that they were forced to take refuge upon the peninsula which in- dents the south shore of the lake. Here the Sissetons felt that they had them at their mercy and that they could proceed to take revenge upon them at their leisure, but to their surprise the Chippewas instead of stopping at the water's edge plunged into the lake and swam to the op- posite side, across the wide, deep and cold ex- panse of the water, and made their escape 'into their own country.

This, so far as I have knowledge, completes the catalogue of the Indian tribes who inhabited South Dakota or who roamed and hunted and fought within our borders. The purpose in this chapter has been to treat them simply as the aboriginal people of the state. With the ex- ception of the Poncas and Iowas, each tribe mentioned exerted a deep significance in the de- velopment of South Dakota history and each will be more fully exploited as the chronological development of South Dakota's story brings them within our perview.

So little is the organization of the Siouan family understood and so indiscriminately are the names of the various bands misapplied that it may be wise at this point to introduce a chart which completely analyses the family, showing all of its groups and bands. It must be under- stood that the one tie which binds the entire

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

Sionan family, and by means of which their relations are determined, is their language, which, however much corrupted by its unwritten use by widely separated and non-communicating bands, still retains those fundamental lines of likeness from which a language rarely departs. The chart printed herewith is an elaboration of one prepared by the writer for the first volume of the Collections of the State Historical Society.

are of the Asiatic Mongolian stock, and more particularly of the Ural-Altaic family. This group embraces a very wide range and is found scattered in manifold ramifications through parts of eastern, northern and middle Asia, extending in some of its more remote branches even to the heart of Europe, where the Hungarian and the numerous tongues of the far-spread Finnish tribes offer still the same characteristics and an

( Winnebagos

Omahas

M'dewakantons ( People of Spirit Lake) Wakpekutes ( Leaf Shooters)

Iowas

( People who once lived on Knife Lake)

Wahpetons (People of the leaves)

Illinois

Sissetons (People of the swamp)

SIOUX.

Dakotas

Yanktonaise (People near the end)

(The Assinahoines seceded from the Yanktonaise, and no longer consider themselves Da- kotas)

Missouris

Osages

Tetons ( People of the Prairie)

Sacs and Foxes

Possibly some other bands

Brules Blackfeet Minneconjous Oglalas Sans Arcs Two Kettle Unepapas

The Sioux were not only the dominant peo- ple of South Dakota when the white men came for purpose of trade, and therefore exerted a greater influence in the shaping of the life and history of that interesting period, but they have as well handed down to us a written historical record which briefly but accurately outlines the important events on South Dakota soil for a period of at least one hundred and forty years, dating back regularly to the year 1764 and by cycles for a long period previous to that date, and this record furnishes an invaluable aid in de- termining many auxiliary events. It is done in the picture writing for which this people are famous and is known to science as the Winter counts of the Dakotas.

The origin of the Dakota Indians has been a subject of much study and speculation among scholars and the general conclusion is that they

unmistakable impress of the old Ural-Altaic re- lationship. It is by the almost infallible lingual test that the relationship of the Dakotas to these Asiatic progenitors is inferred, if not conclusively established.

Prof. Frederick L. O. Roehrig, as early as the autumn of 1866, came to Fort Wadsworth (Sisseton) to take up the comparative study of the Dakota language, and although he does not arbitrarily and dogmatically assert that he has demonstrated the relationship between the Dakota and the Ural-Altaic, the facts which he es- tablished are exceedingly interesting and strongly suggestive.

Grammatically, the structure of the sentence in the Dakota and the Asiatic is the same, being a complete inversion of the order in which we are accustomed to think, beginning their sen- tences where we end ours. Likewise, neither in

Santees

Yanktons (People at the end, referring to po- sition in tribal councils)

Upper Yanktonaise Lower Yanktonaise Assinaboines

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

the Dakota nor the Asiatic are there any prepo- sitions, that convenient part of speech being used invariably as a postposition. In both languages there is a peculiar poly-syllabic and poly-synthetic tendency by which, through an intrinsic blending of various parts of speech, one huge word is produced. Probably the most striking resem- blance, however, is in the similarity of the use of a reduplication of the initial syllable of a word to add intensity to the thought expressed by it. Here is an example in point :

Mongolian: Khara, meaning black; Khap-khara, meaning very black.

Dakota: Sapa, meaning black; Sap-sapa, meaning very black.

Examples of this peculiarity might be in- definitely produced. Another peculiarity of similarity is in changing the meaning of a word from the masculine to the feminine, or to dis- criminate between strength or weakness, or distance or proximity by changing the vowel without changing the frame work of the word. Thus :

Mongolian: Father, ama; Mother, eme; Kaka, cock; Keke, ben.

Dakota: Second son, hepan; second daughter,

hapan; cinski, son; cunski, daughter; kon, that; kin, this.

These examples will illustrate the resemblance in this particular, which is quite general. There is, too, a distinct resemblance in very many words having the same meaning. This re- semblance is quite as close as could be expected to be preserved through a long period in an un- written language, used through a long period of time in situations far remote from each other and without means of communication. A few ex- amples will serve for illustration :

Mongolian: Tang, light, dawn, understanding.

