Chief Washakie and President Grant

 Wyoming Fact & Fiction

January 10, 2022

Last weekend I was part of a discussion about listening to books. I don't do a lot of books on audible platforms, but when traveling, we always take one or two along. I enjoy listening and am contemplating putting some of my books on one of the listening programs. That is quite an intro to Chief Washakie – I haven't got around to him yet. Here is the tie-in. My daughter mentioned she was listening to a book and laughing about their pronunciation of Washakie. I have heard the same when listening to some books set in Wyoming. Before moving to Wyoming (1983), I taught in Nebraska and remember butchering the name myself. Guess if you are not from around here, it is difficult to say. But, not as tricky as the Popo Agie.

The first tribes that settled in today's Wyoming in the late 1600s were the Staitans, Comanches, and Shoshones. Like many other plains and foothills tribes, they were bison hunters. It is interesting to note that Shoshone legend and spoken history talked of once living in a land where alligators inhabited the rivers.

Chief Washakie early on realized that friendship with the expanding population would be better than fighting the inevitable. Washakie was instrumental in the success of General Crook (Crook County Wyoming named after him)  fighting the Sioux in Wyoming and Montana.

Because of his help to Crook and the U.S. Army, President Grant sent a silver-trimmed saddle to the Shoshone Chief in appreciation for his service. Some history books have stated that he was given a "fine horse and saddle," but most list the gift as only a saddle. My guess, Washakie, would likely have preferred using one of his fine horses to anything offered up as a gift – he did use the saddle.

According to Virginia Cole Trenholm and Maurine Carley in their 1946 textbook, Wyoming Pageant - Washakie was told he should send some sort of a thank you to the president. Chief Washakie replied, "Do a favor to a white man; he feels it in his head, and the tongue speaks. Do a kindness to an Indian; he feels it in his heart. The heart has no tongue."

Wyoming Trivia – two questions today

1.  Of the four Shoshone branches, which did Chief Washakie and his Wyoming tribe belong to?

2. Washakie was only half Shoshone. What other tribe was he?

 

Answers for Today's Trivia

1. Wyoming hosted the Eastern Shoshone. Other branches were the Northern, Western, and Goshute. 

2. Chief Washakie was born in 1804 with a Flathead father and Shoshone mother.

See you next week!

 

 

Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 - 150 Years

On April 29, 1868, a treaty was signed between the United States Government and the Sioux Nation.  The treaty would move the Sioux away from the war on the plains, and onto a Black Hills Reservation in Dakota Territory. This treaty following the treaty of 1851 attempted to bring peace to the frontier part of the United States. For moving to the Black Hills the Sioux were to be given food, clothing, and annuity payments, on an annual basis. The government also agreed to close travel along the Bozeman Trail along with the forts along that trail.

150 Year Anniversary of the Treaty of 1858

Starting Saturday, April 28, and running through Tuesday, May 2, Fort Laramie will be hosting – Honoring the Spirit On the Northern Great Plains. The fort is expecting nice crowds of up to 4,000 on Saturday and great crowds for the other three days of the celebration. Looks like a terrific time.

Did the Treaty Work?

It was working, as well as most treaties, for a few years, and then Custer and his men found gold in the Black Hills, which for all practical purposes ended the usefulness of the treaty. The government tried to purchase, then lease, the Black Hills so that gold seekers could head into the area. The Sioux already pushed to their limit, refused. Two years later, Custer and the Seventh Cavalry were wiped out at Little Big Horn, escalating a decade of Indian Wars in the west.

Honoring the Spirit On the Northern Great Plains, a celebration to be held the last two days of April and the first two days of May 2018. Click the links to read all about it.

Today's photos from my many trips to Fort Laramie, a terrific place, and one all western history buffs need to visit.

https://twitter.com/FortLaramieNPS

https://www.nps.gov/fola/planyourvisit/calendar.htm

Battle Mountain Wyoming

The Tale of Two Mountains Named Battle

Wyoming boasts, not one but two Battle Mountains. One of the  Battle Mountain’s and the more famous of the two is in the Medicine Bow Range on Wyoming’s southern border and sits near the tiny hamlet of Savery, peaking at a bit over 9,100 feet, about 3,000 feet more than the surrounding area. The second is in Sublette County south and east of Jackson and is described more often as a hill than a mountain with an elevation of 7,100 feet.

