The Transformation of the Missouri River Bottomlands in the Dakotas 1804-2005 Robert A
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2007 Fever, firepower, and flood: the transformation of the Missouri River bottomlands in the Dakotas 1804-2005 Robert A. Dunn Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Dunn, Robert A., "Fever, firepower, and flood: the transformation of the Missouri River bottomlands in the Dakotas 1804-2005" (2007). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 413. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/413 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. FEVER, FIREPOWER, AND FLOOD: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE MISSOURI RIVER BOTTOMLANDS IN THE DAKOTAS 1804-2005 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Geography and Anthropology by Robert A. Dunn B.A. University of Pennsylvania, 1973 M.A. Temple University, 1980 May 2007 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I wish to express my deep gratitude to my major professor, Dr. Kent Mathewson of the Department of Geography and Anthropology, for his extraordinary patience and forbearance in helping me to develop this research project and see it through to completion. I also wish to thank my committee members Drs. Craig Colten, Miles Richardson, and Rebecca Saunders for their inspirational teaching during my graduate studies at LSU, and for their expert guidance during my preparations for the General Exam. I also wish to acknowledge the tremendous debt I owe to my former colleagues at the U.S Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station, particularly Drs. Lawson Smith, Roger Saucier, Paul Nickens, and Roger Hamilton. I also want to thank my colleagues in the Corps of Engineers at the Omaha District and Northwestern Division, particularly Mr. David Vader, former tribal coordinator for the Omaha District. I especially want to thank Drs. Timothy Feather and Dale Brown of Planning and Management Consultants, Ltd. for their tremendous help in facilitating and recording the three 1997 Sioux focus groups discussed in this dissertation. I want to thank the archivists at the National Archives Plains Regional Office in Kansas City, Missouri, the Bureau of Indian Affairs Regional Office in Aberdeen, South Dakota, and the research librarians at the Waterways Experiment Station in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Their diligence in finding the research materials I needed was invaluable. I also wish to thank my supervisors at the U.S. Army Engineer District, Philadelphia: Mr. Jerry Pasquale, Mr. Stanley Lulewicz, and Mr. Minas Arabatzis. Their corporate support and personal encouragement were critical to the successful completion of this research effort. Finally, I want to thank my ii wife Carolyn for her love and support during the project, and most especially for her great help in the typing and proofreading of the manuscript. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................... ii LIST OF TABLES................................................................................................. vi ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................1 CHAPTER 2. CONTACT AND CONTAGION..................................................14 The Upper Missouri Cultural Landscape-Pre-1800.......................14 The Earthlodge Dwellers...............................................................18 The Sioux Migration and the Equestrian Revolution ....................25 White Contacts and First Conflicts (1804-1850)...........................30 American Contacts with the Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa .........38 Traders, Artists, and Epidemics (1806-1849)................................48 Wagon Trails and Army Forts in Sioux Country...........................56 CHAPTER 3. CONFLICT WITH WHITE AMERICA.......................................62 The Sioux and the U.S. Army........................................................62 The 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty.......................................................72 The Rise of Sitting Bull and War with the U.S..............................81 The Taking of the Black Hills........................................................87 CHAPTER 4. CONTAINMENT: THE EARLY RESERVATION PERIOD......92 The Break-Up of the Great Sioux Reservation..............................92 Allotment and Assimilation in the Early Reservation Period........94 Sioux Ecology in the Early Reservation Era................................102 The Fort Berthold Indians in the Early Reservation Period.........112 CHAPTER 5. FLOODING: THE MIDDLE RESERVATION PERIOD ..........123 The Reservoir Landscape.............................................................123 The Corps and the Missouri River...............................................124 Fort Randall and the First Taking of Sioux Land ........................135 Garrison Dam, Lake Sakakawea, and the Fort Berthold Indians.145 Oahe Dam and the Upriver Sioux................................................154 Gavins Point Dam, Big Bend Dam, and the Downriver Sioux....161 A Landscape Transformed by Water and Tears ..........................165 The Legacy of General Lewis Pick..............................................170 CHAPTER 6. STAND-OFF: THE LATER RESERVATION PERIOD ...........177 Coyote Warriors and Sovereign Nations .....................................177 The Erosion of Heritage...............................................................189 iv Indian Use of Corps Reservoirs in the Dakotas: The Sioux Focus Groups..............................................................202 Indian Water Rights and the Corps’ Current Operation of the Missouri River Reservoirs ...........................................................213 CHAPTER 7. FUTURE LANDSCAPES...........................................................222 The “New” Frontier Landscape: Buffalo Commons, White Depopulation, and Indian Resurgence ..............................222 CHAPTER 8. CONCLUSIONS ..........................................................................237 REFERENCES ....................................................................................................244 APPENDIX A. MAPS..................................................................................................253 B. ARCHIVAL DOCUMENTS ..............................................................272 C. SUMMARY NOTES- SOUTH DAKOTA FOCUS GROUPS .........280 D. NOTES ON ARCHIVAL RESEARCH .............................................297 E. LTG LEWIS A. PICK ARCHIVE ......................................................307 VITA……………................................................................................................329 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1 The Upper Missouri Reservoirs and Affected Reservations And Tribes.......................................................................................3 Table 5.1 Projects Proposed by Pick............................................................129 Table 5.2 Projects Proposed by Sloan..........................................................131 Table 6.1 Shoreline Erosion Rates, Missouri River Main Stem Lakes........193 Table 6.2 Shoreline Erosion Characteristics, Missouri River Main Stem Lakes...................................................................................194 Table 7.1 American Indian and Alaska Native Population for the United States, Regions, and States, and for Puerto Rico, 1990 and 2000..............................................................................236 vi ABSTRACT This dissertation focuses on the indigenous geography of the Missouri River Valley of the Dakotas. Since Lewis and Clark’s expedition in 1804, this landscape has been transformed by two externally introduced components, reservations and reservoirs. To move the native tribes out of the way of an expanding American empire in the mid- 19th century, the U.S. government confined the tribes to territories, then to reservations, which grew smaller as each new wave of Euro-American immigration launched more land-taking by the federal government. To ensure military and political control over the tribes, the U.S. government supported the efforts of hide hunters to annihilate the immense bison herds and implemented a policy of forced assimilation. The 1887 General Allotment Act directly attacked Indian tribalism and freed up thousands of acres on the remaining reservations for white ownership. The most severe physical impact to the bottomlands came in the mid-twentieth century with the construction of the Pick-Sloan reservoirs which inundated the fertile river bottomlands and destroyed what had been an "oasis" on the Plains for thousands of years. Human impacts to the Three Affiliated Tribes and to the Sioux have been severe and long-lasting; resulting in “trans- generational trauma.” Erosion created by the reservoirs has destroyed numerous archaeological