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BAR CODE IS LOCATED INSIDE OF BOOK
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
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"genealogy
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HON. GEORGE \V. kim;m:u:y
HISTORY OF
DAKOTA TERRITORY
BY
GEORGE W. KINGSBURY
SOUTH DAKOTA
ITS HISTORY AND ITS PEOPLE
EDITED BY
GEORGE MARTIN SMITH, B.A., A.M.
ILLUSTRATED
VOLUME
CHICAGO
THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1915
Copyright 1915
BY
THE S. J. CLARKE PUB. CO.
CHICAGO
;■&
0
1151088
TO MY WIFE
Upbia JUarta (&tone) Iitngstmrp
\
WHO FOR THIRTY-FOUR YEARS SHARED WITH ME THE PLEASURES AND
TRIBULATIONS OF THE PIONEER ERA OF DAKOTA, THIS HISTORY OF
THE TERRITORY OF DAKOTA IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
BY THE AUTHOR AND COMPILER. SHE IS EVERY WAY
WORTHY OF THIS TRIBUTE AND ALL THE PRAISE
THEREBY TO BE IMPLIED. SHE WAS A
TRUE, NOBLE, KIND AND UNSELFISH
WIFE, MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.
A WHITE GRAVESTONE, IN THE YANKTON CEMETERY, SUITABLY INSCRIBED.
MARKS THE PLACE WHERE HER MORTAL BODY WAS LAID
TO REST IN FEBRUARY. A. D. 1898.
INTRODUCTION
Regarding the early inhabitants of this country, trustworthy history goes no farther into the past than to the discovery and settlement of the Atlantic region by the Europeans. Conjectures have been formed from the traditions of tbe Indians, and from relics discovered in ancient mounds and earthworks taken in connection with the course of events narrated in sacred and profane history, that lead to the belief that this country was peopled at a very early period by colonies from Eastern Asia.
Missionaries who met the Dahkotah Indians late in the Sixteenth Century, found them in the country between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, bordering the Great Lakes, and at war with the Algonquins, and relate that they had a tradition that their ancestors came from the North across a great water, being driven in war from their native country. From this tradition and other similar evidence, it was inferred that their progenitors were once inhabitants of China and Tartary, and from thence found their way to the islands of the Northern Pacific Ocean and thence to the American continent. This theory is rendered plausible by the similarity of language as well as by the physical resemblance of the two peoples. Tbe word slave in Chinese is called "shunko;" and in the Dakota tongue, dog is pronounced "shunka." The theory is that this emigration at first was made up of a civilized people, not as advanced as the civilization of the present day. but possessing and practicing many of the arts of a civilized race — that centuries later these were followed by a people of a fierce anil warlike nature, though probably of the same racial family, who were far more numerous than the first immigrants, whom they treated as enemies and drove them from their homes into the more southern climes of Mexico anil Central America. It is claimed that Tartary, from whence these immigrants mainly came, hail at one time been well advanced in civilization, which would seem to be probable of all the aboriginal peoples of Asia.
In further confirmation of this theory is the old Indian tradition that when the Indian tribes of the Mississippi Valley migrated across the Uleghenies and descended the Atlantic Slope, they found a wilderness abounding in game and fish and wild fruits and flowers, but not inhabited by human beings and that the Indian nation found there by the early European discoverers were tin de scendants of those wdio had migrated from tin- West.
Accepting with confidence the biblical account of the nativitj of the human race and oilier events connected with the primitive historj of mankind, we are led to believe, as the most rational theory, that tin- Western Hemisphere was first peopled by emigrants from Asia, who were descended I nun an ancestry that possessed much of what we know of civilization, and who believed in God, whom they designated a- the Great Spirit, who possessed the power and the will to punish or reward them according as their deeds mighl merit. Their faith in
v
vi INTRODUCTION
a future life is attested by their funeral rites and burial customs. Accepting this theory as best explaining the origin of the first inhabitants of this continent, we must conclude that the western portion of North America was inhabited by human beings some time before the peopling of the eastern portion and the Atlantic Slope.
With regard to the primitive tribes of Southern Dakota, Charlevoix relates that nearly two centuries ago, the Iowas, Omahas, and Ottoes, were in possession of Southern Dakota, and roamed and warred through the regions watered by the Des Moines, Big Sioux, and James, and that these tribes annually assembled in peace around their council fires at the great Red Pipestone Quarry. From here they were gradually driven south and west by the great nation of Dakotas moving down from the north.
The period of this great retrocession of Indian nations, Hennepin informs us, was some time before the Eleventh Century, or over nine hundred years ago. Up to that era the Dakotas had remained as one nation, governed by one tongue, and were called by the French (Nadoues-sioux, meaning enemy), from the latter termination of which word is derived the word "Sioux." But during the great war and flight from the north, they had become disbanded and scattered into separate war parties, and in order to be distinguished from other tribes of the plain they called themselves Lakotahs, meaning the "friend-born" or friendly people. Since that period both history and tradition agree in placing the Dakotas as sovereigns of the vast region of country between the Mississippi and the mountains, and embracing the territory of Dakota.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
LOUISIANA— HOW NAMED AND ITS CESSION TO THE UNITED STATES
THE TERRITORY OF LOUISIANA ITS DISCOVERY BY LASALLE ITS BOUNDARU
ITS PURCHASE BY THE UNITED STATES INCIDENTS LEADING TO THE TREATY
OF CESSION I
CHAPTER II
LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION
thomas jefferson's efforts to secure the exploration of the Missouri valley first exploration planned from eastern russia second at- tempt thwarted by the french third effort under lewis and clark
successful- — jefferson's message urging an expedition congress
favors lewis and clark on the way — enter the future dakota,
august 21, 1804 — mineral poison in the water — elk and buffalo the
vermillion valley and spirit mound 7
CHAPTER III
LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION
(Continued)
AT THE MOUTH OF JAMES RIVER — YANKTON INDIANS SEND FRIENDLY GREET- INGS AT THE FUTURE CAPITAL OF DAKOTA — FOUR DAYS COUNCIL WITH
YANKTONS AMERICAN FLAG UNFURLED ADMIRABLE SPEECHES A M
SURRENDER INDIAN BAND STRIKE-TH E-REE THE FIRST — CENSUS — CALL
BLUFF— FORTIFICATIONS AT BON HOMME ISLAND IN RUINS— PRINCE MADOC AND THE MANDAN INDIANS 1 -
CHAPTER IV LEWIS AND CLARK I EXPEDITION
(Continued) •
DEPART FROM BON HOMME ISLAND — PRAIRIE DOG VILLAGE— F] VNNEL SHIRTS DIS- TRIBUTED TO THE MEN — A SINKING SANDBAR- LOISEL'S FORT — TETON [NDIANS — INDIANS NOT FRIENDLY — MAKE EFFORTS TO DETAIN EXPLORERS — PLAIN TALK FROM CAPTAIN CLARK — DOG FEAST — TETON CUSTOMS, APPAREL, NATIVE WOMEN
OFFICER OF THE DAY AGAIN UNDER WA1 AGAINST Dill KM I MM 0
TION 23
viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER V LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION
(Concluded)
CHEYENNE RIVER ; HOW NAMED MEET A WHITE TRADER THE BLACK MOUN- TAINS— CHEYENNE INDIANS FRENCHMAN TAKES PASSAGE AN ARICKARA
VILLAGE — MR. GRAVELINES — THE NEGRO, YORK, ATTRACTS ADMIRATION — IN- DIANS DO NOT WHIP CHILDREN CAPTURING GOATS — INDIANS NUMEROUS
ENTER MANDAN COUNTRY — MR. MCCRACKEN — THE MINATAREES SEARCH FOR
WINTEE QUARTERS — A PRAIRIE FIRE. AND AN INDIAN MOTHER'S PRESENCE OF MIND WIN 111; CAMP LOCATED — FORT MANDAN WINTER EMPLOYMENTS, PAS- TIMES. VISITORS — LEWIS AN'D CLARK'S CAMPS 29
CHAPTER VI THE FUR TRADE
FUR TRADE THE PIONEER INDUSTRY OF NORTH AMERICA JOHN JACOB ASTOR AND
HIS ENTERPRISES THE CHOTEAUS, LISA AND OTHERS — FORT PIERRE CHOTEAU
— ASTOR EXPEDITIONS BY LAND AND SEA — WASHINGTON HUNT'S PERILOUS AND TRAGIC JOURNEY — THE WAR OF l8l2 — ASTOR SELLS TO CHOTEAU 39
CHAPTER VII THE FUR TRADE AND THE' FIRST STEAMBOAT
FORT PIERRE CHOTEAU — FORT VERMILLION AND BENTON INTRODUCING THE
STEAMBOAT, A MACKINAW BOAT; AND THE FIRST STEAMBOAT ON THE UPPER MISSOURI — MAGNITUDE OF THE FUR TRADE — THE TRADERS 45
CHAPTER VIII tNDIAN WAR— BRITISH TRADERS STIR UP TROUBLE
FIRST BATTLE ON DAKOTA SOIL BETWEEN UNITED STATES TROOPS AND INDIANS
HOW IT HAPPENED COLONEL LEAVENWORTH CHASTISES THE ARICKAREES
THE YANKTON INDIANS All) GOVERNMENT FORCES MISCHIEVOUS INFLUENCE
01 BRITISH TRADERS — AMERICAN OFFICERS CRITICISE THE INGRATE FOREIGNERS — FIRST INDIAN PEACE COMMISSION 53
CHAPTER IX FIRST WHITE OCCUPATION OF DAKOTA— CAPTAIN TODD
BEGINNING OF WHITE 0CC1 PATION OF DAKOTA — SIOUX WAR OF 1855 HARNEY'S
MILITARY EXPEDITION AND MARCH To THE MISSOURI — FORT PIERRE PURCHASED [TS FIRST GARRISON BY STEAMBOATS — HARNEY'S DISAPPOINTMENT AND IN- DIGNATION'— POST Nor -1 -ok MILITARY PURPOSES FORT RANDALL
LOCATED— FORT CONSTRUCTED — FORT PIERRE ABANDONED ROSTER OF HAR
NEY'S I oki is CAPTAIN Todd 60
CHAPTER X
CI* >l ' iGICAL DAKl >TA FIRST LAND SURVEYS
GEOLOGIl M SIOUX FALLS ROCK -THE RED PIPESTONE — THE MISSOURI RIVER AND mill R WAT] R COURSES — FIRST GOVERNM] NT SURVEYS — ORIGIN OF THE UNITED STATES SYSTEM OF SURVEYS- PRI EMPTIONS, HOMESTEADS, AND TIMBER CUL- TURE CLAIMS— PUBLIC LANDS -PRINCIPAL RIVERS AND LAKES 68
CONTENTS ix
CHAPTER XI EARLIEST WHITE SETTLEMENTS
RED RIVER OF THE NORTH — SIOUX FALLS AND MEDARY — PEASE AND HAMILTON SETTLEMENTS — YANKTON, VERMILLION, AND BONHOMME- BIG SIOUX POINT — MIXVTLLE — ELK POINT 79
CHAPTER XII RED RIVER OF THE NORTH COUNTRY
RED RIVER OF THE NORTH; EARLIEST OF DAKOTA SETTLEMENTS — HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY AND NORTHWEST FUR COMPANY' PEOPLE AND THEIR DESCENDANTS
FIRST INHABITANTS PEMMICAN GAVE NAME TO PEMBINA — VERENDRYE, A
CANADIAN, EARLY EXFLORER LORD SELKIRK FAMOUS PIONEER — NORTHWEST
FUR COMPANY' FORT DOUGLASS — DEVELOPMENT OF FUR INDUSTRY — RED RIVER
HALF-BREEDS — FOUNDING OF PEMBINA — MAJOR LONG AND THE INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARY — EARLY AMERICAN SETTLERS — THE CHIPPEWA TREATY — FORT ABER-
CROMBIE STEAMBOATING ON THE RED RIVER — PUBLIC LAND SURVEYS —
BOUNDARY LINE CORRECTED BY ARMSTRONG RED RIVER ELECTIONS — HALF- BREEDS A HAPPY PEOPLE — RED RIVER COUNTIES — TODD AND JAYNES CONTEST FOR DELEGATE — REPEAL OF LEGISLATIVE APPORTIONMENT — NEW BOUNDARIES FOR PEMBINA COUNTY S 1
CHAPTER XIII SIOUX FALLS AND BIG SIOUX VALLEY
SIOUX FALLS, MEDARY AND FLANDREAU — EARLIEST SETTLEMENTS — DUBUQUE AND ST. PAUL COMPANIES LOCATE TOWNSITES IN 1856-57 — DRIV1 01 1 BY YANK- TONNAIS INDIANS; RETURN WITH REINFORCEMENTS VXD \ SAWMILL Wn MAKE SUBSTANTIAL IMPROVEMENTS — TWO TOWNSITES TAKEN AT THE F \LLS — PROMOTERS DESIGN TO ORGANIZE NEW TERRITORY AND MAKE SIOUX FALLS THE CAPITAL — HOLD ELECTION — LARGE VOTE POLLED J. P. KIDD1 I; ELECTED DELE- GATE TO CONGRESS — PROVISIONAL TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT SI 1 1 I' — LEGIS- LATURE CONVENES AND PASSES MEMORIAL — DELEGATE KIDDER REF1 SED A SEAT
AS DELEGATE — DAKOTA DEMOCRAT PUBLISHED INDIANS CONTIN1 1 HOSTILE —
MEDARY EVACUATED SIOUX FALLS PREPARES FOR DEFENSE — JUDGE II W
DREAU*S LETTER AND MR. ALLBRIGHT's STATEMENT — W. W. BROOKINGS MAKES A STATEMENT — DAKOTA CAVALRY MEET AND DEFEAT Till HOSTILE [NDIANS IN
THEIR FIRST BATTLE GOVERNOR ORDERS EVACUATION OF Till FALLS SET!
MF.XT — THE OCCUPATION OF Till-: COUNTRY \ I'Rl.M VTURJ I NTERPRISE. . . . < )~
CHAPTER XIV
FIRST WHITE SETTLEMENT < >N THE MISSOUR] SLOPE
IN DAK< >T \
HOME OF THE YANKTON 1NDI \\S — STRI KE-TII E-RI 1 Willi \M II \\ I AM \N FIRST WHITE SETTLER— FROST, TODD ,\ COMPANY, THE [NDIAN TRADERS- iMES
RIVER SETTLEMENT — UPPER MISSOURI LAND COMPANY— DELEGATION 1" WASH- INGTON TO MAKE TREATY — HOI. MAN. TRESPASSINi ER, BUILDS FIRST CABIN — IMPROVEMENTS DESTROYED B'i [NDIANS VND SOLDIERS GEl FISKE — Till-: TREATY EMBASSY SUCCESSFU1 I'll PICO! D I 1; ■. 1 FROS1 & COMPANY, TOWNSITJ PROPRIl rORS WADING POST BUILT B\ 1 i> & COMPANY — THE BONHOMME SETTLEMENT Mil FIRS! rRADING POST M
DOLLARD'S RES] ARCHES N II. SHOBER PERSONAL RECOLLECT]
GEORGE T. ROUNDS THE EARL'S SETTLERS— FIRS! 115
x CONTENTS
CHAPTER XV
FIRST WHITE SETTLEMENT ON THE MISSOURI SLOPE
IN DAKOTA
(Continued)
THE VERMILLION- VALLEY — SPIRIT MOUND FORT VERMILLION — A MORMON COLONY
— DICKSON'S POST — ALECK c's POINT — KENNERLY AND VAN METER ESTABLISH
A FERRY FIRST SETTLERS AT VERMILLION IMPROVEMENT FIRST LUTHERAN
RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATION — FIRST SCHOOL FIRST SUNDAY
SCHOOL THE DAKOTA REPUBLICAN — FIRST TERM OF COURT TEXT OF THE
YANKTON TREATY 126
CHAPTER XVI
FIRST WHITE SETTLEMENTS ON THE MISSOURI SLOPE
IN DAKOTA
(Concluded)
THE UPPER MISSOURI LAND COMPANY TOWNSITES — A NATION WIDE PERIOD OF
REAL ESTATE SPECULATION — PRAIRIE FIRE CAUSES FIRST DEATH CHALK ROCK
USED FOR PLASTERING — MOSES K. ARMSTRONG, A NEW ARRIVAL INDIANS IN
THEIR DOMESTIC RELATIONS — INFLUENCE OF THE WHITE INTERMARRIAGE CUSTOM — ARMSTRONG AND THOMPSON IN PRAIRIE FIRE — POPULATION OF YANK- TON VALLEY AND JAMES RIVER JOHN STANAGE AND FAMILY PIONEER FARMERS
OF JAMES RIVER HENRY CLAY ASH THE FIRST HOTEL KEEPER — GEORGE D.
FISKE, FIRST BLIZZARD VICTIM — ELK POINT AND EARLY PIONEERS THE CANA- DIAN FRENCH COLONY — ON THE WESTERN BORDER — SETTLERS OPPOSITE FORT
RANDALL BIJOU AND BIJOU HILLS THE PEASE AND HAMILTON SETTLEMENTS
— LAKE ANDES. WEST OF THE MISSOURI FORT RANDALL AND THE PONCA RESER- VATION— MIXVILLE, THE SETTLEMENT AND ITS PIONEERS TODD COUNTY; PAR- TIALLY ABSORBED BY NEBRASKA 144
CHAPTER XVII
THE ORGANIC ACT 1858-61
DAKOTA A PART OF MINNESOTA — DAKOTA'S SITUATION; DIMENSIONS; BOUNDARIES; AND TOPOGRAPHICAL FEATLIRES — HEALTHFUL WATERS; SALUBRIOUS CLIMATE
— GOLD DISCOVERIES IN THE FAR NORTHWEST WINTER OF 1859-60 PIONEERS
ANXIOUSLY AWAIT ORGANIZATION — FIRST SCANDINAVIAN IMMIGRATION SET- TLEMENTS WITHOUT A LEGAL GOVERNMENT EFFORTS TO SECURE A TERRITORIAL
ORGANIZATION— MASS MEETINGS AT YANKTON AND VERMIL-LION COL. D. M.
FROST — GOLD IN MONTANA — QUIET WINTER CATFISH GOLD FROM THE HEAD- WATERS hi THE MISSOURI ORGANIC ACT FOR DAKOTA TERRITORY THE NAME
"DAKOTA" l62
CHAPTER XVIII
ORGANIZATION OF THE TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT- FIRST ELECTION 1861
FIRST DAKOTA OFFICIALS — FIRST NEWSPAPER — GOVERNOR CAUSES CENSUS TO BE TAKEN — WHITE AND RICH POPULATION — FEDERAL OFFICIALS RENDEZVOUS AT YANKTON — GOVERNOR JAYNE CALLS ELECTION AND ASSIGNS JUDGES — FIRST
CONTENTS xi
POLITICAL CONVENTION AND FIRST ELECTION — THE VOTE BY PRECINCTS — LEGIS- LATURE CHOSEN AND CAPTAIN TODD ELECTED TO CONGRESS — PERSONAL SKETCHES OF FIRST OFFICIALS 1 75
CHAPER XIX
DAKOTA IN THE CIVIL AND INDIAN WARS
1861
BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR — FORT SUMTER BESIEGED AND CAPTURED BY THE
SECESSIONISTS — FIRST CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS POSITION OF MONARCHICA] -
ERNMENTS — UNION SETTLEMENT AMONG THE PIONEERS DAKOTA CAVALRY
AUTHORIZED COMPANY A RECRUITED AND MUSTERED IN THE MUSTER ROLL —
COMPANY STATIONED TO PROTECT SETTLEMENTS DR. W. A. BURLEIGH, INDIAN
AGENT HIS EARLY EXPERIENCES IO.0
CHAPTER XX
THE FIRST LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 1862
FIRST LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY CONVENES ITS ORGANIZATION LOCATION OF CAPI- TAL THE MAIN ISSUE NAMES OF MEMBERS AND OFFICERS — GOVERNOR'S FIRST
MESSAGE — REMARKABLE FORETELLING OF DAKOTA'S CAREER D 15
CHAPTER XXI
THE FIRST LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY
(Continued )
LEGISLATURE CONTINUED GOVERNOR'S MESSAGE WELL RECEIVED — THE CHIPPEWA
INDIANS AND RED RIVER — JAMES M'EETRIDGE FROM PEMBINA LEG] \ IIYE COMMITTEES — THE CAPITAL CONTEST — YANKTON SECURES THE PRIZE — SPEAKER PINNEY RESIGNS; TIERNON SUCCEEDS HIM — SOLDIERS IN THE HOUSE: G INDIGNATION AN UNPLEASANT EPISODE — P.RIEE BIOGRAPHIES OF FIRST MEM- BERS AND OFFICERS — MISSOURI RIVER OVERFLOW — OLD SETTLERS' HISTORIC VL ASSOCIATION — EPISCOPAL MISSION ESTABLISHED BY REV. MELANCTHON HOYT -OS
CHAPTKR XXII
THE FIRST ELECTION UNDER TERRITORIAL LAW
1 So j
UNITED STATES LAND OFFICE THE Pol. ITU VI 1 IMPAIGN REPUBLICANS DIVIDED —
GENERAL TODD VS. GOVERNOR JA1 \l , I HE [SSI I -FIRST REPUB1 [CAN AND UNION CONVENTION CALL — PROCEEDINGS OF THE COUNTY AND TERRITORIA1 CONVEN- TIONS GOVERNOR JAYNE NOMINATI ; DELEGATE TO CONGRESS — GENERA]
TODD NOMINATED BY FEOPLE's CONVENTION COUNTV CONVENTIONS AND
COUNTY OFFICERS NOMINATED FIRST ELECTION — GOVERNOR APPOINT! D
COUNTY OFFICERS — VOTERS WITH GUNS ON THEIR SHOULDERS — MIDNIGHT
VOTING BALLOT BOX STUFFING FRAUD IN NEARLY ONE-HALE THE PRE!
— JAYNE AWARDED CERTIFICATE OF ELECTION — RED RIVER Rl I
RECEIVED TODD GIVES NOTICE OF CONTEST — WHY RED RIVER RETURNS «
NOT SENT FOR -' ' "
xii i • INTENTS
CHAPTER Will
THE GREAT INDIAN' WAR 1862
BEGINNING OF THE GREAT [NDIAN WAR — THE OUTBREAK IN .MINNESOTA — CAUSES OF THE REVOLT — THE LITTLE CROW MASSACRE- -HOSTILE INDIANS DRIVEN INTO DAKOTA BY MINNESOTA TROOPS — GOVERNOR I \LLS OUT MILITIA; MILITIA RE- SPONDS— DEFENSIVE WORKS HASTILY CONSTRUCTED AT YANKTON — INDIAN'S DRIVE. SETTLERS FROM THE TERRITORY — YANKTON ONLY OCCUPIED SETTLEMENT SKETCH OF PICOTTE — CAPTIVE WOMEN AND CHILDREN RESCUED 233
CHAPTER XXIV
THE GREAT [NDIAN WAR
1 Continued )
HOSTILE INDIANS IN FORCE PREPARED TO ATTACK YANKTON DISSUADED BY THE
PREPARATIONS OF THE SETTLERS — MANY SETTLERS ABANDONED THE TERRITORY —
YANKTON INDIANS MISTERED IN — WASHINGTON REED A FALSE ALARM —
APPEAL FOR TROOPS — GOVERNMENT SOLDIERS ALL DOWN SOUTH — SECOND CALL EOR MILITIA — HOW THE YANKTON TRIBE WAS KEPT FRIENDLY — SKETCH OF
PICOTTE CAPTIVE WOMEN AND CHILDREN RANSOMED THE FIRST TERRITORIAL
CAPITAL BUILDING — SAMUEL I.ATTA, AGENT, DISTRIBUTING INDIAN GOODS FROM STEAMBOATS — BEAR'S RIBS SLAIN AT FORT PIERRE 245
CHAPTER XXV
THE SECOND SESSION OF THE LEGISLATURE
1862-63
SECOND SESSION OF THE LEGISLATURE — THE HOUSE DIVIDES — ELECTION FRAUDS
INVESTIGATED — TWO LOWER HOUSES IN SESSION — BRULE CREEK INVESTIGATED
JAYNE'S SECOND MESSAGE — GREAT SEAL OF SUPREME COURT — BIOGRAPHIES RED RIVER M EM BERS THE ELECTION FRAUDS 258
CHAPTER XXVI THE [NDIAN CAMPAIGN OF 1863— SIBLEY
INDIAN CAMPAIGN OF [863, P] W.NF.D BY MAJOR-GENERAL POPE — GENERAL SIBLEY,
WITH MINNESOTA TROOPS, (.ROSSES CENTRAL DAKOTA PLAINS GENERAL SULLY
N1 ^R< HIS UP Till MISSOURI VALLEY — SIBLEY'S FORCES, EQUIPMENT AND DIFFI- CULTIES— A DRY SEASON — SIBLEY DEFEATS HOSTILES IN THREE BATTLES;
INDIANS DRIVEN WEST OE THE MISSOURI RIVER HIS RETURN MARCH OFFICI \L
1 PORT — ERRONEOUS OPINION OF NORTHERN PART OF THE TERRITORY — INDIANS KILL AN [NDIAN- TRI vn BETWEEN YANKTONS AM) PONCAS 276
CHAPTER XXVII
GENERAL SULLY'S CAMPAIGN— BATTLE OF WHITE STONE HILLS
1863
GENERAL ALFRED SULLY — IMS MILITARY CAREER - GENERAL COOK HAD MADE. PREPA- RATION FOR 11 h, \ SULLY'S FORCES- Low WATER AND SLOW STEAM- BO 1 HINDER- PROTEI HON FOR NIL SETTLEMENTS — ADVANCE TOO LATE TO I 0 OPI RATE WITH SIP.LI'A ; BUT III. FINDS HOS III.ES — BATTLE OF WHITE STONE
HIM- 11. 1 mm. 1; 1, \\ii WINTER SUPPLIES CAPTURED — THE RETURN
CONTENTS xiii
MARCH — ONE HUNDRED PRISONERS — FIRST FORT SULLY BUILT — TROOPS STA- TIONED FOR WINTER — HOSTILE TRIBES AND THEIR NUMBERS — SULLY'S OFFICIAL REPORT 287
CHAPTER XXVIII
MINNESOTA INDIANS REMOVED TO DAKl >TA
1863
FRIENDLY INDIANS FORCED TO LEAVE MINNESOTA — SANTEES AND WIN
REMOVED TO CROW CREEK, DAKOTA — FORT THOMPSON BUILT — THIRTY-EIGH1 SANTEES ON THE SCAFFOLD — CAUSES OF THE INDIAN WAR — ENCOURAGED BY
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE NORTH AND SOUTH INDIANS NATUR
UNFRIENDLY TO WHITE RACE — DEATH OF LITTLE CROW — THE WEISMANN MAS- SACRE DIRT LODGES ON JAMES RIVER — HEART RIVER TRAGEDY — J VCOBSON
KILLED AT JAMES RIVER FERRY — APPOINTMENTS — PROCLAMATION BY \i 1 GOVERNOR — NEWTON EDMUNDS APPOINTED GOVERNOR OF DAKOTA Jo' /
CHAPTER XXIX
POLITICS AXD PROCLAMATIONS 1863
POLITICIANS DISTURBED REPUBLICAN PARTY DIVIDED JUDGE BLISS AND DR. W V.
