Showing posts with label Sitting Bull. Show all posts

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Historic value of power-line path knowingly ignored, professor claims

Published February 08, 2014, 10:46 PM

Historic value of power-line path knowingly ignored, professor claims

Rob Sand

Rob Sand, pictured above in a file photo, is a rancher and member of the Killdeer Mountain Alliance, which opposes a proposed power transmission line that will run about eight miles north of the town of Killdeer through the site of the 1864 Battle of Killdeer Mountain between the U.S. Army and Sioux Indians. He said the State Historical Society of North Dakota has done little to protect and preserve the site. Katherine Lymn / Forum News Service

Tom Isern
Map: Killdeer site

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Biologists worry proposed power line a threat to golden eagles

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FARGO – Call it the second Battle of Killdeer Mountain – a clash between growing power needs associated with the oil boom and preservation of what one historian calls the Gettysburg of the Plains.
It’s a clash the power company, Basin Electric Power Cooperative, tried to avoid by purposefully ignoring the historic significance of a portion of the path of a proposed new electric transmission line, according to a Fargo history professor who has a grant to study the area.
“I think omissions were made knowingly. That is my belief,” said Tom Isern, the historian-director of the Center for Cultural Heritage Renewal at North Dakota State University, of the company’s review of the site.
Isern also questions why the state agency charged with historic preservation – a recipient of a donation of more than $1 million from a group of which Basin Electric is a member – hasn’t been more involved in speaking out about the power-line plan.
History long known
The Battle of Killdeer Mountain saw a huge engagement between the U.S. Army and Sioux Indians in a punitive attack by 2,200 soldiers against a native village encampment of 1,500 in 1864.
A state historic site located a half-mile north of the proposed transmission line commemorates the battle, which involved Sitting Bull and Gall as young warriors and is seen as a prelude to Custer’s defeat at the Little Bighorn in 1876.
The rugged Killdeer Mountains once were considered for inclusion in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and were proposed as a freestanding national park by a prominent group of North Dakotans in 1919.
The National Park Service in 2010 noted the historical significance of the Killdeer Mountain Battlefield area, one of five Civil War-era battle sites in North Dakota it said are likely eligible for designation on the National Register of Historic Places.
Yet a cultural resources review by Basin Electric, which is proposing the $350 million transmission project, omitted mention of the sprawling battlefield, which the Park Service said could cover 17,340 acres, an area of roughly 36 square miles highlighted for further study.
The proposed power line route, which skirts the south side of the Killdeer Mountains in Dunn County, would run eight miles through the study area.
The battlefield omission came despite the fact that the consultant whose firm conducted the review twice earlier had publicly noted the area’s historic and archeological significance – even telling state oil and gas regulators of the National Park Service report.
“The excellent condition of these landscapes where U.S. Army and American Indian combatants fought provides a unique opportunity – all five of North Dakota’s Civil War battlefields could be protected completely and permanently,” the Park Service said.
The Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program noted, however, that “little effort has been made to formally protect these historic places,” and said rapid energy development made the Killdeer Mountain site the most threatened in North Dakota.
Isern calls the review “shoddy” and deliberately incomplete to avoid controversy that could jeopardize the transmission project.
He also said he wonders whether a $1.3 million gift from Touchstone Energy Partners, of which Basin Electric is a member, might have muzzled the State Historical Society of North Dakota, which is charged with historic preservation, on the issue.
A “chain of evidence,” including a letter and legislative testimony by the consultant who headed Basin Electric’s flawed cultural resources review, led Isern to conclude the omission was deliberate.
“I no longer believe mistakes were made,” he said.
A Basin Electric spokesman acknowledges that the consultant knew of the 2010 National Park Service report recommending preservation of the battlefield area, and could not provide an explanation for the area’s omission in the document listing areas of concern.
In written comments to both state and federal regulators reviewing the transmission project, Isern has called for preservation of the entire battlefield area, believed to be the site of the largest clash between the Army and American Indians.
The State Historical Society of North Dakota, which includes the State Historic Preservation Office, has not called for the transmission line to avoid the battlefield area.
It did, however, reach an agreement with Basin Electric to move a planned substation outside the battlefield area and to provide a “viewshed” study to show how the transmission line would alter the landscape.
