Rogers Archaeology Lab

The Great Plains

(Part of a continuing series of travel commentaries)

By J. Daniel Rogers

 

The Great Plains brings all landscapes down to their essence—earth and sky. No hills, no trees. It is not boring, or blank or incomplete, the prairie is the foundation, the prototype. For me, it is the place to start.

The essence of the Plains. Photo by Dan Rogers.

 

 

All simple and true things are oversimplifications. The Great Plains is not only flat land and ever-changing sky. There are rivers--sometimes very large rivers--and hills and valleys. Stands of trees and forest follow along the river and stream courses. The land is never really flat and sometimes mountains crop up (the Black Hills) while bare mesas define some regions. Today, wherever it is feasible agriculture defines the landscape of the Plains. In some areas new oilfields have popped up.

To the east grasslands give way to ever thicker forest. The Rocky Mountains rise up at the western edge of the plains. The landscape transition to the mountains is something of a shock. Almost no foothills, prairie becomes mountain with little warning. On a recent trip to the Great Plains I marveled at the first sight of the mountains. My traveling partner, Garry Rogers, a landscape ecologist specializing in arid lands, said, “look at the snow!” I couldn’t believe it. “Snow?” As we drove west across the sweltering plains on June 6 I just didn’t think it could be snow. Viewed from 50 miles away, I thought it must be haze or fog on the mountains. Garry was right and I was wrong, it was snow and lots of it. I have lived on the Southern Plains and traversed the Northern Plains, I have hiked prairies and mountains around the world, but mountains still surprise me.

A couple hundred years ago Lewis and Clark led their expedition up the Missouri River. On May 26, 1805 they saw the mountains for the first time. This is what Lewis wrote:

 

In the after part of the day I also walked out and ascended the river hills which I found sufficiently fortiegueing. on arriving to the summit one of the highest points in the neighbourhood I thought myself well repaid for any labour; as from this point I beheld the Rocky Mountains for the first time these points of the Rocky Mountains were covered with snow and the sun shone on it in such manner as to give me the most plain and satisfactory view. while I viewed these mountains I felt a secret plaesure in finding myself so near the head of the heretofore conceived boundless Missouri; but when I reflected on the difficulties which this snowy barrier would most probably throw in my way to the Pacific, and the sufferings and hardships of myself and party in them, it in some measure counterbalanced the joy I felt in the 1st moments in which I gazed on them; but as I have always held it a crime to anticipate evils I will believe it a good comfortable road untill I am compelled to believe differently. [Moulton 1983, Volume 4]

 

 A first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains. Photo by Dan Rogers.

 

I suspect that Lewis knew at that moment the dream of a water route to the Pacific was not even a remote possibility.  He must have known it before then.  He and Jefferson were aware of the Rocky Mountains and that the expedition would need to travel from the Missouri River across the mountains and to the Columbia River.  After all, how can you travel up a river and expect it to connect to an ocean (the Pacific)?  Rivers begin in a series of smaller and smaller streams, or sometimes emerge from a lake.  Perhaps there will be a westward flowing river system nearby, but access would certainly require portages and the eventual construction of a canal.  Two hundred years later it is easy to wonder what President Jefferson, Captain Lewis, and many others were thinking.

Of course, the contrast of prairie and mountain was nothing new to the Native tribes of the region.  The Blackfeet, the Assiniboine, the Crow, the Sioux, and others and many generations of their ancestors often traveled from grassland to forest, from plains to mountains.  And, indeed Native guides led the Lewis and Clark expedition from the Missouri River drainage to the Columbia River drainage and eventually to the Pacific.  The first view of the mountains that shocked Lewis was routine to others, including even a few European trappers who had traveled up the Missouri over the previous 30 years.  I have only twice seen that view, traveling from the east to the west.

On June 1st Garry and I met in St. Louis and began our drive along the Missouri River towards those mountains.  Everywhere we went we were reminded of the Lewis and Clark expedition, such as the L & C Ford/Lincoln dealership in Yankton, South Dakota or the L & C Cafe in Washburn, North Dakota, plus lots of monuments and points of interest.  In Nebraska City, Nebraska we stopped at the Lewis and Clark Visitor Center, a fine museum and activity center dedicated to the Corps of Discovery.  An exhibit about the flora and fauna along the river was especially interesting.  We both enjoyed the replica of the Lewis and Clark keel boat in front of the visitor’s center.  The original was designed by President Jefferson and Captain Lewis.  Presidents these days don’t set down and help design expedition equipment.  Mr. Jefferson was a scholar and intensely interested in the history, geology, flora, and fauna of unknown regions—not to mention making the U.S. a global power.  He did a lot more for the expedition than design equipment, he also intensely instructed Lewis on making scientific field observations.

Garry Rogers and the keel boat. This replica of the Lewis and Clark keel boat was made for an early 2000s documentary. The original has not survived. The expedition keel boat has its own commemorative history, having been featured on the US nickel during the early 2000s. Photo by Dan Rogers.

 

At the Lewis and Clark Visitor Center I picked out a couple postcards in the gift shop to send home.  I asked about stamps at the counter.  The staff person said, “Oh, I’m going by the post office later.  I’ll get stamps for you and mail the cards.  No charge.”  Welcome to the Great Plains!  Everywhere we went we met helpful and kind people curious about why we were visiting their town.

Paying attention to the Lewis and Clark expedition is a good way to reflect on what has changed and what has remained the same over the last 200 years.  For me the point of the trip was to visit some key places on the Great Plains and develop a sense of place.  Mountains are interesting, but prairie comes first for me.  After driving for a couple weeks about all I learned for sure is that I must come back.

____________

[A few months ago Lotte Govaerts wrote in this column about her travels in North Dakota to Fort Union and other important places.   In subsequent posts I will follow-up with my perspective on some of the same places.]

 

References/Further reading

Lewis and Clark Visitor Center

Gary E. Moulton, ed. 1983.  The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition., Volume 1, Atlas, and Volume 4, April 8 - July 27, 1805.  Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Christian, Shirley.  2009.   Before Lewis and Clark: The Story of the Chouteaus, the French Dynasty That Ruled America’s Frontier. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Ronda, James P.  1984.  Lewis and Clark Among the Indians.  Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Travels in North Dakota, Part V: Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site

By Lotte Govaerts

 

This is the fifth and last post about my recent trip to North Dakota. Previous posts in this series are here, here, here, and here. In this post, I describe our last stop in North Dakota: Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site (NPS). The park is located ca. 25 miles southwest of Williston, ND, near the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, on the North Dakota/Montana state line.

 

History of the fort:

Fort Union was the longest-lived of the Upper Missouri trade posts. Established in 1828 by the American Fur Company’s new “Upper Missouri Outfit” (UMO), it operated continuously through 1867. As we’ve discussed in previous blog posts, John Jacob Astor sold the American Fur Company in 1834. The UMO was purchased by Pratte, Chouteau, and Company (later Pierre Chouteau Jr. and Company). Fort Union was built mainly for trade with the Assinboine, but many other Northern Plains tribes (Blackfeet, Chippewa, Cree, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara) were also frequent trading partners at Fort Union over the years. The bison robe trade waned in the 1860s, and the company’s business turned mostly to hauling freight on their steamships and distributing annuities to the tribes. Military troops were stationed at the fort in its last few years. In 1865 the Chouteau company sold to the Northwest Fur Company, who in turn sold to the military in 1867. The military then dismantled the fort and used its materials at nearby Fort Buford.

Karl Bodmer: Fort Union on the Missouri. Aquatint from the book "Maximilian, Prince of Wied’s Travels in the Interior of North America, during the years 1832–1834" by Prince Maximilian of Wied (Publisher: Ackermann & Co., 1839). This image shows Fort Union during its earlier years. Image Source: Wikimedia Commons.

 

Because of its size, long life, and importance as UMO flagship post, Fort Union is the best documented of the Upper Missouri fur trade posts. Many records survive alongside writings and depictions by fort employees and famous visitors.