BURLEIGH, LEADERS OF THE RESPECTIVE FACTIONS — VERY SLIGHT ATTENTION GIVEN TO THE LEGISLATIVE ELECTION OF 1863 — REPUBLICAN AND UNION O VENTION TO ELECT DELEGATES TO THE NATIONAL CONVENTION OF [864— FIRST TERMS OF COURT IN SECOND DISTRICT — THANKSGIVING — PROCLAMATIONS OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN AND GOVERNOR EDMUNDS ,i 1-1
CHAPTER XXX
THE THIRD SESSION OF THE LEGISLATURE
1 81 13-64
THE THIRD SESSION OF THE LEGISLATURE, [863-64 — CONTESTED SEATS GROWINi
OF THE FRAUDS OF 1862 — FIRST MESSAGI OF GOVERNOR EDMUNDS THE CIVIL
WAR — THE INDIAN CAMPAIGN CRITICIZED- INI R01 I DAHO P
IMMIGRATION — NORTH BRANCH OF Till PACIFIC RAILROAD THE PUBLIC DOMAIN — MILITARY PROTECTION FOB THI SETTLEMENTS- RED RN ISLA-
riVE APPORTIONMENT REPEALED VI I t's REPORT ON MILITIA EXPENSES OF
1862 321
« 11 \rrru wxi
IMMIGRATION FROM \K\\ Y< IRK 1 81 , 1
[864, IMMIGRATION — HARD TASK OF TH] PIONEER FARM ERA1 II
FRIEND OF DAKOTA — THE NEW YORK COLONS VISITED Wl> \DDRESSED pa GEN- ERAL HILL AND DOCTOR BURLEIGH ITS ORGANIZATION IN DAKO ITS MEMBERSHIP \ \ 1 > w 1 1 ERE Til I ■ in DAKOTA'S RIVALS 1 I MMI-
GRATION FIELD — BEGINNING OF EMIGRATION 1 5A1 ill
— THE MISSOURI RIVER ROUTE — A ST. LOl 1 COMPANY 01 ■•••33'
xiv CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXXII
THE GRASSHOPPER PLAGUE 1864
GRASSHOPPERS — INDIANS AND INSECTS FOE TO IMMIGRATION A GRASSHOPPER RAID
GENERAL Sl'LLV's GRASSHOPPER EXPERIENCE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT INVES- TIGATES OFF YEARS — HOW THE FARMER FOUGHT THEM LIEUTENANT WAR-
REN's STATEMENT — EIGHT HUNDRED AND FORTY-NINE WINNEBAGOES SENT TO NEBRASKA — THE OLD SETTLERS- HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION, AND THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF DAKOTA 342
CHAPTER XXXIII
GENERAL SULLY'S SECOND CAMPAIGN 1864
GENERAL SULLY'S SECOND CAMPAIGN WEST OF THE MISSOURI RIVER— HIS ARMY —
DEATH OF FIELDING — THE KILLING OF HIS SLAYERS FORT RICE BUILT MARCH
THROUGH THE BAD LANDS — A THREE DAYS' BATTLE DAKOTA CAVALRY IN PER- ILOUS POSITION RETURN OF THE EXPEDITION GOVERNOR EDMUNDS ORDERS THE
ORGANIZATION OF THE MILITIA — TROOPS STATIONED FOR THE WINTER ALL DAY
BATTLE AT FORT RICE — MASSACRE NEAR FORT PHIL KEARNEY SULLY'S OFFICIAL
REP0RTS 353
CHAPTER XXXIV THE ELECTION OF 1864
ELECTION IN 1864 — DIVISION IN THE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP BURLEIGH AND
BLISS FACTIONS TWO REPUBLICAN CONVENTIONS— BLISS RELIES ON DEMOCRATIC
SUPPORT, BUT GENERAL TODD DECIDES TO RUN BLISS AND BURLEIGH COMPROMISE
AND THE JUDGE LEAVES THE TERRITORY BURLEIGH ELECTED; TODD GIVES NOTICE
OF CONTEST LEGISLATIVE INVESTIGATION CONTEST WITHDRAWN 368
CHAPTER XXXV
THE FOURTH SESSION OF THE LEGISLATURE
1864-65
ITS MEMBERSHIP KET( '1U MEMBERS V HARMONIOUS SESSION THE GOV- ERNOR'S MESSAGE — REPORT OF THE TERRITORIAL SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS
TERRITORIAL AUDITOR'S REPORT, INCLUDING REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER TO AUDIT THE MILITIA ACCOUNTS — GENERAL TODD's GROUNDS OF CONTEST 380
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN
1865
1 iXM" x" '■ AUGURAL ADDRESS — ASSASSINATION OF THE PRESIDENT THE NATION
GRIEF STRICKEN — MEMORIAL EXERCISES IN DAKOTA PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S
PRO I I WIVI hi'. -FEDERAL APPOINTMENTS — MUSTERING OUT GENERAL SULLY
1 ONGK \TUJ.ATES DAKOTA CAVALRY — COUNTY GOVERNMENT INAUGURATED HIGH
PRICES THE RULE ,Q7
CONTENTS xv
CHAPTER XXXVII
PEACE TREATIES WITH HOSTILE INDIANS
1865
GOVERNMENT WAGON ROADS IN DAKOTA — BIG SIOUX. VERMILLION' AND J \MI.S RIVER BRIDGES — OVERLAND TO MONTANA VIA THE MISSOURI RIVER — RIVAL K.11 11-
CREATE COMPETITION CIVIL AND MILITARY AUTHORITIES MILDLY CLASH —
PEACE TREATIES WITH THE HOSTILE INDIANS — STEAMBOAT TRAFFIC — FORTS DAKOTA AND JAMES CONSTRUCTED — THE ANNUAL ELECTION — THE 50TH
WISCONSIN INFANTRY TO FORT RICE AN ALL DAY BATTLE AT FORT RICE
INDIANS KILL LA MOURE ON BRULE CREEK WATSON'S STORY SEAL OF THE
SUPREME COURT ARA BARTLETT AND JEFFERSON P. KIDDER APPOINTED
U. S. JUDGES 404
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE FIFTH SESSION OF THE LEGISLATURE 1865-66
THE FIFTH SESSION OF THE LEGISLATURE GOVERNOR'S MESSAGE THE EXEMPTION
LAW PUBLIC LANDS IN MARKET — THE LEGISLATURE SOUNDED LEGISLATIVE
DIVORCES — THE WAGON ROAD INQUIRY — SUPERINTENDENT MOODY REPORTS
MOODY SUPERSEDED TERRITORIAL BONDS — VARIOUS LEGISLATIVE ENACTMENTS —
GEORGE H. HAND THE TIMBER SUPPLY 4 J I
CHAPTER XXXIX POLITICS— BLIZZARDS— INDIANS HOSTILE
a political year president johnson and congress ix embroilment — new
national political party — democrats capture republican organization
in dakota the delegate campaign — doctor burleigh nominated by the
johnson convention new republican party organized- — brookings nom- inated for delegate burleigh elected — massacre at fort i'll ii. kearney
— indian account of the tragedy — blizzards ix 1866 colonel moodv and
secretary spink have an experience lynching of hogan at vermi1
— the missouri bottoms submerged for six weeks by till: spring i i 1 >od — immigration; the Minnesota colony Dakota bar organized undrew j. faulk appointed governor — a thanksgiving proclamation l.vi
CHAPTER XI.
THE SIXTH SESSION' OF TIM-". LEGISLATURE 1866-67
SIXTH SESSION OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY — GEN] RAL TODD 111. I! n SP1 ^KER - JOHNSON PARTY IN CONTROL — GOVERNOR 1 U I K's FIRST MESSAGE EFFORTS TO INDUCE IMMIGRATION GOVERNMENT WAGON ROADS FORT JAMES ABANDONED AND RE-GARRISONED — LOCATION OF Till SANTEE [NDIANS \ Mi — PUBLIC LANDS IN MARKET PROGRESS OF RAILROADS l<>\\ VSDS DAKOTA — RE- PORT OF SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC [NSTR1 < riON JAMES S. FOSTER -CONDITION OF THE COMMON SCHOOLS — PER CAPITA rAX COLLECTED COUNTH AND LARAMIE DEFINED — NEGRO SUFFRAGE BIL1 PAS ED <'! I SPECIAL LEGISLATION — SEVEN Mill 1 I A COMPANIES ORGANIZED \N1) ARM PREPARING FOB PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN 01 t868- REPORT 01 PERRIT TREASURER — ENOS STUTSMAN, THE PIONEER AND LI lER PREHISTORIC RUINS
xvi CONTENTS
AT FORT THOMPSON — FIRST TEACHERS' INSTITUTE THE BLACK HILLS — THE
DAKOTA REPUBLICAN — ALASKA PURCHASED CUTTING TIMBER ON GOVERNMENT
LAND — AN UNPRODUCTIVE APPROPRIATION FOR A PENITENTIARY 450
CHAPTER XLI
THE SEVENTH SESSION OF THE LEGISLATURE
1867-68
LEGISLATURE OF 186/-68 PARTY HONORS QUITE EQUALLY DIVIDED MESSAGE OF
THE GOVERNOR — AGRICULTURE THE MUST IMPORTANT OF INDUSTRIES RAILROADS
NEEDED, LAND GRANTS WILL NOT BE DENIED LARAMIE COUNTY' AND THE UNION
PACIFIC — WESTERN DAKOTA AND THE INDIAN POLICY REPORT OF SUPERIN- TENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION COUNTY SCHOOL AND INDIAN SCHOOL RE- PORTS— TEACHERS' INSTITUTES GYMNASTICS, SCHOOL BUILDINGS, AND COUNTY
SUPERINTENDENTS — FOUNDING CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH AND THE CATHOLIC ORGANIZATION — ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S REPORT AUDITOR AND TREASURER'S RE- PORT— LARAMIE COUNTY — LINCOLN COUNTY ORGANIZED MINNEHAHA COUNTY
REORGANIZED — CARTER COUNTY ( NOW WYOMING) ORGANIZED 465
CHAPTER XLII
ERE CANDIDATES FOR DELEGATE
1868
JOHNSON VERSUS CONGRESS, THE ISSUE — GENERAL GRANT NOMINATED BY THE CON- GRESS PARTY — HORATIO SEYMOUR NAMED BY THE DEMOCRATS THE PROCEDURE
OF RECONSTRUCTING THE SECEDED STATES — JEFFERSON DAVIS RELEASED ON BAIL IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON THE TRIAL AND ACQUITTAL POLI- TICS IN DAKOTA — FIVE CANDIDATES FOR DELEGATE TO CONGRESS — SOLOMON L.
SPINK ELECTED DEMOCRATS ADOPT THEIR HISTORICAL NAME IN DAKOTA
GRANT AND COLFAX WIN — FIRST DEMOCRATIC NEWSPAPER GEORGE BROWN A
PIONEER STEAMBOAT MAN — BUFFALO DIMINISHING GEORGE M. PINNEY KILLS
EX-GOVERNOR BEALL IN MONTANA — ORIGIN OF DECORATION DAY — A REMARKABLE STORM IN MAY .gg
CHAPTER XL] II
LAST ANNUAL SESSION OF THE LEGISLATURE
1868-69
LEG] 1 VTIVJ ASSEMBLY ol [Sf.8 <Mj i\ni \NS IX THE BIG SIOUX VALLEY MESSAGE
01 I Ml >.<>\ ERNOR- -CO M 111, SEATS — FUTURE SESSIONS TO BE BIENNIAL — THE
fERRITOR-S OF WYOMING OPENING OF THE BLACK HILLS AGITATED WOMAN
SUFFR VG1 Ml I I UTED — TO ABOLISH THE TERRITORY OF DAKOTA — DECREASE OF BUF- FALO HAS APPALLING RESULTS; INDIANS SUFFER FOR FOOD— FRIGHTFUL MORTAL- ITY < M Ml, BY PRAIRIE FIRE— PRESIDEN1 JOHNSON'S AMNESTY PROCLAMATION 1 ' EGATI l;l R1 EIGH'S FAREWELL SPEECH IN CONGRESS, ASKS TUSTICE FOR THE INDIAN — IND] Ws SUFFER ERoM PRAIRIE FIRE .' 505
CHAPTER XLIV
GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT, PRESIDENT
[869
l'KI>"" ' GRANT INAUGURATED— HIS WONDERFUL CAREER— CHANGE IN TERRI- TORIAL OKI h [ALS— WYOMING TERRITORY ORGANIZED— THE NEW INDIAN PEACE I'm. ICY— PRESIDENT DISCUSSED INDIAN QUESTION— GENERAL SHERIDAN STATES
CONTENTS xvii
THE MILITARY VIEW — IRISH REPUBLK USTS, JOHN POPE HODNETT — Till H TORY IN [869 — INDIAN TREATIES — BRITISH OFFICER SHOT BY SENTINEL ON STEAMBOAT — BOHEMIAN IMMIGRATION ABUNDANT CROPS VGRICULTI RAL SO- CIETY ORGANIZED THE YEAR 1869 COUNTIES ORGANIZED 521
CHAPTER XLV
DEMOCRATS ELECT DELEGATE TO CONGRESS
1870
THE DECADE BEGINNING WITH iSjO RAILROADS WERE DAKOTA'S PRESSING NEED
— REVIEW OF THE PROGRESS OF SETTLEMENT — TERRITORIAL TREASURER'S RE- PORT TOWNS AND POSTOFFICES — FIRST TELEGRAPH LINE FEDERAL CENS1 S
BY COUNTIES DAKOTA POLITICIANS AND POLITICAL PARTIES — BURLEIGH SEEKS
REPUBLICAN NOMINATION — YANKTON COUNTY THE BATTLE GROUND THE
REPUBLICAN TERRITORIAL CONVENTION — NAMES OF DELEGATES — A SPLIT— BURLEIGH AND SPINK BOTH NOMINATED — DEMOCRATS NAME THEIR FIRST PARTY TICKET DEMOCRATIC TERRITORIAL CONVENTION NAMES OF DELEGATES— ARM- STRONG NOMINATED FOR DELEGATE TO CONGRESS AND ELECTED 534
CHAPTER XL VI
FIRST BI-ENNIAL LEGISLATURE P.UKP.AXK. GOYKKXOR
1870
burleigh's contest against Armstrong — spink also becomes a contestant — armstrong seated land districts established at pembina \m> spring- field— blizzard fatalities — public lands — legislature in first bi-ennial session, ninth in number — governor burbank's first message tmpi tant laws enacted — district court for northern dakota— iowa prison for dakota convicts — brule city's career 552
CHAPTER XLYII
EARLY STEAMBOAT DANS AND YEARS 1830 and I ,ater
THE FIRST STEAMBOATS — THE DAYS OF NIL MACKINAW — CAPTAIN JOSEPH I VBARGE A PIONEER — HOW THE TRANSPORTATION TRAFFIC GREW PROFIT IN THE B NESS — THOUSANDS OF RETURNING MINERS \ BAD MAN BURNING "I CHIPPEWA — A BATTLE WITH HOSTILE INDIANS — FIRST TRIPS OP rH] 1 1 "\\ STONE — DERIVATION OF THE NAME — MINIM, PARTIES RETURNING WITH I A MILLION IN GOLD— DESTRUCTION BY FIRE AT ST. LOUIS — FIVE CRAFT FROZEN OUT OF HARBOR — STEAMBOAT IN A Tornado -LOG OF THE I'l \IN\ll SHOWING THE NAVIGABILITY OF THE MISSOURI IN THE KALI. LOG OF THE FANCHON DESCRIBING A LATE JolKMA ON rill YELLOWSTON1 CAPT. JAW GARRY TELLS OF THE GRANDEUR OF A MISSOURI VOYAGE THE DESTRUCTION OF SN I HE MISSOURI ONE OF THE GREAT NAVIGABLE RIVERS OF THE WORLD 505
CHAPTER X1AIII
CHIEF [USTICE TO NORTHERN DAKOTA 1870-71 ;-•
THE SUPREME COURT — CHIEF JUSTK 1 ASSIGNED TO NORTHERN PARI
T0RV — FIRST SESSlox OF COURT AT PEMBINA DESCRIPTIOI INTR1
ARREST OF CENTRALIA LIQUOR DEALERS- GENERA1 tONS V '
iii CONTENTS
DELEGATE — RIGHTS OF A DELEGATE — EXTRA SESSION OF LEGISLATURE DIS- TINGUISHED VISITORS TO NORTHERN DAKOTA — TEXT BOOKS — THE INTERNA- TIONAL BOUNDARY LINK — REMARKABLE PRAIRIE FIRES HANIBAL HAMLIN
VISITS THE TERRITORY — INDIAN HOSTILITIES — BELDEN KILLED GENERAL ITEMS
TURNER COUNTY ORGANIZED JOHN \V. TURNER 582
CHAPTER XLIX
RAILROADS NEEDED TO SETTLE THE TERRITORY
1870
THE RAILWAY SITUATION IN 1856 AND LATER — DAKOTA'S EARLY EFFORTS FOR RAIL- WAY LINES — THE UNION PACIFIC AND THE NORTHERN BRANCH THE MISSOURI
& NIOBRARA VALLEY RAILROAD FRANCHISE — THE COMPANY PERFECTS ITS
ORGANIZATION NEWTON EDMUNDS, PRESIDENT, INTENDED TO BUILD THE
NORTHERN BRANCH OF THE UNION PACIFIC JOHN I. BLAIR GETS THE COVETED
FRANCHISE AND BUILDS FROM MISSOURI VALLEY TO SIOUX CITY' URGENT AND
INCREASING DEMAND FOR RAILROADS LEGISLATURE GRANTS A VALUABLE FRAN- CHISE TO THE DAKOTA AND NORTHWESTERN COMPANY PERFECTS ITS ORGANI- ZATION AND PROCURES A PRELIMINARY SURVEY" — REPORTS OF CHIEF ENGINEER
— OTHER RAILROADS BUILDING TOWARD DAKOTA RAILROAD COMPANIES REFORT
TO THE LEGISLATURE — 1860. GOOD CROP Y'EAR ABUNDANCE OF PRODUCE AND NO
MARKET NEW AND NUMEROUS RAILWAY ORGANIZATIONS — THE DAKOTA CEN- TRAL AND THE GRAND TRUNK — FAILURE TO OBTAIN LAND GRANTS DEFEATED THE BUILDING OF MANY LINES 597
CHAPTER L
DAKOTA'S FIRST RAILROAD BUILT AT HOME
1871-72
THE DAKOTA SOUTHERN RAILROAD ILLINOIS CENTRAL IN FAVOR — EXTRA SESSION
OF LEGISLATURE IN 187I WITH NAMES OF MEMBERS, AND NEW RAILROAD INCOR- PORATION LAW — LEMARS OBJECTIVE POINT — LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS — GOV- ERNOR'S MESSAGE — EXTRA SESSION AUTHORIZED LEGISLATURE ADJOURNS —
AMAZING CONTRADICTION THE SPECIAL SESSION "NOT AUTHORIZED" — RE- SOLVED TO HAVE CONGRESS VALIDATE THE LAW — YANKTON COUNTY VOTFS
$200,000 RAILROAD BONDS EFFORTS TO SELL THE BONDS FINALLY SUCCESSFUL
COMPANY FINALLY CONTRACTS FOR BUILDING THE LINE — WICKER, MECKL1NG & CO., CHICAGO, CONTRACTORS — CLAY COUNTY VOTES AGAINST BONDS — ELK POINT GIVES $15,000 6l6
CHAPTER LI
BUILDING THE DAKOTA SOUTHERN 1872-73
ii' 1 m G rHE DAKOTA SOUTHERN RAILROAD — LEMARS NO LONGER CONSIDERED
-RAILROAD COMPANY PROVIDES FOR BONDING THE ROAD YANKTON COUNTY
OPPOSED TO THIS 1:1 [LDING I HE ROAD IN 1872— COMPLETED IN FEBRUARY, 1873 — EXCURSION AND NAMES 1 'I EXCURSIONISTS — UNITED STATES JUDGES BARNES
VND SHANNON COM] IN JUDGES FRENCH AND BROOKINGS RETIRED — COURT IS A BOND-RESTRAINING ORDER— DILATORY PROCEEDINGS — THE m'cOOK
TRAGEDY REFERRED TO -.1 1 BARNES GRANTS CHANGE OF VENUE TO CLAY
COUNTS — PARTIES THEN AGREE TO W WIN \ B I 1 S] III.F.MENT — THE INDICT- MENT AGAINST WINTERMUTH ACTING GOVERNOR REASSIGNS JUDGES 63O
CONTENTS xix
CHAPTER LI I
RAILROAD MATTERS SUBJECT OF LONG LAW SI I I
1S75
LEGAL PROCEEDINGS TO RESTRAIN COLLECTION OF THE RAILROAD - -JOHN TREADWAY, COMPLAINANT — YANKTON COUNTY DEMURS — COURT - RE- STRAINING ORDER YANKTON COUNTY THEN APPEALS TO UNITED 51 VTES SU- PREME COURT WHICH REVERSES THE LATTER DECISION l88l, YND SI -I UNS THE
DISTRICT COURT YANKTON COUNTY MUST PAY THE BONDS — TERRITORIAL I 1
LATURE OF l88l ENACTS A SETTLEMENT LAW THAT PROVIDES FOR PART] \1. PAY- MENT AND IN 1883 ANOTHER LAW IS ENACTED THAT RESULTS IX AN 1 TABLE ARRANGEMENT WITH BONDHOLDERS 640
CHAPTER LIII
NORTHWESTERN AND MILWAUKEE CONTEST FOR CONTROL
1879-80
(Railroads — Concluded)
JOHN I. BLAIR PURCHASES A CONTROLLING INTEREST IN THE DAKOTA SOUTHERN — PRESIDENT WICKER LEASES THE ROAD TO A RIVAL COMPANY, THE CHICAGO, MIL- WAUKEE & ST. PAUL MR. BLAIR TAKES STEPS TO PREVENT TRANSFER OF Till-:
PROPERTY' FINAL SETTLEMENT MR. BLAIR SELLS TO THE MILWAUKEE, AM)
THE DAKOTA SOUTHERN FROM SIOUX CITY TO YANKTON' AND TO SIOUX FALLS BECOMES A PART OF THE MILWAUKEE SY'STEM — MILWAUKEE RAILROAD COMPANY IN VIRTUAL CONTROL OF THE TRANSPORTATION INTERESTS OF SOUTHEASTERN DAKOTA 648
CHAPTER LIV
DAKOTA VIEWED FROM THE MISSOURI RIVER— WARM
DELEGATE CONTEST
1872
A VOYAGE UP THE MISSOURI RIVER FROM Y'ANKTON TO BISMARCK — INDIANS AXI> INDIAN AGENTS ALONG THE ROUTE — THE TIMBER CULTURE ACT — WILLIAM WELCH AND OTHERS VISIT THE SIOUX — NORTHERN DAKOTA A NEW FACTOR IN
POLITICS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CANDID \TES — TERRITORIAL ELECTION —
CONVENTIONS NAMES OF DELEGATES AND CANDIDATES — THE LIBERAL REP1
CAN PARTY — HORACE GREELEY ABANDONS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY- -NOMIN I BY THE LIBERALS AND SUPPORTED BY THE DEMOCRATS — PRESIDENT GRANT RE- NOMINATED— ANTI-GREELEY DEMOCRATS NOMINATE O'CONNOR AND ADAMS JUDGE BROOKINGS AND COLONEL MOODY RIVAL REPUBLICAN CANDID
DELEGATE ARMSTRONG RENOMINATED BY in MOCRATS- ARMSTRONG lilt TED —
DELEGATES TO NATIONAL CONVENTION— I .1 N] RA] BEAD] E R] PUBLICAN NATIONAL
t I'M MITTEEMAN L. D. PARMER DEMOCRATIC COMMITTEEMAN WHEAT AND
FLOUR 656
(II \ITKR LV THE LEGISLATURE OF 1872-73— DEUEL COUN IV
IRISH IMMIGRATION CONVENTION — DELEGATES I
PREPARATIONS FOR THE CENTENNIAL — YANKTON LAND OFFICE— FORT
BUILT LEGISLATURE OF 1872-73 — DEUEL COl KHUE W I IF M '
IIAHA — LEGISLATING ENACTMENTS DAKOTA HERALD ESTABLISHED LANDS
YENS IX NORTHERN DAKOTA — GENERALS SHERIDAN AND HAN
DAKOTA ''~J
xx CONTENTS
CHAPTER LVI
THE NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD 1872 and Later
THE STORY OF THE NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD PRESIDENT MONROE'S EXPEDI- TION— CONGRESS AUTHORIZES THREE ROUTES SURVEYED JOSIAH PERHAM, OF
MAINE. PATRIARCH OF THE NORTHERN PACIFIC CONGRESS GRANTS CHARTER
AND LAND IX 1 864 — JAY COOKE BECOMES FINANCIAL AGENT IN i860, CON- STRUCTION BEGUN IN MINNESOTA IX 187O REACHED MOREHEAD, ON THE RED
RIVER OF THE NORTH. IN 1872 — FIRST TRAIN THE BRIDGE AT FARGO LOCOMO- TIVE ENTERS NORTH DAKOTA JUNE 8, 1872 — FARGO FIRST NAMED "CENTRALIA"
BY THE SETTLERS — SURVEY ACROSS DAKOTA INDIANS ANNOY ENGINEERS —
JAMESTOWN AND FORT WM. H. SEWARD SITTING BULL HEADS THE INCORRI-
GIRLES — STRONG MILITARY FORCE ORGANIZED TO GUARD RAILWAY WORK THE
STANLEY EXPEDITION— FORT M'KEAN BUILT ON THE MISSOURI HARD TIMES
AND RUMORED FINANCIAL TROUBLES OF JAY COOKE SILVER DEMONETIZED
BURLEIGH COUNTY — HISTORICAL SURROUNDINGS ORGANIZATION BISMARCK
RECEIVES ITS TITLE FROM THE GERMAN CHANCELLOR COOKE'S FAILURE — TEM- PORARY SUSPENSION OF WORK ON THE NORTHERN PACIFIC WORK RESUMED IN
1878 THE GREAT BRIDGE AT BISMARCK — A DISTANCE TABLE — CASS COUNTY
ORGANIZED 686
CHAPTER LVII
THE COMING OF THE GERMAN-RUSSIANS 1873
LAKE KAMPESKA AND RAILROAD GRANT THE GERMAN-RUSSIAN EMIGRATION ONLY
A FRACTION OF EMIGRANTS WERE MENNONITES, BUT THE MENNONITES WERE
BEST KNOWN — ORIGIN OF THE SECT AND THE BROTHERHOOD EXPLAINING THE
EMIGRATION OF THE GERMANS TO RUSSIA IN I770 AND LONG AFTER IN 1870
CZAR ABROGATES ORIGINAL AGREEMENT AND THOUSANDS OF GERMANS EMIGRATE
TO AMERICA ARE CALLED GERMAN-RUSSIANS SEVERAL THOUSAND EMIGRATE
AND SETTLE IN DAKOTA TERRITORY AND ELSEWHERE IN 1873 AND LATER RE- CEIVE A CORDIAL WELCOME BROUGHT LARGE AMOUNT OF GOLD COIN WERE A
VALUABLE FACTOR IN DEVELOPING DAKOTA'S AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES — EFFORT
TO OBTAIN FROM CONGRESS SPECIAL LAND PRIVILEGE NAMES OF A NUMBER OF
THE PIONEER EMIGRANTS — AMERICA, THE ASYLUM OF THE OPPRESSED OF ALL NATIONS 703
CHAPTER LVIII
THE McCOOK-WINTERMUTE TRAGEDY 1873
1873 WAS A XOTABLE Y'EAR FOR DAKOTA— THE ADVENT OF RAILROADS EARLY IMMI- GRATION AGENTS ELECTING TERRITORIAL OFFICERS — SECRETARY EDWIN S.
