NORWEGIANS AT THE INDIAN FORTS ON THE MISSOURI RIVER DURING THE SEVENTIES

Abstract

NORWEGIANS AT THE INDIAN FORTS ON THE MISSOURI RIVER DURING THE SEVENTIES By Einar Haugen The little chapter of history herewith presented casts some light on the part that Norwegian- Americans have played in the building of the United States. The subject, to the writer's knowledge, has never before had attention, and the narrative is fragmentary and incomplete, for it depends largely on oral narration and imperfect recollection. These very recollections, however, reveal the psychological effect of the frontier on the young Norwegian farmers who had immigrated. They came from the countryside and were looking for more and better farm lands; in the interval many of them were forced to become frontiersmen. Their work at the forts needs to be seen against the double perspective of their origin in Norway and of their eventual fate in America. It will be remembered that these men were contemporaries and near neighbors of the characters described by O. E. R0lvaag in Giants in the Earth . SOUTH DAKOTA AND THE INDIAN FORTS The first habitations built by white men in South Dakota were the fur-trading posts. Before 1800 fur traders had penetrated the region and, during the first half of the nineteenth century, they had carried on extensive operations. Towards the middle of the century fur-bearing animals were fast disappearing, and in 1855 the American Fur Company was glad to sell Fort Pierre to the government at a high price. The war department wished to establish a strong fort at this point on the Missouri in order to protect Overland travelers to California against the Indians. In the 89 90 STUDIES AND RECORDS autumn of 1855 General Harney arrived with an army of one thousand men. He found the fort utterly inadequate: his men suffered cruelly during the hard winter that followed . In the summer of 1856 Harney selected a new site, 213 miles farther down the river. The new post was named Fort Randall for Colonel Daniel Randall, paymaster of the United States army. Meanwhile prospective settlers cast longing eyes on the rich soil of Dakota, which still belonged to the Indians and hence was closed to white men. After long negotiations with the Sioux tribes of Dakota, a treaty was signed at Washington on April 19, 1858, between Charles E. Mix, United States commissioner of Indian affairs, and a group of Yanktonai Sioux headed by the friendly chief Struckby -the-Ree. In this treaty the Indians released all lands between the Big Sioux and the Missouri except a reservation of about four hundred thousand acres in Charles Mix County. The treaty was ratified by Congress early in 1859, but the Yanktons were not induced to agree to it until July 10, when the lands were finally opened. Immigration began even before the law permitted, and the signing of the treaty brought a large additional influx of settlers. In the years that followed many similar treaties were made, treaties in which the Indians signed away one piece of land after another in return for guarantees of reservations and promises by the government that they would be fed and clothed until they could support themselves. In 1861 Dakota Territory was created by Congress, and South Dakota was well on its way to statehood. The Yanktonai Sioux were for the most part loyal to these agreements, but many of the tribes were dissatisfied and angered over the white encroachments. The first notable conflict, the Sioux War of 1862, took place in Minnesota. After this outbreak was suppressed, it was decided to remove the Sioux of Minnesota to the Missouri River. In 1863 AT THE INDIAN FORTS 91 Colonel Clark W. Thompson took charge of the removal, and for him a new fort on the Missouri River was named. In the same year General Alfred Sully built old Fort Sully near the present site of Pierre. Three years later, this fort was abandoned because of the unhealthfulness of its location , and new Fort Sully was built thirty miles farther up the river. This was perhaps the most famous of all the Missouri River forts in South Dakota; it was the headquarters of a regiment and played an important part in the subsequent Indian...