Copyright © 1994 by the South Dakota State Historical Society. All Rights Reserved. Dakota Resources: The Investigation of Special Agent Cooper and Property Damage Claims in the Winter of 1890-1891 R. Eu PAUL The National Archives in Washington, D.C., holds over ten thousand cit- izen claims for property taken or destroyed by American Indians at war with the United States. The "Indian depredation" cases recorded in these claims span many decades, geographical regions, and cultural groups. Among some of the less well known records are the property claims made at the time of the Ghost Dance troubles on the Sioux Indian reservations, the Wounded Knee massacre, and the Sioux Campaign of 1890-1891- These records present an abundance of information about the people living in southwestern South Dakota at that time. In the fall of 1890, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the South Dakota home of five thousand Lakota, or western Sioux, five hundred Northern Cheyennes, and a handful of whites, saw a tremendous influx of invaders. On 20 November, about four hundred soldiers of the United States Army marched north from a Nebraska railhead to take control of Pine Ridge Agency, whose frantic agent had requested help in quelling the Ghost Dance. An assortment of hangers-on followed close behind^ozens of newspaper The author presented another version of this study at the 1993 annual conference of the West- ern Histoty Association in Tulsa, Oklahoma, during a session entitled "The People of the Sioux Reservations: New Archival Sources for Plains Indian History." Special thanks go to the other participants—Thomas R. Buecker, John D. McDermott, and James E. Potter—for tJieir com- ments and to Jerome A. Greene, who shared information on this topic. Copyright © 1994 by the South Dakota State Historical Society. All Rights Reserved. Dakota Resources 213 correspondents, enterprising photographers, local businessmen seeking lucra- tive contracts, supporters and critics of government Indian policy, public fig- ures like showman William F. ("Buffalo Bill") Cody, and even one deluded man, an lowan by the name of A. C. Hopkins, who claimed to be the return- ing Messiah for whom the Indians danced.' From the east came still more people, some two thousand Lakotas of the Bruíé band who had virtually abandoned the Rosebud reservation after their agency also fell to army control. Unlike the other invaders of Pine Ridge, the Brûlés avoided the agency and congregated instead at Cuny Table, an isolated badlands feature well to the north that their military adversaries dubbed the "Stronghold." Credited to the Brûlés was a wake of destruction to the homes and property of reservation residents, Indian and white alike, who had heeded an army order to gather for protection at the Pine Ridge Agency. The last—and most unfortunate—group to descend on the Pine Ridge reservation came from the north. Big Foot led his people, a combination of fellow Miniconjous from his village on the Cheyenne River and neighboring Hunkpapas fleeing the Standing Rock reservation after the murder of Sitting Bull, southward to seek the comfort of their Oglala kinsmen. Rather, most met their deaths near Wounded Knee Creek on 29 December 1890, an ugly exclamation point to the so-called Chost Dance War. Hostilities between the enraged Lakotas and the army flared in the days following Wounded Knee. Many Oglalas living near Pine Ridge Agency joined the Brule Ghost Dancers at the Stronghold, and numerous skirmishes and further property damage at abandoned homes punctuated the days after the massacre. In reaction to the reservation violence, the command of Maj. Gen. Nelson A. Miles swelled to over three thousand men, efl^ectively sur- rounding the Indians. The combination of overwhelming force and Miles's diplomatic overtures proved compelling to Indian leaders, who were them- selves debating the merits of peace. Armed conflict ended almost as quickly as it had begun. By mid-January, Ghost Dancers had abandoned the Strong- hold, white and Indian leaders had made mutually acceptable assurances, and the "war" came to a close. Although the lives lost at Wounded Knee always overshadowed other events, the subject of property loss came up in a January 1891 dispatch sent I. The most recent studies of the Ghost Dance troubles of 1890-1891 are Richard E. Jensen, R. Eli Paul, and John E. Carter, Eyewitness at Wounded Knee (Lincoln; University of Nebraska Press, 1991); Philip S. Hall, To Have This Und.- The Nature of Indian/White Relations, South Dakota. ¡888-1891 (Vermillion; University of South Dakota Press, 1991); Alvin M. Josephy, Jr.. Trudy Thomas, and Jeanne Eder, Wounded Knee: Lest We Forget (Cody, Wyo.: Buffalo Bill His- torical Center, 1990); George R. Kolbenschlag, A Whirlwind Passes: Newspaper Correspondents and the Sioux Indian Disturbances of ¡890-189¡ (Vermillion: University of South Dakota Press, 1990); and John D. McDeimott, "Wounded Knee: Centennial Voices," South Dakota History 20 (Summer 1990): 245-98. Copyright © 1994 by the South Dakota State Historical Society. All Rights Reserved. 