M'COOK SHOT AND KILLED BY PETER P. WINTERMUTE SKETCH OF WINTERMUTE
— INDICTMENT OF WINTERMUTE FOR MANSLAUGHTER — THE GOVERNOR REASSIGNS THE JUDGES — THE FIRST INDICTMENT AND PROCEEDINGS QUASHED AND NEW INDICTMENT FOUND CHARGING MURDER — THE TRIAL AND THE TESTIMONY —
WINTERMUTE CONVICTED OF MANSLAUGHTER — SENTENCED RETRIAL ORDERED
l!Y SUPREME COURT— THE DEFENDANT TRIED AT VERMILLION AND ACQUITTED
I I II- PRO( EEDINGS IN THE CASE— DEATH OF WINTERMUTE 718
CONTEXTS xxi
CHAPTER LIX
INSTITUTING THE SIOUX INDIAN PEM I. Pi iLICY
1854-1871
A STATEMENT OF THE PEACE POLICY — THE SIOUX FROM 1854 TO 1868 PEACE
TREATIES OF 1865 AND l866 MILITARY CLAIM PRIORITY IX TREATY MAKI
THE ONKPAHPAH TREATY' AN INDEX TO MANY — GENERAL SILLY AND COMMIS- SIONER PARKER — GENERAL SHERMAN PROCLAIMS THE INDIAN WAR ENDED ARGUMENT, PRO AND CON, FOR THE CONTROL OF THE INDIANS -TEXT OF SHER- MAN TREATY OF 1868 THE INDUSTRIAL PEACE POLICY UNDER PRESIDENT GRANT
CHURCH DENOMINATIONS FURNISH INDIAN AGENTS CONGRESS TO OPPOSE
FURTHER TREATIES WITH INDIANS AS A FOREIGN NATION— SHERMAN TREATY GAVE INDIANS TOO MUCH DISCRETION IN CHOOSING BETWEEN WORK AND in INC} THE SIOLW IN iS/O AND 1 8~ I — STANLEY'S REPORT 744
CHAPTER LX INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION ON THE SIOUX
PE-HE-ZI-WI, SPOTTED TAIL'S DAUGHTER INDIANS IN COURT FOR MURDER — MIS- SIONARIES' GREAT WORK FOR CIVILIZATION FATHER DESMET — INDIANS LIKE
WHITE MAN'S WAYS — SPOTTED TAIL'S RELIGIOUS VIEWS — TOMAHAWK READS
THE ISI1SLE RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATIONS HOLD MEETINGS WITH INDIANS — CUSTER
HEARS "OLD HUNDRED" SUNG BY' HIS INDIAN SCOUTS //O
CHAPTER LXI COST OF WAR AND PEACE COMPARED
SECRETARY DELANO EXPLAINS PEACE POLICY — GENERAL SHERIDAN IN I S74 GEN- ERAL SHERMAN'S VIEWS COST OF WAR COMPARED WITH COST OF PEACE — WITH- DRAWING PLIBLIC LAND FROM MARKET TO PROTECT THE SIOUX AND RESTORING IT 783
CHAPTER I.XII CHIEF STRIKE-THE-REE .MARKS A SPEECH
HON. WILLIAM WELCH AND OTHERS VISIT INDIANS — INDIAN TREATS Willi INDIAN — THE INDIAN TALKS — THE OTIS TREATY — COMMISSIONER SMITH AND THE YANKTONS — STRIKE-THE-REE's VIEWS, \M> THOSE OF el 111 R I \.\DH - SA( HEMS IMPORTANCE OF BLISTERED HANDS ,""'"'
CHAPTER LXI II
INDIAN CHIEFS VISIT WASHINGTON 1875-78
NAMES OF INDIAN AGENTS IN 1875. AND THEIR M.I \i IIS IN DAKOTA TERRI1
INDIANS REMOVED TO MISSOURI RIVER AFTER BLACK HILLS TREATY AND THEN MOVED BACK AGAIN- INDIANS GO TO WASHINGTON— PRESIDENT HAYES VS GREAT
FATHER TALKS TO HIS RED CHILDREN RED CHILDREN II WE SOMETHING TO SAY
COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS IIAYT CO.MI S 01 I I" DAKOT \ 1" -' E f I IS
RED TEOPLE — PROHIBITS USE OF BEADS WHK 11 \RK A SERU
IN THE PATH OF INDIAN WOMEN BECOMING CIVILIZED REMARKABLE REVIVAL
OF BEAD TRADE — MR. IIAYT HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH SPOTTED TAII
xxiv CONTENTS
<\ ATTACK EMIGRANTS GORDON CASE ARREST OF LARGE PARTY OF INVADERS
BY THE MILITARY — NEBRASKA JUDGE DECIDES THE TREATY OF l86S OF NO EFFECT — CI1 ISLES SOLIS ARRESTED, TRIAL AND DISCHARGE — THE POLICY' OF EXCLUDING EMIGRANTS FROM THE GOLD FIELDS HAD FAILED OF ITS PURPOSE OX>3
CHAPTER LXXI
MINERS AT WORK IN NORTHERN HILLS. DEADWOOD FOUNDED
1875-76
GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS CONCLUDE TO RELAX THE RIGID RULES OF EXCLUSION
REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS PRESIDENT GRANT'S MESSAGE
THE BLACK HILLS FEVER AMONG DAKOTANS LETTERS FROM DEADWOOD: PEAR- SON, GAY AND OTHERS INTERVIEWS WITH CAPTAIN KELLEY', JOHN BRENNAN
AND OTHERS THE DISCOVERER OF DEADWOOD GULCH — GOVERNOR PENNINGTON
DECLINES TO ORGANIZE COUNTIES 92O
CHAPTER LXXII
DELEGATE KIDDER'S ZEAL HASTENS THE TREATY
1876
DELEGATE KIDDER'S GREAT BLACK HILLS ADDRESS IN CONGRESS, JUNE, 1876 — KID- DER'S IMPORTANT ACTION IN SECURING THE OPENING OF THE HILLS 93I
CHAPTER LXXIII
CUSTER'S LAST BATTLE— BLACK HILLS" PURCHASED
1876
TERRY'S FATEFUL EXPEDITION AGAINST SITTING BULL'S 5,000 SIOUX CUSTER'S
MARCH AND LAST BATTLE — THE TRAGEDY' OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN — CUSTER DIVIDES HIS REGIMENT AND ENGAGES SITTING BULL'S FORCES WITH FIVE COM- PANIES— COMPLETE SLAUGHTER OF THE GALLANT GENERAL AND HIS MEN NOT
ONE ESCAPED TO TELL THE STORY OF THE MOST FAMOUS BATTLE IN OUR INDIAN
ANNALS THE STEAMBOAT FAR WEST AND CAPTAIN GRANT MARSH GENERAL
TERRY'S OFFICIAL REPORT — CARRYING THE WOUNDED OF RENO'S COMMAND TO
FORT LINCOLN THE VOYAGE DOWN THE YELLOWSTONE — SENDING THE FATEFUL
TIDINGS TO THE WORLD — UNIVERSAL LAMENT AT SACRIFICE OF CUSTER — DAKOTA OFFERS \ REGIMENT OF VOLUNTEER CAVALRY — SITTING BULL SEEKS REFUGE IN BRITISH AMERICA — GREAT EXCITEMENT FOLLOWING CUSTER SLAUGHTER AND THREATS OF EXTERMINATING THE INDIANS — NEW BLACK HILLS TREATY COM- MISSION APPOINTED COMMISSION AT PINE RIDGE — INDIANS QUIET AND
OPPRESSED WITH FEAR OF PALE FACE INDIGNATION NEW PROPOSED TREATY FOR
BLACK HILLS SUBMITTED AND AGREED UPON WITH LITTLE OPPOSITION — THE l-.l \<K HILLS COMPACT WITH THE NAMES OF INDIANS OF ALL THE TRIBES THAT SIGNED -SPOTTED TAIL AND OTHERS VISIT INDIAN TERRITORY TO INVESTIGATE
Till: COUNTRY WITH THE VIEW OF REMOVING SIOUX DECIDE TO REMAIN IN
DAKOTA— GENERAL NELSON A. MILES IN THE FIELD ACTIVE CAMPAIGN DURING
1 VL] "I [876 LED BY CROOK ^ND TERRY — CROOK REACHES BLACK HILLS — BATTLE
01 SI IM 1.1 I'll - Gl NERAL SHERMAN ON THE YELLOWSTONE INDIAN TROUBLES
CONFINED TO THE BLAI K mils MAJOR RENO OF CUSTER'S REGIMENT DEMANDS
AN INVESTIGATION — MILITARY C01 S I \l I III. VGO TESTIMONY OF WITNESSES
— RENO'S I -.11 mi N I EXONERATES RENO — FINDING OF COURT SITTING
i;i I 1 \Mi GALL'S STORY OF THE BATTLE — THE LITTLE BIG HORN BATTLEFIELD A NATIONAL CEMETERY g?8
CONTENTS xxv
CHAPTER LXXIV
BLACK HILLS LAWFULLY OPENED— INDIANS HOSTILE
1877
(Black Hills— Concluded)
REPORT OF THE BLACK HILLS TREATY COMMISSION — TREATY CONSIDERED OK GREATER VALUE THAN ANY FORMER AGREEMENT — EXPLAINING THE ALLIANCE OF THE CHEYENNES AND ARAPAHOES — BLACK HILLS COUNTIES AND BOUNDARIES — INDIAN HOSTILITIES SHERIFF BULLOCK CALLS FOR TROOPS— GOVERNOR AUTHOR- IZES CALLING OUT THE MILITIA — SEVERAL HOME COMPANIES ORGANIZED DIS- AGREEMENT AS TO TENURE OF APPOINTED COUNTY OFFICIALS — COURT DECIDES AX
ELECTION MUST BE HELD DEMOCRATS CARRY THE ELECTION — WAGON ROAD
ROUTES FROM THE MISSOURI RIVER TO THE GOLD FIELDS — FIRST SESSION OF COURT
AT DEADWOOD EVIDENCES OF AN EARLIER WHITE OCCUPATION — THE OPENING
OF THE HILLS OF PRIME IMPORTANCE IN PROMOTING THE PEACE POLICY. . .
History of Dakota Territory
CHAPTER I
LOUISIANA— HOW NAMED AND ITS CESSION TO THE UNITED STATES
1803
THE TERRITORY OF LOUISIANA — ITS DISCOVERY BY LASALLE — ITS BOUNDARIES — ITS
PURCHASE BY THE UNITED STATES INCIDENTS LEADING TO THE TREATY OF
CESSION.
The Territory of Dakota, with the exception of the portion drained by the Red River of the North and the Mouse River, was a part of the Louisiana Terri- tory, acquired by the United States from France, by purchase, in 1803.
At the close of this country's successful war for independence, waged by the American Colonies against the government of Great Britain, that nation, by the Treaty of Paris, September, 1783, conceded the independence of the Colonies, and transferred to the new nation all its domain and sovereignty lying east of the Mississippi River, south of the Great Lakes and the River St. Lawrence, extend- ing south to the Spanish possessions. These Spanish possessions included Florida and all south of that state's northern boundary line, extended wesl to the .Missis- sippi River, excepting the Island of New Orleans. West of the Mississippi lay a large portion of the Territory of Louisiana, so named by the intrepid French explorer, LaSalle, in 1682, who had then, as discoverer, taken formal possession of the country drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries, and named it in honor of his king, Louis XIV of France.
Inasmuch as the boundaries of the original Territory of Louisiana do not appear to have been definitely marked by the first claimant or those claiming under that power, for the reason that but a small fraction of the territory had been explored; and because Dakotians must ever be interested in knowing the facts regarding these boundaries, we have copied briefly from a work prepared by the Hon. Dinger Hermann, commissioner of the general land office, and pub- lished by order of Congress, where the writer unravels the disputed questions, mainly those connected with the possessions of our Government west of the summit of the Rocky Mountains known originally as the Oregon country, in the lisdit of the facts connected with the original discovery and subsequent treaties. First, as to what was claimed by the discoverer:
I.aSalle was the first to descend the Mississippi from its oavigabli n irthertl - to its mouth, and from the gulf inward again. His discover} was not 1 mere accident, nor was it left unwritten and in doubt. His journey was undertaken foi purpi >i and every important observation was carefully noted and reported by him. He was a man of education and received a patent of nobility. His expedition- were und ithority
<>i the 1-Ycnch government, and he earlv won the confidence and admiration oi tl at 1 monarch, Louis XIV. The Chevalier Henry de Tonty, Fathers Hennepin and Meml and other well known explorers were his companions in many expeditions, and before, over much of the same ground, Mkrquette and Joliet had opened the • the
vol. 1— 1
1
HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY
[ndian tribes. The result of his researches was made known in France, and efforts were at once made by the government to colonize the country and extend exploration.
alle, standing with de Tonty, Dautray and other companions on the banks of the western channel of the Mississippi, about three leagues from its mouth, on April 9, 1682, took possession of the country in the name of Louis XIV, and setting up a column, or, as Doctor Kohl insists, "a cross with arms of the King," buried a plate, unfurled the flag of France, sung a Te Deum, and naming the country "Louisiana," in a loud voice, pro- claimed its extent to lie "from the mouth of the great river St. Louis, on the eastern side, otherwise called Ohio, Alighin, Sipore, or Chiskagona, and this with the consent of the Chadnanons, Chikachas, and other people duelling therein with whom we have made alliance, as also along the River Colbert, or Mississippi, and rivers which discharge themselves therein, from its source beyond the Kious or Nadonessious, and this with their consent, and with the consent of the Miotanties, Illinois. Mesigameus, Natchez, Koroas, which are the most considerable nations dwelling therein, with whom also we have made alliance, as far as its mouth at the sea or Gulf of .Mexico, and also to the mouth of the River Palms, upon the assurance which we have received from all these nations that we are the first Europeans who have descended or ascended the said River Colbert.
LaSalle also named the Mississippi "Colbert," in honor of his friend and patron, M. Colbert, the colonial minister under Louis X1Y, and upon whose report the king conferred upon LaSalle the rank of esquire, with power to acquire knighthood.
Passing over an interval of thirty-five years, in 17 17. Bienville was appointed by the French king to be "Governor of Louisiana," and one of his first acts was to select a place for a French colony, which he did by choosing the site of the present City of New Orleans, named in honor of the Duke of Orleans, then regent of France. In 1723 the seat of government was fixed at that place, which contained 300 inhabitants.
Concerning the northern and western boundaries of Louisiana, they were conceded to be the sources of the waters which by' various tributaries were drained into the Mississippi. Subsequently and as the result of treaties between France and England in 1773 (the Treaty of L'trecht), a boundary was fixed between the English and French possessions. The commissioners acting under this treaty fixed the "northern boundary of Canada and Louisiana by a line beginning on the Atlantic, at a cape or promontory in 580 30' north latitude; thence southeasterly to the Lake Mistasin ; thence further southeast to the latitude forty-nine degrees north from the equator, and along that line in- definitely."
\t the time this treaty was made, France possessed Canada and Louisiana. This was followed by a treaty between the same powers in 1763 (the United States being not then in existence), by which France ceded all the Territory of Louisiana, east of the Mississippi River, to Great Britain.
Now comes the new Government of the United States, which by the terms of the treaty <>f peace in 17N3. which closed the War of the Revolution, succeeds to all the country theretofore claimed by Great Britain, south of the Great Lakes and east of the Mississippi and its sources, extending west to the Lake of the Woods.
Concerning the settlement of this question of the northern boundary, in which 1 lakotians will feel an interest. ex-President Jefferson, in a letter to Mr. Mellish, the geographer, dated tvlonticello, December 31, 1816, says:
By tlie charter of Louis XIV, all the country comprehending the waters which flow into tbe Mi sis ippi, was made a pari of Louisiana. Consequently its northern boundary was the summit of die highlands in which its northern waters rise. But, by the Xth Art. of the Treaty of Utrecht, France and England agreed to appoint commissioners to settle the boundarj between their possessions in that quarter, and those commissioners settled it at the forty ninth degree of latitude. This it was which induced tbe British commissioners, in settling thi boundary with us. to follow the northern water line to tbe Lake of the Woods, at the latitude fort) ninth degree, and then go off on that parallel. This, then, is the true northern boundary of | ouisiana.
The purchase of the Territory of Louisiana by the United Slates came about without any premeditation on the part of this Government and so unexpectedly
HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY 3
that it was not known to President Jefferson, under whose administration it was accomplished, until several weeks had elapsed after the treats ceding the terri- tory had been signed at the French capital. It was secured by peaceful methods, and the purchase was made because Napoleon was determined to sell, and not that the United States was predisposed to buy. The circumstances leading up to this transaction, and the consummation of it, appear to have been signally approved by Providence, beginning with the tyrannical decree of the Spanish governor at Xew Orleans, forbidding, in effect, the commerce of the Mississippi by American planters, up to the successful termination of the purchase. Spain, in enacting the role of an oppressor, was fostering the cause of human liberty.
In 1762 France had ceded the Territory of Louisiana to Spain and that nation held it for thirty-eight years, or until the year 1800. At this time the Duke of Parma, a son-in-law of the King of Spain, was desirous of securing for himself the succession to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, that he might be raised to the dignity of a king, and have his dominion enlarged by the addition of Tuscany. In consideration of France giving assurances for these dolmen. and enlarged territory in Italy, Spain agreed to the retrocession of Louisiana. The treaty of retrocession was known as the "Treaty of Idlefonso," and v consummated Uctober 1, 1800. l'rior to this time the relations between Frai and the United States had not been harmonious, due chiefly to the disorderly, unsettled, if not chaotic, condition of the French government. At one time, during the administration of President Adams, 1798, our Government was on the point of declaring war against France, and Washington, said to have been tendered the command of our armies, had accepted and had selected a porti of his staff. It could not, therefore, be agreeable to the United Stales to have an unfriendly power for so close a neighbor. Spain, however, continued to administer the government of Louisiana, while France owned the soil. In 1802 the Spanish governor of New Orleans took occasion to abrogate the treaty with the United States under which American planters along the Mississippi were given free navigation of that river and also were given the right to deposit their produce at New Orleans preparatory to its shipment by sea to Atlantic ports and to foreign countries. The enforcement of this interdiction and withdrawal of the right of deposit raised such a clamor that 1 'resident Jefferson appealed to France and .succeeded in having the Spanish act annulled; hut the event had served to draw the attention of the world to this quarter. Napoleon, who was first consul, in the meantime had become deeply involved in war with Great Britain, then the most powerful maritime nation, and he realized the precarious situation of his American possessions, which he would have been unable to defend I England earnestly endeavored to make conquest of them. This was the situation when in 1803 President Jefferson, desirous of securing control of the .Mississippi, instructed tiie American minister at the French capital. Mr. Livingston, to negotiate for the purchase of the Island of New ( (rlcans and \\ est Florida, and at about the same time dispatched James Monro, .1- a special envoy, giving him S2,ooo,ooo, to assist Livingston in his negotiations. Napoleon was apprised of the earnest desire of the United Mates to obtain New Orleans, and he had instructed his ministers not only to sell it. but to sell the entire territory of Louisiana; so that when our representatives made their proposition they were met by the counter proposal of France, to take the whole of I ouisiana, Xew Orleans included. This was altogether unexpected, and 110 authority had been given them to entertain such a proposition. They were urged to an immediate decision. This de-ire on the pari of Napoleon was not known to the representatives of the United States until the proposition was Napoleon, realizing the likelihood of I ngland's ambition, had said to Ins mini ters. Talleyrand of the state and Marbois of th< treasurj departments:
The English shall not have the Mississippi, which they covet. ["h< com 1 ana w.,„lcl be easj 11 :li,- onlj took the trouble to make a descent there. 1 have 1 moment to lose in putting it out of her reach. I think of ceding it to the I nited .