Dakota: Tanin, visible, manifest, clear.

Mongolian: Meme, the female breast.

Dakota: Mama, the female breast.

This list might be quite extensively extended, but probably sufficient has been shown to sug- gest strongly the derivation of these people. There are too many physical resemblances be- tween the two families which gives color to the theory that they may, at no very remote period, have been one. I make no pretension to knowl- edge upon the subject, but give the foregoing as a probable theory of the origin of this interest- ing people.

CHAPTER IV

EARLIEST WHITE EXPLORATIONS.

The very earliest white explorations of South Dakota are matters of uncertainty and dispute and perhaps may never be determined beyond doubt. It is a matter of common belief that Spanish adventurers came into this section within the first half of the sixteenth century, but this is a matter purely of conjecture, no record having been left of sufficient certainty to prove the con- tention. It is only known that these men made long trips into the heart of the continent. The story of Coronado is well known and is the basis of most of the speculation relating to an explo- ration of the Black Hills region by the Spaniards of this remote date, but from all of the evidence obtainable it is not to be presumed that Coronado came north further than the Platte, if in fact he did not stop one hundred and fifty miles south of that river. The most that can be said of the Spaniards is that they may have come into the Black Hills before 1550, but if they did they neglected to make a record of the fact sufficiently definite to render the matter more than doubtful.

For more than one hundred years after the days of Coronado and the Spanish adventurers there is no suggestion from any source that a white man set foot upon South Dakota soil, but there is a possibility that some time between 1654 and 1665 two well known French Canadians, Pierre Radisson and Chouart Grosseillers, broth- ers-in-law, did pass through South Dakota. These men did not fail to leave a record of their travels, but unfortunately it is so confused and indefinite that it is very difficult indeed to deter-

mine from it precisely where their adventures led them. They appear to have been almost un- educated in French and with scarcely any knowl- edge of English. Radisson, however, fell out with the French authorities and went to London, where he offered the knowledge of his dis- coveries to the English. Certain promoters, ap- preciating the possibilities of a vast fur trade in the heart of America, induced Radisson to write out in his imperfect English an account of his travels in America, which he did, and the product of his literary genius is more difficult to interpret than the pictographs of the Indians. From un- mistakable physical features of the country some of the points visited by them are ascertained, but they made no celestial observations and much of their long course during ten years in the wilder- ness is left to guess work. However, shrewd reckoning is constantly clearing up more and more of the route. This much is certain : Radis- son and Grossiellers started from Montreal in August, 1654, and passed the next winter with Hurons and Ottawas upon one of the islands in the northern part of Green Bay. The next sea- son they went into a land which they describe so accurately that it can scarcely be doubted that they were far down the Mississippi valley. Rendered as comprehendable as possible, here is Radisson's story of the land they visited :

The farther we sojourned the delightfuller the country was to us. I can say that in all my lifetime I never saw a more incomparable country, for all that I have been in Italy. Being about the great sea,

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

we conversed with people that dwelleth about the salt water who told us that they saw some great white things sometimes on the water, and it came toward the shore, and men in the top of it and made a noise like a company of swans; which made me believe that they were mistaken, for I could not imagine what it could be except the Spaniards; and the reason is that we found a barrel broken as they use in Spain. Those people have their hair long. They reap twice a year; they are called Tatarga, that is to say, buff. They are generally stout men, so they are able to defend themselves. We were everywhere made much of, neither wanting victuals, for all the different na- tions that we met conducted and furnished us with all necessities. The summer passed away with ad- miratien by the diversity of the nations that we saw. As for the beauty of the shore of that sweet sea. Here we saw fish of divers, some like sturgeons and have a kind of slice at the end of their nose, some three fingers broad in the end, and two only near the 'nose, and some eight thumbs long, all marbled of a blackish color. There are birds whose bills are two and twenty thumbs long. That bird swallows a whole salmon, keeps it a long time in its bill. We saw also she goats very big. There is an animal somewhat less than a cow whose meat is exceedingly good. There is no want of stags, nor buffs. There are so many turkeys that the boys throw stones at them for their recreation. As for the buff it is a furious animal. One must have a care for him, for every year he kills some Nadoneseronons. He comes for the most part in the plains and meadows and feeds like an ox. The horns of buffs are as those of an ox, but not so long, but bigger and of a blackish color. He hath a very long hairy tail, he is reddish, his hair frizzed and very fine. All the parts of his body are much like unto an ox. The biggest are bigger than any ox whatsoever.

The vines grow all by the river side. The lemons are not so big as ours and sourer. The grape is very big, green and is seen there at all times. It never snows or freezes there, but is mighty hot; and yet for all that the country is not so unwholsome, for we have seldom seen infirm people.

