reservations. Nearly 1,000 Sioux are at Fort Totten (_see Side Tour
6A_), while Standing Rock (_see Side Tour 8C_) has about 1,600
on the North Dakota side. Six thousand three hundred thirty-four
Chippewas, most of whom are of mixed blood, live on the Turtle Mountain
Reservation (_see Tour 5_). The members of the Assiniboin tribe now
live on reservations in Montana and Canada.
NORTH DAKOTA INDIAN TRIBES TODAY
Present-day North Dakota Indian life offers a vastly different picture
from that which the Verendryes saw in 1738, or that which three-fourths
of a century later presented itself to Lewis and Clark. The lives of
the groups on the various reservations bear many points in common. They
have all been brought very quickly from the age of stone and thrust
precipitately into the bright light of the modern world. They are all
survivors of Indian nations whose ranges once extended from the forests
of the Great Lakes to the Rockies, and from the prairies of western
Canada to the Platte. Now on much restricted areas and amid a complex
and alien culture they are endeavoring to build homes and rear children
in a manner that will at once accord with the limitations set by the
dominant white race, and yet retain what they feel is worthy in their
own cultures and traditions.
In spite of these fundamental similarities the material life of the
Indians on the various reserves presents not only a mingling of white
and Indian cultures, but also somewhat wide differences in economic
status. With the exception of that done at Fort Berthold little farming
is carried on, a situation not generally due to lack of land; while
more than 6,000 Indians at Turtle Mountain are crowded into 72 square
miles, and while the present homes of all of the tribes are rather
infinitesimal in comparison with their former wide ranges, most of them
do not lack space for farming. However, particularly at Standing Rock,
a certain antipathy for the white man's settled mode of life, coupled
with semiarid conditions unfavorable to agriculture, have discouraged
efforts along that line.
The land has been allotted in severalty for the most part, and the
concept of individual ownership has in general been adopted, although
there is a movement in the Standing Rock area to return to the communal
form. A small amount of grazing and timber land is held tribally at
Fort Berthold and Standing Rock, and the latter reservation has a
tribal herd of 1,500 cattle. Much Indian land is rented to whites for
grazing or farming.
The relatively superior economic situation of the Fort Berthold
Indians is doubtless due to the ancient agrarian background of the
tribe. Long centuries of farming fitted them for ready adjustment
to the agricultural life of the reservation. A general view of the
farming section of their area presents an aspect not greatly unlike
that of any other farming section in a similar territory. While many
of them live in log houses of two to four rooms, others live in better
buildings than those of the average rural district. Homes on the other
reservations vary from primitive shacks and log cabins to modern
dwellings, and are usually clustered about agencies or subagencies.
In summertime many of the Indians, showing a longing for the old tipi
life, live in tents placed in their yards, and cook over open fires.
Wikiups, improvised shelters of willows, are also used in fair weather.
Although the primitive food-gathering methods of hunting and fishing
have no great economic value at the present time, the Indians still
make use of their traditional knowledge of certain native foods and
simple ways of preserving them. They dry much of their food, especially
meat and vegetables. Among the Fort Berthold Indians one may still be
offered pemmican, corn balls, butter from marrow, sausage, and tripe.
Mint and balm leaves for tea, chokecherries, berries, red bean and
tipsin roots, and wild onions, artichokes, and plums are still added
to the larder. Rattlesnake oil, skunk oil, sweet grass, cedar tree
needles, and wild sage are used as medicines. In addition the Sioux at
Standing Rock make _wakmiza wasna_ by pounding corn meal and raisins
into beef tallow, and forming the whole into small cakes. _Wojapi_ is
made of chokecherries, June berries, and flour, and some women add
a little sugar to make a kind of pudding. Wild beans are taken from
caches where they have been stored by mice, the supplies thus removed
always being replaced with corn. _Kinnikinik_ or _killiklik_, a mixture
used for smoking, is made of dried and shredded red willow bark,
sprinkled with tobacco.
Some basketry is still made, and most of the Indian groups do tanning
and very good beadwork. Porcupine quills, horse hair, and feathers are
employed in the designs in embroidery, and elk teeth, shells, colored
clays, and weasel tails are used for adornments. Objects of Indian art
are on display and for sale at the annual fairs on the reservations,
and usually can be purchased at the agencies or subagencies.
