South Dakota Its History and Its People
George Martin Smith, B.A., A. M.
INDIAN TROUBLES ON THE RIVER JAMES
1878 - 79
Serious trouble with the Indians was encountered by the early settlers of the James River Valley north of Firesteel, and particularly those who came into the country in 1878-79 and 1880, and made settlement in Spink and Beadle counties. These immigrants came in quite largely through the Kampeska or Watertown gateway, and took up lands along the valley that were then being surveyed.
To understand the conditions existing at the time the reader should be reminded that as early as 1863, before there was a white settlement in that section, the "dirt lodges" on James River had acquired a notoriety as the abode of a comparatively numerous body of Indians, presumably from Minnesota, who had built a number of substantial dirt lodges on the banks of the James River in Township No. 117. probably, as subsequently surveyed, some of them large enough to accommodate seventy-five or one hundred people. This village was occupied by the Indians and their families, and had probably been in existence a score of years. A small farm was cultivated by the squaws, some corn, squash, pumpkins, potatoes, and other vegetables produced. Whatever may have been the original purpose of the founders of this village (it was called the "Dirt Lodge Village"), at the time Dakota was opened to settlement and the serious trouble with the Indians began in 1862, it was known as the rendezvous of hostile Indians, who in small bands infested the settlements, plundering the settlers and on occasions committing atrocious murders. As these depredations became known, the military people who undertook to pursue and capture the perpetrators, would almost invariably trail the retreating band to the dirt lodges, to find there a number of old men, also squaws and papooses, who would know nothing of any war parties, but were there leading a peaceful and quiet life, very much annoyed at the coming of the pale-faced soldiers, and drawing rations and other supplies from some of the Indian agencies or supply depots in Minnesota. No warrior Indians were ever discovered there, but a lookout station erected in the village indicated that the warriors were enabled to detect the approach of a hostile force when many miles distant, giving them ample time in which to seek a safe refuge. This village occupied ground near where the earliest settlement of Spink County was afterward made, and was said to have been known as the Jim River crossing by the early itinerant Indian traders. It appears to have been practically abandoned by the Indians and possibly partially dismantled before the whites came in; and as the settlers came and took up land the village plot was included by some of these in their pre-emption or homestead. It does not appear that the Indians made any claim to the ground occupied as their village, based on their right of occupancy, but having no further use for the rendezvous at that point, voluntarily abandoned it.
Among these warrior Indians, inhabitants of the old village, were a number who held the "old camp ground'* in grateful remembrance: "though lost to sight—to memory dear." A number of years elapse before the whites begin the settlement in the country at and surrounding the Dirt Lodge Region. In the meantime a notable Indian war has raged and the Indians have been brought into subjection; a number of military posts have been erected on the Missouri, James and Big Sioux rivers, garrisoned with soldiers; the Minnesota Indians have been removed to Dakota, and nearly all the Sioux Indians of every tribe had been settled on reservations in the territory with established agencies on the Missouri River. The Lower Yanktonnais Tribe, which had been among those accounted hostile, had been located at the Crow Creek Reservation (originally set apart for the Santees and Winnebagoes), and one of its bands under a wily chief called Drifting Goose (Indian name: Mada-bo-des or ba-da), with his band numbering about two hundred people, had made a summer residence on the James River some seventy-five miles from the Crow Creek Reservation, and about twenty miles north of the old original Dirt Lodge Village, probably about 1870. It will be well to bear in mind that Drifting Goose and a number of his followers were among the former warrior inhabitants of the old Dirt Lodge Camp of Refuge. Subsequent events justify such an opinion.
There are circumstances connected with this Drifting Goose movement and its subsequent career that indicate something more than a summer village for himself and band, in their new James River settlement, and that white men of prominence and influence had formed a plan that would enable the Indians to secure the withdrawal of a large tract of land along the James Valley, to be given to them as a separate reservation—the purpose of it to be developed as the plan matured.
When the immigration to that region by the whites began in 1878, it was discovered that Drifting Goose denied that the land belonged to the government, and refused to give way to the settlers who were moving in. Drifting Goose first held that when the land was ceded by the Yanktons in 1859, the Yanktonnais Tribe did not join in the treaty, and never consented to it, therefore the land still belonged to the Indians.
