The Oahe Dam and the Cheyenne River Sioux
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University of Nebraska at Omaha DigitalCommons@UNO Student Work 7-1-1973 Reservoir and reservation: The Oahe Dam and the Cheyenne River Sioux Michael L. Lawson University of Nebraska at Omaha Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/studentwork Recommended Citation Lawson, Michael L., "Reservoir and reservation: The Oahe Dam and the Cheyenne River Sioux" (1973). Student Work. 501. https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/studentwork/501 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Student Work by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. RESERVOIR AND RESERVATION: THE OAHE DAM AND THE CHEYENNE RIVER SIOUX A Thesis^ Presented to the Department of History and the Faculty of the Graduate College University of Nebraska at Omaha In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by Michael Lee Lawson UMI Number: EP73139 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Wbilsling UMI EP73139 Published by ProQuest LLC (2015). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 THESIS ACCEPTANCE Accepted for the faculty of The Graduate College of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts. Graduate Committee Namj JD e/part me n?b / 'TVjflL^ c . f i j f Chairman h « M 2 - f r / m Date § PREFACE In order to control floods and provide irrigation, hydroelectric power, and other benefits, the federal government has in recent years built a large number of dams on the nation's major rivers. Because of the destruction of scenic values and natural resources caused by the con^- struction of these dam projects and the necessary displacement of those people unfortunate enough to live within the reservoir areas, the necessity of these dams has often been questioned. With a view only to ward :the larger features and results of dam construction, those people who have supported these massive projects have often failed to realize that they involve many small matters of both economic and human relations, since the taking of property may present the people directly involved with a crucial life issue. Precisely in regard to these kinds of relation ships, the federal government and particularly the Corps of Engineers has demonstrated a great lack of sensitivity. Because they have traditionally lived in the river valleys and perhaps because they have very little political significance, Native Americans seem to have suffered to a greater extent from both dislocation and human insensitivity in regard to these dam projects. In Pennsylvania, for example, the federal government violated Americans oldest treaty in order to obtain 9,000 acres of Seneca land for the Kinzua Dam on the Upper Allegheny. Other tribes have been adversely affected by dam projects in the Columbia and Colorado River Basins and in California. In the Missouri River Basin, the Pick-Sloan Plan, the joint water development program of ii the Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation, has caused damage to virtually every tribe with lands along the Missouri and its tribu taries. One of the projects constructed under Pick-Sloan, the Oahe Dam, required the flooding of nearly 160,000 acres of Indian land on the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Reservations in North and South Dakota. The Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation provides material for an especially valuable case study. In the first place, these Indian people were forced to give up their best land and natural resources, evacuate their homes and ranches in the wooded bottomlands, and move to an empty prairie. Hence the disruption of their entire way of life was relatively more severe than is usually the case with other people dis located by public works projects. In addition, since the Oahe Dam was one of the first Pick-Sloan projects on the Missouri, sufficient time has elapsed since the Cheyenne River Sioux were displaced to permit an evaluation of the consequences. As this study will reveal, the damages the Cheyenne River Sioux suffered as a result of the Oahe project far outweigh the benefits pro vided to them by the Pick-Sloan Plan (i.e., flood control, irrigation, hydroelectric power, etc.). In developing this theme, the following chap ters offer a historical background of both the Pick-Sloan Plan and the t r.eyenne River Sioux, followed by a detailed summary of the events that occurred on Cheyenne River before, during, and after the years in which the impact of the Oahe project was being most intensely felt by the.'' Indian people. In addition, an effort has been made to provide at least a tentative evaluation of these events, not only in both individual and cultural terms but also in terms of the interaction between the Indians, the Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Congress, neigh