As readers might guess, each was named after a famous battle. Or in the case of the Sublette Mountain a bit of a disturbance. In reality, the battle was but a misunderstanding of hunting rights in the area. In 1895 a posse from Jackson was sent to arrest a small party of Bannocks for game law violations. Seems the area had been a long time hunting ground for the tribe, but now with Wyoming being a state for five years there were rules about hunting. Never mind that the Bannock tribe had hunted the area for generations.

The Battle Mountain in southern Carbon County boasts a much better reason for its name.  It was the setting for an 1841 battle between 35 members of the American Fur Company and what has been described as a large group of Cheyenne and Sioux. Several trappers, including Henry Fraeb (also spelled as Frapp), the group’s leader, were killed. Beloved Wyoming mountain man, Jim Baker at age 21,  became the new leader of the trapper bunch when Fraeb was killed, and barely escaped with his life. The furious battle led to the changing of Bastion Mountain’s name, to Battle Mountain.

Battle Mountain and Battle Lake - Site of the 1841 battle

                   

Note – There is also a nice Wyoming legend of Thomas Edison camping at the foot of Battle Mountain and fishing in Battle Lake when he was struck with the inspiration to create an electric light. Great story if it’s true!

War-Paint Not Always

War-Paint?

Whenever the term war-paint is mentioned I tend to cringe. Native tribes in the west used paint, but doing battle with another tribe was only one instance when it was used. The practice of face and body painting, and sometimes of their animals was done by self or often by another and symbolic of countless occasions. Paint could be used to dance, for a big hunt, or a coming home riding through camp in a victory celebration. Almost any type of significant accomplishment might be a time to bring out the paint. Painting of faces and bodies also was used in mourning.

The colors used were meaningful and often quite hard to obtain. When the first traders arrived paint became an important trade item and brought a rather large price. Of all the colors red was most used and because of that most sought after. The area in and around Hartville, Wyoming, including Sunrise, the Hell Gap area, and Guernsey State Park are blessed with large deposits of iron oxide. Tribes came for miles and for centuries to this area to obtain the deep red earth found there.

Rich Red Pigment Provided by Nature

The Sacred Pipe

In Joseph Brown’s wonderful book of more than 60 years ago, The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk’s Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux, he wrote, “By being painted, the people have been changed. They have undergone a new birth, and with this, they have new responsibilities, new obligations, and a new relationship.”

Next time you watch an old movie where the Indians are painted for war, think this, “Maybe not, they might be painted for many things.”

Wyoming’s Great Arrow

West of Meeteetse in the Greybull River Valley lies a magnificent arrow made of meticulously laid rocks. It is fifty-eight feet long and about five feet wide. Much like the Medicine Wheel that it points to, the arrow is of unknown origin. 

The Medicine Wheel, in the Big Horn Mountains, 100 miles away is built in a similar form of piled rock. Although only speculation, it is believed to have been built to show the way for ancient tribes to the Medicine Wheel.  The great arrow is not the only such arrow in the Big Horn’s but it is by far the largest and most impressive.

The Great Arrow

 Early Indians of Wyoming left an impressive amount of their history and culture behind. From arrow and spearheads to tepee rings, medicine wheels and pointing arrows there is still much to be discovered as to the what and why. Fun to speculate.

Medicine Wheel of the Big Horns

It has been too long since I posted Wyoming Trivia. Here today, are three questions dealing with some of the first Indians who inhabited the state. 

Answers under the photo

1.     What tribe was known as the Snakes?

2.     Who was the Sioux war chief that led the Fetterman Massacre

3.     What incredible Wyoming landmark was called “Tso-as,” by the early Kiowa of Wyoming

-Answers to Today’s Trivia-

1.     Shoshones – Because their name in sign looked like someone portraying a snake moving through the grass

2.     Red Cloud

3.     Devil’s Tower – “Tso-as,” meant Tree Rock in Kiowa

The Curious Case of Lieutenant Hugh Fleming

The Grattan Massacre, Aug 19, 1854, is often listed as the event that started the Indian wars on the plains. Anyone who is interested in Wyoming history knows the story of the killing of the cow from a Mormon wagon train and Grattan leading his troops to their death in the ensuing battle. But very few know the story of the commanding office at Fort Laramie, who either ordered him or allowed him to take the troopers on the ill-fated journey.