4 HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY
They only ask of me one town in Louisiana; but I already consider the colony as entirely lost; and it appears to me that in the hands of this growing power it will be more useful to the policy and even the cuinmerce of France, than it 1 should attempt to keep it. It is not only New Orleans that 1 will cede, it is the whole colony without any reservation. To attempt to retain it would be folly. I direct you (Marbois), to negotiate this offer with the envoys of the United States. 1 will be moderate in consideration of the necessity in which 1 am of making a sale. But keep this to yourself.
The American envoys could not consult the home Government for further instructions. The distance was great and time was precious and weeks would be required in which to obtain instructions from Washington. War was soon to be declared between England and France. Prompt action was necessary. Quickness in action meant the vast domain west of the Mississippi for our republic, as delay in action would mean it for England. Our negotiators read the future with the alternative before them, and they gladly accepted the issue, and soon there was an agreement for the whole of Louisiana. The article of the treaty conveying the territory to the United States reads as follows:
Article I. Whereas, by the article, the third of the treaty concluded at St. Idlefonso, the 9th Vendemaire, an. 9 (1st October, 1800), between the First Consul of the French Republic and his Catholic Majesty, it was agreed as follows: "His Catholic Majesty promises and engages on his part, to cede to the French Republic, six months after the full and entire execution of the conditions and stipulations herein relative to his royal highness, the Duke of Parma, the colony or province of Louisiana, with the same extent that it now has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it, and such as it should be after the treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and other states." "And whereas. in pursuance of the treaty, and particularly the third article, the French Republic has an incontestible title to the domain and to the possession of the said territory: — The First Consul of the French Republic desiring to give to the United States a strong proof of his friendship, doth hereby cede to the said United States, in the name of the French Republic, forever and in full sovereignty, the said territory, with all its rights and appurtenances, as fully and in the same manner, as they have been acquired by the French Republic, in virtue of the above mentioned treaty concluded with his Catholic Majesty.
As this description was very vague and unsatisfactory as to the definite boundaries and extent of the purchase, our envoys insisted upon a more specific definition. The domain east of the Mississippi had all been determined by various treaties, and the claims of the different nations were generally well known ; but the great empire lying west of the Mississippi continued to remain a source of much trouble and uncertainty, as no satisfactory data was offered specifying the boundary, and none could be agreed upon. Marbois expressed to Napoleon the difficulty in reaching a definite conclusion as to boundary, and regretted the obscurity in which so important reference was made; but this did not trouble the conscience of Napoleon, who replied: That "if an obscurity did not already exist, it would, perhaps, be good policy to put one there." Even when questioned as to the eastern boundary, evasive answers were returned. "What are the eastern bounds of Louisiana?" asked Livingston. "I do not know," replied Talleyrand; "you must take it as we received it." "But what did you mean to take?" said Livingston. "I do not know," replied Talleyrand. "Then you mean that we shall construe it our own way?" said Livingston. To which Talleyrand made final reply: "1 can give you no direction. You have made a noble bargain for yourselves, and I suppose you will make the most of it."
The date of this treaty was April 30, 1803. The treaties were sent to Wash- ington, as it was Napoleon's desire that ratification should be exchanged at Washington rather than at Paris. The papers arrived at Washington July 14, 1803, and October 17th, following. Congress was convened, and after much discussion and contention as to the constitutional authority of Congress to annex foreign territory to the Union, the treaty was ratified. Even with all this done, our purchase was not secure. Up to this moment Louisiana still remained in the possession and under the government of Spain. There had as yet been no surrender to France under the Treaty of St. Idlefonso, October 1, 1800, and
.1 \\!!> MONKUI Special ambassador to France in 1803
THOMAS JEFFERSON Third President of United States, 1803
ROBERT R. I.l\ LXGSTON I 1 1 i 1 1 1 1 States minister to France, I 803
BARBK MARBOIS
I
HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY 5
three years had elapsed since then. France was not in the occupancy of the purchase to comply with the treaty negotiated with the Americans. Indeed, whon at last the treaty was made known to the Spaniards in Louisiana and even in Spain, protests were received at Washington from both quarters. The Spanish minister served notice on onr Government — "that he had orders to warn the Federal Government to suspend the ratification and execution of the treaties of cession of Louisiana, as the French government in securing the province had contracted an engagement with Spain not to retrocede it to any other power. France not having executed that engagement, the treaty of cession was void."
It was thought by many that England had united with Spain to defeat the purchase. The French government had given orders that both transfers of authority should take place at New Orleans at the same time, so as to expedite the surrender to the United States before England could intervene.
Regardless of the Spanish protests, the French charge d'affaires at Wash- ington transmitted instructions to the representative at New Orleans for the transfer. The representative reached there on the 23d of November, 1803. A conference foljowed between the French and Spanish officials, and it was agreed to make the change. The Spanish troops and militia were arrayed in solemn procession, and in presence of those assembled the commissioners representing France and Spain proclaimed the missions they were charged to execute. The French commissioner presented to the Spanish commissioner the order of the King of Spain for the delivery of the province, dated mure than one year previous, and with this was also presented the direction of Napoleon to receive possession in the name of France. The Spanish governor then surrendered the keys of the city, and thereupon the authority of Spain was withdrawn and the Spanish colors lowered as the flag of France was unfurled amid the booming of artillery. The authority of France continued for the brief period of twenty days, and then the last change was to occur, when the Stars and Stripes were to wave over the great empire west of the Mississippi and the Island of New Orleans. On December 20, 1803, the American troops marched into the metrop- olis and the French prefect announced :
In conformity with the treaty, I put the United States in possession of Louisiana and its dependencies. The citizens and inhabitants who wish to remain lure and obey the laws, are from this moment exonerated from the oath of fidelity to the French Republic.
Thereupon the American governor, addressing the concourse present, said:
The cession secures to you and to your descendants the inheritance of liberty, perpetual laws, and magistrates whom you will elect yourselves.
As the French colors came down, and the Stars and Stripes of the American Republic went up, the trumpets sounded, the troops saluted, and cheerful voices with loud huzzahs gave exultant welcome to the grandest and greatest of the young republic's triumphs, which "ranked in historical importance nexl to the Declaration of Independence and the adoption of the Constitution."
The summit of the Rocky Mountains, as Jefferson held, was accept the northwestern boundary of the Louisiana Purchase, and our country's claim to the domain west of the Rockies was based on other claims which were well founded. The forty-ninth parallel has come down to us as the northern boundary west of the Lake of the Woods, though for nearly fift) years it was a matter of international dispute, and gave rise to a protracted contn between the
United States and Great Britain concerning that portion west of the summit of the mountains, known in early days as the "Oregon country," which from about 1820 to 1846 threatened to terminate in an armed conflict. Great Britain claimed all of that country north of the forty-second parallel, while the United States, disputing Britain's pretensions, insisted upon her right to all the domain
6 HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY
as far north as 540 40' north latitude. The dispute was finally amicably settled by compromise, and the forty-ninth degree was fixed as the northern boundary of the possessions of the United States.
The United States came into possession of this magnificent domain of 1 .ouisiana at a cost of 60,000,000 francs in national bonds bearing 6 per cent inter- est, and in addition assumed the payment of debts owing by France to American merchants, amounting to about twenty million more. On this basis the treaty was consummated, the amount paid reduced to the United States dollar standard, allowing 5^ francs to the dollar, being $15,000,000. In the light of subsequent history, must we not conclude that in this transaction Providence signally favored our country? When intelligence of the treaty reached the President and the people of this country, it was regarded with many misgivings and regrets, except in the Southwest, where the farmers were so vitally interested ; and for a time the heads of Jefferson and the leaders of his party rested uneasily for fear that public opinion would be set against them and the Federalists restored to control at the national election in 1804. But as time passed the measure grew in public esteem and greatly strengthened the party in power.
The reader is probably familiar with the extent of the territory so acquired, from the Mississippi west to the summits of the Rocky Mountains, and from the Gulf of Mexico to the international boundary on the north, embracing an area of 875,025 square miles in extent and containing 560,016,000 acres, accord- ing to the official figures of the general land office of the United States. It embraced, as shown on our Government maps of today, nearly the entire State of South Dakota, three-fourths of North Dakota, nearly all of Minnesota west of the Mississippi River; all of Montana and Wyoming lying east of the main range of the Rocky Mountains; one-third of Colorado; all of Kansas save the southwest corner south of the Arkansas River; all of the states of Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Arkansas; practically all of Oklahoma, including the Indian Territory, and a large part of the State of Louisiana ; in extent about one-fourth less than the original thirteen states; and larger than Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany. Italy and Portugal combined. Dakota Territory embraced one of the choicest portions of this grand domain, and after a half century of intelligent practical experience and development, we feel justified in claiming that it enclosed within its boundaries natural resources as varied, as useful, and as necessary to mankind as any area of Mother Earth of equal extent in any portion of the globe. A law was enacted by Congress, that was approved by President Jefierson in March, 1804, giving to the newly acquired country a stable form of government. The lower portion of the land was named the Territory of New ( >rleans, and the upper portion was named the Territory of Louisiana. Dakota Territory is a part of Louisiana.
CHAPTER II
LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION
1804
thomas jeffersonl's efforts to secure the exploration' of the missouri valley — first exploration planned from eastern' russia — second attempt thwarted by the french — third effort under lewis and clark successful — Jefferson's message urging an expedition — congress favors — lewis and clark on the way — enter the future dakota, august 21,
1804 mineral poison in the water — elk and buffalo — the vermillion
valley and spirit mound.
Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, would seem to have been the first of American statesmen whose interest was aroused regard- ing the nature and resources of that portion of our country west of the Missis- sippi River. Even before the formation of the Federal Government he had been party to an agreement in Paris whereby lohn Ledyard, a famous traveler and explorer, was to make a trip through Russia to Kamschatka by land, thence across the Behring Sea to the Alaskan coast in some Russian vessel engaged in the American Pacific fur trade, of which there were quite a number, thence down into the latitude of the Missouri, and thence to the United States. Ledyard started on this journey with the consent of the Russian government, and reached within 200 miles of Kamschatka, where he was obliged to halt for the winter. In the meantime the Russian empress had concluded to prevent the enterprise, and as he was preparing to resume his journey in the spring, he was arrested and taken to Poland. This ended the enterprise
"In 1782," using the language of Jefferson, "1 proposed to the American Philosophical Society that we should set on foot a subscription to engage some competent person to explore that region in the opposite direction -that is. In- ascending the Missouri River, crossing the stony mountains and descending the nearest river to the Pacific. Captain Lewis warmly solicited me to obtain for him the execution of that project. I told him it was proposed that the person engaged should be attended by a single companion only to avoid exciting alarm among the Indians. This did not deter him: but Mr. Andre Michaux. a professed botanist, offering his services, they were accepted. He received his instructions, and when he had reached Kentucky in the prosecution of his journey, he was overtaken by an order from the minister of France, then at Philadelphia, to relinquish the expedition, and to pursue elsewhere the botanical enquiries of the government: and thus failed the second attempt for exploring that region."
In 1803 the act for establishing trading houses among the Indian- being about to expire, some modifications of it were recommended to Congress by a confidential message of January 18th and an extension of its views to the Indians on the Missouri. Congress approved the proposition and voted a -inn ot money for carrying it into execution.
The portion of the message referred to by the President is the following. the preceding portion of the document being taken up with recommendation regarding the Indians east of the Mississippi, among whom the Government
8 HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY
had established public or Government trading houses in order to stop the nefarious plundering of the Indians by private traders whose extortions had -ioned much trouble.
While the extension of the public commerce among the Indian tribes may deprive, of that source of profit, such of our citizens as are engaged in it, it might be worthy the atten- tion of Congress in their care of individual as well as of the general interest to point, in another direction, the enterprise of those citizens, as profitably for themselves and more usefully for the public. The River Missouri and the Indians inhabiting it are not as well known as is rendered desirable by their connection with the Mississippi, and consequently with us. It is however understood that the country on that river is inhabited by numerous tribes who furnish great supplies of furs and peltry to the trade of another nation, carried on in a high latitude through an infinite number of portages and lakes shut up by ice through a long season. The commerce on that line could bear no competition with that of the Missouri, traversing a moderate climate, offering, according to the best accounts, a continued navigation from its source, and possibly with a single portage from the western ocean, and finding to the more southern latitude a choice of channels, through the Illinois or Wabash, the lakes and Hudson, through the Ohio and Susquehanna, or Potomac or James rivers. An intelligent officer with ten or twelve chosen men, fit for the enterprise and willing to undertake it, taken from our forts where they may be spared without incon- venience, might explore the whole line, even to the western ocean, have conferences with the natives on the subject of commercial intercourse, get admission among them for our traders as others are admitted, agree on a convenient deposit for an interchange of articles, and return with the information required, in the course of two summers. Their arms and accoutrements, some instruments of observation, and light and cheap presents for the Indians would be all the apparatus they could carry, and with an expectation of a soldier's portion of land on their return, would constitute the whole expense. Their pay would be going on whether here or there. While other civilized countries have encountered great expense to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge, by undertaking voyages of discovery, and for other literary purposes, in various parts and directions, our nation seems to owe to the same objects, as well as its own interests, to explore this, the only line of easy communication across the continent, and so directly traversing our own part of it. The interests of com- merce place the principal object within the constitutional powers of Congress; and that it should incidentally advance the geographical knowledge of our own continent, cannot but be an additional gratification. The nation claiming the territory, regarding this as a literary pursuit, which it is in the habit of permitting within its dominions, would not be disposed to view it with jealousy, even if the expiring state of its interests there did not render it a matter nf indifference.
The appropriation of $2,500 "for the purpose of extending the external commerce of the United States," while understood and considered by the executive as giving the legislative sanction, would cover the undertaking from notice and prevent the obstructions which interested individuals might otherwise previously prepare in its way.
Tho. Jefferson.
This message was transmitted to Congress several months before the Louis- iana treaty was made with France.
The enterprise having obtained the sanction of Congress, the President immediately made choice of Capt. Meriwether Lewis to command the expedi- tion, basin? his action and confidence on his intimate personal acquaintance with tin- man and officer, regarding whom the President gave the following unqualified indorsement :
Captain Lewis, who had then been near two vears with me as private secretary, im- mediateb renewed his solicitations to have the direction of this party. I had now had opportunities of knowing him intimately. Of courace undaunted, possessing a firmness and determination of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from its direction: careful as a father of those committed to his charge, yet steadv in the maintenance of discipline: intimate with the Indian character, customs and principles: habituated to the hunting life: guarded, by exact observation of the vegetables and animals of his own country, against losing time in the description of objects alreadv possessed; honest, disin- terested liberal, of sound understanding and a fidelitv t.i truth so scrupulous that whatever bo should report would lie as certain as if seen by ourselves; with all these qualifications. as if selected and implanted by nature in one body, for this express purpose, I could have no hesitancy in confiding the enterprise to him.
( aptain Lewis selected as his associates in the enterprise, William Clark, a lieutenant in the army and a younger brother of Gen. George Rogers Clark, conspicuous in the Continental army during the Revolution. Lieutenant Clark
WILLIAM CLARK
MERIWETHER LEW l^
HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY 9
received a commission as captain. The plans for the exploration of Louisiana contemplated a voyage up the Missouri River, which was to be explored to its source, thence to cross the mountains and go on by any practical river route to the Pacific. Information was to be gathered regarding the character of the country, its inhabitants, rivers, soil, climate, geography, woods and animals. Captain Lewis left Washington July 5, 1803, and proceeded to Pittsburgh, thence by the Ohio and Alississippi to St. Louis. The soldiers for the expedition were taken from military posts on the Ohio. At Louisville, Kentucky, he was joined by Capt. William Clark, his associate, and they proceeded to St. Louis, wtiere they arrived in December. Here the expedition was organized with as little delay as possible, intending to ascend the Missouri to the highest practicable point they could reach before the channel closed and there establish winter quarters. But the Spanish commander of the province, not having received an official account of the transfer to the United States, was obliged by the general policy of his government to forbid the passage of the expedition through Spanish territory. The expedition then encamped at the mouth of Wood River on the eastern bank of the Mississippi and opposite the mouth of the Missouri, where the winter passed in instructing the men and preparing for the journey.
Including the leaders, the party was made up of nine young Kentuckians enlisted for the expedition, fourteen soldiers of the regular ami)', who bad volunteered, two French boatmen, and an interpreter and hunter, and a black servant belonging to Captain Clark, named York. (Their names are given in a subsequent chapter.) Their fleet of boats numbered three, the first a keel boat fifty-five feet long, drawing three feet of water, earning one large square sail and twenty-two oars. A deck of ten feet in the bow and stem formed a forecastle and cabin, while the middle was covered by lockers which might be raised so as to form a breastwork in case of attack. This was accom- panied by two pirogues, or open boats, one of six and the other of seven oars. Two horses were led along the banks of the river for the purpose of bringing in game or hunting. In addition to the force above described, a corporal, six soldiers and nine watermen were taken to accompany the expedition as far as Mandan \ illage to assist in carrying stores and in case of necessity to repel an attack. A large quantity of Indian goods, besides the necessary outfit of the party, were included in the cargo. The expedition entered the mouth of the Missouri on the 14th day of May, 1804, and proceeded without serious mishap until nearing the present boundary between Iowa or Nebraska and South Dakota. At a council held with the Indians a few days before reaching this point, the explorers first mention meeting with three Yankton-Avan Indians, who were on a visit to the Mabas, and from whom some information is gleaned regarding the disposition of the Dakotah Indians.
We have thought proper to introduce that portion of the journal which describes the passage of the expedition through Dakota as it appears in the published record, beginning with the death of Sergeanl Floyd, the first ami only Fatality that occurred during ibis memorable journey:
(hi the 20th of August the party had been holding a council with the Ottoes .1 few miles below (Sioux Cityi. ami that morning, after passing two island-, on the north, came to one on that side of the river under some bluffs, the first near the rivei left the
\\auwa village. Here we had the misfortune to lose on< ot out 1 1 ants, Chart He had been sei/ed with a bilious colic the day before, and all the care and atti ible
was bestowed upon him, but failed to give him relief. A little befon hi di ith I 1 to
Captain Clark, "I am going to leave you"; and Ins strength failing, he added. "1 want to write me a letter," and died o mposedly, justifying the high opinion that had med
of him. He was buried on top of the bluff with the honors due to ildier, and the
place of his interment marked by a Cedar post on which his name and the day of his death were inscribed. About a mile beyond this place, to which we gave his name, is a small river about thirty yards wide on the north, which we called Floyd's River, where we encamped.
10 HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY
The narrative then gives the entrance of the expedition into the region to become known as Dakota, on the 21st of August, 1S04:
The breeze from the southeast carried us by a small willow creek (Perry Creek) on the north, about i'A miles above Floyd's River. Here began a range of bluffs which continued till near the mouth of the great Sioux River, three miles beyond Floyd's. This river comes in from the north and is about one hundred yards wide. Mr. Durion, our Sioux interpreter, who is well acquainted with it, says it is navigable upwards of two hundred miles to the falls, and even beyond them ; that its sources are near those of the Peters. He also says that below the falls a creek falls in from the eastward, after passing through cliffs of red rock. Of this the Indians make their pipes, and the necessity for procuring that article has introduced a sort of law of nations, by which the banks of the creek are sacred, and even tribes at war meet without hostility at these quarries, which possess a right of asylum. Thus we find among savages certain privileges deemed sacred, by which the rigors of their merciless system of warfare are mitigated. A sense of common danger, where stronger ties are wanting, gives all the binding force of more solemn obligations. The importance of preserving the known and settled rules of warfare among civilized nations, in all their integrity, become strikingly evident, since even savages with their few precarious wants cannot exist in a state of peace or war where this faith is once violated. At 4J4 miles we came to two willow islands, beyond which are several sand-bars; and at twelve miles a spot where the Mahas (Omahas) once had a village, now no longer existing. We encamped on the south, having come 24J4 miles. The country through which we passed has the same uniform appearance ever since we left the River Platte; rich, low grounds near the river, succeeded by undulating prairies with timber near the waters. Some wolves were seen on the sand beaches to the south ; we also procured an excellent fruit, resembling the red cur- rant, growing on a shrub like the privet, and about the height of a wild plum. On the 22d, about three miles distant, we joined the men who had been sent from the Mahas village and who brought us two deer. The bluffs, which reach the river at this place on the south, contain alum, copperas, cobalt, which had the appearance of soft isinglass, pyrites and sand- stone, the two first very pure. Above the bluff comes in a small creek on the south, called Rolage Creek. Seven miles above is another cliff on the same side, of alum rock of a dark brown color, containing in its crevices great quantities of cobalt, cemented shells and red earth. From this the river bends to the eastward and approaches the Sioux River within three or four miles. We sailed the greater part of the day and made nineteen miles to our camp on the north side. The sand-bars are, as usual, numerous, and also considerable traces of elk, none of which are yet seen. Captain Lewis, in proving the quality of some of the substance in the first cliff, was considerably injured by the fumes and taste of the cobalt, and took some strong medicine to relieve him from its effects. The appearance of these mineral substances enables us to account for disorders of the stomach with which the party had been affected since we left the River Sioux. We had been in the habit of dipping up the water in the river inadvertently and making use of it till, on examination, the sickness was thought to proceed from a scum covering the surface of the water along the southern shore, and which, as we now discovered, proceeded from these bluffs. The men had been ordered, before we reached the bluffs, to agitate the water so as to disperse the scum, and take the water, not at the surface, but at some depth.
The consequence was that these disorders ceased ; the biles, too, which had afflicted the men, were not observed beyond the Sioux River.
In order to supply the place of Sergeant Floyd, we permitted the men to name three persons ; and Patrick Gass. having the greatest number of votes, was made a sergeant.
On the following day we set out early, and at four miles came to a small run between cliffs of yellow and blue earth; the wind, however, soon changed, and blew so hard from the west that we proceeded very slowly, the fine sand from the bar being driven in such clouds that we could scarcely see. Three and a quarter miles beyond this run we came to a willow island and a sand island opposite, and we camped on the south side at IOJ4 miles. On the north side is an extensive and delightful prairie, which we called Buflfalo Prairie, from our having there killed the first buffalo. Two elk swam the river today and were fired at, but escaped; a deer was killed from the boat; one beaver was killed and several prairie wolves were seen
It began to rain last night and continued this morning, the 24th. We proceeded, how- ever, 2'i miles to the commencement of a bluff of blue clay, about one hundred and eighty or one hundred and ninety feet on the south side; it seems to have been lately on fire, and even now the ground is so warm that we cannot keep our hands in it at any depth; there are strong appearances of coal, and also great quantities of cobalt, or a crystallized sub- stance resembling it. There is a fruit now ripe resembling a currant, except that it is double the size and grows on a bush like .1 privet, the size of a damson and of a delicious flavor; its Indian name means rabbit-berries. We then passed, at the distance of about seven miles, the mouth ,it a creek on the north side, called by an Indian name, meaning Whitestone River (Vermillion River). The beautiful prairie of yesterday has changed into one of greater height, and verj smooth and extensive. We encamped on the south side at io!4 miles, and found ourselves much annoyed by the mosquitoes.
HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY 11
The next morning, September 25th, Captains Lewis and Clark, with ten men, went t<> see an object deemed very extraordinary among all the neighboring Indians. They dropped down to the mouth of Whitestone River (Vermillion), about thirty yards wide, where they left the boat, and at the distance of 200 yards ascended a rising ground, from which a plain extended itself as far as the eye could discern. Alter making four miles, they crossed the creek where it is twenty-three yards wide and waters an extensive valley. The heat was so oppressive that we were obliged to send back our dog to the creek, as he was unable to bear the fatigue; and it was not till after four hours' march that w< reached the object oi our visit. This was a large mound in the midst of the plain about north twenty degrees .. from the mouth of Whitestone River, from which it is nine miles distant. I he base of tin- mound is a regular parallelogram, the longest side being about three hundred yards, the shortest sixty or seventy; from the longest side it rises with a steep ascent from the north and south to the height of sixty or seventy feet, leaving on the top a level plain of twelvi feet in breadth and ninety in length. The north and south extremities are connected b) two oval borders, which serve as new bases, and divide the whole side into three steep Inn n lar gradations from the plain.
