A Brief History of South Dakota/Chapter 15

by Doane Robinson

CHAPTER XV

SOME TALES OF TRAVELERS

After the completion of the trade and intercourse treaties there was a very great increase in the American fur trade, and it continued to grow and expand until the

Old Fort Pierre

fur-bearing animals and buffalo were practically exterminated. The mouth of the Teton River was at the very center of the great fur country, and it was there, as we have seen, that the little post of Joseph La Framboise was built in 1817. Five years later this post was succeeded by Fort Tecumseh, and again in 1832 it was rebuilt near by as "Fort Pierre Chouteau," which was soon thereafter curtailed by common use to "Fort Pierre." Until the year before the erection of Fort Pierre the up-river trade was all carried on by means of the slow-going keel boats, but in 1831 the enterprising Pierre Chouteau, Jr., son of the man
Pierre Chouteau, Jr. who had fought the Ree Indians in the Big White expedition, built a small, flat-bottomed steamboat, intended expressly for navigation on the shallow Missouri, and with it brought a cargo of goods to Fort Tecumseh. This steamboat trip entirely revolutionized the Missouri River fur trade, and made it possible to accomplish with great ease, in a few weeks of time, what formerly had required an entire season. The next year Chouteau took his steamboat, the Yellowstone, clear through to the forks of the Missouri and there built Fort Union.

This successful navigation of the Missouri, to its head, was one of the great sensations of that period. Thereafter many distinguished travelers visited the Dakota country. Even on the trip of 1832 Chouteau was accompanied by George Catlin, the famous artist, who came to study the Indian in his primitive condition; and to the pictures which he painted at Fort Pierre and along the Missouri we are indebted for the preservation of clear representations of the life, habits, and fashions of the early red men.

Another famous traveler, who came out the next year, 1833, was Maximilian, Prince of Wied. He, too, was a
General John C. Frémont student of native conditions; he was much more careful and accurate than Catlin. He spent but little time, however, in South Dakota, doing most of his work in the vicinity of Fort Union.

In 1839 Dr. Joseph N. Nicollet, the famous French scientist, came up the river to Fort Pierre, accompanied by General John C. Frémont, then a young man. They were in the employ of the government and had been sent out to map the Dakota country, the first official action of this kind. They remained at Pierre for several weeks, preparing for their work, and then set out for the James River and arrived at Medicine Knoll, near Blunt, on the evening of July 3. At midnight Frémont went to the top of Medicine Knoll and fired guns and rockets in celebration of the national anniversary. After traveling part way to the James they stopped to fish at Scatterwood Lake, finally reaching the river at Armadale Grove, in Spink County. This grove was a famous camping place for the Indians and early travelers. Thence they passed up the James and across to Devils Lake, and thence back down the coteau to Lakes Traverse and Big Stone, whence they left the state, going down the Minnesota to St. Paul.

While at Fort Pierre Nicollet and Frémont went out to a Yankton camp not far from the post, where they were received with great ceremony. A feast was prepared for them, and having made the customary presents which ratified the covenants of good will and free passage over their country, the chiefs escorted the visitors back to the fort.

A few days later one of the chiefs came to Fort Pierre, bringing with him his pretty daughter handsomely dressed. Accompanied by an interpreter he came to the room where the scientists were employed with their books and maps, and formally offered her to Mr. Nicollet as a wife. This placed the old Frenchman, for a moment, in an embarrassing position, but with ready tact he explained to the chief that he already had a wife and that the Great Father would not let him have two. "But here," he said, "is Mr. Frémont, who has no wife at all." This put Frémont in a worse situation, but he too made a tactful reply. He said that he was going far away and was not coming back, and did not like to take the girl away from her people, as it might bring bad luck to them; but that he was greatly pleased with the offer and would be glad to give the girl a suitable present. Accordingly an attractive package of scarlet and blue cloth, beads of various colors, and a mirror was made up and given to her, and the two Indians went away, the girl apparently quite satisfied with her parcel and the father likewise pleased with other suitable presents made to him. While the matrimonial conference was in progress, the girl had looked on well pleased, leaning composedly against the door post.

The previous year, 1838, Nicollet and Frémont had visited the eastern part of South Dakota, coming in by way of Pipestone Quarry, and they mapped the Coteau region and gave to many of the lakes the names which they still bear. Lake Preston was named by Frémont for Senator Preston; Lake Abert (Albert) for Colonel Abert, chief of the topographical engineers; and Lake Poinsett for the then Secretary of War.

In 1840 Rev. Stephen R. Riggs drove across country from the missionary settlement at Lac qui Parle, Minnesota, to Fort Pierre, where he preached a sermon to the traders and Indians. This was the first sermon preached within South Dakota.

In 1851 Father Peter John De Smet, a famous Catholic missionary, made his first visit especially to the Dakota Indians, though he had previously become interested in them while passing down the Missouri from a trip among the Indians of Oregon, and in 1839, also, had come up the river as far as the mouth of the Vermilion to endeavor to effect a peace between the outlaw band of Wamdesapa and the Potawatomies. From 1851 until his death in 1873 he devoted his attention principally to the spiritual and physical needs of these people. No other man has had so great influence with them, and even in the days of their greatest hostility and hatred for the white man, he was always a welcome visitor to their camps. When the authorities could get into communication with the hostile leaders in no other way, the devoted old missionary, alone and with great hardship and privation, would journey through the wilderness to carry the messages of the "Great Father," as the Indians call all communications from the President or his representatives, to his disobedient children. Good fortune attended all of his relations with the Sioux. During his first visit in 1851, Red Fish, an Oglala, had made an unprovoked war upon the Crows and had been soundly beaten for his pains, and in addition had lost his favorite daughter, a captive to his enemies. Humiliated and defeated, a butt of ridicule to his own people, he had hurried down to Fort Pierre to interest the traders in securing the recovery of his daughter. Learning that "a black gown," the Indian name for a priest, was in the settlement, he went to the good father and implored him to invoke his "medicine" for the recovery of the child. Father De Smet severely rebuked him for his unnecessary war, and then made a fervid prayer for the safety and return of the girl. Red Fish returned to his camp comforted, and as he entered his tepee the lost child bounded into his arms. She had eluded her captors and followed her father's trail to the post. The circumstance was by the Indians deemed miraculous, and they attributed it entirely to the medicine (prayer) of Father De Smet.

About this time (1850) eastern scientific people began to learn about the Bad Lands, and many men of note came out to visit and study that interesting region. The

Clay Buttes in the Bad Lands (Washabaugh County)

great men who have since then visited South Dakota, from General G. K. Warren to Theodore Roosevelt, are too numerous to mention.