 

Painting of Fort Union by J.B. Moncravie [also spelled “Moncrevie” and “Moncrévier”]. J.B. Moncravie was an employee of the UMO who also had some artistic talent (see Hanson 1972 for more detail on what is known about J.B. Moncravie). He painted a treaty scene over one of the gates to the fort in the 1840s.That painting can be seen (with some effort) in the center of this image. Image Source: Original from the IX De Smetiana Collection, Midwest Jesuit Archives, St. Louis, Missouri. Reproduced here as a photo of the cover of Barbour 2001.

"Fort Union & distribution of Goods to the Assiniboins" watercolor with graphite underdrawing by John Mix Stanley, 1854. 

 

Historic Site Designation and Fort Reconstruction:

After the military dismantled the fort, the site lay abandoned for quite some time. Local interest in the history of the fort, however, led to its recognition as a landmark and the eventual reconstruction of the replica post. In 1961, Fort Union became North Dakota’s first National Historical Landmark. Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site was created in 1966. Archaeological field work took place at the site in 1968, 1969, 1970, and 1972. In 1985 a bill was passed in Congress funding a reconstruction of Fort Union. Prior to construction, more archaeological excavations took place, led by William Hunt between 1986 and 1988. Results of these excavations were used in the planning of the reconstruction. In the various 19^th century depictions of Fort Union included on this page, it can be clearly seen that many changes were made to the fort during its several decades of existence. As you can see in my photos below, the reconstructed Fort Union was built to look like the original fort did in its later years. Much more detail on the efforts preceding the establishment of Fort Union National Historic Site and the fort’s reconstruction can be found on the NPS’ page “Fort Union at Fifty, 1966-2016: An Online Exhibit.”

 

An 1865 drawing of Fort Union by Benjamin Franklin Griffin, a soldier stationed at Fort Union. Image Source: National Park Service, FOUS 568.

 

Our visit to the site:

Mat and I visited Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site after the blizzard we’d been traveling through had finally ended, though some fresh snow had fallen overnight which was still being cleared as we arrived. We visited the exhibit in the visitor center (located inside the Bourgeois House), and toured the grounds. We also chatted with the ranger on duty, Loren Yellow Bird. He provided us with much information about the site and the area. Below are some photos from our visit.

 

One of the bastions at reconstructed Fort Union. Note the bison weathervane. Photo: Lotte Govaerts.

The front entrance to the reconstructed Fort Union. Above the gate is a painting that can be seen in some depictions of the original Fort Union. The original was by J.B. Moncravie, who also did one of the paintings included above. On the right side of the photo is a wooden fur press. Photo: Lotte Govaerts.

Mat takes pictures of the reconstructed Bourgeois House, which houses the visitor center. Photo: Lotte Govaerts.

One of the exhibit cases inside the visitor center at Fort Union. Many of these cases include artifacts recovered during the archaeological excavations at the site, alongside snippets of text from journals of employees and visitors to the fort. Photo: Lotte Govaerts.

Mat was thrilled to find this hands-on part of the exhibit, including examples of different furs/hides that were traded at Fort Union. Photo: Lotte Govaerts

One of several sample bead sheets included in the exhibit inside Fort Union's visitor center (non-archaeological). These were distributed to traders by bead manufacturers. Many such beads were recovered during excavations at Fort Union. Photo: Lotte Govaerts.

 

We hope you enjoyed traveling through North Dakota with us! Stay tuned for new posts on different topics, or check out our blog index to see all our older posts.

 

 

References/Further reading:

Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site

Midwest Archaeological Center Featured Projects: Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site

Barbour, Barton H. 2001. Fort Union and the Upper Missouri Fur Trade. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Hanson, Charles E. Jr. 1972. “J.B. Moncravie.” In Fur Traders, Trappers, and Mountain Men of the Upper Missouri, edited by LeRoy R. Hafen, 73–82. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press.

Kurz, Rudolf Friedrich, and J. N. B Hewitt. 2005. On the Upper Missouri the Journal of Rudolph Friederich Kurz, 1851-1852. Edited by Carla Kelly. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Larpenteur, Charles. 1933. Forty Years a Fur Trader on the Upper Missouri: The Personal Narrative of Charles Larpenteur, 1833-1872. Chicago: Lakeside Press.

Thwaites, Reuben Gold, ed. 1906. “Travels in the Interior of North America, 1832-1834 by Alexander Philip Maximilian, Prince of Wied-Neuwied.” In Early Western Travels, 1748-1846. Vol. 22, 23, 24. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark.

 

Travels in North Dakota, Part IV: Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site

By Lotte Govaerts

 

This post is part of a series on a recent trip to North Dakota. You can find previous installments here, here, and here.

 

Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site includes 1758 acres of National Park, just north of Stanton, North Dakota. Inside the park boundaries are over 50 archaeological sites, estimated to span a period of about 8000 years. The main points of interest are the remains of the large villages that gave the park its name.

 

A Map of Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site. Source: National Park Service.

 

Here is a Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site introductory video by the National Park Service:

 

Awatixa X’ie or “Lower Hidatsa” village was established by the Awatixa Hidatsa subgroup around 1525 , and was occupied until 1780-85. The village covered 10 acres and there were at least 50 earth lodges. Approximately 500 to 600 people lived here until the village was abandoned after the smallpox epidemic that struck the area in the early 1780s. The survivors temporarily moved away before returning to the area to establish Awatixa Village, which was occupied ca. 1790-1834. This village included approximately 60 lodges, though the population fluctuated over time. It was burned in a raid in 1834. Awatixa Village is also sometimes referred to as Sakakawea Village, because this is the village where Sakakawea lived before she joined the Lewis and Clark expedition. The site has partly eroded into the river. Hidatsa Village, or Big Hidatsa was founded by the Hidatsa-proper Hidatsa subgroup around 1600. This village covered approximately 15.5 acres, and included some 100 earth lodges. Population estimates for this village range between 830 and 1200. It was abandoned in 1845.

 

The entrance to the visitor center at Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, in summertime. Mat and I were far too cold to take a picture of the exterior of the building when we visited during a blizzard. Photo: National Park Service.

 

When Mat and I visited Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, it was still extremely cold and windy, so we did not walk any of the trails or see any of the village sites. Fortunately, there is a lot to see indoors at the visitor center, as well. The exhibits inside include artifacts recovered from the village sites, alongside decorative arts made by Northern Plains Indians and replicas of tools and other objects. Below are just a few examples.

 

 

An exhibit case showing tools made out of animal bone. Our archaeological collections here at NMNH include many of these bones without the wooden handles, as you may have seen in previous blog posts. Photo: Lotte Govaerts

 

An exhibit case showing some local artifacts, including Knife River flint, glass beads, and metal tinklers. Photo: Lotte Govaerts

An exhibit case showing porcupine quill decorations alongside glass bead decorations. Photo: Lotte Govaerts.

Another exhibit case showing quill- and bead work. Photo: Lotte Govaerts

A "bull boat" replica. These were made out of willow frames, covered with bison skin. Photo: Lotte Govaerts.

 

The ranger on duty also took us inside the earth lodge replica just outside the visitor center. The earth lodge is furnished, though wintertime displays are a bit more sparse than those you can see there during summer.

 

 

A photo of the outside of the earth lodge at Knife River Indian Villages, during nicer weather. Photo: National Park Service.

 

Inside the earth lodge. Mat listens to the ranger telling us many things about the park, the region, and their history. As you can see, there was no fire going, but we were sheltered from the wind inside, so we were able to stay out there for quite a while without freezing. Photo: Lotte Govaerts.

 

A diagram of the inside of an earthlodge. Source: National Park Service.

 

 

That concludes this post about our visit to Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site. Stay tuned for the next (and last) installment in this series, in which I will discuss my visit to Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site.

 

Further Reading:

Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site

Ahler, Stanley A., and Marvin Kay, eds. 2007. Plains Village Archaeology: Bison-Hunting Farmers in the Central and Northern Plains. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

Ahler, Stanley A., Thomas D Thiessen, and Michael K Trimble. 1991. People of the Willows: The Prehistory and Early History of the Hidatsa Indians. Grand Forks, North Dakota: University of North Dakota Press.