The only thing characteristic in this hill is its extreme symmetry, anil tlii-, together with its being totally detached from the other hills, which are at the distance oi eight 01 nine miles, would create a belief that it was artificial; but as the earth and the 1 ose pebbles that compose it are arranged precisely like the steep grounds on the borders of the creek. we concluded from this similarity of texture that it might be natural.
Hut the Indians have made it a great article of their superstition; it is called the Moun tain of Little People, or Little Spirits, and they believe that it is the abode of little devils in the human form, of about eighteen inches high, and with remarkably large heads; thej are armed with sharp arrows, with which they are very skillful, and are always on the watch to kill those who should have the hardihood to approach their residence. The tradition is that many have suffered from these little evil spirits, and. among others, three Waha Indians fell a sacrifice to them a few years since. This has inspired all the neighboring nations — Sioux. Wahas and Ottoes — with such terror that no consideration could tempt them to visit the hill. We saw none of the wicked little spirits, nor any place for them except some small holes scattered on the top. We were happy enough to have escaped their vengeance, though we remained some time on the mound to enjoy the delightful prospect of the plain, which spreads itself out till the eye rests upon the northwest hills at a great distance, and those of the northeast still farther off, enlivened by large herds of buffaloes feeding at a distance. The soil of these plains is exceedingly fine; there is, however, no timber, except on the Mis- souri, all the wood of the Whitestone River not being sufficient to cover thickly one hundred acres. The plain country which surrounds this mound has contributed not a little to its bad reputation; the wind driving from every direction over the level mound obliges the insects to seek shelter on its leeward side, or be driven against it by the wind.
The excessive heat and thirst forced us from the hill, about i o'clock, to the nearest water, which we found in the creek at three miles distance, and remained an hour and a hall We then went down the creek through a lowland about one mile in width, and crossed it three times, to the spot where we first reached it in the morning. Mere we gathered si me delicious plums, grapes and blue currants, and afterwards arrived at the mouth of the river about sunset. To this place the course from the mound is south twenty degrees, east nine miles. We there resumed our periogue. and on reaching our encampment of last night sel the prairies on fire to warn the Sioux of our approach.
In the meantime the boat under Sergeant Pryor had proceeded during the afternoon one mile to a bluff of blue clay on the south, anil after passing a sand-bar and tw sand islands, fixed their camp at the distance of -i\ miles on the south. We had killed a duck and several birds; in the boat they had caught some large catfish.
We rejoined the boat at o o'clock .11 Sunday the 26th, before she set out. and then passing by an island and under a cliff on the south, nearly two miles in extent and composed of wdlite and blue earth, encamped at nine miles distance on a -and bar toward the north. Opposite to this, on the south, is a small creek called Petit Are. or Little Bow, and a short distance above it an old village of the same name. This village, of which nothing remains but the mound of earth about four feet high surrounding it. was built bj a Waha chief named Little Bow, who. being displeased with Black Bird (the principal chief I. the late king, seceded with 2011 followers and settled at this spot which is now abandoned, as
tlie two villages have reunited since the death of Black Bird. We have great quantities of
grapes, and plums of three kinds — two of a yellow color and distinguished the
species being longer than the other, and a third round and red; all have an e: Ivor, particularly those of a yellow kind.
CHAPTER III
LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION (Continued)
AT THE MOUTH OF JAMES RIVER — YANKTON INDIANS SEND FRIENDLY GREET- INGS AT THE FUTURE CAPITAL OF DAKOTA FOUR DAYS COUNCIL WITH THE
YANKTONS — AMERICAN FLAG UNFURLED ADMIRABLE SPEECHES — A NEVER-
SURRENDER INDIAN BAND — STRIKE-THE-REE THE FIRST — CENSUS — CALUMET
BLUFF FORTIFICATIONS AT BON HOMME ISLAND IN RUINS PRINCE MADOC
AND THE MANDAN INDIANS.
August 27th (nearing Yankton). The morning star appears much larger than usual. A gentle breeze from the southeast carried us by some large sand-bars on both sides and in the middle of the river to a cliff on the south side at 7J2 miles distant; this bluff is of white clay or chalk, under which is much stone, like lime, incrusted with a clear substance supposed to be cobalt, and some dark ore. About this bluff we set the prairie on fire to invite the Sioux. After I2t4 miles we had passed several other sand-bars, and soon reached the mouth of a river called by the French Jacques (James River), or Yankton, from the tribe which inhabits its banks. It is about ninety yards wide at the confluence; the country which it waters is rich prairie, with little timber; it becomes deeper and wider above its mouth, and may be navigated a great distance, as its sources rise near those of St. Peter's of the Mississippi and the Red River of Lake Winnipeg. As we came to the mouth of the river an Indian swam to the boat, and on our landing we were met by two others, who informed us that a large body of Sioux were encamped near us. They accompanied three of our men, with an invitation to meet us at a spot above on the river; the third Indian remained with us.
He is a Maha boy, and says that his nation has gone to the Pawnees to make peace with them. At fourteen miles we encamped on a sand-bar to the north (V/2 miles above the James ). The air was cool, the evening pleasant, the wind from the southeast and light. The river has fallen gradually, and is now low.
On Tuesday, the 28th of August, we passed, with a stiff breeze from the south, several sand-bars. On the south is a prairie which rises gradually from the water to the height of a bluff which is, at four miles distance, of a whitish color and about seventy or eighty feet high. Farther on is another bluff of a brownish color, on the north side; and at the distance of 8]/^ miles is the beginning of Calumet Bluff, on the south side (ten miles from the James), under which we formed our camp, iru a beautiful plain, to await the arrival of the Sioux. At the first bluff the young Indian left us and joined his camp.
Before reaching Calumet Bluff, one of the periogues ran upon a log in the river and was rendered unfit for service, so that all our loading was put into the second periogue. On both sides of the river are fine prairies with cottonwood, and near the bluff there is more timber at the points and valleys than we have been accustomed to see.
August 29th, on Wednesday, we had a violent storm of wind and rain last evening, and were engaged during the day in repairing the periogue and other necessary occupations, when at 1 "'clock in the afternoon Sergeant Pryor and his party arrived on the opposite side attended by five chiefs and about seventy men and boys. We sent a boat for them and they joined 11s a< did also Mr. Durion, the son of our interpreter, who happened to be trading with the Sioux at this time. He returned with Sergeant Pryor to the Indians, with a present of tobacco, corn and a few kettles, and told them we would speak to their chiefs in the morning. Sergeant Pryor reported that on reaching their village, which is at twelve miles distance from our camp, he was met by a party with a buffalo robe on which they de- sired to carry their visitors, an honor which they declined, informing the Indians that they were not the commanders of the boat. As a great mark of respect they were then presented wtih.a fat dog already cooked, of which they partook heartily and found it well flavored.
The camps Hodges') of the Sioux are of conical form, covered with buffalo robes, painted with various figures and colors, with an aperture in the top for the smoke to pass through. The lodges contain from ten to fifteen persons, and the interior arrangement is compact and handsome, each lodge having a place for cooking detached from it.
12
HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY 13
On Thursday, the 30th, the fog was so thick that we could not see the Indian camp on the opposite side ; but it cleared off about 8 o'clock. We prepared a speech and some presents, and then sent for the chiefs and warriors, whom we received at 12 o'clock under a large oak tree, near to which the flag of the United Stales was flying. Captain Lewis delivered a speech, with the usual advice and counsel for their future conduct. We then acknowledged their chiefs by giving to the grand chief a flag, a medal, a certificate with a string of! wampum, to which we added a chief's coat that is a richly laced uniform of the United States Artillery Corps, and a cocked hat and red feather. One second chief and three inferior ones were made or recognized by medals and a suitable present of tobacco and articles of cloth- ing. We then smoked the pipe of peace, and the chiefs retired to a bower formi d ■! bushes by their young men, where they divided among each other the presents, and smoked and ate, and held a council on the answer which they were to make us tomorrow. The young people exercised their bows and arrows in shooting at marks for beads, which we distributed to the best marksmen ; and in the evening the whole party danced to a late hour, and in the course of their amusement we threw among them some knives, tobacco, bells, tops and binding, with which they were much pleased. Their musical instruments were the drum and a sort of little bag made of buffalo hide dressed white, with small shot or pebbles in it, and a bunch of hair tied to it. This produces a sort of rattling music, with which the, party was annoyed by four musicians during the council this morning.
On the morning of the 31st, after breakfast, the chiefs met and sat down in a row, with pipes of peace highly ornamented, and all pointed toward the seats intended for Captains Lewis and Clark. When they arrived and were seated, the grand chief, whose Indian name, Weucha, is in English Shake Hand, and in French is called Le Liberateur (the deliverer), rose and spoke at some length, approving what we had said and promising to follow our advice.
"I see before me," said he, "my great father's two sons. You see me and the rest of our chiefs and warriors. We are very poor. We have neither powder nor ball, nor knives, and our women and children at the village have no clothes. I wish that, as my brothers have given me a flag, and a medal, they would give something to those poor people or let them stop and trade with the first boat that comes up the river. I will bring chiefs of the Pawnees and Mahas together and make peace between them ; but it is better that I should do it than my great father's sons, for they will listen to me more readily. 1 will also take some chiefs to your country in the spring; but before that time I cannot leave home. I went formerly to the English and they gave me a medal and some clothes; when 1 went to the Spanish they gave me a medal, but nothing to keep it from my skin; but now you give me a medal and clothes. But still we are poor, and I wish, brothers, you would give us something for our squaws."
When he sat down. Mahtoree, or White Crane, arose : "I have listened," said he, "to what our father's words were yesterday, and I am glad today to see how you have dressed our old chief. I am a young man and do not wish to take much ; my fathers have made me a chief; I had much sense before, but now I think I have more than ever. What the old chief has declared I will confirm, and do whatever he and. you please; but 1 wish that you would take pity on us, for we are very poor."
Another chief called Pau-nau-ne-ah-pah-be (Strike-the-Rce") then said: "I am a young man and know but little. I cannot speak well, but 1 have listened to what you have told the old chief and will do whatever you agree."
The same sentiments were then repeated by Awea Wechache. We were surprised at find- ing that the first of these titles means, "Struck by the Pawnees," and was occasioned by some blow which the chief received in battle from one of the Pawnee tribe. The second is. in I n lish, "Half Man," which seems a singular name for a warrior, till it was explained to havi origin probably in the modesty of the chief, who, on being told of his exploits, would say: "I am no warrior; I am only half a man." The other chiefs spoke very little, but after tiny had finished, one of the warriors delivered a speech in which be declared lie would support them. They promised to make peace with the Ottocs and Missouris, the onl) nations with whom they are at war. All these harangues concluded by describing the distress of the nation; they begged us to have pity on them: to send them traders; that they wanted powder and ball, and seemed anxious that we should supply them with some of the great father's milk, the name by which they distinguish ardent spirits.
We then gave some tobacco to each of the chiefs, and a certificate to two of the warriors who attended the chief. We prevailed on Mr. Durion to remain here, and accompany as many of the Sioux chiefs as he could collect down to the seat of government. We also gave bis son a flag, some clothes, and provisions, with directions to bring about .1 peace between surrounding tribes, and to convey some of their chiefs to see the President. In the evening they left us and encamped on the opposite bank, accompanied by the two Durions
During the evening and night we had much rain and observed that the river raised a little The Indians who have just left us are the Yanktons, a tribe of the gl These Yanktons are about two hundred men in number, and inhabit the Jacques, I I and SioUX rivers. In person they are stout, well proportioned, and have a certain air of dignity and boldness. In their dress they differ nothing from the other bands of the nat whom we saw and will describe afterwards; they are fond of decorations, and use paint porcupine quills and feathers. Some of them wear a kind of necklace of white bear's claws, three inches long and closely strung together around their necks.
14 HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY
They have only a few fowling pieces, being generally armed with bows and arrows, in which, however, they do not appear to lie as expert as the more northern Indians. What Struck us most was an institution peculiar to them, and to the Kito Indians farther to the westward, from whom it is said to have been copied. It is an association of the most active and brave young men, who are bound to each other by attachment, secured by a vow never to retreat before any danger, or give way P> their enemies. In war they go forward without sheltering themselves behind trees, or aiding their natural valor by any artifice. This punc- tilious determination not to be turned from their course became heroic or ridiculous a short time since, when the Yanktons were crossing the Missouri on the ice. A hole lay immediately in their course which might easily have been avoided by going round. This the foremost of the band djsdained to do, but went straight forward and was lost. The others would have followed his example, but were forcibly prevented by the rest of the tribe. These young men sit, and encamp, and dance together, distinct from the rest of the nation; they are generally about thirty or thirty-five years old; and such is the deference paid to courage that their seats in council are superior to those of the chiefs, and their persons more respected. But, as may be supposed, such indiscreet bravery will soon diminish the number of those who practice it, so that the band is now reduced to lour warriors, who were among our visitors. These were the remains of twenty-two who composed their society not long ago; but in a battle with the Kito Indians of the Black Mountains eighteen of them were killed, and these four were dragged from the field by their companions.
While these Indians remained with us we made very minute inquiries in relation to their situation and numbers, and trade and manners. This we did very satisfactorily by means of two different interpreters, and from their accounts joined to our interviews with other bands of the same nation, and much intelligence acquired since, we were enabled to understand with some accuracy the condition of the Sioux, hitherto so little known.
The Sioux, or Dacota Indians, originally settled on the Mississippi, and called, by Carver, Madowesians, are now subdivided into tribes as follows :
First, the Yanktons. This tribe inhabits the Sioux, Des Moines and Jacques rivers, and numbers about two hundred warriors.
Second, the Tetons of the burnt woods. This tribe numbers about three hundred men, who rove on both sides of the Missouri, the White, and the Teton rivers.
Third, the Tetons Okaudaudas, a tribe consisting of about one hundred and fifty men, who inhabit both sides of the Missouri River below the Cheyenne River.
I ourth, Tetons Minna Kennozzo. a nation inhabiting both sides of the Missouri River, above the Cheyenne River, and containing about two hundred and fifty men.
Fifth, Tetons Saone. These inhabit both sides of the Missouri River below the Warre- conne River, and consist of about three hundred men.
Sixth. Yanktons of the Plains, or Big Devils, who rove on the heads of the Sioux, Jacques and Red rivers ; the most numerous of all the tribes and number about five hundred men.
Seventh, Wahpatone, a nation residing on the St. Peter's, just above the mouth of that river, and numbering 200 men.
Eighth, Minda- war-carton, or proper Dacota or Sioux Indians. These possess the orig- inal seat of the Sioux and are properly so denominated. They rove on both sides of the Mississippi about the Falls of St. Anthony, and consist of ,^oo men.
Ninth, the Wahpakoota, or Leaf Beds. This nation inhabits both sides of the River St. Peter's below Yellow wood River, amounting to about one hundred and fifty men.
Tenth, Sistasoone. This nation numbers 200 men and reside at the head of the St. Peter's. Of these several tribes more particular notice will be taken hereafter.
A slight digression here seems to be necessary because of some divergent accounts regarding the place where this council was held.
The language of tin- Lewis and (dark journal regarding this camp is this; "Al the distance of 83 _> miles t from the last camp \l/2 miles above the mouth of James River) is the beginning of Calumet Bluff, under which we formed our camp, on the south." This would bring the second camping place above the James ten miles from its mouth. The encampment near the mouth of the James was in section 19, town 93, range 54, as since surveyed. The next camp (esti- mated ) was nut far from the present township line dividing ranges 55 and 56 west, which is only a few feet wesl of Broadway, Yankton, and nearly opposite the old Village of Green Island, Nebraska, which was swept away in the flood of 1881. It is impossible t" locale Calumet Bluff, or the beginning of it, at ( freen Island, or within any reasonable distance of that place. The insuperable difficulty is to make the natural conditions on the south side correspond with the description of the country on that shore as given by the editor of Lewis and Clark's journal, while no stub difficulty exists with regard to the north side. The editor of the journal admits that there may be discrepancies between the original notes and his transcription. The notes had already passed through two
HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY 15
hands in preparation for publication. None of these transcribers or editors wire members of the expedition party. Captain Lewis died five years before the journal was finally edited and ready for publication, and could not have revi the work of the editors.
The camp of the Yankton Indians was not far from the mouth of the lames River, and the journal says the Indians had come twelve miles from their camp to the place of this grand council. The journal does nol state on which side of the James the Yanktons had their camp, and this distance of twelve miles, owing to their being obliged to follow the bends of the river, would just about bring them to within a half mile of the foot of Broadway. We disdain any purpose to deny the integrity of the journal, hut there is no wa\ to harmonize its state- ment with regard to this council ground, assuming that the south side of the river was meant, unless we move the council ground to the north side, or remo Calumet Bluff from the north to the south side. Then, again, why should the Yankton Indians, a powerful representative of the great Dahkotah nation, whose good will and friendship was so much desired by tin- Government, have been compelled to cross the great river to a country not their own to hold this council when they could offer superior camping facilities, with far less incon- venience, in their own country?
It may be asked why, if the camp was on the north side of the river, a boat was sent to transfer Sergeant I'ryor across? The boat, however, is not men- tioned when the Indians were sent for; but presuming that the camp had bi formed under Calumet Bluff on the north side, and on the south side of the Calumet Bluff, which is a reasonable interpretation of the language, the camp would not have been easily accessible by land. There was no nail down the bluff in this vicinity. The journal says the river ran near the bluffs on both sides. It would seem that the Indians coining up from their camp on the James reached the high bank of the Missouri in the neighborhood of the foot of Locust Street, Yankton, where the camp down in the valley could be distinctly seen and the Indians could also be observed from the camp. It is not at all unlikcK that the approach to the camp, along the Yankton shore, was beset with sand bars and water holes, and may have been entirely under water, and that Lewis and Clark had formed their cam]) with the purpose of taking advantage of the protection afforded by nature in these and other favorable surroundings. Y the Indians could not descend the bluff and make their way to the camp along tin shore, a boat was sent down to the first landing place for them. The locality of the cam]) might be regarded as of U ss importance but for the first council that was here held under the sanction of the Government and the protection of flic (lag. This was the first formal council held between the representatives of the United Si and the native inhabitants of this territory, and the first occasion when the Stars and Stripes, our national emblem, was displayed as a token of sovereignty upon the soil of Dakota.
The Indians were line specimens of physical manh I. The chiefs, and a
number of his warriors, wore a suit of buckskin curiously wrought with b( of a variety of colors, while the head chief wore, in addition, a coronet of I feathers continuing down the back almost to his feet.
Captain Lewis was particularly impressed with the frank demeanor and dis- ingenuous manners of the savages, and he seems to have b en gr< itl tified at meeting with such courtesies as they, in their primitive etiquette, extended him and his crew. Their conical tepees ware a subjed of close it i tion and greatly admired. These were made of dressed buffalo and elk skins, painted 'or stained white and crimson, presenting a most pleasing and fanciful auce. Inside, the principal ones, were partially carpeted with robes and : sional beaver and fox skin could be seen. Probably the Indians had designed to make their appearance and display of regal order, and were not exhibiti to the white people their ordinary domestic life or every day apparel, which however, only ser\es to prove that they possessed a certain barbaric ci\
,,; HISTORY OF DAKi 'I \ I ERRITORY
tli.it we look for almost in vain amongst our American Indians after a century's intercourse with white people.
I lie council was the occasion for the distribution of many medals and presents to the chiefs and braves who were in attendance and they were given to under- stand that these gifts wen- from the Great Father at Washington, who, though he could not be present in person, was with them in these gifts and wished to assure them that the welfare of his Indian children was a matter in which he felt the warmesl interest. Some of these Jeffersonian medals were in possession of the Yankton Indians more than a half century later.
The language of the Lewis and Clark journal in leaving Yankton September 1st betrays the error of presuming that their camp at Yankton had been on the south side, First, the journal of the 28th says they made their camp at the beginning of the Calumet Bluff on the south.
As no such bluff existed on that side a camp could not be made under it; but luff did exiM and still exists on the north side and extends for
Several miles up the river, and when the expedition left its Yankton Camp on
irday, September tst, the journal says: "We proceeded this morning and
1 d the Calumet bluffs. These are composed of a yellowish-red and brownish clay as hard as chalk which it much resembles, and are 170 to 180 feet high." description could not have keen given unless .Mr. Lewis made a personal examination. These are the same Calumet bluffs or chalk rock bluffs that extend from Yankton to the Lenient wurks. and under the beginning of these the expedition's journal states that they made their camp. There is nothing even remotely resembling them on the south side.
.Mr. M. K. Armstrong, author of the history of Dakota published in 1866, was well informed in such matters, and had frequent occasion during his pioneer residence in Yankton, beginning in 1859, to converse with the old Yankton Indians then residing here, many of whom, including the chief, "Strike the Ree," remembered the occasion of Lewis and Clark's visit. A published statement made at the time by Mr. Armstrong regarding the location of Lewis and Clark's camps, says :
It is difficult to determine the exact locality of their encampment at that time, but from
all the information that can be gained from their journal nnd other authentic sources, we
if the belief that it must have bi 1 n at the Oak Point and Bluff on the premises of J. S.
It could hardlv have been at the Billido Bluffs, four miles
or at Smutty Bear's ramp, nine miles from here; for in descending the river in icSoo
encamped on a sandbai 1 pposite ( alumet Bluff, on the night of the 1st of September,
ami passed the mouth of James Rivet al 8 "'clock next morning, having traveled by river
ten miles from the bluff.
It will be observed that the sojourn of the explorers at the Yankton Cam]) iod of four days, a longer time than was given to any other locality until the party went into winter quarters.
ilurday. September 1, il-soa. — We proceeded this morning and passed the Calumet
llowish red and brownish clay as hard as chalk, which it d are 170,,: high. At this place the hills ,,n each side come to
1 the river, thi se on the south being higher than those on the north. Opposite land 1 Ambrose Island) covered with timber, above which the high- river on thi ! called White Beai 1 liff, an animal of that I in it, which are numerous and apparently deep. At six
vith cotti nw I. \\ ■ ifteen miles to a
it of a large island called Bon Homme or Good-
' nil.
ountry iracter of prairies, with no timber, with occa-'
1 with Cottonwood, elm an I Hit hunters had killed an elk and
undance. The foil ent three miles
h side, and 1 ie head of Bon
bered Vfter this the wind became so iolem that
land at four miles On the nortl under a high Muff of yellow
hundred at - I in height. Our hunters supplied us with four elks,
MAP OF FORT BUILT B^ I \ I >l W- OM BON HOMME CSLAND Draw ii by Lew is and • 'laik
HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY 17
and we had grapes and plums on the bartks ; we also saw the beargrass and rue on the sides of the bluffs. At this place there are highlands on both sides of the river, which become more level at some distance back, and contain but few streams of water. On the southern bank, during this day, the grounds have not been so elevated. Captain Clark crosed the, river to examine the remains of the fortification we had first passed. This interesting object is on the south side of the Missouri opposite the upper extremity of Bon Homme Island, and in a low. level plain, the hills being three miles from the river. It begins by a wall composed of earth, rising immediately from the bank of the river, and running in a direct course S. 76: W. ninety-six yards; the base of this wall or mound is seventy-five feet and its height about eight. It then diverges in a course S. 84 : \V. and continues at the same height and depth to the distance of fifty-three yards, the angle being formed by a sloping descent; at the junction of these two is the appearance of a hornwork of the sarrii hi 1 In with the first angle; the same wall then pursues a course at 69: \V. for 300 yards; near its western extremity is an opening or gateway at right angles to the wall and projecting inwards ; this gateway is defended by two nearly semi-circular walls placed before it, lower than the large walls, and from the gateway there seems to have been a covered way com- municating with the interval between these two walls; westward of the gate the wall becomes much larger, being about one hundred and five feet at its base and twelve feet high ; at the end of this high ground the wall extends for fifty-six yards on a course at 32: W. ; it then turns to N. 32: W. for seventy-three yards; these two walls seem to have had a double or covered way; they are from 10 to 15 feet 8 inches in height, and from 75 to 150 feet in width at the base, the descent inwards being step, while outwards it forms a sort of glacis. At the distance of seventy -three yards the wall ends abruptly at a large hollow place much lower than the general level of the plain^ and from which is some indication of a covered way to the water.