In June, 1878, G. C. Williams, register of the Watertown land office, referred written complaints from two settlers in the neighborhood of the new Drifting Goose Village to the department at Washington. The papers were sent by the commissioner of Indian affairs, Mr. Hayt, to Lieutenant Dougherty, agent at Crow Creek Agency, with orders to investigate and remove the Indians to Crow Creek. Dougherty visited the village, and then informed the commissioner of Indian affairs that he found there about forty Indians in thirteen lodges with Drifting Goose. Four log houses had been built; fifteen acres of corn was under cultivation. Drifting Goose told him he obtained rations from Sisseton. Gabrielle Renville had assisted the band from the supplies of his own people. He claimed the lands as his own and that the Yanktons had sold it to the Government, but without his consent. Dougherty explained the sale of the land to the old chief, and also informed him of the order to return to Crow Creek. Drifting Goose parleyed, and said he would have to see Renville at Sisseton. Later in the fall Drifting Goose and his people were removed under protest, to Crow Creek, by a squad of men sent out by Dougherty, and remained there all winter.
These lands were surveyed during the summer of 1878, by Thomas F. Marshall, deputy United States surveyor, then of Yankton. Mr. Marshall subsequently settled at Oakes, Dickey County, north of the famous 46th parallel, and became one of the early members of Congress from the State of North Dakota. A letter from Mr. Jacob Ziebach, who was one of Mr. Marshall's surveying party, dated in September, 1878, tells of the lawlessness of these Indians at that time, and their determined opposition to the survey and settlement of the country. A portion of his letter is given herewith:
General Beadle arrived here yesterday, and as the man who brought him
starts back in the morning, I thought I would write you some Indian news.
About two weeks ago some Indians undertook to steal our horses. They got one
pony when we commenced shooting at them. The pony either broke loose from
the Indians or they concluded it was getting too hot for them, and let him
go. The pony ran back to our camp, and the Indians got
away.
A week ago yesterday two Indians and two white men came to our camp while we were out in the field, and told our cook to tell us that we must get out of the country; that we had no right here; that this country belonged to them; that we could not survey this country. We thought they were trying to bulldoze us, but we did not bulldoze worth a cent. The next day two Indians caught one of our men, Mr. Sutley, and stripped him of everything he had on him, and told him to "git." He "got," and they commenced shooting at him. He was four miles from camp and ran all the way in barefooted. He was scared nearly to death, and has not yet wholly recovered from his fright. He lost a watch worth $40 and $5 in money. He was riding a pony which threw him when he was attacked, and ran back to camp.
The Indians told us the dirt lodges were fifteen miles north of us. We have a township line to run right through their camp, and we are going to run it tomorrow. This will decide whether we can stay here or not—whether we can do this work or must draw off. They can't talk us out of it, that is sure. I do not think there is any such place as the dirt lodges. We have been all over the country where they were reported to be. We have found plenty of places where Indians have camped, but no signs of any dirt lodges.
Marshall went ahead with his surveys. There were about seventy-five Indians in the Indian Village at the time, and they objected strongly to the survey, believing that it meant their early removal, and even threatened Mr. Marshall and his men with bodily injury; but the intrepid band concluded to survey or fight and if necessary, do both; therefore preparatory to entering the classic shades of Dirt Lodge, every member of the party buckled on his revolver, and shouldered his rifle, carrying his professional equipment as best he could, and thus arrayed, the order to "forward march" was given, and Marshall and his clan moved forward into the village. The enemy, composed of both sexes and papooses, hung about the entrances to their domiciles, but observing the preparations for trouble the white invaders had made, gratified their cruel and bloodthirsty nature and longing for fresh scalps, by sullen mutterings; an occasional gesture, and a vindictive demeanor. They did not lift a hand to interfere with proceedings. These lodges were in township 117, north range 63 west, sections 19 and 24. There were twenty tepees; 10 dirt lodges, and some stables. The Indians had a farm under cultivation embracing about forty acres; planted largely to corn; with some potatoes and garden truck. Section 24 contained about one hundred acres of good timber, principally ash.
These Indians were known to belong to the Yanktonnais Tribe whose home was on the Crow Creek Reservation; but had been roaming at large for ten years or more in the uninhabited country where they were now found, living on the James River during the warm seasons and going into Fort Thompson for the winter. They numbered about two hundred and drew rations indiscriminately at Fort Thompson, Sisseton and Grand River agencies. While Crow Creek or Fort Thompson was under the control of Dr. H. F. Livingston as agent, he represented their case to headquarters and received an order to bring them into the limits of his reservation. While executing his instructions the order for bringing them in was countermanded by the Indian commissioner, based on representations made by Major Hamilton, then agent of the Sissetons. This proceeding encouraged the Indians to believe that the Government recognized their right to the country, and as these efforts to remove them to their proper home on the Crow Creek Reserve were repeated, without effect, it became apparent that the Indians were sustained by white influences that controlled the situation, and the object in view was to secure the withdrawal of land in that rich and growing section which was to be set apart for these Dirt Lodge people.
