North Dakota Stories

After leaving Medora we headed east to the state capital. We spent a week along the banks of the Missouri River before continuing on our way to the state’s largest city. As we toured various sites near Bismarck and Fargo we followed a few interesting threads woven through North Dakota’s story.

The tapestry, for our purposes, begins with the Mandan. Originally from the Ohio River Valley the Mandan moved up the Missouri River into what is now North Dakota around a thousand years ago. The first documented contact with the Mandan was by the French in 1738. At the time it was estimated that 15,000 Mandans lived in villages scattered along the Missouri and Heart Rivers. Compared to the other tribes in the Great Plains the Mandan led a very settled existence.

For most of the year they lived in large earthlodges surrounding a central plaza on the bluffs above the rivers. Women tended crops (and tanned hides, and gathered seasonal foodstuffs, and maintained the homes, and cared for the young, and…) while the men hunted game (primarily bison) and defended the village. During the winters the Mandan left their wind-prone villages and moved to homes along the river bottom where the trees offered protection from the elements and a ready source of fuel.

Located along the highways of the day the Mandan soon became renowned as willing trade partners. Though they benefitted from the trade their interactions with so many different people put them in grave danger. In 1781 small pox was passed among the tribes of the Great Plains and the Mandan were not spared. They suffered severe losses and entire villages, like On-a-Slant and Chief Looking’s, were abandoned. Their numbers significantly depleted, the surviving Mandan moved north to the Knife River and settled near the friendly Hidatsa. The settlement consisted of three Hidatsa villages and two Mandan. In the face of the constant threats from the Lakota there was safety in numbers.

On October 20th of 1804 William Clark noted in his journal that the Corps of Discovery passed On-a-Slant and Chief Looking’s abandoned villages. Lewis and Clark were eager to find the friendly Mandan as they were under specific orders from President Jefferson to establish trade with them. The Corps found the residents at the confluence of the Missouri and Knife Rivers so welcoming that they built their winter camp, Fort Mandan nearby. It was a fateful decision that greatly improved the Corps chances of success.

It is entirely likely that without the generosity of the Mandan people the Corps of Discovery would have perished during that harsh winter. Instead, as Mandan Chief She-he-ke (White Coyote) told the Captains on November 1st, “If we eat you shall eat, if we starve you must starve also.” The Mandan and Hidatsa shared dried corn, squash, and meat with the Corps. While at Fort Mandan Lewis and Clark were approached by Toussaint Charbonneau, a French trader who was living with his Shoshone wife in one of the Hidatsa villages. If I recall correctly the Captains were not all that impressed with Charbonneau but they hired him anyway, primarily because of Sakakawea’s language skills.

Early in 1805 the expectant couple moved into Fort Mandan and on February 11th Captain Lewis helped deliver Sakakawea’s son, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. When the Corps of Discovery left Fort Mandan that April to continue their journey west Sakakawea carried baby Jean along. The presence of a woman and child assuaged the fears of the tribal peoples that the Corps encountered along the way. A group traveling with a mom and babe was clearly not a war party. On August 16th Sakakawea’s heritage played a crucial role when the expedition met with the Lemhi Shoshone in what is now Montana. Though she had been kidnapped by members of the Hidatsa as a young girl she recognized Chief Cameahwait as her brother. Through her relationship the expedition was able to procure the horses necessary to continue over the mountains and out to the coast.

When the Corps returned to the Knife River villages in 1806 the Charbonneau family again took up residence there (at least temporarily though the rest of Sakakawea’s story is shrouded in mystery). Interestingly, Chief She-he-ke, who was born at On-a-Slant village, accompanied Lewis and Clark back to Washington D.C. and met with President Jefferson.

It seems especially tragic to me that the Mandan (and by extension, Hidatsa) were doomed by their friendly contact with trappers, traders, and explorers. Though once 15,000 strong the Mandan were reduced to 1,600 by the 1781 smallpox outbreak. After the 1837 outbreak they numbered a mere 125! Roughly 90% of their population succumbed to the disease. Once again the Mandan moved to a new village and again, for protection they joined with the Hidatsa. A few years later the Fort Berthold Reservation was established for them by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. In 1862 their one-time enemies, the Arikara, joined them at Like-a-Fishhook village.

