short-lived. Fort Abercrombie on the west bank of the Red River, about
12 miles north of the site of Wahpeton, was established in 1857.
Supplies for this post were brought from St. Paul. When the Sioux went
on the warpath in 1862, Minnesota settlers sought refuge here during a
seven weeks' siege. The fort was abandoned in 1877 (_see Tour 1_).
Fort Rice, on the west bank of the Missouri, came next. Gen. Alfred
H. Sully's men cut cottonwood trees to build it in 1864. The fort
housed four infantry companies. It was to Fort Rice in 1870 that Linda
Slaughter, young, talented, followed her husband, Dr. Frank Slaughter.
Her writings, depicting the frontier life, found their way into many
eastern papers, and today constitute some of the best material on that
era of State history. At Fort Rice she buried her first-born child,
her only son, in the bitter cold of January. She heard the arrows of
hostile Indians whizzing dangerously near. Her luxuriant hair, which
she always wore long over her shoulders, was coveted as a scalp lock,
and she came near leaving it with the red men on one of her horseback
jaunts from the fort. A woman who could paint, write, or lecture at
will, she could also cook or nurse as the occasion demanded. In later
days she wrote the first telegram that was sent to the world from
Edwinton, the village which became Bismarck.
Fort Rice was dismantled in 1878 when Fort Yates, to the south, took
its place. Fort Ransom on the Sheyenne was established in 1867. In
1872 Fort Seward, first called Fort Cross, was built at Jamestown. The
military reservations of Fort Abercrombie and Fort Seward were opened
to homestead entry in 1880.
Fort Totten, near Devils Lake, was constructed in 1867 and served until
1890, when the buildings were turned over to the Indian school. Fort
Stevenson on the Missouri at the mouth of Douglas Creek was maintained
from 1867-83. Fort Buford was built in 1866 opposite the mouth of the
Yellowstone on the north bank of the Missouri. After his surrender
in 1877 Chief Joseph was taken through Fort Buford en route to Fort
Leavenworth, Kans., and Chiefs Gall and Sitting Bull went there to
surrender after their escape into Canada (_see Side Tour 6B_). The fort
existed officially until 1895, but sometime before its abandonment the
garrison had been transferred to Fort Assiniboine in Montana.
Established on the Red River near the site of Pembina, Fort Pembina
was maintained from 1870 to 1895. Fort McKeen, established in 1872,
became, the same year, part of Fort Abraham Lincoln, garrisoned until
1891. It was from Fort Abraham Lincoln that Custer and his Seventh
Cavalry marched to death and disaster on the banks of the Little Big
Horn in 1876 (_see_ FORT ABRAHAM LINCOLN STATE PARK). After 25 years of
occupation, Fort Yates was abandoned in 1903, when the new Fort Lincoln
was built near Bismarck with facilities for four companies of infantry
and supporting detachments. (_See Tour 8._)
These early forts were established to protect the settlers along the
frontier and to keep the Indians in order. It was after the Sioux
outbreak in Minnesota in 1862 that Gen. Henry H. Sibley was sent
to punish the Sioux. In June of 1863 he headed his army west from
Minnesota toward the Devil's Lake region, where he arrived to find the
Indians had gone south. He pursued them and on July 24 engaged them
in battle at Big Mound about seven miles north of the present town of
Tappen. They retreated, and he followed them to Dead Buffalo Lake,
northwest of Dawson, where July 26 another engagement was fought. Two
days later he met them again at Stony Lake northeast of Driscoll, but
the Sioux retreated rapidly and there was no fighting. Moving on toward
the Missouri, Sibley encamped on Apple Creek, seven miles east of the
present site of Bismarck, and again near its mouth. The Sioux fled
across the river.
Sibley, all along the route, had thrown up defensive earthworks at each
of his camps. All of these camp sites which were not plowed under have
been definitely located under direction of the State historical society.
