Dakota

“ Timid souls began to inquire, "Are all Dakota summers like this?" and those with greatest penetration reasoned, from the quality of the grass which was curly and fine as hair, that they had unwittingly settled upon an arid soil.
And so, week by week the holiday spirit faded from the colony and men in feverish unrest uttered words of bitterness. Eyes ached with light and hearts sickened with loneliness. Defeat seemed facing every man. ”

“ A few, including the Mounted Police, knew something of Dakota's past, but in a country where a man's present is all that matters, the story that might have been told died from lack of interest. In a general way it was common knowledge that Dakota had drifted over from the States, a born cow-puncher, broncho-buster, and prairie-man; and at his heels had come a motley assortment of kindred spirits whom Dakota had rounded up as his outfit at the H-Lazy Z. No one could say that the results in cold cash had not justified him. ”

“ Dakota society—an influence which bears with all its force on each individual of their victims, which tends to crush him down still deeper, if indeed there are depths below them, in ignorance, superstition, degradation and misery of soul and body, and force them into an unreserved surrender to their own whims and caprices. Of these wakan men there are from five to twenty five in each of the little clans of Dakotas. ”

“ The tepee’s gone, the peace pipe and the dance,
Gone, gone, alas! forever,
The Red Man’s fighting chance.
[Pg 17] For pale face came, and from Dakota’s plain
The Red Man drove, and claimed his vast domain;
No power on earth could stay the Viking’s son,
For “iron men” are born
In the land of midnight sun.
* * * *
Onward they came, these Northmen, feared of old,
Bold pioneers, to wrest the hidden gold
From North Dakota’s hills and virgin sod;
The ploughshare won the land
For these “master men” of God. ”

“ In the long winter evenings, while the fire burns brightly in the centre of the lodge, and the men are gathered in to smoke, he hears the folk-lore and legends of his people from the lips of the older men. He learns to sing the love-songs and the war-songs of the generations gone by. There is no new path for him to tread, but he follows in the old ways. He becomes a Dakota of the Dakota. ”

“ From this point a branch line extends northward, ninety miles, to Minnewaukan, at the west end of Devil's Lake. This remarkable body of salt water, with its deeply indented and richly wooded shores, where the briny odor of the ocean mingles with the fragrance of the prairie flower, is surrounded by some of the best farming lands in Dakota. Its attractions for the tourist, angler and sportsman have obtained wide recognition, fish and game being very plentiful, the climate highly salubrious, the scenery picturesque, and the hotel accommodations good. ”

“ The Dakota child is of lighter complexion than the young brave; this one lighter than the middle-aged man, and the middle-aged man lighter than the superannuated homo, who, by smoke, paint, dirt, and a drying up of the vital juices, appears to be the true copper-colored Dakota. The color of the Dakotas varies with the nation, and also with the age and condition of the individual. ”

“ It is now one of the leading agricultural States of the Union, with a population of a million; and Dakota is waiting only for the legal form of admission to become a State. The profits of railway construction, the opportunities for skilful management in the development of territory, and the spice of gambling which permeated the whole were great temptations to Americans to embark in the business. ”

“ The Dakota features are not found among the Eskimo, Nootka, Quileute, Chinook, various Salish tribes, the Kootenai, the Plateau Shoshoneans, nor in a large section of California to the north and east of the Miwok, and they are also absent from various Southwestern terminologies. The glib assumption of many writers that all of North America is characterized by a ‘classificatory system’ on the Dakota plan, is demonstrably false. ”

“ Dominating the silhouette of these little villages were the grain elevators, those bright sentinels which symbolized the reason for the towns' founding, and still remain the most typical buildings in the North Dakota picture today. Like tall men standing head and shoulders above a crowd, they rise 60 to 70 feet above the low prairie. First glimpsed as any town comes into sight is the row of wedge-shaped cupolas, like arrowheads in profile, topping the almost square red, green, or maroon shafts. ”

