Post by Dietmar on Jun 23, 2008 9:22:12 GMT -5
Here is some information about Chief Drifting Goose (born 1821, died 1909) of the Hunkpati band. His Christian name was Joseph. He was one of the most important Yanktonai leaders at the Crow Creek reservation:
photo by Charles Milton Bell 1880 (SIRIS)
curriculum.k12.sd.us/at008/arikara_village.htm
The Life and Times of Magabobdu
1821-1909
by Kathleen Newman
1. Many men have loved the James River; many still do. But, Magabobdu, a Dakota Indian known as Drifting Goose was the original steward of this rich valley in east-central South Dakota, with its river like a chocolate ribbon threading through the prairie grasses and isolated stands of cottonwoods and cedar. Born near his people's traditional hunting grounds north of Redfield in 1821, Drifting Goose was chief of his Hunkpati bank for 45 years, providing his people with a good livelihood and protecting them against danger. His is a story that keeps returning to the river against all odds.
2. Drifting Goose lived most of his life in the free area of eastern South Dakota. His people, the lower Yanktonai, migrated there in the late 1600's from Minnesota, the final stage in a westerly migration of over 400 years. French traders were the first white men to hear about and meet the Sioux, or Dakota, Indians. The name Sioux was a French term for snakes or enemies, given to the Dakota Indians by their enemies the Chippewas. Although the Sioux were the most feared Indians on the continent, and known to have been there since time immemorial, after years of bloody battle, the Chippewa pushed the Sioux west.
3. Drifting Goose and his people originally spoke the Nakota dialect but over time this merged with the Dakota, an Indian term for allies or friend. It was also the name given to this powerful nation of seven council fires. The Yanktonai were the "end people," on the edges of the area lived and hunted by the Dakota people; and, the Hunkpati were the most westerly of this group. That is why Drifting Goose was able to keep his bank hidden in the James River Valley, away from the encroaching white settlers, and one of the last of the great Sioux to capitulate and move to the reservation.
4. The Yanktonai, like other Sioux, were a nomadic people. Following their main source of food, the bands spent their year hunting bison and camping throughout their respective territories. With his father, Wounded, Drifting Goose traveled extensively in eastern South Dakota, up and down the James River, and into southwestern Minnesota. Yet, Drifting Goose's people also lived a more agricultural life than most: planting corn, gathering berries and wild turnips, and perhaps raising stock. They were even able to barter their surplus crops for horses and tools at the Dakota Rendezvous, a huge Indian trade fair held near Huron every spring and fall from the late 1700's to the early 1800's. They did not go short of food; it was a good and happy life.
5. It was most important, however, for the Hunkpati to find a place they could call home. "We must find a place to live in peace and build our homes and raise our families," they said. So, by 1840, the Drifting Goose band with 300 members set up permanent camp in abandoned earth lodges at Armadale Island in the James River about four miles northeast of Mellette. This village later became the heart of Drifting Goose Reservation. It was an ideal spot on the east bank of the James with sheltering timberlands and abundant game.
6. In the spring, the Hunkpati cultivated about 40 acres near the earth lodges with corn, turnip, potato, beans and peas. They ran a fish trap in the James just west of the village and hunted antelope and "millions" of water fowl. They danced and played games and traded among themselves. Drifting Goose recorded his people's history on deer hide, the longest known winter count for the Yanktonai. And, they waited excitedly for summer, when the great bison herds migrating from the southern plains to Canada would crisscross the land near the James in smaller groups, heralding the hunting season that was both their sport and subsistence. Then, they would leave the swarming mosquitoes behind and escape, with their horses and arrows and teepees, to the windswept highlands of the coteau des prairies in glorious pursuit of the buffalo.