Complicating the struggle for existence for most of the tribes is
the prevalence of tuberculosis, of which one-third of the people at
Standing Rock are said to be victims. Trachoma also is common. In spite
of these facts, however, the tribes are gaining rapidly in numbers,
with an average birth rate more than twice as high as the death rate.
The Government has sought to aid the Indian in his transition to the
new culture by giving him a part in the realm of political relations.
All the reservations have native police, employed by the Government;
and Standing Rock has two Indian police judges, who hear all cases and
pass sentence on all minor Indian violations of law. At Turtle Mountain
there are no Government restrictions in the use of land and stock, and
the tribe has complete charge of property. All the Indian groups except
that at Fort Totten have tribal councils, which, while their legal
powers are not great, have considerable weight in an advisory capacity.
The acceptance by the tribes of the white man's fundamental educational
principle of daily formal schooling has had a large part in their
assimilation. Mission schools established by the various churches
frequently brought the first formal education to the Indians, and
most of the groups are still served by such schools. Small and large
Government schools have been provided to give the Indian child the same
educational opportunity as that afforded the white. Fort Totten and
Turtle Mountain both have consolidated Indian schools, and a boarding
school offering high school work is maintained at Wahpeton.
In spite of their work in these schools and the fact that they are
fast becoming fluent speakers of English, in most instances the
Indians are retaining their native tongues. An exception to this is at
Turtle Mountain, where due to intermarriage of French and Indian the
Algonquian mother tongue of the Chippewa is dying out.
While doubtless many ancient habits and customs are retained, such as
those pertaining to marriage, formal tribal ceremonies do not appear to
be conducted to any great extent at the present time. Marriage assumes
the Christian form, and the Christian religion has been generally
adopted, with the Catholic, Episcopalian, and Congregational faiths
most commonly represented. The ancient tribal religions still exert
a powerful influence, however--a fact especially evident at such
times as the performance of the annual Arikara ceremonies on the Fort
Berthold Reservation and the yearly sun dance of the Chippewa at Turtle
Mountain. The large sun dance held at Little Eagle in South Dakota in
1936 by the Sioux of the Standing Rock Agency was the first conducted
by that tribe in more than 50 years.
The Indians often participate in the social dances, such as the Omaha
grass dance, the rabbit dance, and the hoop dance; and dancing in
native costume can be seen occasionally, particularly during Fourth of
July celebrations and at the annual fairs. The latter are held on most
of the reservations some time in September and October. Music for the
strictly Indian dancing consists of singing accompanied by drums--the
small Indian hand drums or tom-toms, and the white man's big bass drum.
Formerly a large drum of Indian manufacture was used; and rattles,
string bells, and flutelike whistles are still made.
A great many group activities center at the schools and churches,
where take place the usual athletic, social, and religious events and
gatherings found in white communities.
HISTORY
The Atlantic seaboard Colonies still constituted the American frontier
on the April day in 1682 when the intrepid Sieur de la Salle, in the
presence of a company of uncomprehending red men, took possession of
the lands drained by the Mississippi River "in the name of the Most
High, Mighty, Invincible, and Victorious Prince, Louis the Great, by
the Grace of God, King of France and Navarre, Fourteenth of that name."
His words figuratively raised the flag of France over a vast territory
which included more than half of what is now North Dakota. Two other
European nations were to own parts of this State, and it was to be
identified with nine United States Territories before actually becoming
a member of the Union in 1889.
La Salle's _Procès Verbal_ claimed for France the vast lands in the
drainage basins of the Mississippi and its tributaries. All of this
territory was ceded to Spain in 1762, to repay her for losses suffered
as an ally of France. Adjustments of territorial possessions having
been made between Spain and England, however, France "suggested" that
Spain cede back the lands, which she reluctantly did in 1800.
The Louisiana Purchase was negotiated in 1803, and the United
States came into possession of the Mississippi basin, including the
southwestern half of North Dakota. The northeastern part of the State,
drained by the Red and Souris Rivers, was acquired from Great Britain
in 1818, when a treaty fixed the Canadian-United States boundary at the
Forty-ninth Parallel.