“ Their superstitions and religious ceremonies, with reference to this system of preparing the foundations for the establishment of the qualities required to enable a Dakota to fulfil his duties as a courageous and honourable member of his tribe, are most characteristic, and appear to be invaluable elements in the formation of the qualities required by a race dwelling in wild and desolate lands, surrounded by enemies. It was an invariable rule with all the Dakotas, that the youths upon reaching manhood, should pass through a probationary period of fasting. ”

“ South Dakota, who recently passed on to join the shining ranks of the saved Sioux in glory.
Timid as a little child, yet bold as a lion, when aroused; shy of conversation in private, yet eloquent in the pulpit and in the council-chamber; yielding yet firm as a rock, when duty demanded it; a loving husband, a kind father, a loyal citizen, a faithful presbyter—a pungent preacher of the gospel, a soul-winner—a courteous, cultured Christian gentleman; such a man was this Indian son of a Sioux mother, herself the first fullblood Sioux convert to the Christian faith. ”

“ The Democratic leaders declared for admission of Dakota territory as a whole, and the federal government used its influence to oppose the division movement in Dakota; therefore, a considerable party grew up in Dakota in opposition to division, but at every test the people pronounced strongly for two states. The population of Dakota was increasing rapidly, there were nearly six hundred thousand white citizens in the territory, and, under the territorial form of government, they were denied many of the privileges of citizenship. ”

“ Dakota is a beautiful state. The land along the route of the Great Northern railway lies more level than in Minnesota. The crops are looking well in this region. There seems to be but one drawback to farming here and that is the [22] famous Russian thistle imported a few years ago. The principal crops are oats, barley and wheat. Rye bread is plenty and good, too. Out there on the broad cheek of the Dakota prairie the weeds are holding high revelry. Some of the same old weeds we have at home and many which are new to the writer. ”

“ The Dakotas swear by the sun, "As Anpétuwee hears me, this is true!" They call him Father and pray to him—"Wakán! Até, on-she-má-da"—"Sacred Spirit,—Father, have mercy on me." As the Sun is the father, so they believe the Earth is the mother, of life. Truly there is much philosophy in the Dakota mythology. The Algonkins call the earth "Me-suk-kum-mik-o-kwa"—the great-grandmother of all. Narrative of John Tanner, p. 193.
[71]
The Dakotas reckon their months by moons. ”

“ Certainly she was not lonely for a young man with a raincoat, a cat, and an interest in Japan.
⁠No singer after a first concert has felt more triumphant than Claire when she crossed her first state-line; rumbled over the bridge across the Red River into North Dakota. To see Dakota car licenses everywhere, instead of Minnesota, was like the sensation of street signs in a new language. And when she found a good hotel in Fargo and had a real bath, she felt that by her own efforts she had earned the right to enjoy it. ”

“ To the people of southern Dakota, after the long years of dreary struggle through Indian troubles, grasshoppers, and bad crops, the Black Hills gold excitement seemed a godsend. The settlements along the Missouri were thronged with determined strangers waiting for an opportunity to slip into the Hills. ”

“ The buildings of North Dakota cling closely to the low, tranquil landscape of the State, avoiding exposure to the cold northwest winds that sweep across the snowy prairie in winter. Farms and towns huddle in valleys or hug the open plain, and only grain elevators dare to break the comfortable horizontality of the prevailing contours. In the few cities a tendency can be noted toward height in buildings, but the number of skyscrapers in North Dakota can be counted on the fingers of one hand. ”

“ If you betray timidity or indecision, you convert them from that moment into insidious and dangerous enemies. The Dakota saw clearly enough the perturbation of the emigrants, and instantly availed themselves of it. They became extremely insolent and exacting in their demands. It has become an established custom with them to go to the camp of every party, as it arrives in succession at the fort, and demand a feast. Smoke’s village had come with this express design, having made several days’ journey with no other object than that of enjoying a cup of coffee and two or three biscuit. ”