Basin also agreed to perform a metal detector survey along the transmission line route in the battlefield area, with the aim of identifying any battlefield-related artifacts.
Those steps don’t go far enough to protect what Isern regards as North Dakota’s most significant historic site. The Center for Cultural Heritage Renewal, which Isern heads, received a grant from the National Park Service to study the Killdeer Mountain Battlefield area.
“This is trivializing the whole thing,” he said. “The problem is we’re building a physical structure on the battlefield,” he added, referring to towers that will support the transmission lines. “This is the Gettysburg of the Plains.”
The project is still seeking permit approval, both from federal and state officials. The company hopes to start construction later this year.
Filings omitted concern
The proposed route of Basin Electric’s proposed 197-mile transmission line first became known to the public Aug. 23, 2013, in a letter to the editor of the Dunn County Herald from a nearby landowner.
Basin Electric filed a letter of intent to build the transmission line, from its Antelope Valley station northwest of Beulah to its Neset substation on Dec. 5, 2011.
Representatives of Basin Electric repeatedly have said the cooperative first became aware of Isern’s planned study of the Killdeer Mountain Battlefield area Aug. 27, when one of its executives received a call from the State Historic Preservation Office.
But Basin Electric’s spokesman acknowledges that its cultural heritage consultant, Kimball Banks of Metcalf Archaeological Consultants, knew of the National Park Service’s 2010 report highlighting the battlefield’s importance and eligibility for preservation.
In fact, Banks wrote a letter to the North Dakota Industrial Commission dated Nov. 28, 2012, warning oil and gas regulators that inadequate management of oil development in the Killdeer Mountains could adversely impact “archaeological and historic sites important in and unique to North Dakota’s heritage.”
Also, on Feb. 7, 2013, Banks testified before lawmakers on behalf of a proposed $250,000 study, supported by state historic preservation officials, of the Killdeer Mountain Battlefield area, which has never been extensively surveyed despite its importance.
“This has national significance as well as state,” Banks said, according to legislative minutes.
Banks declined to be interviewed about why, since he knew of the historical significance of the Killdeer Mountain Battlefield, he neglected to mention it in the cultural resource report for Basin Electric. He referred questions to Basin.
Curt Pearson, the Basin spokesman, acknowledged that Banks knew of the National Park Service’s interest in preserving the Killdeer Mountain Battlefield area, but could not explain why Basin Electric’s filings for the project omitted noting the sprawling area as one of potential concern.
Basin Electric will use poles consisting of a single column to support the transmission wires, instead of the more obtrusive double-poled H-posts, typically five to seven per mile, Pearson said. The posts will be rusty, to blend in better with the background, he said.
So far, a metal detector survey of the battlefield area found two lead “Minnie balls” and a copper bullet cartridge that might be related to the battle, but cannot be precisely dated. Shovel tests at two locations found chipped stone debris.
Fern Swenson, the state’s deputy historic preservation director, said the state is fulfilling its responsibilities, although it has not sent representatives to testify at hearings, and has not been outspoken about the area’s historical significance.
“We do our job as the State Historic Preservation Office,” Swenson said. “We follow the regulations. We’ve been part of the process.”
Site sacred to tribes
The Killdeer Mountains are held as sacred to the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes. The Medicine Hole atop Killdeer Mountain plays a crucial role in their origin stories.
The battlefield area also contains the graves of Dakota and Lakota Sioux who were killed in the fighting. Their graves, near the area of combat, are north of the planned transmission line.
For those reasons, the United Tribes of North Dakota last fall passed a resolution opposing further development that would disturb the Killdeer Mountain Battlefield site.
Calvin Grinnell, a curator for the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, said many of the tribes’ members are resigned to the likelihood that the transmission line will be built on the proposed route.
“It should be protected more,” said Grinnell, who serves as president of the State Historical Society of North Dakota. “It’s deserving of protection. That definitely is an area that is sacred to us.”
As a form of mitigation, Grinnell would like to see Basin Electric contribute resources to native cultural preservation programming, as coal mining has done.
“We’re kind of pragmatic about it,” Grinnell said. “If there’s something that’s going to go through, it’s going to go through.”
Rob Sand, who ranches in the Killdeer Mountains and is a member of the Killdeer Mountain Alliance, a preservation advocacy group, said the state was “negligent” when lawmakers last year rejected the proposed study of the battlefield area.
Sand doesn’t fault the State Historical Society of North Dakota for not being a more vocal advocate for preservation of the battlefield.
“I don’t think it’s their way to be advocates,” he said. “That can be political and can go either way. But their mission is protection and preservation.”