As the growth of the Nation extended westward, this State successively
became part of the Louisiana, Great Northwest, Missouri, Michigan,
Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and finally Dakota Territories.
For the three years from the formation of Minnesota to the creation
of Dakota Territory, from 1858-61, almost all of the present State
lying east of the Missouri was unorganized territory, without formal
government of any kind.
Dakota Territory extended from the Canadian border to the Forty-third
Parallel, and from Minnesota and Iowa to the main ridge of the Rockies.
When Wyoming Territory was created in 1868 the present western boundary
of the Dakotas was fixed, and the southern boundary of the Territory
was settled in 1882. In the general election of 1887 residents voted
that the Seventh Standard Parallel divide Dakota Territory into two
States. President Benjamin Harrison signed the bills admitting North
and South Dakota to statehood November 2, 1889: while he signed them,
both documents were covered except for the signature space, so that it
can never be known which of the twin Dakotas is the elder.
The two States derive their names from the Santee Sioux word _dakota_,
which means "allies."
THE EARLY WHITE EXPLORERS
Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de la Verendrye, was the first
white man known to have entered what is now North Dakota. Like so
many others of his time, Verendrye, a French-Canadian, was in search
of the westward route to India. When the liberal Louis XV came to the
throne of France he granted Verendrye permission to explore and claim
new lands for France, in return for which Verendrye was to receive
exclusive fur trading privileges. With a fur monopoly to back him
Verendrye succeeded in obtaining financial support for his venture, and
in 1731 he and his party left Montreal for the explorations which were
to occupy the remainder of his life.
It was in 1738 that, having established several forts in what later
became Manitoba and Saskatchewan, he decided to visit the Indians
called the Mantannes (Mandans), of whom he had heard. Accordingly he
journeyed south and west, past the Pembina and Turtle Mountains, and
eventually reached a Mandan village located a day's journey from the
Missouri. Until 1936 this village was believed by historians to have
been near Sanish, but in the light of recent discoveries at a site near
Menoken, the latter is now thought by many historians to have been the
village visited by the Verendrye party. This theory is substantiated by
the journal of Verendrye in which he states that he sent his sons to
visit another village on the Missouri, a day's march distant (_see Tour
8_).
Of this trip to the Mandans, Verendrye wrote that their village
consisted of 130 earth lodges, and added, "Their fortification ...
has nothing savage about it." The people he described as "of mixed
blood, white and black. The women are rather handsome, particularly
the light colored ones; some have an abundance of fair hair." But
later he records that he reproved his Assiniboin guides for telling
him the Mandans were light-colored, and asserted they had lied to him,
whereupon they said the fair people of whom they spoke wore metal
(armor) and were a summer's journey down the river.
The French party left the Mandan chief a lead tablet claiming the land
in the King's name. What became of the tablet is unknown; a similar
one, buried by a son of Verendrye on an expedition in 1743, was
unearthed in 1913 at Fort Pierre, S. Dak.
This visit of Verendrye to North Dakota was his only trip into the
region. Two of his sons passed through North Dakota again in 1742, on
which expedition they reached either the Black Hills or the Big Horn
Mountains. Unable to make any satisfactory progress toward the ocean,
they returned to their friends the Mandans and thence to Fort la Reine
in Manitoba.
Fifty years elapsed from the visits of the Verendryes to the next
important exploration of North Dakota. In November 1797 David Thompson,
an English geographer in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company, was
sent out to survey the boundary and visit the company posts. It was
an unusually cold winter, and the party suffered intensely during the
68-day journey. They explored along the Assiniboine and Souris Rivers
and the west edge of the Turtle Mountains, then turned southwest to the
Missouri, where they visited the Mandans, and Hidatsa.
Thompson in his journal has given a thorough account of the homes,
manners, food, dress, and agricultural activities of these Indians. He
noted that, while their villages were much alike, the Mandans were a
more courteous and better behaved group. Called "the greatest practical
land geographer in history," Thompson later helped survey the boundary
line between Canada and the United States in accordance with the Treaty
of 1818. In commemoration of his exploration of this State a monument
has been erected to him, in the shape of a large masonry sphere, at
Verendrye (_see Tour 7_).