Brevet Second Lieutenant Hugh B Fleming was the commander at Fort Laramie at the time. The fact that a Brevet Second Lieutenant was in charge is a bit of a mystery itself. Fleming was promoted from cadet, upon his graduation from West Point, to the rank and sent to Fort Laramie. One year later he was in command. I am not sure how officers were chosen for command, but it is likely that Fleming was neither ready nor capable of this command, only a year removed from Cadet status at West Point.

Fleming was in charge but undoubtedly was not meant to be the permanent commander. In 1854 alone, four different men commanded the Fort. Fleming followed, Lt. Richard Brooke Garnett and proceeded Major Andrew W. Evans who was followed by Major William Hoffman who stayed through 1857. It is possible that Fleming was ushered out as soon after the August Grattan massacre as the Army could make the move.

It was not this brief time as the commander alone that left his stamp forever on the Indian wars of the west. In June of 1853, Fleming was sent by Fort Commander Lieutenant Richard B. Garnett to a Miniconjou Sioux encampment that had fired upon Sergeant Raymond and captured an army supply boat near the fort. Although no one was injured and the boat was soon recovered, Fleming was sent with orders to demand the Indians turn over, to the army, the person who had fired at them. Fleming took along 23 men and an interpreter. His orders in addition to bringing back the shooter allowed for Fleming to capture and bring back two or three prisoners if the Miniconjou would not turn over the one who fired on them.  

The tribe refused to turn over the wanted man and Fleming marched his men into the center of the village to take prisoners. A battle started and three warriors were killed and three more wounded. Fleming grabbed two more as prisoners and returned to Fort Laramie. A few days later a group of Miniconjou came to the Fort, asking to parley. Whatever happened here, the tribe was not satisfied.  It took a bit over a year before Grattan and his men were killed, but Lt. Fleming and his two very bad decisions may have directly led to the Indian or Sioux wars in the west.

Fleming went on to a long but rather ordinary career in the military, serving as a recruiter and not seeing action in the Civil War, he retired as a Major.

Note* I am pretty deep into research on a new book about Fort Laramie and have found dozens of stories, like this one, that seem to give a different and deeper view of history. When researching I try to be very painstaking in getting it right. In ten minutes of looking at online sites on the Grattan Massacre I found it happened on August 17 or August 19 in either 1853 or 1854. As I told my students for 42 years, check and verify before putting it on paper. By the way -  It happened on August 19, 1854.

Couldn't resist - here I am at Fort Laramie on the Fourth of July - thanks for reading

Sitting Bull and the Meadowlark

Animals have been part of early and ancient cultures since the beginnings of people on earth.

Birds were often a part of American Indian life and culture. Long before Wyoming (1927) and Nebraska, Montana, Kansas, Oregon and North Dakota made the Meadowlark their state bird, Indians referred to it as the Sioux bird.

Sitting Bull loved all wild creatures but held the bird special often making up songs about them and giving birds credit for saving his life more than once.

Wyoming Trivia for Today

1.   F.E. Warren Air Base – What does the E stand for? (that would be Mr. Warren’s middle name)

2. What does this lovely French Word mean? Bois De Vanche

See answers below – no peeking!

Take a look at my four books here. Quick before you look at the answers.

1.   Emory

2.  Buffalo Chips

The Peace Council of 1866

Between the famous peace treaties of 1851 and 1868 was the lesser known attempt at a peace council in 1866 at Fort Laramie. Colonel Henry B. Carrington came with more than 2,000 troopers and 226 mule teams pulling freight wagons loaded with a few gifts and tons of supplies, enough to stock an entire post in the west.

Fort Laramie today as seen from the Oregon Trail North and West

This meeting, for peace, never had a chance. Red Cloud and Man Afraid of His Horses were asked to take part and did go to the fort. But once there refused all efforts put forth by the representatives of the U.S. Government. Why did they refuse? Because the soldiers were representing business and government interests who wanted to build a new road, the Bozeman Trail, to the gold fields. With trails came forts, the native peoples wanted nothing to do with any of this.