7. By the mid 1850's, the idyllic life of the Hunkpati began to change as Europeans and non-Indians came flooding into Dakota land through Yankton and up the Missouri River. The trouble began when the Sisseton Indians, in the 1851 Treaty of Traverse de Sioux, ceded land that was also claimed by the Yanktonai: Drifting Goose's hunting grounds west of Aberdeen. In the next ten years, as the Indians were forced to sign more treaties, 160,000 whites pushed their way into Dakota territory. In Minnesota, frustration over the white invasion lead to a Sioux uprising. Ultimately, 38 Dakota Indians were hanged in Mankato on December 26, 1862, under orders from the U.S. government. It was no longer safe for an Indian to be seen in Minnesota. Many Dakotas spread out into Canada and the northern plains. Once unlimited, Drifting Goose's territory was shrinking fast.
8. As other Sioux ceded their lands all around him, Drifting Goose held out, refusing to sign any treaties relinquishing the homelands of his people. When the first Yanktonais signed a treaty at Fort Sully (Pierre) in 1865, 169 families left Drifting Goose for the Standing Rock reservation. In 1868, the Fort Rice Treaty ordered all Sioux to reservations; In 1868, the Fort Rice Treaty ordered all Sioux to reservations; essentially, they were to give up their rich lands and traditional way of life, adopting the white man's clothing and ways, all for a small tract of land, some seeds and useless farm implements. Drifting Goose knew the reservation lands were inhospitable. "The reservations at Sisseton and Crow Creek are not fit for a dog, we will starve on their rations," he said. He did not sign the treaty. Instead, Drifting Goose planted his heels at his village, built sturdy log cabins there, and planted crops.
9. During the 1870's Drifting Goose struggled to retain the traditional lands of his people, fending off squatters and surveyors, the railroad, and the government. A wise and wily chief in his 50's at the time, he is now credited with changing more courses of South Dakota development and having more impact on Washington bureaucracy than any other representative of his people. His intimidation tactics were so successful, that early settlers referred to his persistence over his home land as "The Drifting Goose War." Earlier, he had run off settlers near the Big Sioux river, delaying settlement of Sioux Falls by at least five years. He continued to run off squatters and surveyors near his home, scaring them in the night, taking their horses and equipment, even removing one man's clothing with a knife and leaving him to run naked in the woods. Confrontations between Drifting Goose and railroad surveyors are legendary. After he removed and covered the surveyors' landmarks numerous times, the railroad was rerouted for good ten miles west of the original right of way, a respectful distance from Drifting Goose village.
10. Although his intentions to remove squatters from his territory were serious, and very successful, Drifting Goose was known as a peacful, friendly man; he thought more of his people and their survival than he did about making war. But, surviving on the James during harsh winters, with dwindling buffalo resources and with constant pressure from the government, was becoming increasingly difficult. He began to drift with his people between the Sisseton and Crow Creek reservations for food rations, camping along the James midway. His friend, Gabriel Renville, a mixed-blood chief at Sisseton gave him food when he could spare it, and together they persuaded a reservation agent to write to Washington for $2000 dollars in relief money during the severe winter of 1874-5. Even General H.H.Sibley, who Drifting Goose had aided as a scout after the Sioux outbreaks, wrote to Washington on Drifting Goose's behalf. These measures only served to delay the inevitable, however, and in 1878 his band was forced to go to the Crow Creek reservation on the Missouri river.
11. The Drifting Goose band returned to its village on the James the next year, however, only to find white settlers living there, having stolen their cached crops and occupying their homes. They returned to Crow Creek. In June of 1879 the Drifting Goose band experienced a rare moment of victory when President Hayes declared their homeland as Drifting Goose Reservation, a return of land unheard of for a minor chief; but, the order was revoked in little more than a year. At any rate, when Drifting Goose returned to his village, he found that the whites had multiplied; squatters were living in his home; the remaining land was barren with no trees or water access. Drifting Goose ordered his band to Sisseton where he spent the bitter winter of 1880 in a cotton tent while squatters lived in his comfortable log home. That winter his son died. In the end, he said, " I have struggled for a good cause, but there is no salvation from the white squatter."