Gen. Alfred H. Sully was to have met Sibley on the Missouri, but no
contact could be made and Sibley set out for Minnesota on August 1,
1863. Sully came up the river from Sioux City, and was near Long Lake
when he learned that Sibley had gone home and the Sioux had recrossed
the Missouri and departed for the James River. Sully gave chase--he had
been sent out to fight Indians, and fight them he would. The Battle of
Whitestone Hill, near Ellendale, followed. Whether the Indians Sully
fought had taken part in the Minnesota uprising is today regarded as
dubious, but the battle is said to have been the fiercest ever fought
on North Dakota soil. The field is now marked by a monument of a
cavalry trooper (_see Tour 2_).
Sully returned to Sioux City but was sent back the following year to
deal out still more punishment to the Sioux. After Fort Rice had been
established a scouting detachment was sent after the evasive red men,
and soon reported Sioux near Killdeer Mountain. Here an engagement was
fought July 28, 1864, in which the Indians were severely punished,
although afterwards it developed that few of them were Minnesota Sioux.
The troops proceeded up the Little Missouri, where Indians were
discovered near Medora. With difficulty Sully traversed 12 miles of
Badlands buttes and gullies, continually harassed by the sniping fire
of Indians along the route. The fighting of this day is known as the
Battle of the Badlands. Following this encounter Sully reached the
Yellowstone and returned down the Missouri.
Before he arrived at Fort Rice, he was informed that Capt. James
L. Fisk, with a party of immigrants, was in danger. Fisk, who had
made expeditions through North Dakota in 1862 and 1863, on this trip
followed Sully's trail, and in the Badlands was attacked September 1
by Indians, with the loss of several men. During the next few days
several other attacks were made, although no one was killed. Messengers
were sent to Sully for aid, and meanwhile the party threw up what
fortifications they could in the form of sod walls, and, awaited help.
After several days the soldiers arrived and brought the immigrants back
to Fort Rice, whence most of them returned to their homes. The remains
of their impromptu fortification, known as Fort Dilts, can still be
seen (_see Tour 9_).
One of the most valuable expeditions made through this State was the
Stevens Survey of 1853, sent out to discover the most advantageous
routes to the Pacific for future railroads. The party was financed by
a Federal appropriation, and the northern route, through present North
Dakota, was under the direction of Gen. I. I. Stevens.
The guide on this expedition was Pierre Bottineau, one of the
outstanding personalities in the history of North Dakota and Minnesota
during this period. Of him it has been written that
"It was the guide Bottineau who walked from Winnipeg to St. Paul
with James J. Hill, it was the scout Bottineau who headed Jay
Cooke's first Northern Pacific survey across the continent, it was
the chief Bottineau who gave his name to Bottineau County, and it
was the gambler Bottineau who had three queens in his hand, staked
Nicollet Island, and lost."
In 1871 the Whistler expedition went up the Little Missouri and into
Montana in search of the most practical route for a railroad to the
Pacific. Two years later the Stanley expedition, accompanied by a
large military escort, conducted another western survey. Engagements
with Indians cost this expedition a number of men. One Sioux,
Rain-in-the-Face, claimed to have had a part in killing two civilians
on the Stanley Survey, and as a result was imprisoned at Fort Lincoln
until he escaped. He gained his revenge at the Little Big Horn (_see
Side Tour 8C_).
The Northern Pacific Railway received its charter from the Government
in 1864. Magnificent Federal land grants were made: still the road
found it difficult to raise the necessary capital to finance the
venture, and Jay Cooke & Company undertook the sale of Northern Pacific
securities.
On the last day of the year 1871 the line was completed to the Red
River at Moorhead, and early in March of the next year it was extended
to Fargo. Cooke went into bankruptcy after the financial panic of
1873, but was able to obtain private funds to complete the road to the
Missouri that year. Bismarck remained the western terminus of the line
until 1879. During the next two years rails were laid to the Montana
border, completing the line across the entire State.
In 1870, just before the advent of the railways, the estimated white
population of present North Dakota was not more than five hundred.
Pembina County, extending the length of the Red River Valley and to the
western population limit, was the only organized county in the State.
The Northern Pacific was completed to the Pacific Coast in 1883.
Squatters preceded the railroad, settlers followed it, trying to guess
future town sites so they could force the company to buy them out at
the most profitable price.
The Great Northern was the second important railroad to come into the
State. By 1882 James J. Hill, the "Empire Builder," had extended a
line up the Dakota side of the Red River to Canada. Hill had a vision
of a great railroad connecting the Pacific Coast with the Great Lakes,
whence produce could be cheaply transported to New York. Construction
began in 1880 and the Great Northern was extended westward across
northern North Dakota and in 1893 reached the Coast.