Readers can reach Forum reporter Patrick Springer at (701) 241-5522
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/426111/
http://www.prairiebizmag.com/event/article/id/17767/#sthash.RBvPce04.dpuf

Monday, September 9, 2013

Reviews of Chaky's Terrible Justice: Sioux Chiefs And U.S. Soldiers on the Upper Missouri, 1854-1868

Terrible Justice: Sioux Chiefs And U.S. Soldiers, A Review

Terrible Justice: Sioux Chiefs And U.S. Soldiers

A Review And Criticism Of An Otherwise Good Book

By Dakota Wind, The First Scout

Bismarck, ND – I recently picked up a copy of Doreen Chaky’s Terrible Justice: Sioux Chiefs andU.S. Soldiers on the Upper Missouri, 1854–1868. The first paragraph into the first chapter, Terrible Justice, I immediately determined that this wasn’t a narrative of the Plains Indians conflicts, but a serious study about what happened, when it happened and who was there. A narrative is rather like a travel writer’s attempt to take the reader there. The purpose of the narrative is to make the event easy to read, and something is lost in that style.

Chapters like The Battle of Fort Rice are lengthy and detailed. Nearly no soldier or Indian goes unnamed, and I almost felt I was reading Homer’s Iliad. I had previously read, and re-read Ben Innis’ Bloody Knife: Custer’s Favorite Scout for basic information about what Innis describes as a ten-day siege of Fort Rice, and pretty much leaves it at that. Chakey has gone back and scoured every known published source (The Frontier Scout, military orders for the day, muster roles, etc.) and has delivered the most complete telling of Sitting Bull’s assaults on a military fort. More than just a siege or stand-off, with Chakey’s version, one sees the battle as a battle.

Terrible Justice features maps by a Bill Wilson. Maps which have been pain-stakingly reconstructed from explorers’, traders’ and military maps to show where many of the Sioux (Dakota and Lakota) were known to be in the time period the book focuses on. One of Wilson’s maps even features a breakdown of Sioux tribes and their dialects.

I love maps. I love maps that showcase the Northern Great Plains. Wilson’s maps are detailed with battles sites and forts, place names and state lines, all the standard fare and more that one expects in a map of Dakota Territory. I can appreciate the time and detail that has gone into creating the two maps that are featured in Terrible Justice.

There are only two maps in all of Terrible Justice’s 408 pages, but the book could have used one more. I’m sure that there are resources out there, but the only book with a map – a single map too – that attempts to recreate the landscape as the Great Sioux Nation knew it, is Royal Hassrick’sThe Sioux, though not enough detail was put into his single map, only major waterways and major landmarks.

Wilson's first map which appears in Terrible Justice, on page 20.

I’m not tearing down Chakey’s book, nor Wilson’s maps, they’re both wonderful resources to have in your library collection. I’m just sighing at the lack of a map that have traditional native names associated with them. Wilson’s maps are only an indication of Western/American mentality, the landscape wherein the indigenous have been pushed out or wiped out and the landmarks renamed. The identity of the landscape is made over.