We were four months in our voyage without doing anything but going from river to river. We met several sorts of people. We conversed with them, being long in alliance with them. By the persuasion of some of them, we went into the great river that divides itself in two, where the Hurons, with some of the Ottawas and the wild men that had wars with them, had retired. There is not great difference in their language, as we were told. This nation had wars against those of the forked river. It is so called because it has two branches; the one toward

the west, the other toward the south, which we be- lieve runs toward Mexico, by the tokens they gave us. Being among these people, they told us the prisoners they take, tell them they have wars against a nation, against men that build great cabins, have great beards and have knives as we have. More- over they showed us a decad of beads and gilded pearls that they have had from that people, which made us believe that they were Enropeans. They showed us one of that nation that was taken the year before. We understood him not; he was more tawny than they with whom we were.

We were informed of that nation which lived on the other river. These are men of extraordinary height and bigness, that made us believe that they had no communication with them. They live upon corn and citrulls (pumpkins) which are mighty big. They have fish in plenty throughout the year. They have fruit as big as the heart of an orinak (elk), which grows on vast trees which are three armsfull in compass. When they see little men they are afraid and cry out, which makes many come to help them. Their arrows are not of stone as ours are, but of fish bone and other bones which they work greatly as all other things. Their dishes are made of wood. I have seen them and could not but admire the curiosity of their work. They have great calumets of great stones, red and green. They make a store of tobacco. They have a kind of drink which makes them mad for a whole day. I have not seen this, therefore you may believe as you please. Tend- ing to these people, we went toward the south and came back by the north. We had not yet seen the nation Nadoneceronons (Sioux). We had Hurons with us. We persuaded them to come along to see their own nation that fled there, but they would not by any means. We thought to get some castors there to bring down to the French. Seeing it, at last, im- possible to us to make a circuit in twelve months' time we come to the straits of the two lakes of the Stinkings and the upper lakes where there are little islands toward the northwest and a few toward the southeast very small; the lake toward the north at the side is full of rocks and sand, yet great ships can ride on it without danger, we being three nations arrived there with booty.

I have thus quoted at a good deal of length from the Radisson story, for it is upon the por- tions quoted that one of the great disputed points in American history rests. The contention that these itinerant Frenchmen threaded the Missis- sippi to the gulf twenty-six years before the famous discovery of LaSalle, and the further

HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

contention, held with something less of tenacity, that they also in the same year explored the Missouri and so passed through South Dakota. Upon this portion of the subject Prof. Robert F. Kerr contributed a monograph to the first volume of the Collections of the State Historical Society in which he concluded that Radisson and Grosseil- lers did not reach South Dakota, a conclusion in which I fully concur. My own interpretation of the story is that they did pass down the Missis- sippi and, returning, entered the mouth of the Missouri for a distance and from the Indians learned about the people which inhabited that valley. Those first mentioned refer to the Span- iards in Mexico. "That nation which lived on the other river" was undoubtedly the Pawnees and Rees of the South Dakota portion of the Mis- souri, who cultivated corn and pumpkins, and the superstition of the "little devils of Spirit Mound," which Lewis and Clarke found irradi- cably imbedded in the minds of all the Indians of the Missouri valley, accounts for the reported terror in which these people held "little men." It was the desire of the explorers to reach the "Cristinos" of Hudson's bay, but finding the sea- son so far advanced that they could not hope to make the circuit that year, and finding their Huron guides unalterably opposed to risking their scalps among their hereditary enemies, the Sioux, they retired from the Missouri and re- turned to their winter rendezvous at Green Bay, probably by way of the Mississippi and Wis- consin rivers, though the latter is simply a sur- mise. Until better evidence is produced it may safely be concluded that Radisson and Groseillers did not visit South Dakota, but that they did learn of and make report upon the Ree Indians residing here and also shadowed forth the tra- dition of Spirit Mound and its reputed "little devils." Of this tradition more full accounts will be given in the subsequent chapter upon the visit of Lewis and Clarke.

The next explorer who may have entered South Dakota, and who, if he did not come him- self. was almost certainly represented by white traders here, was Pierre Charles LeSeuer, a na- tive of Montreal. LeSener made his first trip to

the west in 1683 and is known to have at that time visited the mouth of the Wisconsin river. An unidentified writer in the Toronto Globe, writing in 1887, tells of a shrewd scheme by which LeSeuer and his relative, Pierre LeMoyne, afterwards known as Iberville, taking advantage of early knowledge of LaSalle's discovery of the Mississippi, came west with a license to trade, and sending on a party of trappers and Indians to a stream far westward from the Mississippi, where they traded with the Indians for furs which they rafted down the stream to the Missis- sippi and on to the gulf, where LeMoyne waited with a ship and took the furs to London where he disposed of them at vast profit. Meanwhile LeSener secured a quantity of fur in Wisconsin, which he took back to Canada and paid the ex- orbitant tribute which the government exacted. I have found some collateral evidence of the truth of this story in the map published by William D'Isle, member of the French Academy in 1701, which was made by him front information fur- nished by LeSeuer. This map shows a track di- rectly west from the mouth of the Wisconsin, passing just south of the Spirit lakes in northern Iowa and terminating at Sioux Falls. This track is marked on the map in French, "Chemin des voyageurs." An Omaha village is located at the termination of the track. It is therefore not im- possible that LeSeuer's voyageurs did visit Sioux Falls in 1683.

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History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 5

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