The space between them is occupied by several mounds scattered promiscuously through the gorge, in the center of which is a deep, round hole. From the extremity of the last wall, in a course N. 32: W. is a distance of ninety-six yards over the low ground, where the wall recommences and crosses the plain over in a course N. 81 : W. for 1,830 yards to the bank of the Missouri. In this course its height is about eight feet, till it enters, at the distance of 533 yards, a deep circular pond of seventy-three yards diameter; after which it gradually lowers towards the river; it touches the river at a muddy bar, that bears every mark of being an encroachment of the water, for a considerable distance, and a little above the junction is a small circular redoubt.
Along the bank of the river and at 1,100 yards distance, in a straight line from this wall, is a second, about six feet high and of considerable width; it rises abruptly from the hanks of the Missouri, at a point wdiere the river bends, and goes straight forward, forming an acute angle with the last wall until .it enters the river again not far from the mounds just described, towards which it is obviously tending. At the bend the Missouri is 500 yards wide; the ground at the opposite side highlands, or low hills on the bank ; and where the river passes between this front and Bon Homme Island, all the distance from the bend, it is constantly washing the banks into the streams, a large sand bank being already taken from the shore near the wall. During the whole course of this wall or glacis, it is covered with trees, among which are many large cotton trees that are two to three feet in diameter. Immediateh opposite the citadel, or the part most strongly fortified on Bon Homme Island, is a small work in a circular form, with a wall surrounding it about six feet in height. The young willows along the water joined to the general appearance of the two shores induce a belief that the bank of the island is encroaching, and the Missouri indemnifies itself by washing away the base of the fortification
The citadel contains about twenty acres, but the parts between the long walls must embrace nearly five hundred acres. These are the first remains of the kind which we have had an opportunity of examining; but our French interpreter assures us that there are gi numbers of them on the Platte, the Kansas, the Jacques, etc., and some of our part} saj that they observed two of these fortresses on the Petite Arc (Little I'.ow 1 (reek n 1 fai its mouth; that the wall was about six feet high and the sides of the angles 100 yards in length.
This fortification, Lewis concluded, was the ruins of an ancient fort that had been constructed by a fairly intelligent people, who possessed considerable knowledge of the science of military architecture. Durion, the interpreter, who had spent his life with the Indians, was unable to enlighten the captain, but told him that a similar work would be found on the fames River; but even the Sioux Indian tribe had no tradition that threw any light upon the matter. Directly across the channel on the island shore wa.s found the disintegrating remain what appeared to have been a citadel as ancient and probably a contemporary with the fort when constructed and undoubtedly designed for use in con with the fortification in case of necessity. The citadel was or had been a circular structure, and outside and enclosing it was a stone wall six feet high in places.
l8 HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY
I Note by Ed.] The traditional story of the Mandan people forces itself upon the mind in contemplating the description of these works and those at tort Thompson, constructed apparentl) for the protection and defense of a part .ally civilized people againsl an enemy that was at any tune liable to assa. them These Mandans had passed up the Missouri Valley long before -how long is left to conjecture, but they had o ed and occupied a fortification above
Fori Pierre and had abandoned that, and Lewis found them hundreds of miles farther north. There is a mystery connected with them, which the present gen- eration of Mandan. nor that which existed when Captain Lewis met them, were able or willing to unravel. Many of them did not resemble other Indians except partially, while in many striking physical characteristics they are essentially non- Indian.' Some had blue eyes, various shades of hair; the absence of high cheek bones the almost fair complexion of many of them, the knowledge they still po. of some of the primitive arts, including agriculture, all go to prove
;lri, ,i,c\ ice ol peoph developing into a higher civilization, or in the
ceding from a civilized and enlightened race to the barbaric state M would seem thai the latter theory would conform best with the little that is known of this remarkable people. They are the special aversion of the hkotah Indians who have never omitted an opportunity to wreak their enmity upon them and in explanation of the fortifications at Bonhomme it would appear to luxe been built for the purpose of protecting and defending a numerous body of civilized or semi-civilized people against a relentless and powerful enemy. The site bad been selected intelligently for the purpose of a permanent abode, and no doubl was occupied and used as the home of a people who practiced agriculti ped, hunted, fished, always wary of their red skinned enemy
whi mes may have come in force to assail them, when lodged behind the
battlements of their fort they could as successfully resist as the other could ault, and if the dire emergency ever arose when their fortifications were taken, their citadel across the narrow channel afforded a secure place of retreat and an almost absolute defensive structure against any arms their enemy was conversant with. The Mandans courted peace by isolating themselves from all other human beings. They were unlike any other Indian tribe and avoided any lowship with their race. They had no desire to affiliate with other Indian trib. i i other whites. They desired to be let alone, and pass unobserved except as tl ities required them to barter with the traders.
Now that we have indulged in some speculation concerning this strange band of nomadic people we ask the reader's attention to a brief review of the career of this remarkable tribe, and would direct attention to the result, after many centuries of trial, of the intermarriage of white- and Indians. The Mandans would seem to furnish a living illustration of the benefits accruing to the Indian Hire by this intermarriage or miscegenation, with the better class of white ople, and if thi narrativi is a true one it furnishes the most interesting evi- that truth is stranger than fiction. The Mandan Indians have been ;nized as one of the oldest tribes in North America and their existence and have been traced back for several centuries, when even before the Colum- bian era. the. numerous and peaceful tribe inhabiting a portion of the South Atlantic coast. It is known that connected with them were a number of white men oi n intelligence and of strong religious inclinations. These 1 to be Welshmen, who. under a leader known as Prince Madoc, visited ibis continent from Wales in the twelfth century. This party made one -fill voyage and a second was undertaken, but no authentic information
i obtained, unless this tradition, which has the
support of c two, early missionaries, should prove to be well
founded. The tradition informs us that these white voyagers and explorers
I near the coasl peopled by the Mandans, probably Georgia as
known, and the survivors found shelter and subsistence from the Indians,
with whom they continued to dwell, and realizing the hopelessness of rescue,
HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY 19
finally, and with devout sincerity, concluded to unite their destinies with these strange barbarous' people, and with them spend the remainder of their days, taking Indian wives, and adopting Indian customs so far as necessary, and teaching the belter customs, methods and religion of the whites to the Indians. This may have been 700 years ago, and somewhat in confirmation of this is the story that a Welsh ship, on a voyage of discovery was losl on the southern Atlantic coast near the close of the twelfth century. In any event these whi or their descendants were seen and conversed with later by missionaries and explorers, and through the medium of their language it was ascertained that these whites were of Welsh extraction. As time passed the .Mandans, with all other aboriginal peoples, were crowded back from the oast by the aggressive and increasing forces of civilization, and as the Mandans would abandon a country where one or two generations had been born and lived and died, it would be discovered that they were not like the other Indian nations; that they pos sessed a knowledge of many arts not common to the children of the forest ; that they had erected substantial log buildings for residences, and their cultivated fields were far in advance of any agricultural knowledge possessed and practiced by Indians generally, and occasional instances of the construction of substantial fortifications were encountered. The story goes that there was always a sort of reticence or backwardness on the part of the members of this tribe, when asked a question that concerned their history, as though they knew a tradition of a singular character concerning themselves, but which they did not fully believe and felt that those who pressed them to relate it would brand it as an invention pure and simple.
It is conjectured by some of the missionary writers that they fully realized a radical difference between their nation and other Indian nations, and even after the lapse of centuries their speech disclosed a foreign ingredient that they explained had been imparted by intercourse with a strange people in tlv remote past. The physiological characteristics of many of them denoted a blended organ- ism. In its migrations west the tribe finally reached the Valley of the Missouri. They seem to have made a settlement at certain points where they have remained a half or a full century, perhaps longer, then would follow a removal and the founding of a new village or fort hundreds of miles away. We believe it was the Mandans who built and occupied the Bon Homme fortifications which excited so much interest in the mind of Captain Lewis, and that be would have found the colony there had his exploration occurred a century or two earlier. They had passed on long anterior to his time, had built and abandoned another cen- tury old home, near Fort Thompson, and were beyond the reach of civilization by a half centurv at least when he formed their acquaintance. In numbers they had become reduced to a fragment of a tribe, still possessing, however, traits of character, customs and an unTndian appearance that placed them in a class by themselves. They arc a survival of the fittest, perhaps, of what can be produi by the union of the Anglo Saxon and native American under fairly favorable circumstances, and seem to demonstrate that no advantage has come to either race as a result of their long centuries of experiment.
George Catlin, a famous painter and authority on Indian traditions gathered by himself during years of patient labor among them, from 1850 up. while visit- ing with the Mandans, came to believe that they had descended from a company of Welsh explorers who landed on the shores of North America about two hundred years before the arrival of Columbus. Of the ten ships which left Northern Wales some time about [290, in charge of Prince Modoc, no tidings were ever heard, but Catlin was of opinion that they planted a colony in the region of Ohio, coming inland from the southern shore or coast; and after his sojourn with them in their fortified village on the Upper Missouri he had no difficulty in tracing them back, and down the river, and up the < 'bio to the immense fortifications of that country. Thus finding constant tracks oi tl ruins, he became convinced that the Indians, with whom he had passed so much
HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY
lime were descended from those ancient builders. In some instances those forts ', I .uuav and thirty feet high, with carefully covered passages leading to the water. Again the similarity can he traced in the Mandan canoe which 5u an exact counterpart of the ' of the \ elsh, made ot buffalo hides
stretched over a frame ... willows, and fashioned as round as a tub Lath
Id the Mandans living in a massive stockade, with convenient portholes, on two sides of which then- cay was fortified b3 standing back upon the edge of precipices that struck down a rock ledge to the ..vers brink Their lodges were circular in form, and from forty to sixty feet in diameter. The Mandans were 1 fanners and believed in diversity of crops; raising corn, squashes and pump- kins Their cellars for storing their dried vegetables and corn in winter were dug six or seven feet deep, smaller at the top in a sort of jug like shape, and no matter how severe the winter nothing ever froze. Their homes were clean, comfortable and commodious I Here is where the Welsh intermixture is revealed.) Many of the women were almosl white, with gray, hazel or blue eyes; hair of every shade hut auburn, which they delighted to spread out, its long folds reaching to their knees. Many of the I >hio specimens of pottery dug from those archaic fortifications were like the utensils used by the Mandans, who spent much time in moulding pitchers, vases, pots and cups; baking the clay in kilns built in the hill sides; and from those ingenious artisans the fur hunters used to get a beau- tiful and durable blue glass' bead, of their own manufacture, but the process was never revealed by them to the whites.
There is a legend' among them thai their ancestors once lived under a great bodj of water that is far to the northeast; but that some of the people came out from their horn beneath the seas, and their glowing accounts led others to also, for the outside country, although some were unable to climb out. From the time ol leaving their homes under the deep waters, they wandered over the prairies, suffering much, but always delivered by their Good Angel, through some mil u ulous interposition, and in time they were led by messengers who went south, "to the fertile land of the buffalo and elk, and people who lived in bouses and tilled the ground." But still they journeyed, and at length found themselves in tin greal valleys along the Missouri River; and there they dwelt and learned many arts. This legend certainly bears indications that give plausi- bility to the Welsh * !olony theory.
Bryant, who was nol fri< ndly to the claim that a Welsh Colony had discovered America prior to < olumbus, and had become miscegenated with the Mandans, makes mention of the tradition in his "Popular History of the United States," discussing the subject substantially as follows:
The tradition that Vmeriea was discovered about the year 1170 by a Welsh prince named Madog or Madoc, is still more circumstantial (referring to a prior claim of the Vrabs), and attempts to support it have been made from time to time for the last 200 years. Humboldt, in alluding to it, says:
I do ii"t share the scorn with which national traditions arc too often treated, and am of hat with m earch, the discovery of facts entirely unknown would throw
mucl ' hist irical pn iblems.
'l'lr and In- voyage had no doubt some actual basis of
The evidence adduced from time to time in support of it has been believed
by in.< ertaining; the tradition itself has found a place in historical
narrate, ch and .ill ili.se reasons, it demands brief consideration.
It is evident that much of the narrative following was inspired by a desire to prove that
the Welsh were entitlei dit as the pioneers in the discovery of the Vmerican
ichievements antedal e of I olumbus by two and possibly three
11 ern themselves with the Mandan story, although
!.• it in iin Mars.
1 in Caradoc's "History of Wales," published by Dr. David
ver, came down only to 1157, and Humphrey Llwyd
d), who ti later story ol ladoc. * * * The story is briefly
this: "Wl rth Wales, was gathered to his fathers, a strife
' n hi ti id, Madoc, one of the sons, took no part in this nd went to sea in search of adventure. He
HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY 21
sailed westward and at length came to an unknown country where the natives differed from any people he had ever seen before, and all things were strangs and new. Seeing that the land was pleasant and fertile, he put on shore and left behind most of those in his ships, and returned to Wales. On his return he set forth the attractive qualities of the new land he had discovered with such good effect that enough of his countrymen to fill ten ships determined to go with him."
The number of these emigrants is not given, and it should he remembered that ships in that day were small affairs compared with modern vessels. Colum- bus 300 years later, in his first voyage, had three ships and hut u<> men. Madoc probably took with him a number of families, intending to found a colony. There is no account of their ever returning to Wales, but it is said "the) followed the manners of the land they came to, and used the language they found there."
Passing to the evidence since gathered, that a tribe of Indians, some of whom were of light complexion, and spoke a language differing from the Indian language in part, and resembling the Welsh tongue, who were found within the limits of the American Colonies in the seventeenth century, it is found that among the earliest testimony is a letter to Dr. Thomas Lloyd, of Pennsylvania, and by him transmitted to his brother, Mr. C. H. S. Lloyd, in Wales. The letter was written by Rev. Morgan Jones, a Welsh missionary, and was dated at New York, March 10th, 16S5. The letter states that Mr. Jones was sent as chaplain of an expedition from Virginia to Port Royal, S. C, in 1660, where he remained some months ; but suffering greatly for food, he and five others started to return lo Virginia. ( )n the way they were taken prisoners by a band of Indians and condemned to die. On hearing the sentence, Mr. Jones exclaimed, in the Welsh tongue: "Have I escaped so many dangers, ami must I now be knocked on the head like a hog." Immediately he was seized around the waist by a war captain of the Doegs, and assured in the same language that he should not die. He was taken before the Tuscaroras chief with his companions and ransomed. Their deliverers took them to their own village where they were hospitably entertained. For four months Mr. Jones remained among them, conversing witli and preaching to them in the Welsh language. The conclusion is that these Indians were descendants of the Welsh colonists under Madoc. Rev. Charles Beatty, a missionary traveling in the Southwest in 1776, met with people who had seen and conversed with these Welsh Indians. A Mr. Benjamin Slutton informed him that he had visited an Indian town west of the Mississippi, where people were not so tawny as other natives and whose language was the Welsh; these people also had a book which they cherished with great can-, which Mr. Slutton slated was a Welsh Bible, probably in manuscript. A Air. Levi Hicks, who had been among the Indians from a youth, told Mr. Beatty that he had visited such a town west of the < ireat River, where the language spoken was Welsh, and Mr. Hcatty's interpreter. Joseph, had been with the natives of the same tribe, whom he was sure spoke the Welsh language, as he understood it partially himself.
In 1785 appeared a narrative that Capt. Isaac Stewart bad been taken pris- oner by the Indians with a Welshman named David, and they were carried several hundred miles up the Red River where they came to "a nation of Indians remarkably white, and whose hair was mostly of a reddish color." Welshman found that these people could converse in Welsh, Their story or tradition was that their forefathers came from across the seas and landed on a coast east of the Mississippi, supposed to be Florida. These Indians pos- sessed some rolls of parchment covered with writing in blue ink. which they kept wrapped Up in skins with great care.
In a book entitled "An Inquiry Concerning the First Discovery of America by the Europeans," by Williams, it is stated that a Welshman, living on the banks of the Ohio River, in a letter dated ( (ctober 1. [778. declared that he had been several times among Indians who spoke the old British (Welsh) language, and that a Virginia gentleman with whom he was acquainted, had visited a tribe
HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY
Welsh Indians living on the Missouri River. 400 miles above its junction with the Mississippi „ , , r , ...
(The attention of the reader is called to the fact that the Mandan Indians wen- in the Missouri Valley at the time mentioned; and further, it should be borne in mind that these Welsh writers make no mention of this name as the tribe which spoke their language; the purpose of the Welsh historians being not to prove what nation these Indians belonged to, but to show that a colony of Welshmen had preceded Columbus to America, and were first discoverers of the new land. 1
Further evidence, and the mosl modern, comes from the famous painter of Indians and [ndii . ' ^eorge Catlin, who in the first half of the last cen- _
tury, sp visiting various tribes, lie studied the Mandans particularly,'
and believed them to be a cross between the Indians and the Welsh, and is inclined to accept the theory thai the Mandans are descendants of the Mound Builders, and that the builders of those works were people originating in Madoc's l olonj I atlin speaks of the boat used by the Mandans in being like the coracle of the \\el>b. and in complexion, in the color of their hair and eyes, they seem to be allied with the whites. Albert Gallatin, secretary of war under Jefferson, that a chief of the Mandan tribe whom he met at Washington, was of a lighter shade of complexion than other red men, and that he was the only full- led Indian he had ever met with blue eyes. Among the /mis of New Mexico there are Indians of fair complexion, blue eve- and lighl hair. Among the Xew Mexicans is a tradition that long ago some Welsh miner- wandered into that country with their wives and children, and that the /.tins killed the men and married the women.
Historians properlj make a broad distinction between a tradition and an invention. The latter has no basis of truth whatever, while traditions as a rule have a substantia] basis of truth, though often embellished by fancy or distorted and amplified in their repctiton from generation to generation.
The theory that ha- gained some credence in more modern times, that this
was not the decaying ruins of an old fort, but clue to the natural causes produced
by the river in periods of high water, is much more difficult to explain and believe,
than the testimony of Captains Lewis and (.'lark, who were qualified by educa-
tion and experience to form a sound judgment in a matter of this character.
The natural action of the river would not build stone walls six feet high, with
-tone transported overland for some distance; nor does it lay the foundations
for large fortifications with the skill and precision that was required in laying
out this abandoned fortress. It i- much more irrational, and difficult, to believe
that this ruined fort was the result of natural causes, and so skilfully built as
>i only Lewis and Clark, experienced and educated military men,
but the crew composed of men of ripe experience in the army, who accompanied
them, than it i- to accept the well-grounded opinion of the explorers who came
upon the ruin- before they bad been disturbed by the white pioneers of a half
1 opinion, formed after painstaking examination and measure-
. pronounced them the ruins of an abandoned extensive fortress that had
trueted b!> .1 people who possessed considerable knowledge of the
archil id who had built the fortress with the view
of protection againsl nl foes.
of the earliest settlers of Ron Homme, while lacking any evi- 'li.it they bad made a careful examination of tin- ruins, but had frequently •rd them, was in a general way corroborative of the theory or and ( lark.
CHAPTER IV
LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION (Continued)
DEPART FROM BON HOMME ISLAND — PRAIRIE DOG VILLAGE — FLANNEL SHIRTS DIS- TRIBUTED TO THE MEN — A SINKING SANDBAR LOISFX's FORT — TETON INDIANS
INDIANS NOT FRIENDLY, MAKE EFFORTS TO DETAIN EXPLORERS — PLAIN TALK
FROM CAPTAIN CLARK DOG FEAST TETON CUSTOMS, APPAREL, NATIVE WOMEN
— OFFICER OF THE DAY AGAIN UNDER WAY AGAINST DETERMINED OPPOSITION.
The journal continues :
The next morning, passed at sunrise three large sandbars and at the distance of ten miles reached a small creek about twelve yards wide coming in from the north above a white bluff; this creek has obtained the name of Plum Creek (Snatch Creek) from the number of that fruit which are in the neighborhood and of delightful quality. Five miles farther we encamped on the south near the edge of a plain; the river is wide and covered with sandbars today. The banks are high and of a whitish color; the timber scarce, but an abundance of grapes. Beavers' houses, too, have been observed in great numbers on the river, but none of that animal themselves.
September 4th, at one mile and a half, we reached a small creek called White Lime Creek, on the south side. Just above this is a cliff covered with cedar trees, and at three miles a creek called White Paint Creek of about thirty yards wide; on the same side and at 4J/2 miles from White Paint Creek, is the Rapid River, or as it is called by the French, La Riviere Qui Court (Niobrara). This river empties into the Missouri in a course S. W. by W., and is 152 yards wide and 4 feet deep at the confluence. It rises in the Black Mountains and passes through a hilly country with a poor soil. Captain Clark ascended three miles to a beautiful plain on the upper side where the Pawnees once had a village; he found that the river widened above its mouth, and was much divided by sands and islands, which, joined to the rapidity of its currnet, makes the navigation difficult even for small boats. We camped just above it on the south, having made only eight miles. We saw some deer, a number of geese, and shot a turkey and a duck. The place in which we halted i< a fine low ground, with much timber, such as red cedar, honey-locust, oak, arrowwood, elm and coffeenut.
On Wednesday, the 5th. at five miles, we came to Pawnee Island in the middle of the river, and stopped to breakfast at a small creek on the north which has the name of Goat (reek (Chotean Creek) at S1.. miles. War the mouth of the creek tlie beaver had made a dam across so as to form 1 large pond, in which they built their houses. Above this island the River Poncara t Ponca ("reiki falls into the Missouri from the south, and is thirty yards wide at its entrance. Two men whom we had dispatched to the village of the same name returned with the information thai they had found it on the lower side of the creek, but as this is the hunting season the town was so completely deserted that they had killed a buffalo in the village itself. This tribe of Poncaras I P ncas 1, who are said to have once numbered 400 men, are now reduced to about fifty, ind have associated for mutual protet I with the Mahas (Omahas), who are ioo in number.
These two nations are allied by a similarity of misfortunes; their common enemies, the Sioux and the smallpox, drove them from their towns, which they only visit for purposes of trade. At V ! miles from the creek we came to a 1 land on the south, along which
we passed and encamped on the head of it at t o'clock. Mere we replaced our mast; some
bucks and elk weir procured today and a black tailed deei tr the Poncaras' village.
High wind and rapid current obliged us to use the towline the next day. We made but 8) ■ miles and encamped on the north after passing high cliffs of sofl blue and red col. .red stone on the south We saw some goats and great numbers of buffalo, and the hunters fur- nished us elk, deer, turkeys, geese, a beaver, and a large catfish was caught. The next day at .;'.■ miles we reached and encamped at the foot of a round mountain on the south, hai passed two small islands. This mountain, which is about three hundred feet at the base. forms a cone at the top, rescmblino a dome at a distance, and scventv feet 01 m
23
._,, HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY
the surrounding highlands. As we descended from this dome we arrived at a spot, on the
cent of the hill, nearly four acres in extent and. covered with small hoes, lhese
dence of a little animal oiled by the French petit chien little dog), who sit erect
: , ,h and make a , but when alarmed take refuge m heir holes
""order Z bring them out • of the holes five barrels of water without
filling it but we dislodg. ter digging down another of the holed
for six feet, we found ■ m I u nto it that we had not yet dug half way to he
bottom; we di lil ,1" hole' and ?ear 7 we Hllle,d a ,dark rattle
snake, which 1 tall prairie dog; we were also informed though we never
witnessed the fad that a sort of lizard and a snake live habitually with these animals 1 he petit chien are justly named, as they resemble a small dog in some particulars, though they
Live aK me points ol similiaritj to the squirrel. The head resembles the squirrel in every
_ec| excepl ter; the tail like that of a ground squirrel, the toe-nails are
. fur is fine and the long hair is gray. [This prairie dog town is a little above Fort
On Sundaj the Qth at seven miles, we reached a house on the north side, called the
,..1V a trader named Trudeau wintered in the year 1796:97; behind this,
hills much higher than usual, appear to the north about eight miles off. (Bijou Hills.) We
came by three small islands before reaching this house, and a small creek on the south, and
after having reached another at the end of seventeen miles, on which we camped and called
it Boat Island We here saw herds of buffalo, some elk, deer, turkeys, beaver, a squirrel and
prairie dog We passed two small creeks on Sunday coming in from the north (Pratt
i e I Saw large herds of buffalo on the south, some of them numbering as many as 500.
imped on the south ..tit. miles. .
( in the 10th. at [0| miles, we reached Cedar Island, two miles long and covered with
red cedar. Just below this island on a hill to the south is the backbone of a fish, forty-five
feet long, tapering toward the tail, in a perfect state of petrification, fragments of which were
ted and sent to Washington. On both sides of the river are high, dark colored bluffs.
About a mile and a half from the island on the southern shore we discovered a large and
mpregnated spring of water; and another not so large half way up the hill. Camped
on Mud Island, elk and buffalo abundant.