 

 

 

New Publication—Building a Better Past…

By J. Daniel Rogers and Wendy H. Cegielski

 

 

Last week the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science published our commentary, “Building a better past with the help of agent-based modeling” (www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1718277114).  Our topic is computational modeling and trends in how archaeology and other historical sciences conduct research.  We focus on a methodology called agent-based modeling.  This is a kind of complex simulation that creates agents, typically having characteristics of humans.  The agents interact, make decisions, and changes take place over time.  The results are accumulated and compared to real-world information about some aspect of a social system, depending on the question being investigated.

Our back story for writing on this topic comes from a convergence of perspectives plus the inevitable power of opportunity.  First of all, although we work at different institutions (the Smithsonian and Arizona State University) and study different topics in different parts of the world, we both come from an American tradition of archaeological research that values both scientific and humanistic perspectives. While our graduate training took place 40 years apart, we still share foundational thinking, although our knowledge base is quite different.  A good collaboration creates an opportunity to make the most of shared and divergent perspectives and allows an awareness of certain trends that we might not have recognized individually.

In the PNAS Opinion we note that the current generation of sophisticated computational methods creates the context for a major change in thinking, similar to a paradigm shift.  We are not the only ones to comment on the significance of simulations and ABMs (Banks 2002; Epstein 2006; Farmer and Foley 2009; Lake 2015).  Until recently, however, the conceptual revolution has remained marginal, largely due to the scarcity of practitioners.  Now there are several universities training interdisciplinary scholars who make routine use of high-level computational methods. The emerging potential of computational modeling provides the methodology from which to consider how we do our work as archaeologists.

Our original title was Building a Better Past, which was a bit too grand but it did reflect our interest in engaging with the social sciences and other historical sciences, ranging from paleobiology to astrophysics.  To some extent we see archaeology as a proxy for the social sciences more broadly and agent-based modeling as a proxy for a wider variety of computational methods. The Opinion published in PNAS was preceded by an article we wrote on trends in the archaeological use of agent-based modeling (Cegielski and Rogers 2016).  In that article we analyzed publishing patterns, topic areas, and gave examples and descriptions of the fundamental workings of an agent-based model. From that survey of the literature it was easy to recognize that as a profession, archaeology had crossed a threshold.  Computer simulations were no longer seen as a novelty, but rather as an emerging core methodology.  

Bibliography

Bankes, Steven C. 2002 Agent-based Modeling: A Revolution? Proceedings of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 99, no. Suppl 3: 7199–7200. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.072081299.

Cegielski, Wendy H. and J. Daniel Rogers. 2016 Rethinking the role of agent-based modeling in archaeology. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 41:283-298.  DOI: 10.1016/j.jaa.2016.01.009

Farmer, J. Doyne, and Duncan Foley. 2009 The Economy Needs Agent-based Modelling.” Nature 460: 685–86.

Lake, Mark W. 2015 Explaining the Past with ABM: On Modelling Philosophy. In Agent-based Modeling and Simulation in Archaeology, edited by Gabriel Wurzer, Kerstin Kowarik, and Hans Reschreiter, 3–35. London: Springer.

Rogers, J. Daniel and Wendy H. Cegielski. 2017 Building a better past with the help of agent-based modeling.  Proceedings of the U.S. National Academy of Science 114 (49): 12841-12844.  DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1718277114

A free download is available at:  www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1718277114

A New Publication on the Architecture and Early Empires of Inner Asia

By J. Daniel Rogers

Over the course of four field seasons, beginning in 2002, I had the good fortune to travel to Mongolia to study the architecture of the early empires. Some of the earlier blogs on the Rogers Archaeology Lab page describe the fun and challenges of traveling in Mongolia (Travels in Mongolia parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5). The fieldwork I did there was part of my comparative study of how large social systems form and either stabilize or fall apart. Over the last few years I have written quite a bit about the early empires of Inner Asia. People living in these empires herded animals as their economic foundation and they usually lived in tents. This is very different from the early civilizations that first developed in China, the Middle East, South America, and Mesoamerica.  All of these other places had agriculture as their economic foundation and people generally lived in villages, which later developed into cities. My most comprehensive overview of the Inner Asian empires, ranging from the Xiongnu (199 BCE to CE 155) to the Zunghar (CE 1625 to 1757) was published in the Journal of Archaeological Research (2012). 

Although the people of Inner Asia generally lived in tents, when the first empires began to develop they also built a variety of buildings and other forms of architecture, especially settlements with defensive walls. Within the walls there was sometimes a palace or ordinary domestic dwellings, but generally the walls enclosed a large open space with no evidence of buildings. The open space was probably occupied by tent communities. This year (2017) the journal, Archaeological Research in Asia, published my study of the early architecture and how it related to the emergence and stability of empires.  The full title and abstract are listed below.

This study is a culmination of my fieldwork in Mongolia and was only possible through the dedication and help of dozens of friends and colleagues.  I like traveling in wide open places and sleeping in tents.  I have had the good fortune to encounter many others who feel the same way.

Like any study, this one answers some questions while raising others. Stay tuned for future posts as the research continues.

 

Dan Rogers in 2010 at the Uglugchiin Kherem site of the Khitan empire (photography by Altangerel Enkhtur).

 

Rogers, J. Daniel

2017 Inner Asian Polities and Their Built Environment. Archaeological Research in Asia 11:1-14, DOI 10.1016/j.ara.2017.03.002.  Also published online at   http://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S2352226716300630

 

Abstract

By 200 BCE the eastern steppe regions centered on Mongolia saw the development of expansive and complex political systems usually referred to as empires. The origins of these polities and the processes of consolidation can be described within the concept of a political community, reflecting the actions of competing groups in expansive social network. For Inner Asia, community was linked to issues of mobility, dispersed control hierarchies, and the economics of multi-resource pastoralism. Together, these patterns offer an alternative vision of the origin and operation of early complex polities. Archaeologically, the pastoralist way of using the built environment provides a window into the dynamics of political processes that operated within a particular polity, but also within multiple polities across long stretches of time. Based on a sample of 76 sites within 13 steppe polities several patterns emerge that highlight how distinctive political processes altered and incorporated community and place in the building of fortified settlements, palaces, military posts, and other constructions. The evidence from these places suggests that these polities operated as inclusive spatial networks that relied more on mobility than the direct interactions seen in urban centers in sedentary societies. The urban centers of the steppe tended to be the byproduct of polity formation, rather than the source.

 Keywords

Inner Asia - Nomadic empires - Polity formation - Architecture - Urban centers

 

Rogers, J. Daniel

2012. Inner Asian States and Empires: Theories and Synthesis.  Journal of Archaeological Research 20:205-256. doi:10.1007/s10814-011-9053-2.

 

Other Reading

Hanks, Brian

2010. Archaeology of the Eurasian steppes and Mongolia. Annual Review of Anthropology 39, 469–486.

 

Honeychurch, William

2015. Inner Asia and the Spatial Politics of Empire. Springer, New York.

 

Travels in North Dakota, Part III: Fort Clark State Historic Site

By Lotte Govaerts

 

This is the third installment in a blog series on my recent trip to North Dakota. In previous entries I wrote about my visits to Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park, and the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. This entry is about a visit to Fort Clark Historic Site, on a particularly cold day.

Fort Clark State Historic Site encompasses 231.5 acres, approximately 15 miles southwest of Washburn, ND and 7.5 miles southeast of Stanton, ND. It includes the archaeological remains of Mih-tutta-hang-kush, a Mandan earth lodge village occupied between ca. 1822 and 1838, as well as an overlying Arikara village, occupied 1838 through 1861. The remains of a trade post called Fort Clark (1831-1860) and a competing post called Fort Primeau (1846-1861) are also included. A trail lined with interpretive signs loops around the site.

