Those Native Americans living at or near the Whetstone Agency in the winter of 1870 learned from the whites that there were meetings in eastern cities addressed by speakers giving glowing accounts of the richness of the country occupied by the Sioux.  These individuals drew entirely upon their imagination for this information, exaggerating in proportion to their ignorance of the actual resources of the country.

They pictured a new Eldorado in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming, the Black Hills of Dakota, and the vast prairie between the Missouri River and the Black Hills.  Adventurers and enterprising settlers were asked to join expeditions which were to start later that spring.  Regardless of where they were coming from, they were urged to fight their way through to their destination in spite of the hostile Indians.

Settlement of the Midwest was greatly impacted and shaped by the railroads that served the area; however, in 1870 the option of reaching the territory occupied by the Sioux Indians was limited.  The Union Pacific had been completed from Omaha to California in 1869.  The Dakota Southern Railroad from Sioux City to Yankton was completed in 1872.  The railroad would not reach Bismarck until 1873 and Pierre in 1880.

Except for coming into the Great Plains at the time via the Union Pacific in southern Nebraska, settlers had to endure a tiresome and bumpy ride over one of the three main wagon roads into the area.  With the establishment of Fort Randall in 1856, the military regularly maintained one of the better roads in the area from Sioux City to Fort Randall along the eastern side of the river.  Because of other forts and agencies later being establish above Fort Randall, traffic either went up the river overland via what was described as a road or via a steamboat on the river.

Herbert Schell, in his History of South Dakota wrote:

“The failure of the government to maintain facilities for overland travel to the Montana gold fields left the Missouri River as the only means of ingress from the East during the Indian disorders.  Fort Benton, successfully reached by steamboat in 1859, was the terminal point for the river traffic.  Earlier, only a few boats had plied the upper Missouri; now Fort Benton became the destination of an ever-increasing number of boats that covered the entire 2,500 miles from St. Louis.”

Eighteen steamboats traveled up the river in 1863, loaded with tons of freight and thousands of passengers headed for the gold mines of Montana.  In 1866, thirty-one boats reached Fort Benton.  The largest number of boats to visit Fort Benton was thirty-nine in 1867.

In 1870, newspapers gave exaggerated and overblown accounts of the rich lands west of the Missouri to be opened up for farmers and ranchers.  Vast beds of coal and mines of silver and gold were also promised.  These matters were discussed in meetings by newspapers without the slightest reference to the rights and possessions of the Native Americans guaranteed by serious treaty with the Federal Government.

The same unsettled state of affairs as at Whetstone extended to all the agencies on the Missouri.  As the Indians became more and more clamorous and demonstrative, Agent Poole was determined to ask for a small detachment of troops to be permanently stationed at the agency.

He needed a means of controlling and arresting those white offenders who were eager to cause trouble.  Shortly guard troops arrived, and some months later a permanent garrison was established which had a beneficial effect on the agency.

There had been several Dakota blizzards during the winter which are peculiar to the Great Plains.  The air filled with fine particles of sharp, cutting ice and snow, which were driven and whirled with blinding force by the wind.  This obscured the sun and even objects but a few feet away.  The mercury at the same time was standing many degrees below zero.

The Indians had learned to remain in their lodges during these storms, or, if traveling, to move with their families and ponies into some sheltered ravine, and there await the subsidence of the storm.  The inexperienced traveler, who endeavored to keep on his journey, was blinded by the fury of the blast.  He lost his way and often perished of cold and hunger.

These storms usually lasted three days, and then the wind died down to a gentle breeze.  The sun shined warm and clear in a cloudless sky and those who lived on the land came out and looked over their losses of cattle and horses buried in show drifts.  They were dead from suffocation and cold.  They also had to mourn the loss of a too adventurous friend who had perished along the way.

In February there appeared a train of wagons from below, loaded with the long expected supplies.  The delay in their arrival diminished the effect of the charity.  Over six months of waiting from day to day would destroy the heart of the patient folks.

The blankets and cloth material was all of the best quality.  The quantity was large, and supplied all the articles which they had long needed.  Thirty-one thousand yards of canvas gave them new lodges, eight hundred blankets gave one to each warrior, seventeen thousand yards of calico gratified female wants, and fifty boxes of tobacco consoled the chiefs and warriors as they smoked and meditated.

For the first time their hearts were glad.

 

Author Author Clarence Shoemaker, originally published in the Gregory Times-Advocate on December 4, 2024