One fort, Fort Connor, also known as Fort Reno or old Fort Reno located in Johnson County, Wyoming near the present city of Buffalo was already in a place unacceptable to the tribes. The fort was in prime buffalo hunting country and an area set off limits by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851.

Red Cloud stood firm, no roads and no forts. Never the less the treaty was signed, signed for the gifts brought by the white soldiers. The treaty signed by, under chiefs or sub-chiefs who had no power to sign off on anything that affected their entire tribe. Because of this the treaty was never respected and did nothing for peace in the area. Instead of peace it actually increased hostilities and led to what historians later referred to as the years of the bloody Bozeman.

The three forts built or restocked and fortified as a result of this 1866 meeting, Reno/Connor (built 1865), Phil Kearny and C.F. Smith were in a constant state of battle over the next decade and did little to protect gold seekers heading to Montana. Of the three forts, Phil Kearny seemed to be the worst in the eyes of the Indians living and hunting in the area. In one six-month span, the fort or soldiers on detail from the fort were attacked 50 times. All three forts were closed and abandoned by august of 1868.

Sitting Bull - the name

Indian legends often tell the story of the high regard which native peoples held animals. Sitting Bull is a great example. Sioux oral history states that his father, after hearing a nearby buffalo bull bellowing took this as a sign. He chose this sign to made four names from, Sitting Bull, Lone Bull, Jumping Bull and Standing Bull.

Wyoming Buffalo

He then used the first and what he considered the most powerful name, Sitting Bull as his own name. But when his 14 year old son showed exceptional bravery counting his first coup, his father gave away that name to his son, who would become the great Sitting Bull of history books and the Wild West Show. Sitting Bull’s father lived out the rest of his life as another of his four names, Lone Bull.

Sitting Bull

Wyoming's First Tribal People

Much has been written, motion pictures and television shows have been made, and a lot has been taught about Indians in the west. In Wyoming the focus is on the: Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapahoe, Shoshones and Crow. But of these tribes only the Shoshones were here long term.

In 1700 the tribes of Wyoming included, along with the Shoshones, the Comanche, Kiowa and Staitans. By 1800 the Comanche had moved south and the Crow and Cheyenne found a place to live in Wyoming. The Sioux were soon to follow, arriving shortly after 1800.

Interesting that so little is written about the century and a half of the more peaceful time for Native people in Wyoming. The first mountain men/trappers came around 1820 and by the 1840s wagons were rolling on the Oregon and Mormon trails, and the west of movies and television was born.

The Mighty Sioux

In a sacred manner I live

To the heavens I gazed

In a sacred manner I live

My horses are many

 

In my part of the west the Sioux were the largest tribe. It was the tribe of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, Roman Nose, American Horse and Old Man Afraid of His Horses, to name a few.

At the height of its glory the seven divisions of the tribe stretched from Yellowstone in the west to the middle of Wisconsin on the east. Of the seven divisions, the Teton Sioux of South Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming was by far the largest with an estimated number of more than 20,000 in 1890. So big in fact that it too was divided into seven groups.

Before the wars on the plains started the Sioux were a happy wandering people. As more and more of their land was taken from them the Tribes were backed into a corner and fought. Outnumbered, it was a losing battle from the start. Most historians today agree that the government’s failed Indian policy is what started the wars. And why did the government’s Indian policy fail? The government planned and wanted it that way. Sad but true!

Standing Bear – A Western Superhero

Before Spiderman and Superman, America had Frank Grouard, a superhero before his time.

Frank Grouard was General Crooks most well known scout. Crook held him in such high regard he told his superiors he would not lead men into Indian Territory without Grouard as his scout. And latter said he would rather lose a third of his men before he lost Grouard. This didn’t set well with the rest of the scouts and might be why he is a somewhat misunderstood in history.

But this is not the entire story of one of the west’s most famous scouts. His life story reads more like mountain man fiction than the truth. Grouard’s father was a missionary from California who married a native islander while working in the Society Islands of French Polynesia. When Grouard’s father moved the family to Utah his mother became homesick and returned to the islands. Frank was left in charge of the family as his father was either off on a mission or trying to find his wife in the South Pacific.

