The Louisiana Purchase vastly expanded the territory of the United States. However, it was not until after the War of 1812 that the government was able to send soldiers to build forts in the region, physically claiming the area for the U.S. As the soldiers moved into the frontier, they began to explore the regions nearby.
Military expeditions were a form of government-sanctioned exploration in Dakota. The military was often the first to open an area for exploration, even though scientific discovery may not have been their main objective. Often, military campaigns were a direct result of perceived hostilities by Native Americans or other nations (such as England). These expeditions were not only punitive in nature, but they often reshaped the cultural aspects of entire regions. The written accounts of these campaigns give us a greater idea of what Dakota was and how it compares to the Dakotas we know today.
By the early 1800s, an organized fur trade up and down the Missouri River, including the region of Dakota, had been firmly established. Relations between the traders and the Native Americans who lived here were fragile at best, and the area could be a dangerous place. In 1823, violence erupted on the northern Missouri when a group of men from the American Fur Company was attacked by Adriana warriors who were upset over a trade dispute. The United States government quickly stepped in, sending an expedition of 220 men from the 6th Infantry stationed at Fort Atkinson, near present-day Council Bluffs, to the region. This move established a solid military presence in the upper Missouri River region. Itt also began to create tension between natives and the growing tide of settlers who soon followed.
"The fall, as near as I could measure it, is 100 feet in 400 yards, and is made up of several perpendicular falls..." Captain Allen's Journal, 1844
As settlers began moving into the West, the military continued to play a larger role in Dakota. On March 2, 1833, President Jackson authorized the organization of the 1st Regiment of Dragoons, whose sole purpose was to patrol the uncharted lands. The Dragoons ranged the western frontier protecting, exploring, and establishing relations between the military and the Native Americans living in Dakota.
Captain James Allen of Company I, 1st Dragoons was stationed at Fort Des Moines, at the confluence of the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers. From this station, Allen did much exploring. On August 11, 1844, Allen, along with 56 men outfitted with food for a maximum of 70 days, was ordered to explore a large portion of Dakota Territory. He was to travel up the Des Moines River into Minnesota Territory, cross the region to the Missouri River, and then travel back through the area down to his post.
Allen's party explored the area around the St. Peter's River and then struck out for the Big Sioux River. On their journey they observed wildlife in abundance, with buffalo, elk and antelope being see above the mouth of the Big Sioux. Allen seemed to be wholly unimpressed with the Big Sioux River. He found evidence that the river had been considerably out of its banks, as much as "25 feet above its normal level," as they found great piles of driftwood and a flood plain that appeared to have seen recent action. However, on September 13, 1844, Allen and his men discovered the falls of the Big Sioux River, giving the first published account of them:
Sent out a party...and marched on down the river. In about twelve miles, came to a great picturesque fall...These falls present a remarkable feature of the river and country; the river, until now, running nearly due south, makes about the falls a bend to the west, and round to the northwest, and passes the falls in a due east course, and continues below in a northeast course for sixes miles, when it resumes its former direction. The rock of these falls is massive quartz, and is the first rock formation, or rock in place, that we have seen since we left the St. Peter's river...The fall, as near as I could measure it, is 100 feet in 400 yards, and is made up of several perpendicular falls - one 20, one 18, and one 10 feet. The rock...on the borders of the stream is split, broken, and piled up in the most irregular and fantastic shapes, and presents deep and frightful chasms, and extending from the stream in all directions. There is no timber here on the borders or bluffs, and only a little on a small island at the head of the rapids.
Allen continued down the river to its mouth and the Missouri River. On October 3 , he returned to Fort Des Moines, estimating he and his men had traveled 740 miles in 54 days.
What can be gleaned from Captain Allen's excursion into the area? Although others had explored the falls, Allen was the first to actually write down his observations of them and the Big Sioux River valley. Also, the map he made of their journey up the Raccoon River to the Lake of the Oaks then across to the Big Sioux River was invaluable. It added structure to a land that was filled with conjecture, making his expedition one of great importance.
Exploration into Dakota stopped during the 1860s when America fought its Civil War. After the war, a chain of forts was established through Dakota in an attempt to keep immigrants safe and to keep the Sioux west of the Missouri River. However, as the Sioux lost more and more land to settlers, hostility between the military and the Sioux increased. By 1874, the U. S. government was ready to make an "official" exploration of the Black Hills region, an area held sacred by the Sioux and granted to them by numerous treaties. Word that gold abounded in the Hills forced the government to officially explore the region.
To head up its exploration of the Hills, the government chose Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. Officially, Custer and his men were given the duties of exploring, mapping, and "discovering" gold in the Black Hills (even though gold was recorded as early as the 1850s by Gouverneur K. Warren). Accompanying the expedition were 110 wagons managed by 115 civilians, 300 cattle, and a large number of scouts. On the scientific end, Custer brought along geologist Newton Winchell, zoologist and paleontologist George Bird Grinell, and Captain William Ludlow to make maps and record the topography. The list of participants also included a botanist, two miners to conduct unofficial tests for precious metals, and a large contingent of newspapermen to report the findings of the expedition for the nation. Fred Power, a newspaperman with the expedition, reported. "The Col. will give the world a map of it in a few weeks afer getting in, giving the principal Butes Streams & c - & our friend Illingworth will furnish the finest of views that the country can afford." William Henry Illingworth was a photographer with the expedition. His photos have been a great source in determining the route Custer took through the Black Hills.
