A Brief History of South Dakota/Chapter 24
CHAPTER XXIV
THE PRICE OF GOLD
During the period from 1862 until 1875 the white settlements in South Dakota made little progress. Population was increasing somewhat, but farmers had difficulty in learning the way of the soil, and got but small return for their labor.
The prairie soil in a comparatively dry climate requires different methods of cultivation from the heavy clay soils of the more humid eastern states. The time of year when it should be plowed, the quantity and variety of seed to be sown, and the manner of cultivation of the growing crop are all different, but the new settlers of those early days did not quite understand these facts, and for a long time tried to farm in the same way their fathers had done in the eastern states. Only after long and painful experience did they work out methods adapted to our soil and climate. For instance, they had learned to make high beds or ridges in the vegetable gardens, on the top of which the crop was planted, and the cornfields were worked up in high ridges that the rain water might drain away. Here experience finally taught them to work their soil flat, so that all of the water falling may be husbanded for the benefit of the growing crop.
These first Dakota pioneers also were plagued with invasions of grasshoppers which came in great clouds and ate up their scanty crops. This occurred in five different years: 1863, 1864, 1867, 1874, and 1876. Since then the grasshoppers have made no ravages in the Dakota country.
The Indians behaved very well, after the close of the Red Cloud War, until, in violation of the treaty, the surveyors for the Northern Pacific Railroad began to extend the survey for that line through the reservation, along the south bank of the Yellowstone, and the government sent soldiers to protect the surveyors in their work. The Uncpapa Sioux were the wildest of the nation and as yet had come very little under reservation or agency influence, but chiefly roamed back in the buffalo country on the Powder and Rosebud rivers. They were much alarmed by the approach of the surveyors, and organized under Gall and Sitting Bull to resist the encroachments upon their land. There were several sharp encounters along the Yellowstone River, with a loss of but few men on either side.
In 1874 General George A. Custer was sent out from Fort Abraham Lincoln, on the Missouri River opposite Bismarck, with a force of twelve hundred soldiers, to make an examination of the Black Hills region. Custer did this without encountering any Indians until he reached the Custer Park in the Black Hills, when he came upon a small band who were there stripping lodge poles. These Indians were greatly alarmed at the approach of Custer's army in the heart of their reservation, and they hastened off with the news to their home camps on the Cheyenne River. The news flew rapidly among the Indians at the various agencies, and caused much excitement.
Custer found gold in the Black Hills, on the 2d day of August, and he immediately sent the report to army headquarters, whence it was published to the world, and men everywhere set out to enter the new eldorado. The army was instructed to keep all white men out of the Black Hills until a treaty had been negotiated with the Indians, and the Sioux were notified that no one would be allowed to enter their reservation until such a treaty was made. With this assurance the Indians sensibly decided to let matters take their course. The military used every means possible to keep the gold hunters out of the Hills, but many of them succeeded in entering, and the reports they sent out only served to increase the gold fever, and the determination of others to enter.
It was not until the autumn of 1875 that all of the Sioux people were summoned to meet in council at Red Cloud's agency to make a treaty for the sale of their lands. Senator William B. Allison, of Iowa, was the chairman of the commission sent out by the government to make such a treaty. Under the terms of the treaty of 1868, which had created the great Sioux reservation, it was provided that no part of that reservation should be sold or disposed of unless three fourths of all the adult male Indians interested in the reservation should sign the treaty of sale or relinquishment. Feeling certain that it would be impossible to get three fourths of the Indians to sign the treaty of sale, the commissioners decided not to ask the Indians to sell their lands at all, but to sell the right to mine gold and other metals in the Black Hills. Senator Allison, in opening the treaty council, said, "We have now to ask you if you are willing to give our people the right to mine in the Black Hills, as long as gold or other valuable metals are found, for a fair and just sum. When the gold or other valuable minerals are taken away, the country will again be yours to dispose of in any manner you may wish."
After nearly three weeks of counciling and bargaining and speechmaking the commissioners found it impossible to make any treaty whatever, upon what were deemed reasonable terms by the government. The Indians, too, had scattered until much less than the necessary three fourths remained at the council. Therefore, the council was broken up without accomplishing anything.