The railroads linked Dakota with the East and civilization, but to the
west was the frontier. Here Sioux warriors were beginning to resent
the encroaching whites and the appropriation of their hunting grounds.
It was imperative, therefore, that soldiers be kept at Fort Abraham
Lincoln.
To understand the campaign of 1876 against the Sioux, in which Gen.
George A. Custer met his tragic end, it is necessary to go back to the
Indian treaty of 1868. The Government by this pact promised to abandon
and destroy Forts Reno and Phil Kearney in Wyoming and Fort Smith
in Montana. This having been done, the Sioux were guaranteed their
freedom in the territory between the North Platte and the Missouri and
Yellowstone Rivers. But, when gold was discovered in the Black Hills
by a Government reconnaissance expedition under Custer in the summer
of 1874, white settlers and prospectors begged for admission to the
coveted territory. Military guards at first attempted to keep them
out, but when the Indians refused in a treaty council in 1875 to sell
or lease land to miners, the Government withdrew the guard and settlers
poured in by thousands.
[Illustration:
RING-BILLED
GULLS
_Photo by Russell Reid_]
[Illustration:
PASQUES
_Photo by Russell Reid_]
[Illustration:
FLICKERTAIL
_Photo by Russell Reid_]
[Illustration:
A MODERN
INDIAN
_Photo by Russell Reid_]
[Illustration: SCAFFOLD BURIAL, FORMERLY USED BY SOME INDIAN TRIBES]
Government officials were well aware, when the treaty of 1868 was
violated, that an Indian war was inevitable; but although the
Government had clearly brought the war down on its own head, it sought
the appearance of righteousness.
It was the practice of many Indians to leave their reservations because
they wanted to hunt or visit, or because the practices of dishonest
agents made life on the reservation unbearable. The Department of
the Interior sent out orders for all Indians to be back on their
reservations at a certain date, but for many it was impossible to
return within the time limit set. The Department designated these
people as "hostiles" and turned them over to the War Department, which
now had a pretext for taking punitive action.
The campaign of 1876 was planned to force the Indians onto
reservations, in order to obtain the relinquishment of the Black Hills.
Generals Crook and Gibbon, with their forces, were to meet Generals
Terry and Custer with their troops near the Rosebud River in Montana.
All were then to move southward against the Indians who were in the
hills along the Rosebud and the Little Big Horn.
On the morning of May 17, 1876, the eastern division of the expedition
started out from Fort Abraham Lincoln. The cavalry marched about the
parade grounds to the tune of _Garry Owen_, then set out to the strains
of _The Girl I Left Behind Me_. Mrs. Custer accompanied her husband on
the first day's ride, returning to the fort as the troopers continued
west.
The tragic outcome of the Battle of the Little Big Horn is well known.
Not a man of Custer's immediate command survived. The reasons for the
annihilation have been debated far and wide. Gen. E. S. Godfrey, who
participated in the battle as a lieutenant, in _Custer's Last Battle_
summarizes the affair as follows: "The causes of Custer's defeat were
first, the overpowering number of the enemy and their unexpected
cohesion; second, Reno's panic rout from the valley; third, the
defective extraction of empty cartridge shells from the carbines.... A
battle was unavoidable."
Grant Marsh had pushed his supply steamer, the _Far West_, up the
Big Horn to within 15 miles of the battlefield. Reno's wounded were
placed aboard and Marsh made the trip of 710 miles down to Bismarck
in record time. At midnight July 5 the _Far West_ docked. Colonel
Lounsberry, editor of the Bismarck _Tribune_ and correspondent of the
New York _Herald_, gave the story to the world. Mark Kellogg, special
correspondent of the _Herald_ and the _Tribune_, who had accompanied
the expedition, had been killed with Custer. Twenty-six widows wept at
Fort Lincoln. With Custer's death the frontier era in Dakota history
had ended. Although Sitting Bull's forces were undefeated, they took
refuge in Canada and remained there until 1881, when they voluntarily
surrendered.