The next day we passed a prairie dog village and a number of islands and camped on the south side at' the distance of sixteen miles. In the morning we observed a man riding on horseback down towards the boat, and were much pleased to find it was George Shannon, who left us on the 20th of August to search for the horses which had strayed. After he had ■ he attempted to rejoin us, but seeing some other tracks, which must have been In mistook them for our own and concluded we were ahead, and had been for sixteen days following the bank of the river above us. During the first four days he exl bullets and was then nearly starved, being obliged to subsist for twelve days
ipes and a rabbit which he killed by making use of a hard piece ot stick for a ball. Ins horses gave out and was left behind, the other he kept as a last resource for food. 1 1, 1 i taking us he was venturing down the river in hopes of meeting some
..tber boat and was on the point of killing his horse when he was so fortunate as to joini us. All the following day, the 12th, the water was rapid and shallow and sandbars so numerous that the men were in the water much of the time. Encamped after traveling four miles. High, dark bluffs on the south containing a mixture of slate and coal. Sandbars were very numerous on Thursday; we made twelve miles. Hills on east side are high, separated from the river by a narrow plain. Great quantities of ripe grapes on the north and plenty unripe plums. We encamped on the north, opposite a small willow island; and the next day at two mill bed a round island on the northern side; at 7'A miles a small creek, and at
nine miles encamped near the mouth of a creek on the south. Sandbars numerous. Searched all day for an ancient volcano which we heard at St. Charles was somewhere in this neigh- borly ....I, but found nothing even remotely resembling it.
1 hi Saturday, September 15th, we passed the creek near our last night's encampment ( Heart Creek) and at two miles reached the mouth of White River coming from the south. We si ne man to examine it above its mouth. It has a bed of about three
bun. Ire. 1 yards; 111 the mouth is a sand island and several sandbars. It differs from the
tirt in throwing out comparatively little sand. The sergeant went up about
twelve mill and found th< general course west, the timber elm; they saw pine burrs and
■in. Met buffalo, wolves, elk deer and barking squirrels.
it tin of White with the Missouri is an excellent position for a town, the land
gradual ascents, and the neighborhood furnishing more timber than is usual
in this country. After passing high dark bluffs on both sides we reached the lower point
an island toward the south at a distance of six miles. The island bears an abundance
red with red cedar. (American Island at Chamberlain.) Encamped
it miles on the north, opposite a large creek on the south, and early the following
morning, bavin ' a convenient spot on the south side at i>4 miles distant, we
a small creek which wi 1 tiled Corvus. Finding that we could not proceed
on thi we desired while the boat was so heavily loaded, we concluded
ended, our third pcringue. bin to detain the soldiers until spring, and in the meantime lighten the boat by loading the periogue, which detained
HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY 25
us all day. The cold season coming on, a flannel shirt wis given ot each man and fresh powder.
The following day we remained in camp. Some of the party were employed in exam- ining the surrounding- country. A quarter of a mile behind our camp a plain twenty feet high extends for three miles parallel to the river. About a mile back of this plain we found another rise, cut by ravines, in which we found an abundance of plums, finely flavored. Antelope and buffalo are numerous. We do not exaggerate in saying that we saw i.ooo of the latter at a single glance. Made seven miles on the [8th, passed an island a mile in length covered with cedar. Encamped on the south at seven miles, dame abundant.
September lotli we reached at three miles a bluff on the south and at four miles farther the lower point of Prospect Island, about _" _. miles in length; opposite are high bluffs eighty feet above the water; beyi nd are beautiful plains rising as they recede from the river, and watered by three streams that empty near each other, and are called by the 1 rench I Irois Riviere des Sioux, the Three Sioux Rivers, and as the Sioux generally cross the Missouri at this place, it is called the Sioux Pass of the Three Rivers. These streams have the same right of asylum as Pipestone Creek already mentioned. Two miles further we passed a creek fifteen yards wide; eight miles another twenty yards; three miles beyond a third eighteen yards wide, all on the south. The second we called Elm Creek and the third Night Creek, having reached it late at night. About a mile beyond this we reached a small island on the north side called Lower Island, as it is situated tit the commencement of what is known by the name of Grand Detour or Greal Bend of the Missouri. Opposite on the south is Prickly Pear Creek. We encamped on the south opposite the upper end of the island, having an excellenl day's sailing of 26; 1 miles. Large herds of buffalo, elk and goats were seen today.
On Thursday, September 20th, finding we had reached the Big Bend, we dispatched two men with our only horse across the neck to hunt there and wait our arrival at the first creek beyond. We then set out to make the circuit on the bend.
At o'j miles is a sand island; about ten miles beyond a small island with a creek on the north. I his is called Solitary Island, being at the extremity of the bend. Eleven miles farther we encamped on a sandbar, having made 27^ miles. Great numbers of buffalo, elk and goats are wandering over these plains. The goats have no beard, are delicately formed and very beautiful. The next morning, between 1 and 2 o'clock, the sergeant on guard alarmed us by crying that the sandbar on which we lay was sinking. We jumped up and found that above and below our camp the sand was undermined and falling in very fast. We had scarcely got into the boats and pushed off when the bank under which they had been lying caved in and would certainly have sunk the two periogues had they remained there. By the time we had reached the opposite shore the ground of our encampment sunk also.
We formed a second camp and at daylight proceeded on to the gorge or throat of the Great Bend and breakfasted. A man whom we had dispatched to step off the distance across the bend found it 200 yards; the distance around is thirty miles. After breakfast we passed through a high prairie on the north and rich cedar lowland and bluff on the south till wq reached a willow island below the mouth of a small creek. This creek is called Tyler's River, comes in from the south, and is six miles from the Great Bend. At 1 1 Y- miles we encamped on the north at the lower point of an ancient island that is now covered with Cottonwood. We here saw some tracks of Indians, but three or four weeks old. This day was warm. The next day our course was through inclined prairies crowded with buffalo. We halted near a high bluff on the south and took a meridian altitude which gave us the latitude of 44° n' 33". We then reached a small island on the south at 4'j miles; imme- diately above is another island opposite a small creek fifteen vards wide. The creek and two islands are called the I hree Sisters. Next is an island on the north called Cedar Island, about i1.- miles long and the same distance broad, and derives its name from its timber. On the south side of Cedar Island is a fort built by a Mr. Loisel, who wintered here last year to trade with the Sioux, the remains of whose camps are in great numbers about this place. At sixteen miles we came to on the north at the mouth "i a small creek. Large stniies made navigation dangerous, and the mosquitoes are numerous. We passed Goat Island, the twentj third, above which is Smoke Creek, as we observed a great smoke to the
southwest in approaching it. At ten miles we pased what we called Elk Island. -■'.> miles
long and -M of a mile covered with cottonw 1. red currant and grapes. \ small creek on
tin- north we called Reuben's Creek, as Reuben Fields, 'lie of our men, was tile first who reached it. Above this we encamped for the night at twenty miles distance. In the evening three Sioux boys -wain across the river and informed us that two parties ot Sioux were encamped on tin- next river, one consisting of eighty and the other sixty lodges, some dis- tance above. Alter treating them kindly we sent them back with two carrots of tobacco to their chiefs, whom we invited to a conference in the morning.
On Monday, September 24th. we passed Highwater Creek a little above our encampment. \t live miles we reached an island 2T .• miles long. Here we were joined by one of our hunters, who. while 111 pursuit of game, the Indians bad stolen bis b mly one. We
500fl overtook live Indians on shore. We anchored and told them we were friends and wished to continue so. but were not afraid of any Indians. That some of their young men had st, ilen the horse which the Great bather bad sent for a present to their great chief and that we could not treat with them until it was restored. They said they knew nothing al
ills loin OF DAKOTA TERRITORY
it but if the horse bad been taken it should be given up. At ii}4 nileswe passed what
, [Siand l0ut il, milei long, abounding in elk At 13^ miles we
n the south and encamped, being joined by the
ard, the rest took one penogue and went
I |M fiv( [ndian followed us and stayed with the shore guard. One of them
1 ,1 we smoked with him and im a present of tobacco. As the tribe of
Indians which inhabit this river are called Teton we gave it the name of leton River*
1 Bad River I. . . , , , , , • ,
Septembei 25th was a fine morning. We raised a flag stafi and an awning, under which
embled al with all the party parading under arms. 1 he chiefs and warriors
from their camp two miles above met us. about fiftj or sixty in number, and after smoking
peech, but as our Sioux interpreter, Mr. Durion, had been left with the
Yanktons we were obliged to mak< usi of a 1 renchman as an interpreter, who could not
speak ilue'mh and we, therefore, curtailed our harangue. We then acknowledged the chiefs
bj giving to the grand chief .1 medal, a flag of the United States, a laced uniform coat, a.
d hat and feather; to two • ther chiefs, a medal and some small presents, and to two
warriors of consideration, certificates. The name of the great chief is Untorgasatan, or
I, Fortahonga, the Partisan; the third, Lartongawaka, or Buffalo
the name of his warri u . Wanginggo, the other Matocoquepa or Second Bear.
them on hoard, showed them the boat, the air gun and other curiosities, in
which we fell, for alter giving them a quarter of a glass of__whiskey, which
thej seennd to like very much and sucked the bottle, it was with much difficulty we could
get rid of them. They at last accompanied Captain Clark on shore in a pirogue with five
men; but it seem- they had formed a design to stop us, for no sooner had the party landed
than three of the Indians seized the cable of the pirogue and one of the soldiers of the
chief put his arms around the mast ; the second chief, who feigned intoxication, then said we
n, that they had m t received presents enough. Captain Clark told him we
ed from going on; that we were not squaws but warriors; that we were
sent bj our Great Father who could in a moment exterminate them.
1 replied that he, too, had warriors, and was proceeding to offer personal vio- to Captain 1 lark, who imediately drew his sword and made a signal to the boat to prep. i! on. The Indians, who surrounded him, drew the arrows from their quivers
and bent their hows when the swivel in the boat was pointed towards them, and twelve of our most determined men jumped into the pirogue and joined Captain Clark. This move- ment made an impri sii n on them, tor the grand chief ordered the young men away from the lie and they withdrew and held a short council with the warriors. Being unwilling to irritate them. Captain Clark then went forward and offered his hand to the first and second chiefs, who refused to take it. He then turned from them and got into the pirogue, but had not gone more than tell paces when both chiefs and two of the warriors waded in after him and he brought them on hoard. We then went on for a mile and anchored off a willow which, from the circumstances just related, we call Badhumored Island, where we spenl the night. 1 lui d nduct seemed to have inspired the Indians with fear of us and as we were desirous of cultivating their acquaintance we complied with their wish that we should gi\e them an opportunity of treating us well, and also suffer their squaws and chil- dren to see us and our boat, which would be perfectly new to them. Accordingly, after a i eleven miles, we came to on the south side, where a crowd of men, women and children were waiting to receive us. Captain Lewis went on shore and remained several that tii' 11 disposition was friendly we resolved to remain during the hey were preparing for us. Captains Lewis and Clark, who went on a ter the other, were met on landing by ten well dressed young men, who took them up in a robe highly decorated and carried them to a large council house, where they I on a dressed buffalo skin by the side of the grand chief. The hall or council was in the shape of three-qui a circle, covered at the top and sides with
:i I together. 1 nder this shelter sat about seventy men forming
whom weri placed .1 Spanish flag and the one we had I m a vacant circle of about six feet in diameter in which the ed on two forked ticks aboul six or eight inches from the ground, ' of the swan wi red; .1 large fire in which there were cooking
and in the center aboul four hundred pounds of excellent buffalo meat I .
1 an ol I man got up, and after approving what we had done.
on their unfortunab n. To this we replied with assurance of
il chief arose and delivered a harangue to the same
d. licate parts of the di g winch
' and held it to the fl i by ivaj of acrifice; this done, he held
■' I. vens, then to the four quarter, of
rth, made a hori peech, lighted the pipe and presented it to us.
. 1 d up to us. It consisted of the dog which they had
the Sioux and used 1 11 all festivals. To this
Of buffalo meat dried or jerked and then pounded and
nd potato which we found good; but we could as "gly of the dog We ate and smoked for an hour, when it became
HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY 27
dark ; everything was then cleared away for the dance, a large fire being made in the center of the house, giving light and warmth to the ballroom. The orchestra was composed of about ten men who played upon a sort of tambourine formed of skin stretched across a
hoop and made a jungling noise with a long stick to which the 1 - oi deer and goats were
hung; the third instrument was a small skin bag with pebbles in it; these, with five or six young, men tor the vocal part, made up the band. The women then came forward highly decorated, some with poles in their hands in which were hung the scalps of their enemies; others with guns, spears or different trophies taken in war by their husband, brothers or connections.
Having arranged themselves in two columns, one on each side of the lire, as soon as the music began they danced toward each other till they met in the center. wh< re the utiles were shaken and they all shouted^and returned back to their places. They have no Step, but shuttle along the ground; nor does the music appear to be anything more than a con fusion of noises, distinguished only by hard or gentle blows on the buffalo skins. The song is perfectly extemporaneous. In the pauses of the uance any man of the company tomes forward and recites, in a sort of a low, guttural tone, some story or incident, which is either martial or ludicrous, or, as was the case this evening, voluptuous and indecent. Tins is taken up by the orchestra and dancers in a higher strain, who dance to it. The dances of the men are conducted very nearly the same way and are always, separate from the dances of the women. The harmony of this entertainment had nearly been disturbed by one of the musicians, who. thinking he had not received a due share of the tobacco we had distributed, put himself in a passion, broke one of the drums, threw two of them into the fire and left the band. They were taken out of the fire, and a buffalo robe held in one hand and beaten with the other by several of the company supplied the place of the lost tambourine, and no notice was taken of the offensive conduct of the man. We stayed until 12 o'clock at night, then told the chiefs they would be fatigued with their efforts to amuse us and retired accom- panied by four chiefs, two of whom spent the night with us aboard.
This tribe is a part of the great Sioux nation called Teton Kandandas and number about two hundred men. They inhabit both sides of the Missouri between the Teton (Bad) River and the Cheyenne. Their persons are ugly, ill made, their legs and arms being too small, cheek bone high, eyes projecting. The females, with the same character of form, are more handsome, and both sexes appear cheerful and sprightly, but we found them cunning and vicious. The men shave the hair off their heads, except a small tuft on the top which they suffer to grow and wear in plaits over their shoulder; to this they are much attached, as the loss of it is the usual sacrifice at the death of near relations.
In full dress the men wear a hawk's feather or calumet feather worked with porcupine quills and fastened to the top of the head. The face and body are generally painted with a mixture of grease and coal. Over the shoulders is a loose robe of buffalo skins dressed white, adorned with porcupine quills loosely fixed so as to make a jungling noise when in motion and painted in uncouth figures not intelligible to us but to them emblematical of military exploits or any other incident. The hair of the robe is worn next the skin in fair weather, but when it rains the hair is put outside. Under this in winter they wear a kind of shirt resembling ours made of skin or cloth and covering the arms and body. Round the middle is fixed a girdle of cloth or procured dressed elk skin about an inch in width and closely tied to the body. To this is attached a piece of clotn. a blanket or skin, about a fool wide which passes between the legs and is tucked under the girdle both before and behind. From the hip to the ankle he is covered with leggings of dressed antelope skins with si at the sides two inches in width and ornamented by little tufts of hair, the produce of the scalps they have made in war. which are scattered down the legs. The winter moccasins are of dressed buffalo skin, the hair being worn inwards and soled with thick elk parchment. Summer moccasins are of elk skin without the hair. On great occasions the young men drag after them the entire skin of a pole cat fixed to the heel of the moccasins. Another skin of the same animal is tucked in the girdle and serves as a pouch for their tobacco or what the French trailers call the hois roule (killikanick) ; this is the inner bark of a species of red willow which, being dried .in the sun or over the fire, is rubbed between the hands and token into small pieces, and is used alone or mixed with tobacco The pipe is of reel earth the stem made of ash. about three feet long, and decorated with feathers, hair and porcu- pine quills. The hair of the women is suffered to grow long and is parted from the across the head, at the back of which it is either collected into a kind of bag or hangs down over the shoulders. Their moccasins and leggings are like those of the mi n, except the 1 il reach only to the knee, where it is met Sy a long, loose shift of skin which reaches to the ankles and is fastened over the shoulders by a string, and has no sleeves, but a few piei of the skin hang a short distance down the arm. The women are fond of dress. Then lodges are in the same form as those of the Yanktons. The; consist cabins made of white buffalo hide dressed, with a large area in the cent and dances. They are built round with poles abi ut fifteen or twenrj feel I igh 1 overed with
white skins. These lodges maj be taken to pieces, parked up and carried with the nation from place to place by dogs, who bear great burdi
The women are chiefly employed in dressing buffalo skins; they seen; well
disposed, but are addicted to stealing anything which they can take without being oi
While on shore we witnessed a quarrel between two squaws which appeared b
more boisterous when a man came forward, at whose appearance everyone seemed terrified
HISTORY OF DAK< ITA 1 ERRITORY
. to k the squaws and without any ceremony whipped them severely. On inquir- ..■■ i such summary justice we learned that Uns man was an officer well Ibis and manj other tribes. His duty is to keep the peace and the whole interior ufided to two or three oi th< a . who are named by the
chief and remain in at least until the chief appoints a successor. They
secn] ■ constable 01 entinel, and thej are always on the watch to keep tran-
quility rding the camp at night. 'Hie short duration of their office is
compensati authority; Ins power is supreme and in the suppression of any riot or
distui 11 is sacred, and if in the execution
he sti nd class he cannot be punished. In general, they
pany th( person oi the chief, and when ordered to do any duty, however dangerous, it is a point of honor rather to die than to refuse obedience.
- when the) attempted to stop us yestejdaj the chief ordered one of these men to :.ike possession i diat< lj pul his anus an iund the mast and no force except
the command of his chief could induce him to release his hold.
1 in rhursda) morning we rose early. The two chiefs took off, as a matter of course,
and a* 1 their cusl m thi lanket on which they slept. Captain Lewis went on shore
s the nation that was 1 tpected but did not come. He returned with four
chiefs, \\ h : half an hour and left with reluctance, Captain Clark accompanying
them t" thi the grand chief, where a dance was given. He returned to the boat at
econd 1 tiief and leading a warrior aboard. As we came near the
boat the man who steered the pirogue brought her broadside against the boat's cable and
it. We called up all hands to the oars, but our voice alarmed the two Indians; they
called out to their companions, who immediately crowded to the shore, but soon returned
leaving sixtj nun mar us. The alarm given by the chiefs was said to be that the Mahas
ttacked us and they were desirous of assisting us to repel it; but we suspected that they
afraid we imam in set sail and they intended to prevent us from doing so, for in the
night the Maha prisoner had told one of our men that we were to be stopped. We, therefore,
without giving any intimation of our suspicion, prepared everything for an attack. We were
n.>t mistaken in these opinions, for the next morning, September 28th, after failing to find
"tir anchor, it was with great difficulty that we could make the chiefs leave the boat. At
length we got rid of all except the great chief, when, just as we were setting out, several of
reat chiefs soldiers sat on the rope which held the boat to the shore. Irritated at this
I everything ready to fire on them if they persisted, but the great chief said that these
Us soldiers and only wanted si'ine tobacco. We threw him a carrot of tobacco and said
to him, "You have told us you were a great man and have influence, now show your
influence by taking the rope from these men, and we will then go without any further
trouble.''
This had the desired effect, as it appealed to his pride; he went out and gave the
soldiers the tobacco, and, pulling the rope from their hands, delivered it on board, and we
\ short distance up stream we observed the third chief beckoning to us; we
1. took him aboard and he told us the rope was held by order of the second chief,
who was a double faced man. On his return to the nation we sent a speech to the great
chief, telling him t.. make peace with his enemies, and if he persisted in attempting to stop us
abli 1 defend ourselves. We encamped on a sandbar at six miles above our starting
point and early on the 29th set out with fair weather. The Indians followed us and the
ed us to take two women to the next station above, which we refused, but
gave him a present of tobacco. They followed us along the shore. At 7'A miles we passed
.1 small creek on the south which we called Notimber Creek on account of its bare appearance.
We made eleven miles and encamped on the lower part of a willow island, using large
n anchor. The next morning the wind was strong and it rained. The country
h was low prairie covered with timber; on the south, first high, barren hills, then
similar to the prairie on the north. We had not gone far when an Indian ran after us and
• i'd and carried as far as the Ricaras, which we refused. Soon after
red on the hills at a distance great numbers of Indians, who came to the river
and encamped ahead of us. \Y< anchored a hundred yards from the shore, and, discovering
,,u'.v v ' longing to the band we had just left, we took them by the hand and
i tobacco; that we had been badly treated by some of
waited for them two days below we could not stop here, but
1 to Mr. Durion for our talk and an explanation of our views. They apologized
'hat hai assured us they were friendlj and asked us to eat with them, which we
hore with the tobacco, which was delivered to one of the
; the duel whore we bad aboard,
■•I later at the narrow- escape of the boat from upsetting and when wi landed toi k his gun and went ashore, telling us we would ive him a blanket, knife and some tobacco and he disappeared. dbar mar the north, having come 20". miles.
CHAPTER V
LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION (Concluded)
CHEYENNE RIVER; HOW NAMED MEET A WHITE TRADER THE BLACK MOUNTAINS
CHEYENNE INDIANS — FRENCHMAN TAKES PASSAGE — AN ARICKARA \ 11,1 V.l
MR. GRAVELINES — THE NEGRO, YORK, ATTRACTS ADMIRATION — INDIANS DO
NOT WHIP CHILDREN — CAPTURING GOATS — INDIANS NUMEROUS — ENTER MAN- DAN COUNTRY — MR. M'CRACKEN — THE MINATAREES — SEARCH FOR WINTER
QUARTERS A PRAIRIE II KE, AND AN INDIAN MOTHER'S PRESENCE OF MIND —
WINTER CAMP LOCATED FORT MANDAN — WINTER EMPLOYMENTS, PASTIMES,
VISITORS LEWIS AND CLARK'S CAMPS.
October ist was cold and windy. At three miles we passed a large island in the middle of tEe river and two miles beyond a river coming from the southwest about four hundred yards wide, but discharging very little water. It takes its rise in the second range of the Cote Noire, or Black Mountains. It is occasionally called Dog River under a mistaken opinion that its French name was Chien, but its true appellation is Cheyenne and it dci this title from the Cheyenne Indians who lived on the Cheyenne, a branch of the Red River of Lake Winnipeg. The invasion of the Sioux drove them westward; in their progress they halted on the southern side of the Missouri, below the Warrecome, where their ancient fortifications still exist ; the same impulses drove them to the heads of the Cheyenne where they now rove, and occasionally visit the Ricaras. They number 300 men. This pan of the river has but little timber, the lands are rich. As we proceeded we passed two creeks on the south which are named Sentinel Creek and Lookout Creek. At a distance of sixteen miles we camped on a sandbar. On the opposite shore we saw a house among the willows and a boy to whom we called and brought him on board. He was a young frenchman in the employ of Mr. Valle, a trader, who was here pursuing his commerce witli the Sioux. October 2d Mr. Valle visited us in the morning anil sailed with us for two miles. lie is one of three French traders who are awaiting the Sioux, who are coming down from the Ricaras to trade Mr. Valle passed the last winter 300 leagues up the Cheyenne under the Black Mountains. That river he represented as very rapid, liable to sudden swells, the bed and shores formed of coarse gravel and difficult of ascent even by canvas. One hundred leagues from its mouth it divides into two branches, one coming from the north and the other at forty leagues from its junction enters the Black Mountains.