 

A chilly view of Fort Clark State Historic Site. Some of the interpretive signs lining the path can be seen in the distance. (Photo Lotte Govaerts)

Because we visited during a full-on blizzard, we did not walk the whole trail. Snow cover also obscured the depressions in the ground where earth lodges once stood. However, because there are so many signs along the way, we still got to read a lot about the site’s history. It would have been fun to spend a little more time and walk the whole trail, but it really was VERY cold and windy. I’m not sure what the exact temperature was, but the next morning when we were getting ready to drive to our next destination, my friend Mat cheerfully informed me that the “real feel” temperature was -22°F (-30°C). Brrrrrr!

 

One of the many interpretive signs providing information to visitors at Fort Clark State Historic Site.(Photo Lotte Govaerts)

 

The Mandan village Mih-tutta-hang-kusch was established here around 1822. A trade post named Tilton’s Fort was constructed nearby in 1823 by the Columbia Fur Company (Wood et al. 2011, p. 48-49). In 1825 James Kipp built the predecessor to Fort Clark (referred to as “Fort Clark I” by researchers [ibid., p.55-58]), closer to the village. Fort Clark proper was established in 1830 by the Upper Missouri Outfit of the American Fur Company, and operated until 1860 (the Columbia Fur Company was bought out by the American Fur Company in 1827, becoming its Upper Missouri Outfit. In 1834, it was sold to Pratte, Chouteau & Company, later Pierre Chouteau, Jr. & Company). A competing trade post called Fort Primeau was established by Harvey, Primeau, and Company (also called the Union Fur Company) in 1846. It operated until 1861 (ibid., p. 192-193).

 

George Catlin: "Distant View of the Mandan Village," oil on canvas, 1832. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr., 1985.66.379. Fort Clark can be seen to the left of Mih-tutta-hang-kusch.

 

Mih-tutta-hang-kusch was hit by a smallpox epidemic in 1837, when a fur trade steamship carrying the virus docked at the fort. Approximately 90% of the inhabitants of the village were killed. Earlier epidemics had already reduced the Mandan in number (particularly the 1782 smallpox epidemic). Some estimates on the total number of Mandan survivors in 1837 are as low as 125 individuals (ibid., p. 165). These survivors moved north not long after. At this time, a group of Arikara moved to the site and built their lodges over top of the remains of the Mandan village. They remained there until 1861, when they also moved north.

 

Karl Bodmer, “Mih-tutta-Hankusch – a Mandan Village,” aquatint from the book "Maximilian, Prince of Wied’s Travels in the Interior of North America, during the years 1832–1834" by Prince Maximilian of Wied , Publisher: Ackermann & Co., 1839. (via Wikimedia Commons)

 

Well-known visitors to Fort Clark include George Catlin and Maximilian, Prince of Wied-Neuwied, accompanied by Karl Bodmer. Their paintings, drawings, and writings provide some details about life in the villages and trade posts. Additional information can be found in the journal written by Francis A. Chardon while he was in charge of Fort Clark between 1834 and 1839. Archaeological testing took place at the site intermittently between 1973 and 2001, adding archaeological data to researchers’ knowledge about the site.

 

Karl Bodmer, "Fort Clark – on the Missouri (February 1834)," aquatint from the book "Maximilian, Prince of Wied’s Travels in the Interior of North America, during the years 1832–1834" by Prince Maximilian of Wied , Publisher: Ackermann & Co., 1839. (via Wikiart)

 

In the next installment of this blog series, I will discuss our visit to Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site. Stay tuned!

 

 

 

Bibliography/further reading

http://www.history.nd.gov/historicsites/clark/

Abel, Annie H., ed. 1932. Chardon’s Journal at Fort Clark, 1834-1839. Pierre: South Dakota State Department of History.

Thwaites, Reuben Gold, ed. 1906. “Travels in the Interior of North America, 1832-1834 by Alexander Philip Maximilian, Prince of Wied-Neuwied.” In Early Western Travels, 1748-1846, Vol. 22, 23, 24. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark.

Wood, W. Raymond, W. F. Hunt, and Randy H. Williams. 2011. Fort Clark and Its Indian Neighbors: A Trading Post on the Upper Missouri. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

 

Travels in North Dakota, Part II: Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center and Fort Mandan

By Lotte Govaerts

This is the second post in a blog series on my recent trip to North Dakota. Check my previous post for photos from Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park. The second stop my friend Mat and I made on this trip was at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Washburn, North Dakota. It was snowing when we arrived there and the wind had picked up more, but the museum was open and we even got to tour the reconstructed Fort Mandan in the snow. Both are run by the Lewis and Clark Fort Mandan Foundation.

“A map of Lewis and Clark's track, across the western portion of North America from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean: by order of the executive of the United States in 1804, 5 & 6.” (Image Source: Library of Congress G4126.S12 1814 .L4.)

 

Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center

After the United States acquired the Louisiana Territory in 1803, the government immediately set out to establish a presence in the area, explore, map, and attempt to find a river route to the Pacific. President Jefferson appointed Meriwether Lewis to lead an expedition into the new territory. He and William Clark, along with their “Corps of Discovery” traveled from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean (at the mouth of the Columbia River) and back again, between May 14, 1804 and September 23, 1806.

The Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center has exhibits illustrating different aspects of the Lewis and Clark expedition, as well as ones that illustrate local Native American and fur trade history. These exhibits include many archaeological artifacts, very similar to ones you may have seen in our various posts about our collections work.

Below are a few examples of exhibit cases at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center:

Display of bone and ceramic artifacts at Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center (Photo Lotte Govaerts)

 

 

"Trade objects" display at Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center (Photo Lotte Govaerts)

 

A bison scapula hoe with wooden handle attached, sitting among other replica tools used for educational purposes. If you've been reading our River Basin Surveys collections posts, you might know that in archaeological contexts, we don't normally find those with the wooden handles still attached, so our photos look a bit different. (Photo Lotte Govaerts)

 

A reconstruction of what a trade room would have looked like, showing many of the items that were traded on the Upper Missouri in the 19th century. (Photo Lotte Govaerts)

 

Fort Mandan Reconstruction

Fort Mandan is the name of the fort Lewis and Clark (and the Corps of Discovery) constructed near the Mandan villages, where they stayed the winter of 1804-1805. The replica Fort Mandan (originally constructed by the McLean County Historical Society) is not in the exact location of the original Fort Mandan. That is because the site of the original Fort Mandan was never found. It is likely in/under the Missouri River now, as the river frequently shifted channels, and does not flow in the same place now as it did when the Corps of Discovery passed through.

Because of the uncharacteristically warm temperatures the area had seen in the days just before our arrival, ice and snow had melted inside the fort and then re-frozen. This made it impossible for the ranger who gave us the tour to open some of the doors and show us all the different rooms/exhibits, but we still got to see most of the fort. The blizzardy conditions seemed kind of appropriate for a winter fort visit.

Approaching the reconstructed Fort Mandan in the snow. The weather gave us some appreciation of what life must have been like at Fort Mandan, though it wasn't nearly as cold as the average temperature experienced during the winter of 1804-05! (see Burnette 2002 and Preston 2004 for information on weather conditions during the Lewis and Clark expedition)

 

Looking into the interior of Fort Mandan. The odd patterns in the soil are frozen footprints. It had been unseasonably warm for a few days, and melting snow and ice had made the fort interior very muddy. By the time we visited, all the mud had frozen again, leaving these patterns, and leaving some of the doors in the fort frozen shut.

 

 

"A reconstruction of Lewis and Clark's room at Fort Mandan.” Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

 

Inside the translator/fur trapper room. It was nicer than the enlisted men’s rooms, but not quite as nice as Lewis and Clark’s.

 

Stay tuned for the third part of this blog series, in which I describe a visit to Fort Clark Historic Site.

 

 

Bibliography & Further Reading:

Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center/Fort Mandan

Lewis and Clark Journals online at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln

Burnette, Dorian J. “Meteorological Reconstruction of the Lewis and Clark Expedition” Emporia State University, 2002.

Jackson, Donald. Thomas Jefferson & the Stony Mountains: Exploring the West from Monticello. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993.

Preston, Vernon. “The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition 1803-1806: Weather, Water & Climate” Weather Forecast Office, Pocatello: NOAA National Weather Service, 2004.