They were returned to the reservations. Wishing to keep them there,
the authorities took horses, saddles, and arms from both hostile and
peaceable Sioux. This move, while it did not pacify the Indians, put an
end to the Indian wars.
TERRITORIAL SOLONS AND STRATEGY
At the time of the Little Big Horn campaign Dakota's Territorial
Government had functioned for 15 years and was destined to continue 13
years longer. The Territory had been organized in 1861 and President
Lincoln had appointed his family physician, Dr. William Jayne, first
Governor. As first laid out the new Territory included the present
States of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming, but after
a series of changes it was reduced in 1882 to the area of the present
Dakotas.
Yankton, in the southern part of the Territory, was the capital city,
and there the first legislature met in 1862. It was an assembly
representative of every type in the Territory--all with great and
varying ideas of how the ship of state was to be kept afloat.
Thirteen members composed the house, while the senate or council had
but nine. In attendance at the session for various reasons were Jim
Somers, frontiersman, "armed like an arsenal"; Father Turner of New
York; George Kingsbury, newspaperman; Dr. Walter Burleigh, later
connected with the Indian Service and the Northern Pacific Railway; and
Gen. T. C. Campbell.
Territorial Dakota displayed no small interest in politics. Campaigns
were periods of great excitement, with long parades of ardent
supporters following the candidates, with cheering and shouting and
bragging and fighting by office seekers and votaries alike. It took
a brave man to campaign in those days. When Moses Armstrong ran for
Congress on the Democratic ticket his friend, Gen. T. C. Campbell,
invited him into his part of the Territory to speak. During the
general's speech his hat was shot off, but his oratory did not falter.
When it came Armstrong's turn to speak he hesitated about addressing
such a boisterous crowd, but the general informed him that the time to
do his praying was before he crossed the county line, not after.
County seat removals were a prime source of political interest, and
the cities in the Territory fought tooth and nail for the privileges
of the county capital. Stuffing ballot boxes was not uncommon, and in
many instances where removal was voted the defeated city would refuse
to give up the county records, and guards would be posted against
nocturnal raids of the courthouse vaults by citizens of the victorious
town. When the Emmons County _Record_ defeated a plan to move the
county seat from Williamsport in 1888, it took full advantage of its
success. Beneath the decoration of a crowing cock heading the column,
these headlines, typical of the county seat controversies, appeared in
the _Record_ November 9 of that year:
ELI
And Billsport Hath The
Appellation Earned,
For Lo! She Doth Get There
With Both Feet.
And She Moppeth the Earth
With the Cohorts of the Wicked.
Yea, Verily, of the Wadites,
of the Bumstedites, and
the Vanbekites,
And They Shall Gnaw a File and
Flee Into the Mountains
of Hepsidam.
FE! FI! FO! FUM!
The entire edition, in celebration of the occasion, was printed in red
ink.
Territorial Governors and other high officials were not popular with
the people. They were usually from the East and had no interest in
the country, their salaries or political advancement being their
chief concern. Just after the first legislature had adjourned an
Indian uprising disturbed the settlers. It did not take the Governor
and other officials long to quit the Territory. Moses Armstrong,
later a Congressman, wrote, "With such rapidity do they fly, pale and
breathless, that a boy could play marbles on their horizontal coat
tails."
Dakota Territory covered about 150,000 square miles and had 36
representatives in the legislature during the 1880's for its population
of 300,000. Four judges and three prosecuting attorneys administered
matters of Territorial justice.
The second legislative session was no quieter than the first. Because
of disputed delegations there were two houses--one met on the levee by
the Missouri and the other on the hill above the river. After much time
had been lost the differences were compromised and business proceeded.
In 1863 Newton Edmunds of Yankton was appointed Governor of Dakota,
the only resident of the Territory ever to hold that office. The next
Governor was Faulk of Pennsylvania, then followed Burbank of Indiana,
Pennington of Alabama, Howard of Michigan, Ordway of Vermont, Pierce of
New York and Illinois, Church of New York and Indiana, and Mellette of
Indiana.