A year earlier the area that had once been their homeland became the Dakota Territory, part of the growing United States. In 1872 the railroad entered the region. At a Missouri River crossing near the center of what is now North Dakota a small town named Edwinton sprang up. In 1873 the name was changed to Bismarck in hopes of luring German investment. That same year Fort McKeen, a small infantry post was established on the bluff overlooking the ruins of On-a-Slant village to provide protection for the new rail line. By November the post had been expanded to include a cavalry and the name changed to Fort Abraham Lincoln. The fort’s first commander was none other than the peculiar Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer.

Though the Germanic money never quite panned out for Bismarck the discovery of gold made by Custer’s 1874 expedition through the Black Hills was a boon to the town. Bismarck soon became a prominent supply depot for prospectors traveling the “Custer Trail” in hopes of striking it rich. It should come as no surprise that Custer’s expedition was led by Arikara scouts, after all they knew the land like the back of their hand. As we discovered a few weeks ago, that expedition precipitated the Black Hills War. And, as you probably already know, it cost Custer and a great many others their lives. Unfortunately, three of the Arikara who were scouting for that ill-fated campaign were also killed in the Battle of Little Bighorn.

A little backstory for you: Custer barely evaded being kicked out of West Point, in the end graduating dead last in his class. If it hadn’t been for the outbreak of the Civil War and the dire need for men Custer would’ve been relegated to a desk job. He commanded surprisingly well during the war though by the end many of his men considered him a “vain dandy.” After the war Custer was courtmartialed for going AWOL. With substantial help from Major General Sheridan he was returned to duty and eventually assigned command of Fort Abraham Lincoln. Which should bring us up to date.

There are conflicting accounts of the June 1876 engagement that the Cheyenne call the Battle of Greasy Grass Creek, so the truth may never be known about Custer and his final actions. What is documented is Custer’s brazen statement that his regiment “could whip any Indian village on the Plains” as well as his refusal to wait for reinforcements and to take along Gatling guns. The outcome of the battle is not disputed—over half of the 7th Cavalry were killed. A few months later President Grant had this to say, “I regard Custer’s Massacre as a sacrifice of troops, brought on by Custer himself, that was wholly unnecessary—wholly unnecessary.”

Things in Dakota Territory settled down a bit after that. In 1889 North and South Dakota were admitted as states and in 1891 Fort Abraham Lincoln was closed. Local settlers repurposed the lumber and the nails and nature began to reclaim the site. In 1907 President Theodore Roosevelt deeded the acreage to the state for use as a park or historic site. In 1934 the Civilian Conservation Corps commenced work on the park, creating roads, campsites, and picnic areas as well as rebuilding part of the On-a-Slant village and military buildings. In the reconstruction of the earthlodges the CCC enlisted the help of Scattered Corn, a Mandan woman.

Though we were reluctant to leave Bismarck we needed to relocate to the Fargo area. Along the way we stopped off in Jamestown to pay our respects to Dakota Thunder, the World’s Largest Buffalo and Louis L’Amour, the town’s prolific author son (and one of Lance’s favorites). Our home for the week was a quiet little horse camp on the edge of the Sheyenne National Grasslands south of Fargo. The 70,000-plus-acre grassland was cobbled together from submarginal land purchased by the U.S. government during the 1930s. During our visit it was one of the only places other than river bottoms that wasn’t being farmed.

Agriculture is the state’s leading industry. I was surprised to learn that considering the state’s hot and dry summers and the incredibly cold and windy winters. I mean, could a farmer find a place any more challenging? Instead of struggling farmers, what I heard on the farm report (yes, I actually listened to the farm report, it was quite interesting) is that agricultural land in the state is going up in value and that plenty of new crops are doing well up there. That’s in addition to the wheat, barley, sunflower seeds, soybeans, sugar beets, flaxseed, and canola oil that they are known for. In other words farming is important to the state. They certainly have enough land for it since our third least populous state is our nineteenth largest.

Unfortunately we didn’t have much time to explore the grasslands or rack up many miles along the North Country National Scenic Trail that runs through them. Our weekend was consumed by a whirlwind trip up to Winnipeg, Manitoba to meet Ian, one of Lance’s fellow “Theme Wranglers” at Automattic. It was a successful trip—Lance and Ian finally had some crucial face-time, his wife and I had a lovely conversation and I am proud to say that I am now an international Letterboxer! Woot!