boring white communities, and others who took part in this episode. The bulk of the information in this study has been obtained from government documents and other primary sources. In addition to these written materials, the research has been supplemented by a series of personal interviews conducted during a field trip in the summer of 1972 in which my wife and I actually camped on both the Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Reservations. I am greatly indebted to my wife Marcia for her perseverance during this field trip and for her patience and support during some of the more hectic moments of preparing this manuscript. I would also like to thank Dr. William C. Pratt and Dr. Harl A. Dalstrom of the Department of History for their generous advice, guidance, and encouragement. In addition to those people interviewed by me and mentioned in the text, I would also like to gratefully acknowledge the assistance and cooperation of Dudley Rehder and Richard Me Williams of the Corps of Engineers; Kenneth Krabbenhoft, John Erhardt, and Dr. Wilfred Bogan of the National Park Service; Dr. Donald Lehmer of Dana College; Clyde Dollar of the W. H. Over Museum, University of South Dakota; Janice Fleming and Kenneth Stewart of the South Dakota State Historical Society; Liess Vantine of the North Dakota State Historical Society; Karen Ducheneaux of Cheyenne River Reservation; Floyd Ryan of Standing Rock Reservation; Elizabeth Laird of the Gene Eppley Library, University of Nebraska at Omaha; and the Aberdeen and Billings Area Offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Finally, I would like to express my special thanks to Valerie Franklin for her speed and accuracy in typing this manuscript. CONTENTS PREFACE .......... ............. ii LIST OF TABLES ............ ........ vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS........................... vii CHAPTER I. BIG PLANS FOR THE "BIG MUDDY" . ............. 1 CHAPTER II. A GLIMPSE OF HISTORY ON CHEYENNE RIVER ......... 32 CHAPTER III. THE IMPENDING FLOOD ........ ............. 66 CHAPTER IV. THE TRIBE GOES TO WASHINGTON .......... 90 CHAPTER V. THE AFTERMATH: RELOCATION AND REHABILITATION . 124 CHAPTER VI. CONCLUSION: "EFFECTS ALL BAD, BENEFITS NONE" ..... 146 v LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Analysis of Reports, Cheyenne River Taking Area . ......... 108 vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page 1. Existing Public Utilities, Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, South Dakota ............... viii 2. Missouri River Basin Reservations Administered by the Aberdeen Area Office, Bureau of Indian Affairs ....... 20 3. Reduction of the Great Sioux Reservation .................. 38 4. The Sioux Reservations, 1890 .......... 44 5. Homesteading on Cheyenne River ..... .................... 45 vii EXISTING PUBLIC UTILITIES, CHEYENNE RIVER INDIAN RESERVATION, SOUTH DAKOTA R.4.L CITY (^^GLENCROSS FIRSSTEEL TIMBER LAKE e u o v a l l e y ISABEL ito m ig e WHITEHORSE THUNDER BUTTE IRON LIGHTNING HORtAU LA PLANT RIDGE'/IEW RED ELM BEAR CREEK Former OUPREE LANTSY location, Cheyenne River Agency EAGLE BUTTE DEWEY a ZIEBACH COUNTIES RED SCAPFOLO EXISTING PUBLIC UTILITIES FEDERAL HIGHWAY -— 0 ------ STATE HIGHWAY -— © ------ RAILROAD LANDING AREA CHERRY CREEK I ' MOREAU-GRAND ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE 0 WEST RIVER ELECTRIC ASSOCIATION Q DEWEY 8 ZIEBACH COUNTIES SOUTH DAKOTA Source: Cheyenne River Redevelopment Committee, Overall Economic Development Plan for Cheyenne River Redevelopment Area (Eagle Butte: 1969), p. 51. CHAPTER I BIG PLANS FOR THE "BIG MUDDY” Man has only attested to tame the Missouri River within the last twenty years. For the greater part of their history together, the nature of man's relationship with the "Big Muddy"* had been that of a long, discouraging, and apparently unending battle in which man was unable to prevent catastrophe. While the river made possible many of man's finest cultural and technological developments in the Great Plains, it at the same time provided a constant challenge to the very lives of those men who tried to exploit its vast resources. The Missouri seemed either to give them too much water, as evidenced by the dozen or more disasterous floods in the century between 1844 and 1944, or too little water, as was the case during the Great Drought of the Thirties. During the first half of this century, the river's rampaging yellow waters regularly flooded millions of acres of fertile land, damaged billions of dollars worth of property, and claimed over 800 lives. On the other hand, for lack of rain and irrigation the region's topsoil became so dry during the desperate *The word Missouri is derived from an Algonquian term in the Illinois dialect meaning "great muddy" or "big muddy." The term was used to describe the river.