Ronda, James P. Lewis and Clark among the Indians. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002.

Travels in North Dakota, Part I: Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park

By Lotte Govaerts

I have been working with collections from the Upper Missouri basin in North and South Dakota for about four years now, here at the National Museum of Natural History, but I had never actually visited the area until this past spring (late winter, really). My good friend and frequent travel companion Mat and I had the opportunity to take a short road trip across the area in early March of this year. Unfortunately, we arrived in North Dakota at the very end of an uncharacteristically warm period, which was followed by a blizzard. Our travel was impeded somewhat by these blizzard conditions which persisted throughout our visit.

Because of the time of year and the weather, many parks and other attractions were closed or inaccessible when we passed through the area. Despite this, we were still able to see a lot of the sights, and had a great trip. In this blog series, I want to share some pictures from that trip, as well as some historic photos and other related images.

Three earth lodges at On-A-Slant Village, in Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park. (Photo Lotte Govaerts)

 

One of the first places Mat and I visited in North Dakota was Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park, located about seven miles south of Mandan.  The park does not close entirely for winter, but during the off-season, there are no interpretive services, no employees on site, and no exhibits, tours, or other activities. The visitor center is also closed.

 

On-A-Slant Village

One of the historic sites contained within Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park is On-A-Slant Village. On-A-Slant was a Mandan village occupied for approximately 200 years between the late 16^th and 18^th centuries. It was abandoned shortly after many of the village’s inhabitants were killed during the smallpox epidemic of 1781. The survivors moved north to the Knife River region. In the 1930s, five earth lodges were reconstructed on the site by Civilian Conservation Corps crews.

Tracks in the snow lead to the entrance of an earth lodge at On-A-Slant Village. (Photo Lotte Govaerts)

 

It was extremely cold when we visited, with an icy wind blowing. With no fire going, it wasn’t particularly warm inside these earth lodges, but we could appreciate how well-insulated they were, as the wind could not penetrate the walls at all.

Selfie inside an earth lodge at On-A-Slant Village. (Photo Lotte Govaerts)

 

 

Close-up of interior of roof of an earth lodge at On-A-Slant Village. (Photo Lotte Govaerts)

Interior of larger, ceremonial lodge at On-A-Slant Village. (Photo Lotte Govaerts)

 

Interior of the larger, ceremonial earth lodge at On-A-Slant Village. Human (me) for scale. (Photo Mathew Patterson)

 

 

Outside of an earth lodge at On-A-Slant Village. The Missouri river can just be seen on the right. (Photo Lotte Govaerts)

 

1930s photo of Civilian Conservation Corps crew working on the construction of an earth lodge at On-a-Slant Village. (Image source: North Dakota Parks and Recreation, 50^th Anniversary Photo Album)

 

 

Fort Abraham Lincoln

Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park of course also includes the site of the fort it was named for.

Almost a century after the Mandan left the area, in June 1872, an infantry post named Fort McKeen was established in this location. It was soon renamed Fort Abraham Lincoln. A cavalry post was added the next year. Fort Abraham Lincoln housed three companies of the 6th and 17th Infantries and six companies of the 7th Cavalry, making it one of the largest military forts in the Northern Plains. It is perhaps most famous for being the home base from which the 7^th Cavalry under Custer started out on the expedition that ended in their defeat at the Greasy Grass or Little Bighorn.

The house where George and Elizabeth Custer lived has been restored, along with the commissary storehouse, enlisted men's barracks, a granary, and a stable. Visitors can take tours, but not during the winter season when we visited.

Wide view of some of the reconstructed buildings at Fort Abraham Lincoln. (Photo Lotte Govaerts)

 

A close-up of the reconstructed Custer house, taken on a nicer day. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

 

Quite a few historical drawings and photographs exist of Fort Abraham Lincoln and the Custer house in particular.

 

View of Fort Abraham Lincoln, 1887. (Image Source: North Dakota State University Libraries, Institute for Regional Studies, Dakota Lithographs and Engravings Collection, Folio 102)

 

Officers and their wives at Fort Abraham Lincoln, 1876 or slightly earlier. (Image Source: State Historical Society of North Dakota 0022-H-0034. Via ND Studies)

 

Several people on the porch and steps of the Custer house, sometime between 1873 and 1876. (Image Source: State Historical Society of North Dakota 00260-03)

 

In the next post I will share photos from my visit to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center and the reconstructed Fort Mandan. Stay tuned!

Further reading:

Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park website

MHA Nation history pages

Chambers, Lee. Fort Abraham Lincoln, Dakota Territory. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Pub., 2008.

Fenn, Elizabeth A. Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People. Macmillan, 2014.

Utley, Robert M. The Indian Frontier, 1846-1890. Rev. ed. Histories of the American Frontier Series. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003.

Lake Sakakawea and the Woman It Was Named After

By Lotte Govaerts

 

This blog post is part of a series discussing my research on the historical archaeology of the River Basin Surveys (RBS). In my previous post I discussed the construction and impacts of Garrison Dam on the Upper Missouri in North Dakota. In this post I will discuss the name of the lake created by that dam, and the history of the woman it was named after. Like my last post in this series, this blog entry is also an edited version of a section of my recent paper on the transformative consequences of Garrison Dam (See Govaerts 2016 for the full version).

The reservoir created by the construction of Garrison Dam was originally referred to as Garrison Reservoir. Its name was eventually changed to Lake Sakakawea, after the Native woman who served as a translator on the famous expedition of Lewis and Clark.  Sakakawea is the official spelling of her name in North Dakota, but other variations are used elsewhere, including Sacagawea and Sacajawea. There is some debate on the correct spelling, pronunciation and etymology of the name (see Anderson 1999). Because Sacagawea is the most common spelling, I use it here when referring to the person.

 

Figure 1: A 1954 "Lewis and Clark Expedition" commemorative stamp. Sacagawea and Toussaint Charbonneau are included in the image with Lewis and Clark. Image Source: Smithsonian National Postal Museum.

What do we know about Sacagawea?

Sacagawea was a Shoshone¹ woman, born in the late 1780s in what is now northern Idaho. When she was around twelve years old, she was captured by a group of Hidatsa in a raid, and came to live in a Hidatsa village on the Upper Missouri. Sacagawea was later “to a fur trapper from Quebec named Toussaint Charbonneau, who lived among the Missouri River Indians.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, charged with exploring and establishing travel routes across the western lands acquired in the Louisiana Purchase, spent the winter of 1804-1805 at Fort Mandan, near the Hidatsa village where Sacagawea lived. The Corps of Discovery (the specially-created unit of the United States Army led by Lewis and Clark on their expedition) employed Charbonneau as a guide for the expedition. Upon finding out that his wives were Shoshone, they suggested he bring one of them as an interpreter:

a french man by Name Chabonah, who Speaks the Big Belley language visit us, he wished to hire & informed us his 2 Squars were Snake Indians,  we engau him to go on with us and take one of his wives to interpet the Snake language. (William Clark’s journal entry for November 4, 1804)²

 

Thus Sacagawea and her newborn baby came to accompany the expedition. She is mentioned only intermittently in the Corps of Discovery’s journals.³ Usually on occasions where her actions directly impacted the progress of the expedition: Early on, she saved some precious supplies, including Clark’s journal and notes when a boat turned over on the river, Clark’s journal, May 14, 1805:

… about 6 oClock a Squawl of wind Struck our Sale broad Side and turned the perogue nearly over, and in this Situation the Perogue remained untill the Sale was Cut down in which time She nearly filed with water—    the articles which floated out was nearly all caught by the Squar who was in the rear. This accident had like to have cost us deerly; for in this perogue were embarked our papers, Instruments, books, medicine, a great proportion of our merchandize, and in short almost every article indispensibly necessary to further the views, or insure the success of the enterprize in which, we are now launched to the distance of 2,200 miles.

Lewis wrote (May 16):

… the Indian woman to whom I ascribe equal fortitude and resolution, with any person onboard at the time of the accedent, caught and preserved most of the light articles which were washed overboard. (Lewis’ May 14 entry includes more information about the incident, but does not mention Sacagawea).