That the situation was serious is evident from the fact that in the
winter of 1878-79, Governor Howard, who was then Dakota's executive, was
appealed
to by parties who had been compelled to abandon their improvements in the
valley by the "Blowing Goose*' Indians (Blowing Goose was an alias of
Drifting Goose), and go to Wah Bay. They desired to learn from the governor
whether they or the Indians were to be permitted to occupy that country. It
was a case where the governor was powerless to afford any relief, except to
report the matter to the Indian Department, which he did.
For a year or two prior to this time, quiet efforts had been making headway to secure from the Government a recognition of the Drifting Goose claims to land on the James. It was claimed that Bishop Whipple, General Sibley, Byron M. Smith, and others favored this claim. And in December, 1878, Mr. Hayt, commissioner of Indian affairs, sent the following communication to Agent Dougherty:
Sir: Referring to your report, dated July 25th last, in regard to the Chief "Drifting Goose" and his band, on the James River, I have now to transmit a copy of a letter, dated November 25. 1878, addressed to Gen. H. H. Sibley, St. Paul, Minnesota, by Lieut. M. Burns, Seventeenth Infantry, and copy of the general's endorsement upon the same. It appears from the communication of that officer that he made a personal visit to the camp of "Drifting Goose" and has changed his views since his visit in regard to these Indians, and for reasons that seem to be very satisfactory, strongly urges that they be permitted to remain on James River, and that they be protected in the possession of the lands which they are now cultivating. He suggests that these lands be set apart, five or ten miles square, as a reservation for them.
You will also notice the statement made by General Sibley, and his suggestion to the same effect, and it is deemed best in view of the facts presented to reconsider the matter, and, if there are no serious objections to the recommendations referred to, that measures be taken to afford the protection which they desire.
You will therefore give the subject early attention and report the exact location of these Indians, the particular township which they occupy, or may require, defining the boundaries f the same explicitly, and forward a recommendation (if, as suggested, you deem it proper), that the President may be requested to set apart the land so defined, by an executive order, as a reservation for their benefit. Very respectfully,
E. A. Hayt,
Commissioner.
The letter of the Sisseton agent to General Sibley contained an earnest defense of the Drifting Goose claims to land on the Upper James River, and requested the general to interest himself with the authorities at Washington in their behalf. The general, ever ready to support the just claims of Indians of all tribes, forwarded the letter to Washington endorsed as follows:
St. Paul. Minnesota. November 29, 1878.
This communication is respectfully forwarded to Hon. Carl Schurz, secretary
of the interior, with an earnest request that he will give it a favorable
consideration. He will doubtless recall to mind the fact that I have already
presented the case to him as an exceptionally meritorious one, and ask that
the Indians in question be protected in possession of the land, which they
have possessed and partially cultivated for so many years, also that
the heads of families be given the benefits of the homestead laws, if not
inconsistent with their provisions. Henry H. Sibley.
Agent Dougherty, of Crow Creek, replied to the letter of Lieutenant Burns in a communication to the commissioner of Indian affairs, denying claims of Drifting Goose so far as they were based on the settlement, improvement and cultivation of the land, and concluding his letter with allusions to the individuals composing the Drifting Goose party, which is here reproduced, as follows:
This band of Indians has given me a great deal of annoyance about their land. For the last three or four years they have lived over there in a precarious manner, begging, hunting and marauding. When winter approaches they scatter to the agencies in Dakota and Minnesota, and regularly return to the same place on the James, where they establish a summer camp as soon as the grass is green. Thence the adventurous spirits sally forth to the settlements and remote agencies to beg and rob. Several of the band are known to have been concerned in atrocious murders in Minnesota and the Red River country. Two of them were apprehended a few years ago near Fort Pembina, for the murder of a whole family on Red River, and were confined in the guard house at Fort Pembina, where they broke out, and one of them was killed by the guard. There are very good reasons for suspecting one of this band of the murder of I. Clahuston, who was killed sometime since near Fort Sully. He has since fled to Sitting Bull's camp. (Brave Bear—tried and executed at Yankton.) They have repeatedly interfered with the work of surveying parties, and warned away settlers from the country. Next spring these immigrants will return in greater numbers and prepared to defend their rights, and I regard it as greatly to the disadvantage of these Indians to place them in competition or contact with this increasing population. If these Indians are permitted to return they must be, as heretofore, wholly beyond the reach of law or discipline, and their camp will be the rendezvous of every Indian horse thief, robber and murderer on the east side of the Missouri.
