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During the late 1880s and early 1890s, a severe drought gripped
the country. Bad weather and severe droughts destroyed
crops of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Sahnish. Government attempts
to “civilize” and “christianize” the
Indians governed Federal policy, as was the blatant focus at
breaking up their land base. In 1883, Secretary of the Interior
Henry M. Teller initiated the Court of Indian Offenses.
His goal was to eliminate "heathenish practices" among
the Indians. (Secretary of Interior Report, Nov. 1,1883).
J.D. Adkins, Commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1885 to 1888
exerted great influence and pressure to promote use of the English
language in schools attended by Indian children stating "A
wider and better knowledge of the English language among them
is essential to their comprehension of the duties and obligations
of citizenship." (Report of September 21, 1887, in
House Executive Document, No.1, part 5, vol. II, 50th Congress,
1st Session, serial 2542, pp. 18-23).
School age children were sent to school and encouraged to become
farmers. Indians were to follow the laws of the Court
of Indian Offenses, which punished them for having more than
one wife and for participating in dances and traditional religious
ceremonies. Although many men agreed to become farmers or wage
earners, difficulties were encountered in doing large-scale
farming. Year after year, the crops were killed by droughts,
early frost, insects, or other disasters. The Mandan,
Hidatsa and Arikara were accustomed to farming only the floodplain
of the Missouri for their crops, but the government wanted them
to plant and raise surplus crops away from the river bottom.
In 1871, Indian agent Tappen reported that the men had broken
640 acres in the flood plain and grew enough corn and squash
to last the winter. As a reward, the men were given wagons
and horse harnesses. Later, they would grow wheat and
oats, which was turned over to the agent to sell and the agent
controlled the money made from the sale of these grains.
Agent Tappens' 1873 report, described the general surface of
the land as not fertile, sparsely timbered, and without water.
The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara were surrounded by wilderness
of prairie for hundreds of miles where very little game lived,
hardly a good location to start an agricultural economy.
They worked diligently with the primitive implements given them
and had nine hundred acres under cultivation. Corn, wheat,
oats, barley, field peas, potatoes, turnips and garden varieties
were raised. Agent Tappan requested proper accommodations for
himself and his employees, a schoolhouse, with a dwelling for
the teacher, two or more storehouses, a hospital building, where
native doctors could be kept from patients, and a new building
for a sawmill.
Indian agent, L.B. Sperry succeeded Tappan in 1874, and initiated
a policy of giving annuities directly to the families instead
of a chief. This policy eroded the role of the chief and
the tribal system of the people. In 1874 the Commissioner of
Indian Affairs, Edward P. Smith, urged the Mandan, Hidatsa and
Arikara (Sahnish) to leave Fort Berthold, with its unproductive
soil, unfriendly climate, scant supply of wood, poor water,
high winds, dust, drought, frost, flood, grasshoppers, and the
Sioux. That year a delegation from the Three Tribes went
to the Indian Territory (Oklahoma) to investigate the possibilities
of moving to that area. Although pleased with the country,
they refused, fearing it would be too warm, dreading the long
journey, and, most of all, losing their attachment to the place
of their birth and homes of their dead. (Dunn, 1963). See letter
in the Appendix.
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Phone: 701-627-3503
Three Affiliated Tribes, 404 Frontage Road, New Town, North Dakota,
58763
Copyright ® 2004-2006 Mandan, Hidatsa & Arikara Nation.
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