The Cheyennes reside chiefly on the head of the river and steal horses from the Spanish settlements, a plundering excursion which they performed in a month's time. The Black Mountains, Valle represents as very high, covered with great quantities of pine and in some parts the snow remains during the summer. Its animals are goats, white bear, prairie cocks, and a species of animal resembling a small elk witli large circular horns. We took a meridian altitude a short distance from I ookout Bend and Eound the latitude to b< 11 19' 36". This bend is twenty miles around and two miles across, In the afternoon we heard a shol lire. I and observed some Indians on a hill. One of ihem came to the shore and wished us to land, as there were twenty lodges of Yanktons, or Boisbrules, there, We declined, referring them to Mr. Durion. We passed a long island on the north and encamped 1 n a sandbar in the middle of the river, having made twelve miles We were not able to hum today. There are so many Indians in the neighborhood we were in constant expectation of being .111.1 1 d and therefore forced to keep the party together. October 3d, at noon, we landed oti a bar to examine our boats and found the mice bad been cutting the bags of corn and spoiled some of our clothes. \t eight miles we encamped on a sandbar and at daylight the nexl morning started to retrace our sailing three miles, having got into the wrong side of the river, where there was no practicable outlet. I he Indians were seen in small numbers. They wanted us to land and seemed willing, had they been more numerous, to molest US. ' bie of them gave three yells and fired a ball ahead of the boat. We took no notice of it and landed for break- fast on the south. An Indian swam across and begged for powder. We gave bun only tobacco. We made twelve miles and camped on a bar. A white frost fell and the next
29
HISTl 'UN OF DAKOTA TERRITORY
: sth, was very cold. Passed a large creek from the south, winch we named
rom seeing several white brants among Hocks of colored ones. Camped
, ,,, twentj mill i i i garni was a deer, prairie wol and some
cold morning. At eight miles we came to a willow island on the
ilc a point of timber, whi were many large stones near the middle of
the river which seemed to have been washed from the hills and high plains on both sides or
driven from a distance down the tream. At twelv. we halted for dinner at a village
which we supposed to hav< to the Ricaras. It is situated in a low plain on the river
alu| consists 0f i i octagon form, neatly covered with earth, placed as
sibli .,11.1 picketed round. t*he skin canoes, mats, buckets and articles
,,, ful suppose it had been left in the spring. We
found the village and killed an elk and saw two
topped for the night at Utter Creek on the north. Geese, ducks,
etc. are abundant. . ., ,
Sun | was cold and rainy. At two miles we came to the mouth of a
river called Saw Rivei I • iu). Its sources are in the first range of the
Black Shortlj aftet w< saw two reton Indians, who asked us for something to
eat, which we gave them [*hej wen to visit the Ricaras. At eighteen miles we
passed ■ where thi re is an old village. We camped at twenty-two miles. Saw
River. Next day, the 8th, we halted on the south and took the meridian altitude, which is 45 39' 5" m rth latitude. Here we came to a river on the south
i . 1 .m.l River I. It rises in the Black Mountains and is 120
mall river called Maropa. A mile from the Maropa a
Ricara Indians came out to sic us. We took a Frenchman on board, who accom-
mp on the north after sailing twelve miles. Captain Lewis with four of the
visited the Ricara village, which was situated near the center of an island near the
southi ity lodges. The island is three miles long and covered with
Inch the Indians raise corn, beans and potatoes. Several Frenchmen are living
with them and particularly a -Mr. Gravelines, who had acquired their language, and who
return,,! with Captain Lewis 1. . the boats. On the 9th the wind was so high and cold we
could not assemble the Indians in council. We received visits from some of the chiefs and
gave them presents. Their names were Kakawissana, or Lighting Crow; Pocasse, or Hay;
Piahato, I Jotwithstanding the high waves two or three squaws rowed to us
in Httl nadi oi a single buffalo skin stretched over a frame of boughs interwoven
like a basket. I h< object which appear,, 1 to astonish the Indians was Captain Clark's negro
servant. V remarkabl) stout, strong negro. They bad never seen a being of that
coloi flocked around him to examine the extraordinary monster. He told
them, by way of amusement, he had once been a wild animal, and caught and trained by
his master. He showed them feats of strength that made him more terrible than we wished.
The [1 was a fine day. and after breakfast we dispatched Mr. Gravelines and
Mr. Tabeau, two French traders, to invite the chiefs of the Ricaras to a conference. They
led at 1 o'clock and after the usual ceremonies we addressed them as we had the
, after which we made them the customary presents. Xhe Ricaras would accept no
whiskey nor taste any. the example of the- traders who bring it to them having disgusted
them, 'iu, ,.1 the chiefs remarked that he was surprised their father would present them
a liquor which would make them fools. The council being over the chiefs retired to consult
on their answer, and the next morning, the 1 1 ill. we again met in council at our camp. I be
grand chief made a short speech of thanks for the advice we had given and promised to
it, adding that the door was now open and no one dared to shut it, and that we might
depart whenever we pleased, alluding t,, the treatment we bad received from the Sioux.
'I bey brought us corn, beans and dried squashes, and we gave them a steel mill which pleased
t In in very much \\ , ,,, nl the daj with these Indians and the following day councikd
with t1 nd warriors oi the second village, who requested us to take one of their chiefs
in. i" thi Mansions and negotiate a peace between the two nations. We then repaired to
mil, n ceremonie were bad. We explained the magnitude and
the United Stales and three chiefs accompanied us aboard the boat, to whom we
ll and mi glass. Two of them then left us and the third, Ahketahnasha,
lanied us to the Mandans. We then left these Indians, who
1 tal 1 leave of us. and after 7] i miles landed on the north side and
■ originallj colonies of the Pawnees and lived below the
Cheyenne, but bad been distressed by the Sioux until they emigrated to the Mandans in
1707. but a new ! between them and the Mandans. and they came down the river
lion. (Veri near the boundary hue between North and South Dakota.)
ii. beans, pumpkins, watermelons, squashes and a species of tobacco
1 heir commerce is chiefly with the traders, who supply them with
For pelters which they procure not from their own hunting but in
1 s civilized neighbors. They express a disposition to keep
<ll armed with fusees and being much under the
nuenci hanged th< ds thej got from the r.ritish for Ricara
minds are sometimes poisoned and they cannot be depended upon. Mr. lirave-
! tcques, River rises about forty miles northeast of this
■ ft us on the morning "f the 13th except the chief, his brother and one
HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY 31
squaw. We made eighteen miles and encamped on the north near a timbered lone plain. On Sunday, the 14th, we set out in a rain. At five miles we came to a crest on the south which we named Piahato, or Eagle's Feather, in honor of the third chief of the Ricaras Alter dinner we stopped on a sandbar and executed the sentence of a court-martial which inflicted corporal punishment on one of the soldiers. This operation affected the Indian chief very sensibly, for he cried aloud during the punishment. We explained the offense and the reason for it. He acknowledged that examples were necessary, and thai lie himself had given them by punishing witli death, but his nation never whipped even children from their birth.
We encamped in a cove on the south, baving made twelve miles. < In the [5th met a num- ber of Ricara encampments, halted and exchanged presents at different camps. Made ten miles and encamped near the Indians on the north. The squaws left us at this camp. The next morning at seven miles a river came in from the north named Warreconne, or Elk Shed Their Horns. An island here is called Carp Island by Evans, a former trader. As we proceeded there were great numbers of goats on the banks of the river; and we soon after saw large flocks of them in the water; they had gradually been driven into the river by the Indians, who now lined the shore to prevent their escape and were now firing on them, while sometimes boys went into the river and killed them with sticks. We counted fifty-eight which they had killed. We also killed some, then passing the Indians encamped at 14' \ miles on the south. The Indians flocked into our camp, made a feast, and we had music and merriment until quite late. On the 17th the, wind was strong- we made six miles and stopped to hunt goats. Air. Gravelines, explaining the abundance of these animals, saj s tlicy migrate in the. spring to the plains east of the Missouri, returning to their haunts in the Black Mountains in the fall. Our latitude today was 46° 23' 57". The next day after sailing three miles we reached the mouth of Cannon Ball River. Its name is derived from the round large stones in the river and in the bluffs above. Its channel is 140 yards wide and it comes in from the south, rising in the Black Mountains. October iSth we made thirteen miles and encamped on a sandbar. Goats, buffalo and elk are seen in great number.
Friday, the 19th. Fine morning. Set sail with southeast wind. The creeks running into the Missouri are all impregnated with salts. In walking along the shore we counted fifty two herds of buffalo in a single view. Encamped at 17'^ miles on the north, opposite to the uppermost of a number of round hills. The chief says the Calumet bird lives in the boles in these hills. On a point of a hill ninety feet above the plain are the remains of an old village; this, our chief tells us. is the remains of an old Mandan village and are the first ruins we have seen of that nation since ascending the Missouri.
The 20th made twelve miles and encamped on the south near a vein of stone coal of inferior quality. Passed the ruins of another Mandan village covering six or eight acres, and great numbers of buffalo and elk ; we also wounded a white bear and saw some fresh tracks of those animals which are twice as large as the track of a man. On the 21st, Sunday, it began to snow at daylight and continued till afternoon. We set out early, and soon passed a large lone oak tree about two miles from the river on the north which the Indians hold in great veneration because it has withstood the prairie fires while all the other tree< have been destroyed. The Indians ascribe it to extraordinary powers. One of their ceremonies is to make a hole in the skin of their necks, pass a string through it and fasten one end by a knot, the other end is tied to the body of the tree. After remaining so attached for some time they think they become braver. Another Mandan village was passed the following day early, and at 7 o'clock we came to a camp of eleven Teton Sioux, who are almost perfectly naked, having only a piece of skin or cloth around the middle, while we are suffering with cold. They are a war party, going to or returning from the Mandan country. We passed two Mandan villages today and encamped at twelve miles on the south. Beaver are abundant. There are nine of these deserted Mandan villages in a span of twenty miles on either side of the river. The 23rd made thirteen miles to encamp on the south.
Wednesday, October 24th, at four miles, found one of the grand chiefs of the Man dans with five lodges of his people on an island to the north on a'hunting excursion. Me met his enemy, the Ricara chief, with great ceremony and smoked with him. The grand chief and his brother came on hoard our boat for a time. We proceeded and camped on the north at seven miles and below the old village of the Mandans Here four Mandan-; came down and our Ricara chief returned with them, from which we augur favorably of their pacific views The 25th was cold. Passed several deserted villages of both Mandans and Ricaras. The river seemed filled with obstructions. Saw Mandan Indian'; on the banks but could not land, pn- camped after making eleven miles. Our Ricara chief joined us here with our Indian coin panion. On the 26th we set out early, after putting our Ricara chief ashore to join the Mandans, who are in great numbers along the hore We went on to the camp of the grand chiefs, four miles distant. Here we met Mr McCracken, one of the Northwest, or Hudson's Bav Company, who arrived with another person nine days before to trade for horses and buffalo rohev We encamped for the night on the south at eleven mile-; distance, and within a mile of the Mandan village \ crowd of Mandan men, women and children came ti us. and Captain Lewis returned with the principal chief to the village, thi at our camp during the evening. \t m early hour Saturday, Octobei 27th. we proceeded and anchored off the village Captain Clark went ishore and after smoking a pipe with
the chief-; decline 1 an invitation to eat with them. I li < refusal gave great 'he
Indians, who considered it disrespectful not to eat when invited, but it was explained that
HIST* M\ OF OAK' »TA TERRITORY
, tain was .11 and they were satisfied. We proceeded four miles and encamped on the
north, opposite to a village oi the Ahuahawago. We here met with a Frenchman named
iurat who lives among the Indians as an interpreter and has a wife and children.
Sunday, th< z8th, we wee joined by many oi the Mmnatarees and
Vhauhaways Erom above, but the wind was so vl lent from the south that the lower chiefs could not come up. Finding that we shall have to pass the winter at this place, we made
r a Favorable locatioi ■ our quarters, but found nothing
I, owingi nber. The following day we helda grand council with
the Indians. wh« les and cen similar to those at the Yankton meeting were
, . . large number of chiefs recognized with presents. In the evening
ccurred. So rapid was it that a man and woman were fatally burned
ould reach a plai i ty. .
Imong the rest a boj of the half while breed escaped unhurt in the midst of the names;
Medicine Spirit who had preserved him on account of his being white. But a much more natural cause was the presence of mind of his mother, carrying off her son, threw him on the ground and covered him with the fresh hide of a buffalo, escaping herself from the flames. As soon as the fire had I she returned and found him untouched, the skin having prevented the flames from reaching the grass on which he lay. , „ , ■ °
I lie winter encampment oi I ewis and Clark was in latitude 47° -1 47 . longitude ioi , very near to the site oi the present Town of Washburn, McLean County, North Dakota, and • miles from the I the Missouri of date November I, 1804. A suitable site was
found Mandan village for winter quarters with an abundance of timber, elm and
i The fort was on the north side of the Missouri. The works consisted of : 1 ibins forming an angle where they joined each other, each containing four 1 and even feet high, with plank ceiling, and the roof slanting so as to form a loft above the n oms, the highest part of which was eighteen feet from the ground, i he backs of the huts formed a wall of that height. Back of the angle of the plan of the wall was supplied by picketing. Here the command passed the winter of 1804-5, gathering from the Indians and an occasional white trader visitor much valuable informa- ling the country. The weather at times was cold enough to gratify an Esquimaux, but their qi were vi r> comfortable and the health of the garrison remained good, due
in great measure to the abundant exercise afforded in various employments and in hunt- ing. A large herd of buffalo and elk strayed into the shelter of the timber near the post during December, affording the explorers the finest hunt they ever engaged, enabling them mindly replenish their fresh meat supply and yielding a rich harvest of buffalo robes and elk skins. 'I he post was named Fort Mandan, as a testimonial of esteem and friendship people who showed the whites the most friendly disposition in many ways during their residence among them. There was one extreme cold period during the winter when a spirit thermometer congealed on short exposure, but the men were not seriously disturbed in their out-door employments and suffered only slightly. Three white fur traders represent- dson's Bay Company on the Assiniboine, one of whom was a Mr. Hanley, visited the fort and partook of its hospitality on the loth of December and learned for the first 1 ewis that the United States had purchased the country. The visitors manifi > surprise and thought England had been very lax in permitting such a prize
captured by the infant republic, which was looked upon by foreigners generally as an uncertain quantity and a doubtful experiment in government. Christmas and New Years were celebrated at Fort Man. Ian with services appropriate and in feasts and dances in which the Indians participated.
1 cpedition left Fori Mandan on Sunday evening, April 7, 1S05, at 5 o'clock. It con-
lirty-two pi imelj Cant. Meriwether Lewis, Capt. William Clark. Sergt.
John Ordway. Sergt. Nathaniel Pryor, Sergt. Patrick Gass (successor to Charles Floyd,
who died b pedition pa-.Mil the month of the Big Sioux), Privates William
1 .her. John Collins, Peter Cruzatte, Robert Frazier, Reuben Fields, Joseph
Field Gibson, Silas G Inch. Hugh Hall. Thomas P. Howard, Baptiste Lapage,
[ohn Potts, John Shields. George Shannon, Tohn B. Thomp-
/illiarn Werner, Alexander Willard, Richard Winsor, Joseph Whitehouse, Peter Wiser
black ervant, York. The interpreters were George Druillard and
neau and Chaboneau's Indian wife, Skagaweah, a Snake Indian woman, who
I efore and sold to Chaboneau. She bad an infant child
back to her own people. This Indian woman, because of
Rivei Indians, whose Ian poke, and her familiarity
the mountain regions, proved an invaluable aid to the expedition, which might have
but for her prudent and timely counsels and guidance. She did not
'-' her own people, but continued on to the end of the long journej on the
• : idly cared for by ( aptai wis and Clark
d returned with the expedition in the spring of 1806 to her own people. 1 from the pale faces, for one of whom she is said to have lie 1 um al la I to aj the final farewell she was over il he would not be deserted, but such was her fate, and nothing furthei ■ known of the brave and dauntless woman.
HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY 33
We shall not attempt to follow the daily incidents of this party further and will conclude with a brief summary of its experiences. While they had much to interest and enjoy they also encountered serious hardships and faced death on numerous occasions. Above the Yellowstone the grizzly bear was encountered. This was regarded as one of the most dangerous and formidable of all the wild animals, and members of the Lewis and Clark party had a number of hair- breadth escapes from its jaws and claws. On one occasion, when Captain Lewi- had been exploring a section of the country alone, he met a herd of buffaloe on his return and being desirous of providing for supper shot at one of them, who immediately began to bleed. Captain Lewis, who had forgotten to reload his rifle, was intently watching to see him fall when he beheld a large brown bear who was stealing on him unperceived, and was already within twenty sups. In the first moment of surprise he lifted his rifle, but, remembering that it was not loaded and that he had not time to reload, he felt that there was no safety but in flight. It was in the open level plain, not a bush nor a tree within 300 yards, the bank of the river sloping and not more than three feet high so that there was no possible mode of concealment. Lewis therefore thought of retreat- ing in a quick walk as fast as the bear advanced toward the nearest tree, but as soon as he turned the bear ran, open mouthed, at full speed upon him. Lewis ran about eighty yards, but finding that the animal gained upon him fast, it flashed into his mind that by getting into the water to such a depth that the bear would be obliged to attack him swimming, that there was still some chance of his life; he, therefore, turned short, plunged into the river waist deep and facing about presented his espontoon. The bear arrived at the water's edge within twenty feet of him, but as soon as Lewis had himself in the posture of defense the bear seemed frightened, and, wheeling about, retreated as rapidly as he had pursued. From this adventure, which occurred near Medicine River, June 14th, Lewis made up his mind he would never for a moment suffer his rifle to remain unloaded. These bears were monsters in size and very tenacious of life, sometimes requiring as many as ten balls to bring them down.
The expedition continued its journey, tracing the Missouri River to its source and pushing on through the mountains, meeting with many thrilling as well as pleasant adventures; surrounded by savage inhabitants, most of whom had never met a white man and with whom their intercourse was so wisely managed with the aid of Skagaweah that not only no serious difficulties occurred between them, but the assistance of these nations as guides and in supplying food was in trying times most timely and of great importance. Through all the band of heroes struggled, finally reaching their goal — the mouth of the great Columbia River — about the 1st of December, 1805, near the mouth of which, on a tributary stream called Xetul, now Lewis anil Clark River, they built their winter quarters, naming it Port Clatsop from a tribe of Indians who had treated the party with great kindness and were uniformly friendly. The winter was industriously passed in explorations by land and water; in studying the character of the native inhabitants, who were numerous and interesting, and in hunting and fishing. Their outdoor employment was seriously hindered by almost continual rains, barely a day and night passing that did not bring its rainfall, and at times the rain would continue for days. It was disco\ ered that these Indians had for a long series of years traded with white men who came in vessels, probably some of them from the north, though the natives, when asked the direction, would point to the southwest. Captain Lewis procured the names of a number of these traders, all of whom voyaged in three and four masted schooners and who came in tin.' spring and fall. These names are Messrs. Haley, Yonens, Tallamen, Calalamet (who had a wooden leg), Swipton, Moore, Machey, Washington, Mesship, Davidson, Jackson, Holch and Skelley, who had one eve only.
On Sunday, March 26, t8o6, the expedition sel out on it - return journey. which was accomplished without the loss of a life, though the party was at times exposed to great perils, and Captain Lewis narrowly escaped death in a skirmish
Vol. 1—3
I
HISTORY < IF DAKi T\ I ERRIT< >RY
with Indian- who had been camping with them over night and had stolen their guns and horses before daylight. In the struggle to recover their effects Lewis obliged to kill two Indian- and another was mortally hit with a knife in nds of one of the men. The guns and nearly all the horses were recovered. ["his was the onl) occasion when such extreme measures were demanded, and it was an occasion when self-preservation unquestionably justified the killing. The expedition made fair progress, each day bringing its interesting if not exciting incidents. About the last of Augusl they passed the future site of fort Randall. On the ,;i-l they had reached Bon Homme Island, where they met a party of Yankton Indians, who represented about eighty lodges, that were encamped above on Emanuel Creek. Here a halt was made and the Yanktons invited to their cam]' where they were addressed by Lewis as good and faithful children. A piece of ribbon was tied in the hair of each Indian and some corn given them and a pair of leggings to the chief. The party spent an hour hunting on the island. The bottom land on the north is described as very rich ami SO iliickh \n with pea vines and grass, interwoven with grape vines,
thai die party who attempted to hunt there were compelled to leave-
it and ascend the plain, where they found the grass nearly as high as their heads. These plain- were described as much richer below than above the Quicourt, and the whole countrj was there very beautiful. After making fifty-two miles they stopped for the night on a sandbar (near Yankton) opposite to the Calumet Bluff, where they had encamped on the 1st of September, 1804, and where their flag staff was still standing. They suffered very much from the mosquitoes. I I In- encampment was made on Monday evening, September 1. i8cj6, just two year- to a day from the first visit when ascending the river.)
It is reported on what would seem to be good authority that Captain Clark wa- married to a \cz l'erce Indian belle during the outward journey. The nuptial knot wa- tied according to the Indian custom. His bride accompanied him to the Pacific, remained at Ion ( lat-op during the winter and returned witli the expedi- tion in the spring to her own people, where the captain concluded to leave his dusky bride until he could arrange otherwise. In due time a son was born, this was in 1807, whom his mother named Tzi-kal-Tzae. When he grew up he called himself "Me-C lark," and could speak English, which had been taught him by his mother. He had sandy hair, which resembled that of the Explorer Clark. This son was killed at the age of seventy years in Bear Paw Mountains on Snake in a battle with General Mile-" command. "Me-Clark" was the father of a daughter born about [855 named Man- Clark, who is now living in Montana. Hon. Joseph Dixon, who represents Montana in Congress, Judge Hiram Knowles and Judge 1'. II. Mood) of Montana are mentioned as authorities for this state- ment. Dixon having taken the pains to investigate the matter on behalf of Mary (lark. 'I'he preparation made to celebrate the centennial anniversary of the Lewi- and (lark expedition at Portland in 1905 brought to light this incident, which may appropriately find a place here.
At 8 o'clock the next morning they passed the River Jacques (James 1 at ten mile- and soon after were compelled to land on account of high northeast wind and remained until sunset when they went to a sandbar and camped, twenty-two mile- from the encampment of last night. During the day they killed three 0, foui prairii fowl, which were tile first they had seen in descending, and two turkey-. I he following day. at it o'clock, they passed the Redstone I Ver- million) and made sixty miles before night, when they saw two boats and several on -bore. < >n landing they found a Mr. lame- Airs of a house at Prairie du Chien, who had come from Mackinaw by way of Prairie du Chien and St. Louis with a license t<. trade among the Sioux for one year. Mo-t of the night -pent in making inquiries into what had occurred during their absence. an interval the sight of anyone dial could give information was delightful and und Mr. Air- a very friendly and liberal gentleman. They
proposed to him to purchase a -mall quantity of tobacco to be paid for in St.
HISTORY OF DAKOTA TERRITORY 35
Louis, when he readily furnished every man of the party with as much as he could use during the remainder of the voyage.
Thursday they left .Mr. Airs and after passing the Big Sioux stopped at noon near Floyd's Bluff. On ascending the hill they found thai the grave of Floyd had been opened and was now half uncovered. They Idled ii up and then con- tinued down to their old camp near the Alalia villages. On the 6th they met a trading boat belonging to Mr. August Choteau of St. Louis, with several men, on the way to trade with the Yanktons at the River Jacques, and obtained from them a gallon of whiskey and gave each of the party a dram, which was the first spirituous liquor any of them had tasted since the 4th of July, 1805. For tobacco when there was none to be had in the upper' river the men cut their long tomahawk pipe stems, which had become saturated with the tobacco juice, into small pieces and chewed it.
The party reached St. Louis in safetj on Thursday, September 23d, at \2 o'clock, fired a salute and went ashore, where they received the heartiest and most hospitable welcome from the whole village.
The old French interpreter, Durion, who had been left with the Yanktons on the way up took a number of Yankton chiefs to Washington in the spring of t8oS, where they were royally entertained and returned to their homes so favorably impressed that the tribe forever after remained on friendly terms with the whites. Durion had married a Yankton belle and had one son who became quite promi- nent as an interpreter and trader, and he may have had other children. He lived to a green old age and died here in the Valley of Yankton and was buried according to the Indian custom on a scaffold which was erected on the summit of the bluff near the Sister's Hospital and was a prominent landmark when the whites settled in Yankton. Armstrong indulges in the following sentiment to the memory of the faithful guide :
There he has slumbered on his scaffulil tomb . Through fifty years of storm and summer mo m . There let him rest, for first was he to die Of all the white race beneath Dakota's sky.
1151C8S
Among the first Yankton pioneers it was maintained that the scaffold, with a portion of the skeleton, was visible when they first visited it, but the bones were soon carried away by those who discovered in them something of peculiar value as relics.
Captain Lewis was appointed governor of Louisiana, with his residence at St. Louis, in 1807, and Captain Clark was made general of its militia and agent of the United States for the Indian affairs in Louisiana. Captain Clark engaged in the fur trade in 1S0S with Manuel Lisa and Sylvester Labbadie, who was related to the Choteaus by marriage and led an expedition of 150 nun up the Missouri, founding Fort Clark at the Ariekaras Village below Knife River, and then went on to the forks of the Missouri, built a fort and engaged in trapping with a large force of men. The implacable hostility of the Blackfeel Indians finally drove the whites out id' the country, killing thirty of them, ami Clark retired from the trade.
Regarding Captain Lewis. President Jefferson furnished a biographical sketch to be published in connection with the journal of the explorations. It was written at Monticcllo in 1813, and gives a history of the events leading tip to the expedi lion, the letter of instructions to Lewis and closes with the following account
of his melancholy death :
Governor Lewis had from early life been I p ndriac affections. It was
a constitutional disposition in all the nearer branches of the family of his name and was more immediately inherited by him from his father. The) had not. however, been - as to give uneasiness to his family. While he lived with me at Washin I
times sensible depi ns o