This report seems to have satisfied the Indian office that Drifting Goose had no claim to lands on James River based on settlement and cultivation, or any other lawful foundation, and Dougherty was instructed to refuse him permission to return there as the country had been largely occupied by the new settlers, and the Indians would be apt to cause serious trouble. Drifting Goose was greatly angered when informed of the orders from the commissioner, but made no attempt to defy the authority of the Government. He went off west of the Missouri and remained several months, and the affair appeared to be settled. In the meantime Drifting Goose's Camp and the valley of the James for many miles was settled upon by the incoming settlers.
This was the situation when in July, 1879, President Hayes issued the following proclamation:
Executive Mansion, Washington, June 27, 1879.
It is hereby ordered that townships 119. 120. and 121, north, of range 63
west, in the Territory of Dakota be. and the same are hereby set apart as a
reservation for the use of the Maga-bo-des or Drifting Goose band of
Yanktonnais Indians.
R. B. Hayes.
This proclamation was received at Fort Sisseton first, and by the agent at Sisseton communicated to the agent at Crow Creek, which indicates that the Sisseton influence had brought about the issuance of the document, from which there was no appeal. Acting Agent Dougherty received instructions at the same time to permit the return of Drifting Goose and his band to their James River Reservation. with provision and clothing.
H made a roll of the band and it was found to number 108 souls. About forty of them refused to go back.
On the return of the Indians to James River their first demand was that all whites who had settled upon the reserved lands should be expelled.
That the reader may not misjudge the motives of President Hayes in setting apart these townships it should be borne in mind that the encouragement of the Indians to take up land for the purpose of tillage and pasturage, was the leading feature of the peace and industrial policy, and it doubtless occurred to the President that it did not matter much where the land was located if it was unincumbered public land. The entire Crow Creek Reservation had been public land, ceded by the Yankton Tribe in 1858, and subsequently withdrawn from market for an Indian Reservation, so that Mr. Hayes had substantial precedent for his action; and it is probable that the plats in the land department at Washington at that time showed the entire acreage of the Drifting Goose Reserve, vacant. The President should have been informed of the fact that the land he withdrew was in part already occupied by white settlers and was directly in the track of the incoming people whose numbers at that time and in that locality were taking up a township in a single week.
With a reservation of 65,000 acres of the choicest land in the valley, accorded them by the Great Father at Washington, the Drifting Goose Indians felt greatly elated and became obstreperous. They assumed that they were monarchs of the soil, and they concluded that their first duty was to eject the white invaders at the earliest possible moment, and with this purpose in view, they began a system of depredations and annoyances upon the property of the white settlers that inaugurated a reign of terror throughout the valley, particularly among the new comers who had wives and children.
Fear seized not only upon the settlers who had taken claims on the Drifting Goose Reservation (and that had nearly all been taken up by the whites), but upon hundreds below; and as a consequence the settlements were largely depopulated; some abandoning their claims, and others retreating to Watertown and vicinity to await the outcome of some amicable adjustment of the embryonic war.
The first white settlers to occupy lands in this portion of the James River Valley were a Mr. Slack and family, Mr. W. H. Hedges and Mr. C. B. Foster, who had been employed at Sisseton Agency, who went in during the spring of 1878. Their settlement was some miles north of the Village of Drifting Goose, on the river; after they had begun improvements and their corn was partially grown the Indians came in and drove them from their houses, and they were compelled to seek refuge in the white settlements twenty miles east. As heretofore stated the Indians were removed during the fall to the Crow Creek Reservation, and the settlers received assurances that they would not be annoyed by them in the future. Those who had been driven off returned and hundreds more came in during the fall of 1878, while the immigration in 1870 was very heavy. The Indians had abandoned their settlement in the valley tor good, as it appeared, until this untimely proclamation of the President appeared in July, 1879, while, in the meantime nearly all the land in the tract covered by the President's order had been taken up by settlers, who had their first intimation that their lands had been given to the Indians when a band of nearly two hundred under Drifting Goose suddenly made their appearance in the valley, scattering themselves along the river for many miles. They entered the houses of settlers when the men were not at home, insulted and hustled the women, forcing the women to cook for them. They boldly entered the corn fields, husked the corn and carried it away in sacks. They informed the settlers that the country was theirs and all the whites would be compelled to leave; that the agent from Sisseton was coming over and would put them in possession. The result was to break up the settlements, all the families and many others leaving and sought refuge in Watertown, expecting that the Indians, emboldened by their success in securing permission to live in the valley would break out in open war on the settlers, and add a masacre to their other offenses.