In the chapter hauntingly titled Babies On The Battlefield, Sibley’s 1863 campaign against the Dakota and Lakota covers the running conflict from Big Mound through Dead Buffalo Lake through to Sibley’s final conflict with the Sioux at Apple Creek between present-day United TribesTechnical College and the University of Mary. The running conflict is concisely covered in just two pages.

In this same chapter is the account of Ta’Oyáte Duta’s (His Red Nation; aka Little Crow) sonWówinapĥe (A Place Of Refuge) who reported that his father had attempted to find allies among the Arikara, Hidatsa and Mandan Nation at Fort Berthold, but they were in turn attacked for their recruitment effort. Wówinapĥe also shared with Sibley’s men that his father had attempted to reach out the Chippewa up at the Turtle Mountains and find allies, but too was unsuccessful finding friends there. I had only ever heard this story as oral history from Humanities Scholar Jerome Kills Small.

This same chapter, Babies On The Battlefield, goes into far more detail about Sully’s campaign which culminated at Whitestone Hill. Chakey’s strength is entirely academic and shows in this retelling. The only other place one may find a more complete account of the Whitestone Hill conflict is Clair Jacobson’s Whitestone Hill, the only difference here is that Jacobson includes as much of the native perspective of the conflict as well as the Sully’s and his command’s accounts.

On page 176 the reader learns the awful reasoning behind the chapter’s title. Soldiers’ accounts of the days display a kill and let die philosophy in their carnage. Shooting dogs who drug travois carrying babies were shot, and if they missed, the baby was at rest. The harsh use of language clearly dehumanizes the Sioux, and that’s the sad truth of Sully’s campaign. Babies who were found, the innocent survivors, were given to the women prisoners.

There is no mention of the two pictographic accounts of the Whitestone Hill conflict. The absence of these two recorded primary documents is a resounding silence, the Lakota and Dakota remain voiceless without the inclusion of these firsthand accounts.

My concerns are few (maps and pictographs) but I feel important. Chakey’s Terrible Justice deserves a spot on the bookshelf of the student of American History or Native American history. Footnotes rest at the bottom of nearly each page; a wonderful bibliography follows the conclusion of the book which takes the reader up to the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868.

http://thefirstscout.blogspot.com/2013/05/terrible-justice-sioux-chief-and-us.html

Terrible Justice: Sioux Chiefs and U.S. Soldiers on the Upper Missouri, 1854-1868, by Doreen Chaky

Originally published on HistoryNet.com. Published Online: May 31, 2013

Terrible Justice: Sioux Chiefs and U.S. Soldiers on the Upper Missouri, 1854–1868, by Doreen Chaky, The Arthur H. Clark Co. (an imprint of the University of Oklahoma Press), Norman, 2012, $39.95.

Moving from an early conflict "sparked by a cow" through the turbulent creation of the Great Sioux Reservation, North Dakota journalist and scholar Doreen Chaky crafts a thoroughly detailed and mutually sympathetic overview of the Sioux conflict before 1870. More specifically, she explores major conflicts between the Sioux and U.S. soldiers during the 1850s and 1860s, and also delves into the relationships between the various Sioux bands themselves. It is an enlightening work that encompasses a range of both time and people that has rarely, if ever, been so thoroughly explored.

Chaky relies on countless primary source materials (such as journals and military records from the time), which are comprehensively footnoted in a list spanning more than 25 pages. Such detail might cross the line into obtuse academia, but in Chaky's hands one gets the sense of being immersed in the culture and environment of the times.

Consider, for instance, this gem taken from the report of General Henry H. Sibley during his 1863 campaign, and attributed to Sergeant J.W. Burnham: "The lonely lake, the rocky hills, the naked, yelling Indians, soon discomfited and flying, the battery of four guns all doing their best, the charging cavalry with sabers drawn, the infantry following, while over all was the darkened sky, the heavy rolling thunder and the incessant lightning with but little rain."