Custer's 1874 Expedition to the Black Hills was a great success for his reputation, but a tragedy for the Sioux people. The expedition did considerable work in mapping the region, and the scientists did a credible job of mapping the topography and charting the availability of good water, grass, and wood. However, the expedition started an excitement in the country for Dakota. Gold was officially "discovered", and miners and settlers began to flock to the area to get rich. This put immigrants into direct conflict with the Sioux. In 1876, a major war was fought in Dakota and Montana territories between the Sioux and the U.S. military, culminating with the battle of Little Big Horn in June of that year.
The three photos were taken by the W.H. Illingworth. The center photo shows the wagon trains of the expedition stretching two miles through the Castle Creek Valley and gives scale to the size of the group traveling with Custer. The bottom photo shows a group of soldiers holding a drinking party, assumedly while Custer was not present. Wine or champagne bottles fill the table and a box of cigars is also opened.
Unlike past military expeditions into the region, Colonel William S. Harney came to Dakota Territory as part of a military campaign against the Sioux, not as an explorer. Despite the reason for their presence, Harney and some of the men traveling with him became recorders of images, routes, and historical events. They also provided valuable information to the U.S. government and helped prepare the way for future exploration in Dakota.
Many white settlers had begun to move through the land of the Sioux, causing violence to erupt between the native peoples and the immigrants. As a result, in 1855 a major military drive was led by Harney against the Sioux. On August 24, Harney left Fort Kearny (Nebraska), and he and his men were soon engaged in battles against the natives. After defeating a band of Brule Lakota at Ash Hollow on the Blue Water Creek. Harney pushed his men on to Fort Laramie in present-day southeast Wyoming.
Leaving Fort Laramie, Harney and his men followed the Niobrara River to the White River towards Fort Pierre, where they would spend the winter. As he entered the Badlands, Harney noted that it was "a region of country very singular in its physical geography." He sheltered many men in tipis collected from the decimated village on Blue Water Creek. They arrived at Fort Pierre on October 20 without further incident. Their observations while traveling through the Badlands and southwest Dakota were a first for this region.
Harney's stay at Fort Pierre was a true test of the military's ability to survive the winter on the Plains. Joining him there for the winter were the men of the Company F, 2nd U.S. Infantry, which was under the command of Alfred Sully. When they arrived, Fort Pierre was in disrepair. The buildings had exceeded their usefulness and there was no forage or timber for miles around the post. Most of the men would have deserted had they anyplace to go. The winter was so cold that men could barely keep warm body parts exposed to the cold froze. Harney's show of strength during the hardest months of the year, while in the homeland of the Sioux, brought great prestige to his name.
What can be learned from Harney's expedition into the area? Harney traversed a new region of what would become South Dakota, giving us first-hand knowledge of the Badlands. He also showed the military could survive through a winter on the Northern Plains and his suggestions for better equipment, such as buffalo hide moccasins and shelter lodges, helped further military expeditions into the western part of Dakota.
Almost immediately after the United States government purchased the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned Captain Meriwether Lewis to lead an expedition through the newly aquired land. Lewis quickly set about obtaining men and supplies and asked Captain William Clark to help him guide the party. Lewis and Clark stared out on the Missouri River from St. Louis and headed north. Their first observations of Dakota came when they encountered the mouth of the Big Sioux River, where they learned about eastern Dakota and the Big Sioux River Basin. Pierre Dorian, a French fur trader who had lived among the Yankton Sioux for many years, described the region to Lewis and Clark. The following was recorded in the journals of the captains:
August 21, 1804: "Here began a range of bluffs which continued till near the mouth of the great Sioux river... This river comes in from the north, and is about one hundred and ten yards wide. Mr. Dorian, our Sioux interpreter, who is well acquainted with it, says that it is navigable upwards of two hundred miles to the falls, and even beyond... He also says, that below the falls a creek falls in from the eastward, after passing through cliffs of red rock; of this the Indians make their pipes... the banks of the creek are sacred, and even tribes at war meet without hostility at these quarries."
Even though Lewis and Clark did not explore the Big Sioux River, they obviously learned about the river and its falls during their expedition. The pipestone quarries in present-day Minnesota and their importance to the Sioux were also described. Throughout this region, Frenchmen working for the Corps of Discovery gave accounts of the widths and sources of many of the rivers Lewis and Clark passed by.
A Fur Trapper's Knowledge
French fur trappers had been using the Big Sioux River and other rivers for years as a source of furs and as a route for traveling northward. Many of these man had traveled these rivers years before Lewis and Clark came up the Missouri. Pierre Dorian, who was an interpreter with the Lewis and Clark expedition, had trapped this land before. Dorian married a Yankton Sioux woman around 1785. He was known by the Yanktons, was familiar with their customs, and therefore could act as an interpreter. Through persuasion, Lewis and Clark were able to secure his services, his qualifications being that Mr. Dorian, "had lived with that nation more than twenty years, and was high in their confidence." Thus, Lewis and Clark not only took on an interpreter, but an early explorer who already knew the lands not directly visible from the Missouri River.
The U.S. government was very interested in mapping and discovering Dakota. In 1838, Joseph Nicollet and John Charles Fremont found their way into Dakota. Unlike past expeditions that traveled to the area via the Missouri River, this particular party left from St. Paul, Minnesota and headed to the pipestone quarries. Evidence of their visit can still be seen on a rock where they carved their names.
© Siouxland Heritage Museums 2004