Shortly thereafter, Lewis and Clark named a tributary of the river for her:“this stream we called Sâh-câ-gar me-âh or bird woman's River, after our interpreter the Snake woman” (Lewis, May 20, 1805).

Figure 2: Charles M. Russell, “Lewis and Clark on the Lower Columbia”, 1905. Watercolor on paper, 1961.195, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas (via Humanities Texas). The painting was inspired by Clark’s journal entry for October 28, 1805, in which he describes an encounter with local people in canoes on the lower Columbia River: “we had not been long on Shore before a Canoe came up with a man woman & 2 children, who had a fiew roots to Sell, Soon after maney others joined them from above, The wind which is the cause of our delay, does not retard the motions of those people at all, as their canoes are calculated to ride the highest waves, they are built of white cedar or Pine verry light wide in the middle and tapers at each end, with aperns, and heads of animals carved on the bow, which is generally raised.” The people in question were probably Wishram, as the encounters on the river took place near a village interpreted to be Nayakxa’tcix village, as described by Spier and Sapir (p. 166, see digital version of collected works of Sapir, p. 370). Charles Russell, however, was not familiar with the area or its inhabitants when he painted the scene. He likely based the design of clothes and canoes pictured here on collected objects from the Pacific coast, which he had recently seen. Thus, the style is not quite right for the area (Amon Carter Museum of American Art).

 

When the expedition reached the area where Sacagawea grew up, she was familiar with the landscape:

the Indian woman recognized the point of a high plain to our right which she informed us was not very distant from the summer retreat of her nation on a river beyond the mountains which runs to the west ...    she assures us that we shall either find her people on this river or on the river immediately west of it's source (Lewis, August 5, 1805).

Sacagawea’s family ties to the Shoshone they met there allowed for the purchase/trade of much-needed horses for the expedition: “The Great Chief of this nation proved to be the brother of the Woman with us and is a man of Influence Sence & easey & reserved manners, appears to possess a great deel of Cincerity.” (Lewis, August 17, 1805).

The anticipated need for horses to cross the mountains was the primary reason a Shoshone translator was included on the expedition. Lewis and Clark also opine in their journals that the presence of Sacagawea and her baby had a “calming” effect on various Native peoples they encountered, who might otherwise have been hostile: “The wife of Shabono our interpetr we find reconsiles all the Indians, as to our friendly intentions a woman with a party of men is a token of peace” (Clark, October 13, 1805).

From letters and other documents we know a little of her life after the expedition, and that she probably died at Fort Manuel in 1812 (Anderson 1976).

 

Figure 3: Statue of Sacagawea on the Capitol Grounds in Bismarck, North Dakota. Image source: State Historical Society of North Dakota (2013-P-024-0283

Legacy

Although little is known about Sacagawea’s life, she has become a popular figure in American History. The Lewis and Clark expedition is seen as an iconic event in US history, but during the 19th century, Sacagawea’s participation in it was rarely mentioned. This changed around the time of the expedition’s centennial celebration. The persona of a native teenage girl who carried her infant along the perilous journey captured the public’s imagination. Early 20th century white feminists were among the first groups to celebrate Sacagawea’s story, which they appropriated in their fight for the vote. From its beginning, the myth of Sacagawea outshone what was known about the actual person. Sacagawea’s story, or some embellished version of it, was frequently the topic of books and movies throughout the 20^th century. Over time, Sacagawea came to symbolize various ideas and concepts in dominant American culture such as manifest destiny or Native people’s innate ability to become “model citizens” as defined by white Americans.⁴

 

Although no contemporary portraits exist of her, there are more statues of Sacagawea in the United States than of any other woman, including one in the United States Capitol (Summit 2008, p. 109). In recognition of Sacagawea’s role in United States history, the United States Postal Service issued a Sacagawea stamp in 1994. The United States Mint issued a Sacagawea dollar coin in 2000. Many landscape features besides the Garrison Dam reservoir are named after her.

Figure 4: Left: Sacagawea stamp. Image source: Smithsonian National Postal Museum. Right: A somewhat well-worn Sacagawea dollar coin. Image Source: Lotte Govaerts

 

The lake’s name change

The idea of changing the name of the Garrison dam reservoir to commemorate Sacagawea was discussed as early as May 1955 at the North Dakota Federation of Women’s Clubs meeting in Bismarck (O’Brien 1955). Other groups and associations were also in favor of the name change, and the name was commonly used long before it became official in 1967. On July 4 of that year, Public Law 90-46 “An Act authorizing the change in name of certain water resource projects under jurisdiction of the Department of the Army” (United States 1968, p. 112) was signed, officially changing the name.

Figure 5: Article in The Billings County Pioneer, October 25, 1962 (via Google News Archives). Much discussion preceded the lake's name change from Garrison Reservoir to Lake Sakakawea. For more details, see Govaerts (2016).

 

Now that we’ve explored some of the history of Garrison Dam and Lake Sakakawea, in our next installment in this blog series, we’ll look at some of the archaeological sites investigated by the River Basin Surveys in that area before the dam was constructed.

 

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^{1. Sacagawea was born to a band of northern Shoshone called the Agaideka or “Salmon-eaters”. Later in the nineteenth century this band, along with the Tukudeka (Mountain Sheep-eaters) and Kusundica (Bison-eaters) would become known as the Lemhi Shoshone (see Campbell 2001).↩}

^{2. All text from the Corps of Discovery journals quoted here is from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln’s Electronic Text Center’s transcription. This transcription retains original spelling and capitalization as much as possible (see https://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/item/lc.about.faq).↩}

^{3. For an overview of what is known about Sacagawea’s (and Toussaint Charbonneau’s) life, see Nelson (2003).↩}

^{4. For a detailed study of the Sacagawea myth, its genesis and evolution, see Kessler (1996).↩}

---

 References:

Amon Carter Museum of American Art, “Remington and Russell, http://www.cartermuseum.org/artworks/339, accessed October 10, 2017.

Anderson, Irving W. “Fort Manuel, Its Historical Significance.” South Dakota History 6, no. 2 (1976): 131–51.

Anderson, Irving W. “History Commentary - The Sacagawea Mystique: Her Age, Name, Role, and Final Destiny.” Columbia Magazine 13, no. 3 (1999).

The Billings County Pioneer, “Need Suggestions for Naming Area,” October 25, 1962.

Campbell, Gregory R. “The Lemhi Shoshoni: Ethnogenesis, Sociological Transformations, and the Construction of a Tribal Nation.” The American Indian Quarterly 25, no. 4 (2001): 539–78.

Govaerts, Lotte E. “Transformative Consequences of Garrison Dam: Land, People, and the Practice of Archaeology.” Great Plains Quarterly 36, no. 4 (December 30, 2016): 281–308.

Kessler, Donna J. The Making of Sacagawea: A Euro-American Legend. Tuscaloosa, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1996.

Lewis, Meriwether, William Clark, et al., The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, ed. Gary Moulton, University of Nebraska Press / University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries-Electronic Text Center, Lincoln, 2005.

Nelson, W. Dale. Interpreters with Lewis and Clark: The Story of Sacagawea and Toussaint Charbonneau. Denton, Texas: University of North Texas Press, 2003.

O’Brien, Harry, “Short Stops”, Walsh County Press Park River North Dakota, May 19, 1955,.

Spier, Leslie, and Edward Sapir. Wishram Ethnography. Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington Press, 1930.

Summitt, April R. Sacagawea: A Biography. Westport, CT; London: Greenwood Press, 2008.

United States, United States Statutes at Large Containing the Laws and Concurrent Resolutions Enacted During the First Session of the Ninetieth Congress of the United States of America 1967 and Reorganization Plans, Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, and Proclamations, Volume 81 in one part, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1968).

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Previous posts in this series:

What is Historical Archaeology?