12. Although Drifting Goose traveled to Washington to speak on behalf of his people in April of 1880, it was too late to stem the tide of white settlers in the James Valley. So, with a heavy heart, Drifting Goose gave up his James settlements in June of that year - but he never gave up the James. Long after he lead 104 "very dilapidated" Indians to their new homes on the Crow Creek reservation, he was a familiar sight on the overland route through the Wessington hills and back to the James, often stopping at the gravesite of his daughter near Huron. The late Gladys Pyle, a South Dakota senator and Huron native, often remembered the friendly old chief handing out jerky to her schoolmates when he passed through Huron. In 1904, Drifting Goose bid farewell to the James at a July 4th picnic near Fisher's Grove. Although he had been forced to give up his beloved land near the James, he reminded the crowd that he had spared many white lives in order to ensure the survival of his people.
13. At Crow Creek, Drifting Goose continued to wield his greatest strengths, using his keen intelligence and wit to adapt to his new world. It is said that he had no enemies, and many friends both white and Indian. He quickly make friends with the clerics at Crow Creek, and so admired Bishop Marty that he asked to be baptized in the Catholic church. Although he was told that he must first give up two of his wives by Indian custom and commit to a life with the third, he was finally baptized in 1891 after his first two wives died of natural causes. Drifting Goose and his remaining wife, Winona, had three surviving children whose descendants now live at Crow Creek: Lena Drifting Goose, Joseph Strong Blanket, and Gregory Turner.
14. For all of Drifting Goose's admirable traits, his most enduring legacy remains his influence in the development of the Indian School at Stephan. Legend has it that Drifting Goose met with famed "blackrobe," pioneer Indian missionary Father Pierre De Smet, along the banks of the Missouri, and as a result, the school at Stephan became a reality. He wanted his children, and his children's children to have an education that would help them survive in the modern world. The land where the school now sits once belonged to Drifting Goose. And fittingly, his gravestone rises above all others in the Immaculate Conception cemetery behind the school, a singular pillar on the dusty prairie for an extraordinary man.
photo by Charles Milton Bell 1880 (SIRIS)
curriculum.k12.sd.us/at008/arikara_village.htm
The Life and Times of Magabobdu
1821-1909
by Kathleen Newman
1. Many men have loved the James River; many still do. But, Magabobdu, a Dakota Indian known as Drifting Goose was the original steward of this rich valley in east-central South Dakota, with its river like a chocolate ribbon threading through the prairie grasses and isolated stands of cottonwoods and cedar. Born near his people's traditional hunting grounds north of Redfield in 1821, Drifting Goose was chief of his Hunkpati bank for 45 years, providing his people with a good livelihood and protecting them against danger. His is a story that keeps returning to the river against all odds.
2. Drifting Goose lived most of his life in the free area of eastern South Dakota. His people, the lower Yanktonai, migrated there in the late 1600's from Minnesota, the final stage in a westerly migration of over 400 years. French traders were the first white men to hear about and meet the Sioux, or Dakota, Indians. The name Sioux was a French term for snakes or enemies, given to the Dakota Indians by their enemies the Chippewas. Although the Sioux were the most feared Indians on the continent, and known to have been there since time immemorial, after years of bloody battle, the Chippewa pushed the Sioux west.
3. Drifting Goose and his people originally spoke the Nakota dialect but over time this merged with the Dakota, an Indian term for allies or friend. It was also the name given to this powerful nation of seven council fires. The Yanktonai were the "end people," on the edges of the area lived and hunted by the Dakota people; and, the Hunkpati were the most westerly of this group. That is why Drifting Goose was able to keep his bank hidden in the James River Valley, away from the encroaching white settlers, and one of the last of the great Sioux to capitulate and move to the reservation.