The same year that Thompson explored central North Dakota, Charles
Chaboillez, a fur trader, came to Pembina to establish the first North
West Company post within the present boundaries of this State. Both
the Hudson's Bay and the XY Companies established posts in the same
vicinity in 1801, and with three great companies in deadly competition,
life at Pembina was colorful and dangerous. Excusing their own lack of
scruples on the grounds of competition, the companies bought furs with
liquor, giving rum to the Indians until they agreed to sell or until
they were too stupefied to know when the pelts were taken from them.
Three years after the establishment of Chaboillez's post, Alexander
Henry, a partner in the North West Fur Company, built a post on the
Red River near the mouth of Park River, and shortly afterward moved
down to the mouth of the Pembina. He made frequent trips to the Grandes
Fourches (Grand Forks) and established depots there and in the Hair
Hills, or Pembina Mountains. On one occasion he made a trip to the
Missouri to visit the Mandans, and his journal says of their farming
methods: "The whole view was agreeable and had more the appearance of a
country inhabited by a civilized nation than by a set of savages."
Liquor flowed freely at the Henry post. Traders found it profitable to
deal with Indians who were in a drunken stupor. Henry's journal gives
evidence that brawls were an everyday occurrence. One entry reads:
"Feb. 9, 1806. Men and women have been drinking a match for three days
and nights, during which it has been drink, fight--drink, fight--drink,
and fight again--guns, axes, and knives their weapons--very
disagreeable." Henry left Pembina in 1808 for the Saskatchewan River.
At his post were born North Dakota's first two children of other than
Indian parentage. The first, the daughter of Pierre Bonza, Henry's
Negro servant, who had formerly been a slave in the West Indies, was
born March 12, 1802.
The first white child was born December 29, 1807, to the "Orkney Lad",
a woman who had worked at the post for several years in the guise of
a man, until the birth of the child betrayed her sex. Abandoned by
the father of the child, John Scart, she remained at the post until a
collection was taken up and she and the baby sent back to her home in
the Orkney Islands.
President Jefferson for some time had been eager to have a party
explore the Missouri, cross the Rockies and reach the Pacific. In 1803
the Louisiana Purchase facilitated completion of his plans, and his
secretary, Capt. Meriwether Lewis, with a friend, Capt. William Clark,
started out on the journey of exploration.
On October 13, 1804, the expedition came up the Missouri River into
what is now North Dakota. Near the present site of Stanton, where the
Knife River joins the Missouri, Lewis and Clark discovered villages
of the Mandans and Hidatsa. Having been well received, they decided
to establish winter quarters. Fort Mandan was built and the flag
of the United States of America raised for the first time on North
Dakota soil. It was here that the explorers secured the services of
Charbonneau, the French interpreter, and his wife Sakakawea, the
Shoshone Indian girl who guided them successfully through the Rockies
to the Pacific (_see_ BISMARCK).
After spending the winter with the friendly Indians, the expedition in
April 1805 set out along the river again, following its course into
Montana. Their journey through the mountains to the Pacific, led by
Sakakawea, is one of the most thrilling adventures in American history.
The party returned in September 1806 to the Hidatsa village on the
Missouri where Lewis and Clark, taking leave of their faithful guide,
set out for St. Louis and home. The careful observations recorded in
the journals of their party are a valuable contribution to the history
of this region.
Lewis and Clark were not the only explorers to visit the Missouri
region in the early nineteenth century. A decade before they came
traders were already ascending the river, and in the succeeding year
naturalists and military men added their presence to the growing,
if transient, white population. Among the many who left interesting
records of their explorations and travels were Charles le Raye, who
spent three years as a captive of the Brulé Sioux; Manuel Lisa,
one of the most important fur traders on the upper Missouri; Gen.