The book is a deserving finalist for two awards, including the 2013 Spur Award from the Western Writers of America, and the Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Martin A. Bartels

http://www.historynet.com/terrible-justice-sioux-chiefs-and-u-s-soldiers-on-the-upper-missouri-1854-1868-by-doreen-chaky.htm

Great Plains Studies announces Distinguished Book Prize finalists
Released on 03/18/2013, at 2:00 AM
Office of University Communications
University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Lincoln, Neb., March 18th, 2013 —

The Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska has announced

the finalists for this year's Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize.

The two books selected by a panel of judges are:
"Blackfoot Redemption: A Blood Indian's Story of Murder, Confinement, and

Imperfect Justice" by William E. Farr (University of Oklahoma Press); and "Terrible

Justice: Sioux Chiefs and U.S. Soldiers on the Upper Missouri, 1854-1868" by

Doreen Chaky (University of Oklahoma Press).

In "Terrible Justice," Chaky gives one of the first complete accounts of Sioux

conflict before 1870. Chaky examines the 1850s and 1860s, the period between

the first major conflicts between the Sioux and U.S. soldiers and the creation of the

Great Sioux Reservation. The book also looks at the relationships between

different bands of Sioux and how they were affected by conflict. Chaky is a

freelance journalist and independent scholar. She resides in Williston, N.D.

In "Blackfoot Redemption," Farr reconstructs the events of a Canadian Blackfoot

called Spopee who shot and killed a white man in 1879. Through the narrative, he

reveals a larger story about race and prejudice as the transition to reservations

began. Farr is a senior fellow at the O'Conner Center for the Rocky Mountain West

and professor emeritus at the University of Montana in Missoula. He is the author of "Montana: Images of the Past and the Reservation Blackfeet, 1882-1945," among others.

The winner of the $5,000 cash prize will be announced April 26. The author will be

invited to travel to UNL to present a lecture on the topic of the book. Only

first-edition, full-length, nonfiction books published and copyrighted in 2012 were

evaluated for the award. Nominations were made by publishers or authors.

The Center for Great Plains Studies is an intercollegiate regional research and

teaching program. Its mission is to promote a greater understanding of the people,

culture, history and environment of the Great Plains through a variety of research,

teaching and outreach programs. For more information, contact the Center for

Great Plains Studies at 402-472-3082 or visit its website, http://www.unl.edu/plains.
Writer: Kaylene Nieland, Publications Specialist, Center for Great Plains Studies,

402-472-3985

http://newsroom.unl.edu/releases/2013/03/18/Great+Plains+Studies+announces+Distinguisok+Prize+finalists

Friday, August 30, 2013

The Killdeer Mountain Battlefield Landscape

08/30/2013

The Killdeer Mountain Battlefield Landscape

By Aaron Barth

The Bismarck Tribune’s graphic of the proposed route through what essentially is the Gettysburg of the Northern Great Plains, the Killdeer Mountain Battlefield from 1864. Historical actors involved included Sitting Bull, Inkpaduta, Gall, Sully, among others.

This morning a story broke in The Bismarck Tribune on a proposed transmission line route directly through the core area of the Killdeer Mountain Battlefield. North Dakota State University’s Center for Heritage Renewal, led by Professor Tom Isern, responded with the following media release:

Aug. 30, 2013
Media Advisory
The Center for Heritage Renewal at North Dakota State University is preparing a submission for the North Dakota Public Service Commission hearing in Killdeer on Sept. 4. The subject is an electrical power transmission line and substation proposed to be built, by Basin Electric, in the core area of the Killdeer Mountain Battlefield. The topic has been covered by North Dakota media, starting yesterday.
The Center for Heritage Renewal was established to identify, preserve and capitalize on the heritage resources of North Dakota and the northern plains. One of the center’s objectives is to assist state agencies, private organizations and the people of the state and region in generating prosperity and quality of life from heritage resources. Another objective is to provide expertise and action in the fields of historic preservation and heritage tourism.
The center recognizes the efforts of Basin Electric to support regional development but is concerned that the environmental impact statement for the project takes no cognizance of the historical significance of Killdeer Mountain.
The center has signed a contract with the National Park Service to survey and study the Killdeer Mountain Battlefield, which the park service has identified as a significant Civil War-era site in North Dakota. The contract is with the American Battlefield Protection Program of the National Park Service.
Killdeer Mountain was the chosen ground on which Dakota and Lakota fighters, including Inkpaduta and Sitting Bull, confronted the Northwest Expedition, commanded by General Alfred Sully, on July 28, 1864. This was the largest military engagement ever to take place on the Great Plains of North America, and a crucial episode in the Dakota War of 1862-1864.
University Distinguished Professor Tom Isern, founding director of the center, observes, “Killdeer Mountain is the Gettysburg of the Plains. It is, arguably, the most significant historic site in all of North Dakota.”
Isern is available to discuss this issue. He can be reached at 701-799-2942

More to come…

http://theedgeofthevillage.com/2013/08/30/killdeer-mountain-battlefield-landscape/

Friday, August 16, 2013

The Great Victory at Battle of Apple Creek, 150 Years Later

Dakota Wind

A view from the top of Pictured Bluff looking northwesterly towards Sibley Park, which is where Camp Slaughter once stood.

The Great Victory at Battle of Apple Creek, 150 Years Later

Dakota Wind

August 16, 2013

TheMníšoše, Missouri River, moves determinedly along the ancient valley it has carved over thousands of years. The river flows in the very heart of the Great Plains, in fact, aside from the wind it’s a defining feature of the prairie steppe. ItsLakȟótaname means “The Water A-stir” in reference to its muddy stirred up appearance in historic times. Commercial traffic on the river in the nineteenth century came to call it “The Big Muddy.”

Tȟaspáŋla Wakpála, Apple Creek, meanders along its own course from a field north and east of present-day Bismarck, North Dakota. The Menoken Indian Village rests along the quiet creek, a silent witness to trade in what archaeologists call the Late Woodlands period. The creek’s name refers to the tree that bears the tiny edible thorn apple.

Where theTȟaspáŋla Wakpálaconverges withMníšošeisMayá Itówapi, Pictured Bluff. There, along the bluff are caves where the sediment is layered in colors. A testament to the changing climate throughout the ages of the world to the geologist, but to theLakȟóta, it was a place to gather natural yellow and red pigments to create paint.

There was a conflict between thePȟadáni(Arikara) and theIháŋktȟuŋwaŋna(Yanktonai) in the 1830s. According to the John K. Bear winter count (a mnemonic pictographic device) the year is recorded asČhaŋnóna na Pȟadáni ob thi apá kičhízapi, The Wood-Hitters (a band of theIháŋktȟuŋwaŋna) fought with the Arikara.

TheWaŋkíya Ťho, Blue Thunder, winter count correlates this event at a Dakota winter camp located belowČhaŋté Wakpá, Heart River. According to Blue Thunder, the assailants are variously identified as Arikara, Mandan, or Assiniboine. The Mandan Indians have the Foolish Woman winter count, and they record that they destroyed fifty lodges. TheTȟatȟaŋka Ska, White Bull, winter count has that winter asWičhíyela waníyetu wičhákasotapi, the Yanktonai were almost wiped out that winter.

The John K. Bear winter count also mentions the Dakota Conflict in its 1863 entry:Isáŋyatí wašíčuŋ ob okȟíčize, the Santee warred with the whites. The Minnesota Dakota conflict is also reflected in the Red Horse Owner, Roan Bear, and Wind winter counts.

The fight between the two tribes paled in comparison when in 1863, General Sibley and his command of about four thousand soldiers engaged theDakȟótaandLakȟótapeople in a running battle lasting two weeks, from Big Mound (near present-day Tappen, North Dakota) to Pictured Bluff.

InTȟatȟáŋka Íyotake’s,Sitting Bull’s, own pictographic account, he placed himself at Big Mound where he rode into Sibley’s camp, stole a mule, and counted coup. It is almost entirely certain that if this great leader was at the beginning of the running battle, he was there to the end at Pictured Bluff.