This didn’t set well with Frank and he left for as the old-timers used to say, “For parts unknown.” He spent time as a bull-whacker and later worked for the Pony Express. History doesn’t say much about his time with the Pony Express but he likely worked for, more than rode for, them. Grouard, just in his late teens, was described as over six feet tall and around two-hundred pounds. He probably seemed a giant to most of the riders who weighed in closer to 100-120 lbs. But he did ride at least a few trips because on his fourth trip he was captured by the Crow. (Some sources report the tribe as Blackfeet)

He was tortured by the tribe who let him run for his life, naked and being beaten by any tribal member that could pick up a stick, as he ran.  But he outdistanced his captors and escaped, ending up at Fort Hall, nearly 70 miles away.

A year later he was captured by a band of Sioux as he rode along at a snail’s space in a blinding Wyoming snowstorm. As his captors argued, over who would get what, of his possessions another man rode up. This person seemed to be most powerful and he took Grouard as his captive. Grouard learned during the three day ride to camp he was riding with, Hunkpapa Sioux holy man Sitting Bull. When Sitting Bull rode into camp hauling Grouard, Gall and No Neck, chiefs with as much power, in the tribe, as Sitting Bull insisted he be put to death, the sooner the better. Grouard with his long black hair and skin of a pacific islander looked to them like an Indian from another tribe, therefore an enemy.

Sitting Bull didn’t often, if ever, lose what he wanted in the tribe. He announced that he had made Grouard, his brother, renaming him Standing Bear. Because it was the dead of winter Grouard was wearing a full length bear-skin coat, towering over his captors by three quarters of a foot and looked, very much, the part of a bear.

Grouard stayed with Sitting Bull and the Hunkpapa for more than six years, reaching near legendary status in the tribe for his strength, speed, size and look. All warriors within the tribe, who had ambition to lead, had to undergo the torture test and Grouard withstood the cutting of 400 pieces of flesh from his arms and allowed flaming sticks held against his body until they burned out and cooled. He endured the punishing torture for more than four hours.  Never crying out or flinching and was pronounced, “brave.”   

Depending on which western history authority is researched, Grouard either escaped or was left with blessings from the tribe after six or seven years with Sitting Bull. All of this and he had, by then, reached the grand old age of 25 or 26. He went on to become one of the most famous scouts in the west working for the U.S. Army and General Crook.

Grouard reached Little Big Horn shortly after Custer and the seventh were annihilated and was the first to report the news to Crook. He was present at Fort Robinson, Nebraska when Crazy Horse was murdered. He was also on the Yellowstone Expeditions and at the battle of Slim Buttes. He was assigned to the Pine Ridge Reservation during the Ghost Dance Uprising and was present at the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. Grouard later served as a U. S Marshal in Fort McKinney near Buffalo, Worming and was somehow connected to Wyoming’s Johnson County War of 1892.

Here was a man that made history and lived history.

You can get the full text of the Life and Times of Frank Grouard here-

http://www.archive.org/stream/lifeandadventure00debarich#page/n7/mode/2up

 

The Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother

 

Sounds like a very unusual name for an important battle with the Sioux under Crazy Horse allied with warriors of the Cheyenne under Little Hawk. This strong group was involved in an ongoing series of battles with the famous General George Crook during the Indian Campaign of 1876.  This encounter, which history books call, “Battle of the Rosebud, Montana,” was one of these fights.

One of the Indian leaders, Two Moons was heading a group of about 200 warriors and one women, Buffalo-calf-Road-Women, who refused to let her brother, an under chief named, Comes-In-Sight, go to battle alone. When Comes-In-Sight’s horse was shot from under him, Buffalo-Calf-Road-Women, rushed to the rescue. Riding her pony into the battle she scooped up her brother, saving him.

Eight days later, and not far away, Custer and his men of the 7^th were wiped out near the Little Big Horn River in present day Montana.

 

 

 

 

Incompetence and Politicians –Governor Moonlight

Colonel Thomas Moonlight was likely the worst commander in the history of Fort Laramie and may well have been responsible for the escalation of the Indian wars in Wyoming and the west.