How the River Basin Surveys Shaped Historical Archaeology

The Upper Missouri River Basin in the Nineteenth Century: Fur Trade 

The Upper Missouri River Basin in the Nineteenth Century: Military Frontier

The Upper Missouri River Basin in the Nineteenth Century: Indian Agencies

Garrison Dam

Garrison Dam

By Lotte Govaerts

 

This blog post is part of a series discussing my research on the historical archaeology of the River Basin Surveys (RBS). In a previous post I discussed how the Pick Sloan Plan for the Upper Missouri called for the construction of several dams along the Upper Missouri River. In this entry, I examine the construction of Garrison Dam, and its environmental and social impacts.

Figure 1: Map of Garrison Dam and Lake Sakakawea on the Missouri River in North Dakota. Based on data from Google. Previously published in Govaerts 2016.

 

Dam Specs

The Garrison Dam in North Dakota was the first dam built as part of the Pick Sloan Plan on the Upper Missouri River. Construction started in 1946 and the reservoir first reached its minimum operating pool in 1955. The finished dam measures 11,300 feet (3,440 m) long and 210 feet (64 m) high, and contains 66,500,000 cubic yards (50,842,898 m3) of rolled earth fill and 1,500,000 cubic yards (1,146,832 m3) of concrete. The shoreline at 1,837.5 feet (560.1 m) msl is 1,340 miles (2165.5 km) long and encloses 382,000 surface acres (1546 km2). That makes it the largest reservoir in the US in terms of surface area. In terms of volume, Lake Sakakawea is the third largest reservoir in the US, with just over 30 cubic kilometers, after Lake Meade (37) and Lake Powell (35). (You can find even more numbers and all kinds of data relating to the Pick Sloan dams here (pdf)

 

Figure 2: Construction of Garrison Dam. Image Source: State Historical Society of North Dakota (2014-P-038-00062).

 

Garrison Dam is named after the nearby town of Garrison, North Dakota. The town of Garrison was founded in 1905 and took its name from Garrison Creek, which in turn derived its name from the military garrison stationed at nearby Fort Stevenson in the mid to late nineteenth century. The fort was named for Brigadier General Thomas G. Stevenson, a Union general killed in the civil war (Mattison 1951, p. 54). Look for more information on Fort Stevenson in a future blog post.

Dam Impacts

Garrison and the other Pick Sloan dams were built for the purpose of flood control, navigation, irrigation, electricity, and recreation. There were some other consequences, some of them entirely unforeseen. Dams by nature have huge impacts on the environment and people in the environment, both locally and in aggregate. The environmental and social impacts of dams are both topics of ongoing research.

 

Figure 3: View of Garrison Dam and the frozen waters of Lake Sakakawea, March 2017 (Image Source: Lotte Govaerts).

 

Environmental
The environmental impact of any dam is enormous. The construction of a single dam has immediate and drastic effects on the dammed river and local ecology. At the same time, the cumulative effects of multiple dams on multiple rivers add up to affect continental and global environments (see McCully 2001; Rosenberg et al. 2000). Dams fragment riverine ecosystems, isolating aquatic populations. Migration routes are cut off for riverine species, and terrestrial species who can no longer traverse the river valleys. Dams trap sediments and alter downstream river flows, with impacts on the maintenance of floodplains, river deltas, and coastal wetlands. Most dams significantly reduce or even eliminate all natural flooding downstream of the dam, catastrophically altering floodplains by eliminating their cyclical nutrient source. The construction of reservoirs creates new habitats and ecosystems while old ones are destroyed. These changes generally result in a significant loss to plant and animal species diversity. The deliberate introduction of sport fish species into reservoirs creates further imbalances. Reservoir construction is frequently followed by shoreline development. Moreover, people displaced by the dam need to rebuild communities, businesses, and infrastructure. These types of construction projects in previously undeveloped areas spread the environmental impacts of a dam, threatening more habitats and species further from the reservoir. Some less obvious environmental impacts of large dams are earthquakes and greenhouse gas emissions (see Gupta 1992, 2002; St. Louis et al. 2000).

 

Figure 4: United States Fish and Wildlife Service staff releasing a pallid sturgeon into the Yellowstone River. The endangered pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus) occurs only in some portions of the Missouri/Mississippi basin. Image source: United States Fish and Wildlife Service (via Wikimedia Commons).

 

The construction of Garrison dam, in tandem with the other Pick Sloan dams, completely changed the ecosystems of the Missouri basin from Montana to the confluence with the Mississippi, as well as the lower Mississippi and its delta. Research continues to discover the far-reaching ecological impacts of this dam project (USACE 2004; Alexander et al. 2012; Johnson et al. 2012). Moreover, as one dam among many thousands in the world, Garrison Dam also contributes to changes in the environment on a global scale.

 

Figure 5: A nesting least tern pair in the sandbar habitat on the Missouri River below Gavins Point Dam. Yankton, South Dakota, USA. Like the pallid sturgeon pictured above, the least tern (Sternula antillarium) is one of three species native to the Missouri federally listed as endangered (the third is the piping plover). Image source: Wikimedia Commons.

 

Social

Social effects of dams are intertwined with their environmental impacts, as people live within the ecosystem. Dam building affects all populations living along rivers, but most of the available data concern those populations displaced by the constructed dam and resulting reservoir.

The construction of Garrison Dam predated the formalization of an anthropological theory of displacement and resettlement. Since then, a substantial body of work has emerged and the field has many practitioners (Brokensha 1963; Scudder 2005). Development-induced displacement, and specifically dam-related displacement has been extensively studied (Cernea and Guggenheim 1993; Cernea 1999; Bilharz 1998; Scudder 2005). There is consensus in the field that, although every dam project, every displaced population, and every individual within such a population is naturally unique, development-induced displacement has predictable effects, and displaced populations generally behave in predictable ways.

All displaced populations experience trauma. Even voluntary resettlement of highly educated and well-traveled people is traumatic (Bilharz 1998, p. 32-33; Scudder 2005, p. 49-50). The impact of displacement is especially profound for those people whose sense of community and identity is closely tied to “home” as a physical location. Similarly, populations whose culture is only found in geographically restricted areas are also highly susceptible to the disruptive effects of displacement. As it happens, indigenous people and other ethnic minorities who fit these susceptibility criteria are disproportionally affected by dam building worldwide (Scudder 2005, p. 135).

Implementation of the Pick Sloan plan disproportionately affected native tribes in the region. Over 202,000 acres of Lakota and Dakota Sioux lands were flooded by construction of the Fort Randall, Oahe, and Big Bend dams. The construction of Garrison Dam claimed over 150,000 acres of Fort Berthold Reservation land inhabited by the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara/Sahnish). This loss of Native lands must be considered in the context of a long history of tribes losing land to non-Native interests, as I have discussed in earlier posts.

 

Figure 6: Four Bears Bridge at Elbowoods, North Dakota, at its dedication in 1934 (L) and its disassembly in 1953 (R), when it was moved to a different location. Elbowoods was flooded after the construction of Garrison Dam. Image source: State Historical Society of North Dakota, 00239-034 (L) and A3196 (R).

 

The 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty described the territory of the Tree Tribes thusly (Kappler 1904, p. 594-596):

“The territory of the Gros Ventre, Mandans, and Arrickaras Nations, commencing at the mouth of Heart River; thence up the Missouri River to the mouth of the Yellowstone River; thence up the Yellowstone River to the mouth of Powder River in a southeasterly direction, to the head-waters of the Little Missouri River; thence along the Black Hills to the head of Heart River, and thence down Heart River to the place of beginning”

Several executive orders severely reduced this territory in the next few decades. By 1880 they were left with approximately 290,000 acres, roughly 10 percent of the territory described in the Fort Laramie treaty (see Meyer 1977; Lawson 1982).

 

Figure 7: 1870-1891 land cessions at Fort Berthold Reservation (adapted from Meyer 1977, p. 112-113). Previously published in Govaerts 2016.

 

When the 1944 Flood Control Act was signed into law, The Three Affiliated Tribes were not consulted regarding the plans to construct Garrison Dam. Research has shown that the location of the main stem Missouri River dams was deliberately chosen so that the reservoirs would spare United States towns and instead flood Native lands (Schneiders 1997).

