After Fort Kearny - A Momentary Peace

Fresh army troops on the Bozeman Trail didn't intimidate the Sioux.  In June 1867, Red Cloud felt strong enough to try an attack on Fort Kearny.  With over 1000 warriors, they rode toward the fort.  Along the way they encountered a 36 man army work detail under Captain James Powell.  The army men were armed, fearing such an attack, and 32 of the men made it to shelter behind wagon boxes.  For four and one half hours, they fought on until reinforcements arrived.  The "Wagon Box Fight" as it was called, took place on August 2nd, after which Red Cloud decided to postpone the attack on Fort Kearny.

As it turned out, the attack never happened as growing opinions in Washington wanted to abandon Bozeman Trail.  The coming of the railroad made it unnecessary.  Red Cloud was willing to talk peace only if the government agreed to leave the outposts in Sioux country.  The government yielded and in spring of 1868 the forts were ordered abandoned.  Red Cloud burned Fort Kearny to the ground.

In November, Red Cloud rode to Fort Laramie to sign a peace treaty which gave the Sioux the Black Hills and the right to hunt in the Powder Ridge region.  Both regions would be forbidden to white exploitation.  This seemed satisfactory to both sides...at least for the moment.

By the end of 1868, the Union Pacific Railroad had intruded into Wyoming and new towns were springing up along the tracks.  Six years later, Custer and his 7th Cavalry rode into the Black Hills reportedly to seek a site for a military post, but in reality to check out rumors of gold in the area.  That led to a rush into Indian Territory and once more the treaty signed was worthless. 

In a last effort to protect their lands, the Sioux and a few northern Cheyenne began to gather warriors - for the last stand.  Not only for Custer but for the Indians as well.

Next time...The Last Stand
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On December 18, 1778, the English explorer Captain James Cook becomes the first European to discover the Hawaiian Islands when he sails past the island of Oahu. Two days later, he landed at Waimea on the island of Kauai and named the island group the Sandwich Islands, in honor of John Montague, who was the earl of Sandwich and one his patrons.

Vacation

Before we leave the Black Hills I would like to invite to grab a copy of a brand new book (at least at my library) called Black Hills by Dan Simmons published by Little Brown and Co 2010.  It is the fictional story of a young Sioux boy (Black Hills) who is there at Custer's death, and as the story unfolds you will learn not only more about Custer, but about the Sioux customs and beliefs.  A great story.

BTW Simmons makes a great point about the contrasts of Custer and asks you the question:
"Was he a megalomaniac fool who manage to get men, relatives (his nephew and brother in law were also killed that day along with 250 men) and himself killed through sheer arrogance and stupidty?

or did he die following orders in a valiant attack on the largest concentration of hostile Indian warriors in the history of our nation warfare against Indians?

In read the other day that Custer's wife Elizabeth later asked if the white man was right in what happened to the Indians?!

It's your decision...I am taking a little vacation.  Be back soon :)

After the Gold Rush...

Once the Sioux Confederacy lost the Black Hills, life was said to be safer.  Steamboats ran again to Fargo and relations with the Indians had relaxed so much that photos exist of groups of Indian and settlers boys having snowballs fights in Fargo.

After the gold rush was over, the Black Hills became famous for hunting grounds...how ironic.  Makes you wonder why the Indians and settlers couldn't have peacefully lived together and why they had to destroy each other to keep the hunting ground?

This author happens to think that the white man was wrong to strip the lands of the Native Americans in pursuit of wealth, but that is a story for another time.  

Off to the Big Sky Country...next time.

In the End They Lost it All...

By this time it isn't hard to figure out that the Sioux Nation wasn't too happy.  Leaders like Red Cloud, Spotted Tail and Little Big Man were legendary in their attempts to negotiate with the US Government to the stop the destruction of their sacred lands.

They were unsuccessful and headed to the West River country to gather for council warfare against Custer and the Calvary.

Scouts for Custer were considered enemies of the Sioux, Shoshone and Crow, some 300 in all.  General Crook (great name for this :) who was to guard the French Creek diggings from prospectors, was treated to a war dance by the Shoshone.

The Sioux Confederacy collapsed  and Crazy Horse, the greatest of the Sioux warriors, surrenders to Crook (you have to appreciate the irony) in May 1877. Crazy Horse was killed shortly thereafter in a riot at Fort Robinson due to a "misunderstanding".  His grave is said to represent the lowest of the Sioux history.

Next time...did it really make a difference?

Julesburg the Wicked Town

Julesburg had plenty of legends of its own wickedness.  Dating back to Jules Reni, the French Canadian trapper and founder, he reportedly poured a barrel of whiskey into a barrel of flour and called it whiskey bread :)

Julesburg was said to "never put a lid" on reckless, violent behavior of its citizens, and so it became the Black Hills choice for evil doings.