The running battle began as a masterful retreat on July 24, 1863, across hilly terrain in a sinuous line back and forth across streams. This constant crossing, in effect, caused Sibley to lag behind enough for theDakȟótaandLakȟótato gain enough lead time that the women, children, and elders could navigate their crossingwaŋna hiyóȟpayATȟaspáŋla Wakpála hená Mníšoše, where the Apple Creek converges with the Missouri River.

That critical crossing came on July 29, 1863. Theoyáte, people, abandoned theirthiíkčeka, lodges, on the broad flood plain of theMníšoše. A thousand lodges encircled two little lakes, sloughs in later years. They crossed theMníšošein as many as five places below Pictured Bluff. The warriors rallied together, perhaps under the leadership ofTȟatȟáŋka ÍyotakeorPhizí(Gall), and took the high ground a-top Pictured Bluff.

This was taken from a sandbar south of Sibley Park looking southeast towards Pictured Bluff. This is where some of the Dakota and Lakota people crossed. (Dakota Wind)

The women, children, and elders who made a successful crossing signaled the warriors with flashes of sunlight using trade mirrors. The warriors in turn, signaled back to their loved ones then they turned their attention to Sibley’s command. There is no exact number of warriors, but if there were a thousand lodges, then there was at least one able-bodied man or warrior per lodge. Using this projection, the warriors were outnumbered four-to-one.

Sibley and his men arrived on the scene, July 29, 1863, to witness flashes of light in communiqué to those in safety across the river. The general struck camp and named it “Camp Slaughter” after a doctor in his command. Over the course of the next few days, Sibley could not take the hill and some of his men were ambushed in the middle of the night. The morale of his soldiers suffered and on July 31, withdrew his men from the field when the enemy seemingly disappeared.

The Apple Creek Conflict is the only fight in the Punitive Campaigns of 1863 and 1864 in which theDakȟótaandLakȟótachose the battlefield, met their aggressor, and held them off until they withdrew. This clear victory became entirely overshadowed by the tragedies ofIŋyáŋsaŋ(Whitestone Hill) andTȟáȟča Wakútepi(Killdeer), and the victory ofPȟežísluta, the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.

Susan Kelly Power, an esteemeduŋčí(grandmother) of theIháŋktȟuŋwaŋna Dakȟóta, enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and great-granddaughter of Chief Two Bear, has the oral tradition that places three warriors there at the Apple Creek Conflict: Callous Leg, Little Soldier, and Has Tricks. There must certainly be more warriors and oral traditions amongst theIŋyáŋ Wosláta Oyáŋke, the community of Standing Rock, and others.

This picture was taken from Sibley Park looking southeast at Pictured Bluff. The University of Mary can be seen in the background. (Dakota Wind)

Today, a park named for General Sibley rests virtually where his Camp Slaughter once stood, where some of theDakȟótaandLakȟótamade their crossing. Bismarck has turned a battlefield into a place of recreation. There is no signage explaining the name of the park, nor of the conflict.

The landscape has been appropriated and development has erased the battlefield;DakȟótaandLakȟótaoral tradition recalls that the soldiers chased the people into the river.

On July 29, 2013, 150 years after Sibley’s command withdrew entirely from the Apple Creek Conflict, the anniversary passed in silence.

Dakota Wind is a theologian by education and a public historian by trade. He has been by turns a National Park Service ranger, a state park ranger, and a college instructor. Wind maintains the history blogThe First Scout.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Killdeer Mountains 150 Years Later: Rescuing the Fallen and Forgotten Veterans from the Past

By Aaron Barth

North Dakota State Capitol meeting room locations. Missouri River Room is #16, bottom-center of map.