After the Army Corps of Engineers was already working in the area, Fort Berthold Indians were able to halt expenditures on the Garrison Dam project while they negotiated a settlement. Their claim was based on the 1851 Fort Laramie treaty, in which the US had agreed that land could not be taken from tribes without their consent as well as that of Congress. After several years of negotiations, the Three Affiliated Tribes agreed to sell the 152,360 acres required for the dam project for $12,605,625 in compensation. That amount was nine million less than a third party estimate. Furthermore, claims for additional benefits such as exclusive rights to a small portion of Garrison’s hydroelectric power production at a reduced rate, fishing, hunting, and grazing rights along the shore, irrigation development, and royalty rights for subsurface minerals within the reservoir area were all denied (Meyer 1977, 211-234). Testimonies about the settlement suggest the tribe agreed to the sale because they saw the dam as inevitable, and feared further negotiations would only result in additional dwindling of what they would receive in compensation (United States 1987).

The overall effect was devastating for Fort Berthold Reservation. The population was concentrated in the bottomlands along the river, resulting in the forced relocation of 325 families, (approximately 80 percent of the tribal membership), and the division of the reservation into five disparate segments, separated from each other by water. The tribes also lost 94 percent of their agricultural lands, impacting their ability to be agriculturally independent (Lawson 1982, p. 59; Meyer 1977, p. 219).

 

Figure 8: Three Affiliated Tribes administrative headquarters. Photo by Neil Howe, via North Dakota Studies.

 

For several decades Fort Berthold Indians made attempts to recover additional compensation for their losses, but were unsuccessful. In 1985, in response to ongoing efforts of the Three Affiliated Tribes, the Secretary of the Interior established the Garrison Unit Joint Tribal Advisory Committee (JTAC). The committee was charged with investigating the effects of the Pick Sloan Plan dams, specifically the impacts of the Garrison and Oahe dams on Fort Berthold and Standing Rock reservations, with the goal of compensating the tribes for what they had lost. The JTAC’s final report recommended a range of $178.4 million to $411.8 million as just compensation. After more hearings, referrals, and analysis (see Cross 2004, p. 133-134) an agreement was eventually reached for compensation, which became the Equitable Compensation Act, Public Law 102-575, passed by Congress in 1992. Receipts from hydropower were to be added to a treasury account for the tribes until a principal amount of $149.5 million was reached. The tribes had to provide an economic and social recovery plan for the expenditure of the interest.

Despite this recent success, the legal battles of the Three Affiliated Tribes are ongoing. Disputes over water use are growing more intense after extended periods of drought. Some Native tribes in western states have reserved water rights related to the creation of their reservations. For the Three Affiliated Tribes, those rights have not yet been quantified, so it remains to be seen how they will fit into growing conflict over water use in the Missouri basin (see Caposella 2015).

Figure 9: The power house at Garrison Dam in March 2017 (Photo Lotte Govaerts).

 

I discussed these topics in much more detail in my recent paper on the transformative consequences of Garrison Dam (Govaerts 2016). More information can also be found in the reference section below.

In my next post in this series we will take a look at how Garrison Dam’s reservoir, Lake Sakakawea got its name, as well as the history of the woman it was named after. Next up is a closer look at the historic sites in the Garrison Dam/Lake Sakakawea area.

 

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Previous posts in this series:

What is Historical Archaeology?

How the River Basin Surveys Shaped Historical Archaeology

The Upper Missouri River Basin in the Nineteenth Century: Fur Trade 

The Upper Missouri River Basin in the Nineteenth Century: Military Frontier

The Upper Missouri River Basin in the Nineteenth Century: Indian Agencies

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References

Alexander, Jason S., Richard C. Wilson, and W. Reed Green. “A Brief History and Summary of the Effects of River Engineering and Dams on the Mississippi River System and Delta.” United States Geological Survey, 2012. http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1375/C1375.pdf.

Bilharz, Joy Ann. The Allegany Senecas and Kinzua Dam: Forced Relocation through Two Generations. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998.

Brokensha, David W. “Volta Resettlement and Anthropological Research.” Human Organization 22 (1963): 286–90.

Capossela, Peter. “Impacts of the Army Corps of Engineers’ Pick-Sloan Program on the Indian Tribes of the Missouri River Basin.” Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation 30, no. 1 (2015): 143–217.

Cernea, Michael M. The Economics of Involuntary Resettlement: Questions and Challenges. Washington: World Bank, 1999.

Cernea, Michael M, and Scott E Guggenheim. Anthropological Approaches to Resettlement: Policy, Practice, and Theory. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1993.

Cross, Raymond. “Twice-Born from the Waters: The Two-Hundred-Year Journey of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Indians.” In Lewis & Clark: Legacies, Memories, and New Perspectives. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.

Govaerts, Lotte E. “Transformative Consequences of Garrison Dam: Land, People, and the Practice of Archaeology.” Great Plains Quarterly 36, no. 4 (December 30, 2016): 281–307.

Gupta, Harsh K. Reservoir Induced Earthquakes. Elsevier, 1992.

Gupta, Harsh K. “A Review of Recent Studies of Triggered Earthquakes by Artificial Water Reservoirs with Special Emphasis on Earthquakes in Koyna, India.” Earth-Science Reviews 58, no. 3–4 (October 2002): 279–310.

Johnson, W. Carter, Mark D. Dixon, Michael L. Scott, Lisa Rabbe, Gary Larson, Malia Volke, and Brett Werner. “Forty Years of Vegetation Change on the Missouri River Floodplain.” BioScience 62, no. 2 (February 1, 2012): 123–35. doi:10.1525/bio.2012.62.2.6.

Kappler, Charles J., ed. Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties. Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1904.

Lawson, Michael L. Dammed Indians: The Pick-Sloan Plan and the Missouri River Sioux, 1944-1980. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982.

Mattison, Ray H. “Old Fort Stevenson, a Typical Missouri River Military Post.” North Dakota History 18, no. 2–3 (1951): 54–91.

McCully, Patrick. Silenced Rivers: The Ecology and Politics of Large Dams. London; New York: Zed Books, 2001.

Meyer, Roy W. The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri: The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1977.

Rosenberg, David M., Patrick Mccully, and Catherine M. Pringle. “Global-Scale Environmental Effects of Hydrological Alterations: Introduction.” BioScience 50, no. 9 (September 1, 2000): 746–51. doi:10.1641/0006-3568(2000)050[0746:GSEEOH]2.0.CO;2.

Schneiders, Robert Kelley. “Flooding the Missouri Valley: The Politics of Dam Site Selection and Design.” Great Plains Quarterly 17 (1997): 237–49.

Scudder, Thayer. The Future of Large Dams Dealing with Social, Environmental, Institutional and Political Costs. London; Sterling, VA: Earthscan, 2005.

St. Louis, Vincent L., Carol A. Kelly, Éric Duchemin, John W. M. Rudd, and David M. Rosenberg. “Reservoir Surfaces as Sources of Greenhouse Gases to the Atmosphere: A Global Estimate: Reservoirs Are Sources of Greenhouse Gases to the Atmosphere, and Their Surface Areas Have Increased to the Point Where They Should Be Included in Global Inventories of Anthropogenic Emissions of Greenhouse Gases.” BioScience 50, no. 9 (September 1, 2000): 766–75.

United States, Final report and recommendations of the Garrison Unit Joint Tribal Advisory Committee: joint hearing before the Select Committee on Indian Affairs, United States Senate and the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate and the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, House of Representatives, One hundredth Congress, first session on oversight hearing on the final report and recommendations of the Garrison Unit Joint Tribal Advisory Committee. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, March 30, 1987. 

United States Army Corps of Engineers – Missouri River Division. “Summary of Engineering Data – Missouri River Main Stem System, 2013.

United States Army Corps of Engineers - Northwestern Division. “Missouri River Final Environmental Impact Statement - Master Control Manual Review and Update.” United States Army Corps of Engineers - Northwestern Division, March 2004.