By 1876, 75,000 gold seekers were searching for gold in the Black Hills.  As newspapers of that period claimed, if you wanted to find your way to the gold diggings, just follow the campfire circles.

Interestingly enough, not all pioneers journeying into the Black Hills during the 1860s to 1870s were prospectors.  Many were simple homesteaders who perhaps preferred a cooler climate than the Plains...or maybe took a wrong turn!

Many came looking for ranches - building the familiar sod houses of the Plains in the beginning, cellars and finally log cabins.  Like their southern equals, those who settled the Black Hills were tough, determined and willing to sacrifice to carve a home for their families.

Next time...The Sioux Confederacy

Dead Man's Gulch

At Dead Tree Gulch, the discovery of gold in 1876 helped to swell the town to 25,000 in just a couple of short years.  Built between the canyon walls and the river, Deadwood as it became known was the metropolis of the Black Hills mining community.

With all the legends associated with Deadwood, it became labeled as the "town that too tough to die" after fire destroyed the town in 1879 and again by flood in 1883.

The most notable legend, of course, is the visit by Wild Bill Hickok, his last with his "Dead Man's Hand" of aces and eights in poker.

Next time...Black Hills wicked city

The Towns They Built

Like all history's gold rushes,  the Black Hills of Dakota had its popular "mining towns" full of anything but upstanding citizens.  In fact, the level of "no-gooders" in the Black Hills was so bad that local newspapers reported that the "number of recent boozy individuals in town could be none other than those Black Hills folks".

Cheyenne became a regional flophouse legend of it's own and is even immortalized in a ballad, popular during that time:

"The roundhouse of Cheyene is filled every night,
with loafers and bummers of most every plight,
On their backs are no clothes, in their pockets, no bills...
Each day they keep starting for the dreary Black Hills."

Cheyenne was known as a gambling establishment where legend says that George Devol, a Mississippi sharper known as the"Gold Room Dealer",  tried to cheat Wild Bill Hickok.  Bill demanded his losses back, wrecked the place and robbed the cash drawer before leaving the town.

Along with Laramie and Cheyene, other towns became starting points to the diggings, where gold rushers would stop to sleep and drink, rarely bragging about their promised finds of gold.  Next time....

The Secret is Out

Time passes and it is 1874, almost 25 years since the first gold was discovered in the Black Hills of Dakota without anyone knowing about it.  Then comes General George Custer and his 7th Calvary...

Custer had brought along a group of miners in his pursuit of the Indians in the West.  Miners, who discovered gold in the French Creek in 1874.  A year later, it had become official (what took George so long?) and  in 1875 gold was officially indentified in the Black Hills of Dakota by the government's geologist, Professor Walter Jenney.  After an entire generation of peaceful gold hunting - the secret was out and the Sioux's worst nightmare was about to begin.

By 1876, the "treaty" of the US Government was all but forgotten and the rush for gold was on once again.
Rapid City, Deadwood, Keystone...became filled with gold seekers looking for wealth.

A Chicago newspaper, the Inter-Ocean, broadcast the headlines: "GOLD - The Land of Promise - Glittering Treasure - Found at Last"  One newspaper called it "a real lallapaloozer" before it even begun.  (Where did words like lallapaloozer go? LOL)

There to meet the first group of seekers?  General Custer himself of course, but not exactly as they had planned.

Next time...Custer as the Government.

In the Black Hills of Dakota...

In the Black Hills of Dakota there lived a young boy named Rocky Racoon....oops that isn't right :)

The "Gold Rush" of the Black Hills of Dakota is a different story altogether from those of California and Nevada. Set in Sioux Indian territory, it was a secret that lasted an entire generation.

Back in 1848, Father DeSmet warned the Sioux that if the "white man found out about the yellow metal" in the Black Hills, the Indians would "lose their hunting grounds".  Six years later, Sir Gore (famed and wealthy British hunter) discovered that same yellow metal.  Since Gore was already rich and much more interested in hunting game than gold, he remembered the warning of gold discovery sacrificing his sacred hunting grounds.   So he simply gathered his expedition together and left before it became an issue with his men, taking the secret of the Black Hills gold with him back to merry 'ole England.

During the 1850s and 60s small frontier groups of settlers were successful in finding sizable quantities of gold in the Black Hills but for some reason not found in any other gold rush history, the secret carried only a few miles - leaving Dakota's Sioux annd the Great Manitou alone for over 20 years.

The US Government actually signed a treaty that declared the Black Hills holy and sacred land to the Indian tribes forever...sigh. Why is history full of treaties like this that no one ever meant? 

Next time...the secret gets out and the government plays dumb once again.