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Early
Reservation Life Indian Agents
U.S. Government agents were assigned to various forts along
the fur trading routes. These agents, who were former
military officers, were entrusted to carry out federal policies
put forth by treaties. Distribution of annuities, yearly
cash payments, and provisions promised to the three tribes,
were sometimes never received. They became more restricted in
their range and their ability to live from hunting and became
more dependent on the United States for subsistence.The Mandan,
Hidatsa and Sahnish and the Sioux had been unfriendly for centuries.
The three tribes, numbering two thousand, were at a disadvantage
to the forty thousand Sioux. During the period of the
early 1860s, several bands of the Sioux, deprived of their home
by the flood of whites into what is now Minnesota, pushed westward
onto the plains of the Upper Missouri. When the Civil War started
in 1861, military obligations in the Upper Missouri were neglected.
Problems increased as whites passing through tribal lands to
the gold fields caused restlessness among the Sioux.
The military became lax in their obligations to the military
forts along these territories. Because the Mandan, Hidatsa
and Arikara (Sahnish) remained friendly to the government and
the whites, they were repeatedly attacked by Sioux. (Dunn, 1963,
p. 201). Only after Fort Berthold and the surrounding villages
were burned by raids did the government see fit to move the
fort 17 miles further east. The new military post, known
as Fort Stevenson, was built in 1867, on the north bank of the
Missouri River at the mouth of Douglas Creek, near present-day
Garrison.
At the same time as the Sioux signed several treaties to remain
on friendly terms with the whites and other tribes, exploitation
by Indian agents and fur traders continued cheating and depriving
the Mandan, Hidatsa and Sahnish of their provisions from the
government When the Arikara Chief, White Shield, refused to
sign a receipt for goods he did not receive, Agent Mahlon Wilkinson
was angry and declared White Shield removed as chief and declared
him ineligible for his $200 annuity. Agent Wilkinson replaced
White Shield with a younger man, Son-of-Star, as chief of the
tribe. Agent Wilkinson said to White Shield, "My friend,
you are getting too old. Age troubles your brain and you
talk and act like an old fool. “The honorable Indian
replied firmly, "I am old it is true. But not so
old as not to see things as they are and even if, as you say,
I were only an old fool, I would prefer a hundred times to be
an honest red fool than a stealing white rascal like you."
(de Trobriand, Army Life).
A severe smallpox epidemic ravaged the Mandan, Hidatsa and Sahnish
in 1866. Their fall crops were a failure. After
being robbed of their annuities, the authorities refused them
any assistance. De Trobriand stated that the agents of
the Indian Bureau were nothing but a vast association of thieves
who made their fortune at the expense of the Indians and to
the detriment of the government. Between 1866 and 1870, the
Indian wars began to die out and the fur trade dwindled because
of the scarcity of game. Immigration increased ten-fold and
the railroads cross-cut the prairies, invading the homelands
of the tribes. In 1870, a group of Hidatsa and some Mandan,
who wanted to maintain their traditional way of life, left the
village and moved 120 miles up river (outside the reservation
boundary) and established themselves at Fort Buford, near what
is now Williston, North Dakota. There were a number of reasons
for the move, but one may have been a disagreement between Crow
Flies High and government-supported leaders, Poor Wolf and Crows
Paunch. One reason cited was over the distribution of
rations.
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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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