Black Foot and Two Face (Oglala Chiefs) brought in a white woman, Lucinda Eubanks, who Big Foot had purchased from the Cheyenne who’d kidnapped her on the Little Blue River* in southeast Nebraska, several months earlier. She was in bad shape after being badly abused (by her captors before Big Foot and Two Face) and Moonlight who seemed to make decisions based on emotion and bad judgment  ordered the Sioux Chiefs hanged with trace chains by the neck. The two died a slow agonizing death and were left hanging, as an example, for months. The Sioux retaliated in kind.

And just what terrible punishment did Moonlight face for this torture and killing without due process or a trial of any kind?  He bounced around in the army for a few more years then went into politics in Kansas and was later appointed Governor of Wyoming Territory by President Cleveland (January 5, 1887). Governor Moonlight took the oath of office January 24, 1887 served until April 9, 1889, staying in government service as U.S. Minister to Bolivia for President Cleveland from 1893 to 1897.

*I grew up on the Little Blue River in southeast Nebraska but never heard this story untill I moved to Wyoming-not too far from Fort Laramie. Most of our knowledge of local history was centered around Wild Bill and the Rock Creek Station shoot-out.

The Treaty of Fort Laramie

The famous Great Council of 1851 (Treaty of Fort Laramie) is well recorded in History books, especially Wyoming History. But by 1890 when Wyoming became a state the famous treaty location was actually in Nebraska. Fort Laramie (Wyoming) itself only covers a few acres and at the time of the Great Council camps of both whites and Indians were spread out for miles. Grass was eaten down to nothing pushing all involved farther and farther from the actual fort as the government waited on gifts from the east to arrive.

This treaty was supposed to solve the problem of Indian wars against the white men on the plains but many historians point to this as the beginning of the Plains Indians wars of the west. The council that tried to keep Indians away from the trails by giving payments to the tribes for the game they lost after being relocated away from the North Platte River. Although all tribes were invited it was the Sioux, Arapaho and Cheyenne that were closest to the trails and most dangerous to travelers, these tribes were among the first and longest lasting of the Plains Indians trying to stop expansion into their territory.

The United States government made only one payment thus breaking the treaty that they had pushed so hard for. The treaty would be redone in 1868, but it to would also fail and wars on the plains would continue until 1890 and Wounded Knee.

The Last Battle of the Sioux

So when did the mighty Sioux nation fight its last battle and where did they fight it? How about east central Wyoming in 1903? Like many historical events this one has been reported and changed over the years, but this is what we know, with allowances for a few of my own interpretations of history.

Eagle Feather (early accounts called him Chief Charley Smith, a name purportedly given to him on the reservation by the U.S. Government and one he had to use to collect commodities) led a group of Sioux from the Pine Ridge into Wyoming, now a state for all of 13 years, on a hunting expedition, a hunt that had been given permission by Indian agent John R. Brennan. The small band headed for the area of Thunder and Lightning creeks in what is now Niobrara County Wyoming. The hunter’s accompanied by wives and children shot a few deer, sage grouse and antelope as they traveled across the plains, enjoying a taste of their old life style.

Weston county Sheriff William (Billy) Miller rounded up a posse of local stockmen and headed out to stop the Wyoming hunt. The stockmen may have been duped into believing the tribe was shooting cows instead of game and willingly traveled along to stop this new, “Indian uprising”. When the posse caught up the number of Indians in the party stopped them in their tracks. Miller believed there were too many Indians to arrest for various violations of game laws, trespassing and killing ranch stock and took his crew back to town. The next day the sheriff and his, now larger, posse caught up with the Indians at Lighting Creek and the,” Battle of Lightning Creek,” or “The Last Indian Battle,” took place.

Sherriff Miller and his deputy Louis Falkenberg were killed along with Chief Eagle Feather and several of his hunting companions. A few days later a hearing was held in nearby Douglas and the Sioux were released for lack of evidence that they had committed a crime other than defending themselves.

Wyoming Governor Fenimore Chatterton was enraged at the courts decision and tried to get the Indians in court for murder despite the findings of the Douglass court, but his power did not stretch that far.

Today if you Google, the last Sioux battle, you will first find, Little Big Horn (1876) then Wounded Knee (1890), both of great importance to the west but not the last, that would be Lightning Creek in 1903.


NOTE --A month after the Lightning Creek battle Governor Chatterton allowed popular range detective/shootest Tom Horn to be hanged in Cheyenne, a decision that most likely cost him reelection the next year.