William Ashley, Col. Henry Leavenworth, and Gen. Henry Atkinson, who
subdued the Arikara; and Wilson P. Hunt of the Astorian Overland
Expedition. Two royal adventurers visited here: Paul Wilhelm, Prince of
Wurttemberg, who is said to have taken Sakakawea's son back to Germany
with him; and Maximilian, Prince of Wied, who brought with him the
Swiss artist Carl Bodmer, whose paintings preserve much of the life and
customs of the Mandans. George Catlin, a native artist, was aboard the
first steamboat to reach the Yellowstone. He painted and wrote about
the Missouri Indians, and left hundreds of pictures of their life. John
James Audubon, noted naturalist, spent several months in present North
Dakota studying the larger types of North American mammals.
ON THE FRONTIER
The earliest attempt at colonization in this State was the Selkirk
settlement in 1812 at Pembina in the Red River Valley. The Earl of
Selkirk had arranged for the transportation of a group of evicted
Scotch and Irish peasants to the Hudson Bay region in Canada, and
some of the emigrants had followed the Red River south and settled at
Pembina. The fur traders in that vicinity, however, were not eager
to have the wild country inhabited. They made life miserable for
the Selkirk settlers, and finally succeeded in driving most of the
newcomers out.
Among the fur companies of that time were two famous competitors, the
Hudson's Bay and the North West Companies. Others were the Missouri Fur
Company, Chouteau and Berthold, Northwestern, Columbia, and Sublette
& Campbell, the latter company establishing a post, Fort William, on
the site later occupied by Fort Buford military post. John Jacob Astor
established the American Fur Company, and for years Fort Union, on
North Dakota's western border, was that company's principal post. (_See
Side Tour 6B._)
Some of northeastern North Dakota's most noted pioneers came into
this region as fur traders. Joseph Rolette was sent to Pembina by the
American Fur Company in 1842. A member of the Minnesota Territorial
Legislature, he was responsible for keeping the capital at St. Paul.
Norman Kittson, who established a fur trading post at Pembina in 1843,
became the first postmaster, in 1851, in what is now North Dakota. He,
too, was a member of the Minnesota Territorial Legislature. Charles
Cavileer, while not a fur trader, was a contemporary of these men, and
acted as collector of customs at Pembina.
The coming of settlers marked the decline of the fur trade, but at its
height it had been colorful. Lewis Crawford, a North Dakota historian,
has written:
"In this early race for empire none except fur seekers entered.
Their rhythmic paddle blades swished up every stream of the West to
its rivulet head; every mountain height and forbidding gorge knew
their intrepid feet.... Every nationality had a part.... These were
the true pathfinders, the true explorers, the heralds of empire.
Their fur-laden vessels floating down the familiar waters of the
Missouri and its tributaries represented the wealth, the adventure,
the romance of the Northwest."
In the time of the fur trader the Missouri River, the "Smoky Water" of
the Indians, was navigable, though as turbulent and capricious as it is
today. It was the highway of the trader and later of the gold seeker.
The first steamboat to navigate the Missouri through North Dakota was
the _Yellowstone_, which in 1832 ascended the river to Fort Union. To
operate a boat on this river required great skill.
Famous pilots in the heyday of the steamboat who wrestled with the
wiles of the Missouri included Joseph LaBarge, Grant Marsh, and C. J.
Atkins. In 63 years as a pilot Grant Marsh wrecked but one boat on the
Mississippi and never had a wreck on the Missouri or Yellowstone.
The yellow gleam of gold, discovered in Montana in 1863 and 1864,
drew a rush of prospectors. The railroads had not yet penetrated
this territory, and the Missouri was the pathway to the gold fields.
Precious cargoes of yellow dust floated down through Dakota, bound for
St. Louis. It is said that one boat, the _Luella_, carried gold dust to
the value of $1,250,000 down the river in 1866.
It was not the coming of the railroads to Bismarck in 1873 that marked
the decline of the steamboat on the Missouri, but rather the extension
of the railroad westward to Montana in 1883.
The Red River of the North was the important channel of traffic for
northeastern North Dakota. Steamboats were not as numerous as they were
on the Missouri, nor were they operated at such an early date. Fleets
of barges and scows were used to transport provisions. The steamer
_Selkirk_ commanded by Capt. Alexander Griggs, best known of Red River
pilots, brought passengers down the river to settle at Grand Forks the
year after he and his crew had unexpectedly spent the winter there
(_see_ GRAND FORKS).