Immediately thereafter the army withdrew all opposition to the miners entering the Black Hills, and within a few months at least fifteen thousand men were hunting for gold upon the Indian lands. The Indians were alarmed and indignant. They believed their lands were to be taken from them without any payment whatever, and they resolved to organize a grand army and drive the invaders away. No one may say that theirs was not a brave and patriotic undertaking. They were to fight for their homes, their lands, and the graves of their kindred.
At once the young men began to slip away from the agencies and to assemble in great camps, near the Big Horn Mountains, in the buffalo country along the Powder, the Tongue, and the Rosebud. They were led by great war chiefs,—Crazy Horse, Black Moon, Gall, Inkpaduta, the brutal old Wakpekuta who had murdered the settlers at Spirit Lake,—and they were counseled and advised by Sitting Bull and other crafty medicine men. It was their purpose, when their plans had been perfected, to descend upon the Black Hills and drive out the miners. There is much dispute about the number of warriors gathered in these camps, but there certainly were not less than twenty-five hundred, and possibly there were thirty-five hundred.
The government sent word to these Indians to come in at once to their reservations and settle down as good Indians should, or they would be regarded as hostile and must suffer the consequences. A great campaign was planned against them. General Crook was to lead an army up from Fort Laramie, General Gibbon was to bring another column down from Fort Ellis, Montana, and General Terry was to lead a third division out from Fort Abraham Lincoln. The hostiles were to be caught between the three converging armies and crushed.
Crook was first to come in contact with the Indians. He met a large body of them, under Crazy Horse, on the Rosebud on the 17th of June, 1876, and a hard battle was fought. Crook suffered so seriously that he was compelled to return to his base of supplies, near old Fort Phil Kearney, and so his part of the campaign proved a failure.
Terry reached the Yellowstone at the mouth of the Rosebud on the 21st of June, and then sent General Custer up the Yellowstone to locate the hostile tribes, while he himself went on with his steamboat to the mouth of the Big Horn, to ferry Gibbon's column across. Custer went up the Rosebud until he found where the trail of the hostiles led over the divide, westward, into the valley of the Little Big Horn. There, on the 26th of June, he came upon the entire hostile camp.
Custer divided his force of about eight hundred men into three columns: one, under Captain Benteen, was sent across the valley of the Little Big Horn, south of the camp, to cut off a retreat in that direction; the second column, under Major Reno, was to attack the upper or south end of the camp, where it lay along the west bank of the Little Big Horn; and the third column, under Custer himself, went down the east side of the Little Big Horn, expecting to attack the north or lower end of the camp. Reno made the attack, and was quickly repulsed by overwhelming numbers. Though driven back, he made a junction with Benteen, and the two columns fortified for defense. Custer went down to the lower end of the camp and rode into an ambush, where his entire command of two hundred sixty-three men was destroyed. Benteen and Reno were besieged in their camp, and the Indians fought desperately until their ammunition was exhausted. Then they retreated into the Big Horn Mountains, broke up into little parties, and scattered over the Indian country, many of them returning to the agencies.
Terry arrived on the Custer battleground, on the Little 
Custer and the Battle of the Little Big Horn
Big Horn, the morning after the Indians left. The Indians, without ammunition, were unable to follow up the advantage they had gained, and the government at once threw a strong force into the field; but the Indians kept out of reach, and no engagements of any consequence were fought. The government sent to the various agencies and disarmed all of the Indians and took their horses away from them, leaving them quite helpless. Gall, Sitting Bull, and the most influential of the hostiles escaped into Canada.
In the fall (1876) the government sent out a new commission to treat for the cession of the Black Hills. Disregarding the provision of the treaty of 1868 which required the signatures of three fourths of all of the adult male Indians to any treaty which disposed of any of the lands, this commission went about from agency to agency and secured the signatures of only a few of the chiefs at each place. This treaty sold the Black Hills outright to the government, in return for which the government agreed to support the Indians until such time as they had progressed far enough to enable them to support themselves.
There has always been a dispute between the Indians and the white men about the terms in this treaty. Most of the Indians were present and heard Senator Allison tell them in 1875 that the whites wished only to buy the right to mine, and they never were called into council to hear any other provision discussed. The impression therefore went out, among the Indians, that the treaty of 1876 gave to the white men only the right to mine in the Black Hills, and did not sell any land. This is still a matter of much interest and discussion in the Indian camps, and the Indians in 1904 appointed a general committee to go to Washington and insist upon what they deem their rights.