4. The Yanktonai, like other Sioux, were a nomadic people. Following their main source of food, the bands spent their year hunting bison and camping throughout their respective territories. With his father, Wounded, Drifting Goose traveled extensively in eastern South Dakota, up and down the James River, and into southwestern Minnesota. Yet, Drifting Goose's people also lived a more agricultural life than most: planting corn, gathering berries and wild turnips, and perhaps raising stock. They were even able to barter their surplus crops for horses and tools at the Dakota Rendezvous, a huge Indian trade fair held near Huron every spring and fall from the late 1700's to the early 1800's. They did not go short of food; it was a good and happy life.
5. It was most important, however, for the Hunkpati to find a place they could call home. "We must find a place to live in peace and build our homes and raise our families," they said. So, by 1840, the Drifting Goose band with 300 members set up permanent camp in abandoned earth lodges at Armadale Island in the James River about four miles northeast of Mellette. This village later became the heart of Drifting Goose Reservation. It was an ideal spot on the east bank of the James with sheltering timberlands and abundant game.
6. In the spring, the Hunkpati cultivated about 40 acres near the earth lodges with corn, turnip, potato, beans and peas. They ran a fish trap in the James just west of the village and hunted antelope and "millions" of water fowl. They danced and played games and traded among themselves. Drifting Goose recorded his people's history on deer hide, the longest known winter count for the Yanktonai. And, they waited excitedly for summer, when the great bison herds migrating from the southern plains to Canada would crisscross the land near the James in smaller groups, heralding the hunting season that was both their sport and subsistence. Then, they would leave the swarming mosquitoes behind and escape, with their horses and arrows and teepees, to the windswept highlands of the coteau des prairies in glorious pursuit of the buffalo.
7. By the mid 1850's, the idyllic life of the Hunkpati began to change as Europeans and non-Indians came flooding into Dakota land through Yankton and up the Missouri River. The trouble began when the Sisseton Indians, in the 1851 Treaty of Traverse de Sioux, ceded land that was also claimed by the Yanktonai: Drifting Goose's hunting grounds west of Aberdeen. In the next ten years, as the Indians were forced to sign more treaties, 160,000 whites pushed their way into Dakota territory. In Minnesota, frustration over the white invasion lead to a Sioux uprising. Ultimately, 38 Dakota Indians were hanged in Mankato on December 26, 1862, under orders from the U.S. government. It was no longer safe for an Indian to be seen in Minnesota. Many Dakotas spread out into Canada and the northern plains. Once unlimited, Drifting Goose's territory was shrinking fast.
8. As other Sioux ceded their lands all around him, Drifting Goose held out, refusing to sign any treaties relinquishing the homelands of his people. When the first Yanktonais signed a treaty at Fort Sully (Pierre) in 1865, 169 families left Drifting Goose for the Standing Rock reservation. In 1868, the Fort Rice Treaty ordered all Sioux to reservations; In 1868, the Fort Rice Treaty ordered all Sioux to reservations; essentially, they were to give up their rich lands and traditional way of life, adopting the white man's clothing and ways, all for a small tract of land, some seeds and useless farm implements. Drifting Goose knew the reservation lands were inhospitable. "The reservations at Sisseton and Crow Creek are not fit for a dog, we will starve on their rations," he said. He did not sign the treaty. Instead, Drifting Goose planted his heels at his village, built sturdy log cabins there, and planted crops.
9. During the 1870's Drifting Goose struggled to retain the traditional lands of his people, fending off squatters and surveyors, the railroad, and the government. A wise and wily chief in his 50's at the time, he is now credited with changing more courses of South Dakota development and having more impact on Washington bureaucracy than any other representative of his people. His intimidation tactics were so successful, that early settlers referred to his persistence over his home land as "The Drifting Goose War." Earlier, he had run off settlers near the Big Sioux river, delaying settlement of Sioux Falls by at least five years. He continued to run off squatters and surveyors near his home, scaring them in the night, taking their horses and equipment, even removing one man's clothing with a knife and leaving him to run naked in the woods. Confrontations between Drifting Goose and railroad surveyors are legendary. After he removed and covered the surveyors' landmarks numerous times, the railroad was rerouted for good ten miles west of the original right of way, a respectful distance from Drifting Goose village.