Tomorrow, Thursday, February 7, 2013, at 1400 hours (CST), North Dakota Senator Connie Triplett (District 18, Grand Forks)will collaboratively sponsor SB 2341, a bill that seeks to carry out an archaeological and historic-archaeological study on the Killdeer Mountains in Dunn County, western North Dakota. I’ll be attending this hearing (it will take place before the Senate Government & Veteran’s Affairs Committee in the Missouri River Room), and Triplett has circulated an e-mail asking historians, landowners, archaeologists, Natives and others for testimonies to support this bill. The Killdeer Mountains figure into our nation’s history and the US-Dakota Wars that spanned from 1862 in the Minnesota River Valley, and carried on through 1864 at Killdeer Mountains in western North Dakota.

Taken from the cover of Robert W. Larson, “Gall: Lakota War Chief” (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007).

What we know right now about Killdeer from 1864 is limited (the State Historical Society of North Dakota has a nice and thoughtful write up of it here), and further archaeological and historical research is needed. It was an action between the Union Army and various Dakota nations, and some key players involved were Sitting Bull, Inkpaduta, Gall (among others), and General Alfred Sully and his Union soldiers. In many ways, just as this nation recognizes and respects fallen Union and Confederate combatants and non-combatants, this nation owes it to honor the Dakota soldiers and non-combatants killed in Dakota Territory during the Civil War. To extend this honor requires and necessitates a deliberate and culturally sensitive systematic archaeological and historical study like the one proposed in SB 2341. We understandably honor Americans that have fought and died in 21st century warfare, and we ought to also be honoring and rescuing those fallen and forgotten from the Killdeer Mountains from July 1864.

Note: according to Sioux County Veterans Service Officer Roster, today in 2013 Standing Rock has a veteran population of 357.
http://theedgeofthevillage.com/2013/02/06/killdeer-mountains-150-years-later/

Fallen & Forgotten Veterans Of The Killdeer Mountain Conflict

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2013

Fallen & Forgotten Veterans Of The Killdeer Mountain Conflict

A painting of the Killdeer Mountain Conflict of 1864 by Carl Boeckman.

1863 Killdeer Mountain Conflict: 150 Years Later

Rescuing The Fallen & Forgotten Veterans From The Past

By Aaron Barth, The Edge Of The Village

Bismarck - Tomorrow, Thursday, February 7, 2013, at 1400 hours (CST), North Dakota Senator Connie Triplett (District 18, Grand Forks)will collaboratively sponsor SB 2341, a bill that seeks to carry out an archaeological and historic-archaeological study on the Killdeer Mountains in Dunn County, western North Dakota. I’ll be attending this hearing (it will take place before the Senate Government & Veteran’s Affairs Committee in the Missouri River Room), and Triplett has circulated an e-mail asking historians, landowners, archaeologists, Natives and others for testimonies to support this bill. The Killdeer Mountains figure into our nation’s history and the US-Dakota Wars that spanned from 1862 in the Minnesota River Valley, and carried on through 1864 at Killdeer Mountains in western North Dakota.

Sitting Bull, great Hunkpapa Lakota leader, was present at Killdeer Mountain when General Sully decided to attack. The Hunkpapa had nothing to do with the Minnesota Dakota Conflict of 1862. Sitting Bull was among the leaders who took the Lakota west into Elk River country (Little Missouri today) in an attempt to escape an unwarrented attack. He never forgave the Union for the needless death of innocent women and children.

Pizi, or Chief Gall, led the Dakota and Lakota in a running battle from General Sibley at the conflicts of Dead Buffalo Lake, Stoney Lake and the Conflict at Apple Creek in 1863. Gall was present at the Killdeer Mountain Conflict and assisted the Lakota in a run west to Elk River (Little Missouri River) to escape Sully's advances.

Note: according to Sioux County Veterans Service Officer Roster, today in 2013 Standing Rock has a veteran population of 357.

Note: It is estimated that perhaps 150 Dakota and Lakota lost their lives at the Killdeer Mountain Conflict. The Dakota and Lakota would say, "Wokiksuya lo," "Remember This."
http://thefirstscout.blogspot.com/2013/02/fallen-forgotten-veterans-1863.html