Agent Crissey, of the Sisseton Agency and Agent Dougherty, of Crow Creek then came over accompanied by a special representative of the Interior Department, and called the Indians in council at Foster City, a town on the James that had been located by the new settlers and had been made the county seat of Spink County. The agents designed to put the Indians in possession but their plan was not such as the Indians had expected. They were told that the situation was entirely different from that represented to the President; that the Indians would not be permitted to dispossess any white settler who had moved there in good faith, and was engaged in improving his land. Further that the Indians were entitled to such land as they had improved by cultivation or had made other improvements upon; and finally that the purpose of the Government was not to give the tribe a large tract of land to be held by them in common, as that would interfere with the design of the Government, which was to permit the Indians to select claims here and there among the whites with a view of receiving instruction and benefit in their industries from their civilized neighbors, and have the advantage of the common schools for their children. To all of which the Indians entered a vigorous and prolonged protest. They would take no lands as individuals. Finally Agent Crissey told them they would have to return to Crow Creek and await further advices from the Great Father. That they would be notified of the Great Father's instructions, and would then be permitted to take such lands as would be allotted to their several families. The council then dissolved. The Indians refused to return to Crow Creek, and Agent Dougherty gave them two days' rations in case they concluded to return, and left them while the Sisseton agent notified them that he would send a company of troops after them and compel them to return.
This was practically the termination of Indian troubles on the James. The Indians would have been permitted to select claims on the "reservation," under an agreement to reside upon and cultivate them; they would undoubtedly have received material aid from the Government for a number of years had they shown a disposition to help themselves, as they were desired to do. This, however, seemed farthest from their intention, and they reluctantly and sullenly abandoned the places which had occupied their time and ambition for a number of years, and undoubtedly returned to their reservation, and if they have survived, they have undoubtedly been allotted a land and a home on the Crow Creek Reservation.
It is evident that the ground claimed in 1879 by Drifting Goose was not the same as that occupied by the original village in 1863, which was visited by Captain Tripp with a detachment of Company B, Dakota Cavalry, when in pursuit of the Weiseman murderers, though Drifting Goose may have been with the Indians who then occupied it, and were supposed to be Yanktonnais. Drifting Goose claimed to have resided on his land tor thirty years, and was supported in this claim by Byron M. Smith, who knew him in 1857, during the years of the earliest settlement at Sioux Falls. This thirty years settlement would have been made about the year 1849, and was about the time of the founding of the old village in town 117.
In 1873, W. C. Smart took the first settlers into that section, and these located the Town of Frankfort or Ashton, near the old Dirt Lodge Village, which they found deserted and practically destroyed. Drifting Goose, in his claim made in 1879, may have assumed that the precise locality of the original village was of no consequence as their residence there and cultivation of the soil gave them the right to a large section of that country which no treaty had deprived them of. The term "Earth Lodges," or "Dirt Lodges," applied to this modern settlement of Drifting Goose, was a misnomer, for they did not build any dirt lodges, but as shown by Captain Dougherty, built a few log buildings. The Drifting Goose Village was in town 120, range 62, and probably in the Fargo Land District. It so happened that settlers had been pouring into the Valley of the James in such numbers, prior to the promulgation of the President's order withdrawing the lands that a large portion of the reservation had been occupied. Eighty families, in one colony from Minnesota, located at the same time, and a large proportion of the valley land along the river for thirty miles was taken up. A county government had been organized for Spink County, and the county seat, Ashton, located in town 117.
Regarding Bishop Whipple, General Sibley, Byron M. Smith and Lieutenant Burns and their interest in Drifting Goose and his band, in this matter, there is no doubt whatever that they were governed by the best of motives in whatever they did to promote the ambition of the Drifting Goose band of Indians. The "Peace Policy" was then "on duty" wherever the Indian was domiciled and manifested the slightest disposition to undertake the task of becoming civilized, and a leading feature of this policy was to induce the Indians to select a tract of land and make a home upon it, and cultivate it with the substantial assistance of the Great Father. The bishop and General Sibley had been life-long friends of the red man. believed he had been unjustly treated by the Government s agents, and that much of our Indian troubles could have been avoided had an honest and prudent course been pursued by those acting for the Government. But their friendship did not extend further than to give the Indians every reasonable opportunity to make a home for himself and substantial assistance in getting started. They undoubtedly expected, in recommending Drifting Goose to the favor of the Government that he would be informed that he might have land, and assistance, but not if he was inclined to spend his time in idleness.
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