10. Although his intentions to remove squatters from his territory were serious, and very successful, Drifting Goose was known as a peacful, friendly man; he thought more of his people and their survival than he did about making war. But, surviving on the James during harsh winters, with dwindling buffalo resources and with constant pressure from the government, was becoming increasingly difficult. He began to drift with his people between the Sisseton and Crow Creek reservations for food rations, camping along the James midway. His friend, Gabriel Renville, a mixed-blood chief at Sisseton gave him food when he could spare it, and together they persuaded a reservation agent to write to Washington for $2000 dollars in relief money during the severe winter of 1874-5. Even General H.H.Sibley, who Drifting Goose had aided as a scout after the Sioux outbreaks, wrote to Washington on Drifting Goose's behalf. These measures only served to delay the inevitable, however, and in 1878 his band was forced to go to the Crow Creek reservation on the Missouri river.
11. The Drifting Goose band returned to its village on the James the next year, however, only to find white settlers living there, having stolen their cached crops and occupying their homes. They returned to Crow Creek. In June of 1879 the Drifting Goose band experienced a rare moment of victory when President Hayes declared their homeland as Drifting Goose Reservation, a return of land unheard of for a minor chief; but, the order was revoked in little more than a year. At any rate, when Drifting Goose returned to his village, he found that the whites had multiplied; squatters were living in his home; the remaining land was barren with no trees or water access. Drifting Goose ordered his band to Sisseton where he spent the bitter winter of 1880 in a cotton tent while squatters lived in his comfortable log home. That winter his son died. In the end, he said, " I have struggled for a good cause, but there is no salvation from the white squatter."
12. Although Drifting Goose traveled to Washington to speak on behalf of his people in April of 1880, it was too late to stem the tide of white settlers in the James Valley. So, with a heavy heart, Drifting Goose gave up his James settlements in June of that year - but he never gave up the James. Long after he lead 104 "very dilapidated" Indians to their new homes on the Crow Creek reservation, he was a familiar sight on the overland route through the Wessington hills and back to the James, often stopping at the gravesite of his daughter near Huron. The late Gladys Pyle, a South Dakota senator and Huron native, often remembered the friendly old chief handing out jerky to her schoolmates when he passed through Huron. In 1904, Drifting Goose bid farewell to the James at a July 4th picnic near Fisher's Grove. Although he had been forced to give up his beloved land near the James, he reminded the crowd that he had spared many white lives in order to ensure the survival of his people.
13. At Crow Creek, Drifting Goose continued to wield his greatest strengths, using his keen intelligence and wit to adapt to his new world. It is said that he had no enemies, and many friends both white and Indian. He quickly make friends with the clerics at Crow Creek, and so admired Bishop Marty that he asked to be baptized in the Catholic church. Although he was told that he must first give up two of his wives by Indian custom and commit to a life with the third, he was finally baptized in 1891 after his first two wives died of natural causes. Drifting Goose and his remaining wife, Winona, had three surviving children whose descendants now live at Crow Creek: Lena Drifting Goose, Joseph Strong Blanket, and Gregory Turner.
14. For all of Drifting Goose's admirable traits, his most enduring legacy remains his influence in the development of the Indian School at Stephan. Legend has it that Drifting Goose met with famed "blackrobe," pioneer Indian missionary Father Pierre De Smet, along the banks of the Missouri, and as a result, the school at Stephan became a reality. He wanted his children, and his children's children to have an education that would help them survive in the modern world. The land where the school now sits once belonged to Drifting Goose. And fittingly, his gravestone rises above all others in the Immaculate Conception cemetery behind the school, a singular pillar on the dusty prairie for an extraordinary man.