“ Our young men are unsettled and hard to control, while they think we have a right to our land in Dakota, and our tribe will not be finally settled until we have a title to our present reservation, and we have relinquished all right to our Dakota land. And we earnestly request that the chiefs of the Ponca tribe of Indians be permitted to visit Washington the coming winter for the purpose of signing away our right to all land in Dakota, and to obtain a title to our present reservation, and we also wish to settle our Sioux troubles at the same time. ”

“ And, indeed, considering that the quality of the land on which they now are is much better than that of their land in Dakota, and the circumstance that after much suffering they appear at last to have now become acclimated like other settlers in that region, does it not seem that in time they may become prosperous and contented? ”

“ When white men first had knowledge of the Dakota country, the Omaha Indians occupied the Big Sioux valley and the Missouri valley as far as the mouth of the James River, while at that time, or very soon thereafter, a settlement of Sisseton Sioux was made at Big Stone Lake, and the Kiowas occupied the Black Hills. All of these tribes, unlike the Rees, were nomadic ”

“ North Dakota is a State of plains, very different from the other States, and the cost of the roads there was much less than it was in mountainous regions that the roads had to traverse. The State is mainly agricultural. Its markets are outside its boundaries and most of the distributing centers from which it purchases also are outside. It naturally follows that the great and very valuable terminals of the roads are in other States. ”

“ DAKOTA-ASINIBOIN The Dakota are mentioned in the Jesuit Relations as early as 1639-40; the tradition is noted that the Ojibwa, on arriving at the Great Lakes in an early migration from the Atlantic coast, encountered representatives [pg 190] of the great confederacy of the plains. In 1641 the French voyageurs met the Potawatomi Indians flying from a nation called Nadawessi (enemies) ; and the Frenchmen adopted the alien name for the warlike prairie tribes. By 1658 the Jesuits had learned of the existence of thirty Dakota villages west-northwest from the Potawatomi mission St Michel ”

“ A skilled physician when he visits a sick room always diagnoses the case of the patient before he administers a remedy. In order to comprehend thoroughly the tremendous significance the Land of the Dacotahs bears in its relation to the solution of the problem of country life in America, one must know something about the commonwealth and its people.
North Dakota is a prairie state. Its land area comprises seventy-one thousand square miles of a rich black soil equal in its fertility to the deposits at the delta of the River Nile in Egypt. There are over forty million acres of tillable land. ”

“ Thousands of despondent men resolved at once to recover their fortunes in southern Dakota. The action of the military in preventing the entry of the miners into the Black Hills cooled the ardor of many of them, but that very obstacle made the people believe that the army was guarding a vast storehouse of wealth, and that fortunes were awaiting them. Some, hardy enough to pass the barrier, sent out reports of rich finds, and this increased the determination of very many to get into the Hills. ”

“ Hot work climbing the ridges but cool breeze. Worked N and then E over Lyons s.s. ridge, through Noland Noland, Colorado and then over the “Dakota” ridge. Very smoky day, but clear. The s.s. in lower Lykins appears to blend with the Lyons by disappearance of intervening interval, red, micaceous, friable s.s. I see no nonconformity. Base of “Dakota” is a beautiful conglomerate 15 ft. thick. ”

“ Commerce City, situated at the great bend of the Sioux on the Dakota side, halfway between Sioux Falls City and the Missouri, coal and timber plenty, at a point to which steamers of any class may ply at any stage of water," the report goes on to say that their men "have planted the flag of the Dakota Land Company on each valuable site from the mouth of the Sioux to old Fort Lookout on the Missouri, and on the James, Vermilion, and Wanari rivers. ”

“ On the other hand North Dakota was in the beginning chiefly settled by bonanza farmers, captains of industry, who came with large means, buying great areas of land and farming upon extensive lines. They and their camp followers were adventurous men whose traditions were entirely at variance with those of the homesteaders of the South, and the result was constant friction between the two elements. ”