The northern and southern parts of the Territory had little in common,
and they kept growing farther apart as time went on. In the session of
1883 removal of the capital from Yankton was the big question. Yankton
wanted to keep it, Bismarck, Huron, Mitchell, Pierre, and Chamberlain
wanted to acquire it, and Fargo or Jamestown would have taken it if
offered. A bill was finally passed providing that the Governor appoint
nine commissioners to choose a capital city; they were to accept an
offer of not less than $100,000 and 160 acres of land on which the
capitol was to be built. The land remaining after the capitol grounds
were provided for was to be sold for the benefit of the building fund.
The commissioners named were Milo Scott of Grand Forks County, Burleigh
Spalding of Cass, Alexander McKenzie of Burleigh, Charles Myers of
Spink, George Mathews of Brookings, Alexander Hughes of Yankton, Henry
de Long of Lincoln, John P. Belding of Lawrence, and M. B. Thompson of
Clay.
The commissioners must, according to law, meet and organize at Yankton.
Feeling ran high; the city did not intend to part with the capital
without a struggle. Yanktonians awaited the commissioners.
But unknown to the citizens of Yankton, the commissioners had
chartered a special train, leaving Sioux City April 3, at 3 a. m.
The commissioners' coach was dimly lighted as the train pulled into
the city limits of Yankton. The meeting was quickly called to order,
officers were chosen, and the meeting adjourned until that afternoon in
Canton. The train had still a half mile to go to the city limits when
the meeting was over. The commissioners had satisfied the law, having
met, organized, and adjourned in Yankton.
The commission thereafter made the rounds of several towns, and was
royally entertained by prospective capital cities. Bismarck's offer of
$100,000 and 320 acres of land was the best bid received. Thus Bismarck
became the Territorial capital.
The cornerstone ceremonies took place September 5, 1883. Many high
officials and prominent citizens from the East were guests of the
Northern Pacific on the Villard "gold spike" excursion, and were
present as guests of honor at the laying of the cornerstone. Among them
were Henry Villard, president of the Northern Pacific Railway; General
Grant; General Haupt; Henry M. Teller, Secretary of the Interior; the
Hon. Sackville West, British Minister; members of the Austro-Hungarian,
the Danish, and the Norwegian-Swedish Legations; the Imperial German
Minister; Territorial Governor Ordway; and numerous United States
Senators, Governors, and mayors.
The next great task was to convince Congress that the Territory was
ready for statehood. As early as 1871 the legislature had requested
Congress to divide the Territory, and in 1874 Moses Armstrong, while
in Congress, had petitioned that the northern part be made into a new
Territory named Pembina. Nearly every year a petition was sent to
Congress praying for admission as two States. In 1860 it was suggested
that the northern part be called North Dakota. The Territorial
legislative assembly in 1889 provided that a constitutional convention
be held for North Dakota, and February 22, 1889, Congress passed an
enabling act for North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, and Montana.
Delegates to the State convention were elected May 14, 1889, and the
convention met in Bismarck July 4 of that year. A parade in which
Sitting Bull and other famous Indians participated was part of the
entertainment afforded the delegates. Election to approve or disapprove
the proposed constitution was held October 1, 1889, and as it was a
certainty that the constitution would be accepted, legislators, State
officials, and Congressmen were elected at the same time. President
Harrison on November 2, 1889, declared North Dakota a State, and John
Miller at the same moment became first Governor of North Dakota.
Hand in hand with the political development of the Territory had gone
social and economic progress. By the time statehood was attained
farmhouses and towns had broken up the barren loneliness of the
prairies. Sod shanties, the pioneers' first homes, were being replaced
by solid frame structures. Huge bonanza farms were employing hundreds
of men and using advanced farming methods that had not yet been
introduced on farms in the East (_see_ AGRICULTURE & FARM LIFE).
Schools were being built in every community. Six years before statehood
one private college had been established, and the University of North
Dakota had opened its doors and was offering courses in the arts and
sciences to ambitious pioneer youth.
POLICIES AND POLITICS SINCE STATEHOOD
When the constitutional convention for North Dakota completed its work
on August 17, 1889, the product of its labors was a document six times
as long as the Federal Constitution. Based upon a model constitution
drawn up by Prof. James Bradley Thayer of the Harvard Law School, it
contained extremely advanced and enlightened provisions, 217 sections
included in 20 articles. To these have since been added 49 amendments.