214 South Dakota History from Pine Ridge Agency by Dent H. Robert, a correspondent for the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch. "One year ago, nine Indians out of every ten lived in houses," Robert reported. "To-day, every one is back in the tepees where they lived twenty years ago. Homes have been destroyed, furniture and farm- ing implements broken to pieces out of pure deviltry, and thousands of beeves killed and wasted."- A more personal account of the devastation came from Emmy Valandry, a mixed-blood woman who recalled in her auto- biography, "My sewing machine, which I prized highly, since I had been the very first to own such a thing, had been dragged out to the water, and it stood in midstream now, utterly worthless, and rusty all over; evidently the raiders had not known just how to make other use of it. Then especially I did not like the hostiles at all. I cried and cried, until at last Imy husband] told me that I should have another sewing machine."^ The United States government responded in uncharacteristically quick fashion to the misfortunes of Valandry and others. In March 1891, Congress appropriated one hundred thousand dollars to compensate the "friendly" Sioux for property the Ghost Dancers had destroyed. This substantial expen- diture mandated a careful assessment of damage claims, fitting work for Spe- cial Agent James A. Cooper of the United States Office of Indian Affairs, who had accompanied the initial contingent of soldiers to Pine Ridge in November.'' Cooper astutely observed that his work bettered government- Indian relations, especially in the immediate aftermath of the Ghost Dance War. "I think I am safe in saying," he reponed to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, "that as long as the investigation [of] claims continues that there will be no trouble as all the Indians of this tribe seem more interested in filing claims for losses than they are in stirring up strife." Concluding that the desire for money seemed to have supplanted the need to go to war. Cooper wrote, "I am a litde afraid this desire is going to be very ruinous to the $100,000 appropriated for this purpose."^ Even though his stint as a federal troubleshooter was a busy, high-profile one, biographical details about Cooper's life before and after his Indian Office career are lacking. In his short tenure as one of only five special agents in the bureau's employ, Cooper had proven his ability to handle special situa- tions. Before arriving at Pine Ridge, he had investigated the 31 May 1890 1. Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, 23 Jan. 1891. 3. Quoted in Julian Rice, Deer Women and Elk Men: The Lakota Narratives of Ella Deloria (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992),p. 19, 4. Roben M. UtIey, The Last Days of the Sioux Nation (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Universiry Press, 1963), pp. 113, 116,274. 5. Cooper to Commissioner of Indian affairs (CIA), 16 May 1891, Special Case No. 188 (a compilation of correspondence relating to the Ghost Dance troubles). Records of rhe Bureau of Indian Affairs, Record Group (RG) 75, Narional Archives (NA), Washington, D.C. Copyright © 1994 by the South Dakota State Historical Society. All Rights Reserved. Special Agent James A. Cooper (seated far right) poses with the press corps at Pine Ridge Agency in ¡89¡. murder of a Gros Ventre woman by a Mandan man at Fort Berthold, North Dakota. From there, he moved to the Tongue River Agency on Montana's Northern Cheyenne reservation, where he took charge after the agent resigned, investigating disturbances between the Indians and neighboring ranchers.*" Later that year, Cooper stood at the side of Agent Daniel F. Royer, the recent political appointee who had suddenly found himself at sea on the turbulent Pine Ridge reservation. The special agent served as the eyes and ears of his superiors in Washington, D.C, telegraphing news of the Wounded Knee massacre to Thomas J. Morgan, commissioner of Indian affairs. Cooper also helped to develop the official position of the Indian Office on the causes for the uprising, a party line presented to the newspapers and parroted months later in the commissioner's annual report.^ 6. U.S., Department of the Interior, Office of Indian Affeirs, Annual Report of the Commis- sioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior, ¡890 (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1890), pp, 32-33, 133-35; Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. ¡89¡, p. 285, Cooper gave his home address as Memphis. Tenn. Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, ¡890. p. 511. The troubleshooting role of the special agent is spotlighted in the auto- biography of another veteran.