Advertisement
Published: September 7th 2023
Today's journey was all about one place - Badlands National Park. Although Chuck and Lucie had visited more recently, I had not been here since one of our childhood cross-continental camping trips. The park was established as a national monument in 1929, the re-designated as a national park in 1978. It consists of two units connected by a very narrow strip of land. The south unit, also known as the Stronghold Unit, is entirely on the Pine Ridge Lakota reservation, and is administered by the National Park Service under an agreement with the tribe. A separate and much smaller area, also completely on the Pine Ridge Reservation, is called the Palmer Creek Unit. Both of the south unit areas are devoid of hiking trails and paved roads, and completely undeveloped. There are talks and even nascent plans to turn the two south units into the American Tribal National Park, but much work will need to be done. For one thing, the Stronghold Unit was used as a bombing range by the USAAF/USAF during World War II, and the ground is littered with spent shell casings and unexploded ammunition.
The accessible and therefore most visited part of the park is the
North Unit.
All of this area has been inhabited for at least 11,000 years, at least by seasonal hunters. The earliest paleo-Indians probably came as mammoth hunters. Later, the Arikara lived here for part of the year while hunting buffalo. (By the way, yes I know they are really bison, not buffalo, but the term buffalo is so ubiquitous that not using it seems unnecessarily pedantic.) The Arikara would stay here during the warm months, then retreat to their lodges along the Missouri River. Subsequently, this became the domain of the Oglala Lakota (or Sioux) tribe. In 1868 the area was given "forever" to the Lakota, but apparently the term "forever" in those days meant 31 years, because the USA confiscated the land in 1889. This was the result of the Dawes Act, passed two years earlier, which forcibly took Native American lands that were held in common by the tribe and gave individual parcels of 160 acres of "farmland" or 320 acres of "pasture land" to individuals, completely overturning traditional forms of land ownership among the tribes. The government action was at least partly in response to the Ghost Dance movement. Beginning in the 1890's, a Northern Paiute
spiritual leader named Wovoka began the Ghost Dance movement, which taught that proper practice of the dance would result in reuniting the dancers with the spirits of the dead, raise those spirits up to fight along side them, end American westward expansion, and bring unity and prosperity to the Native Americans. It spread quickly all the way to Oklahoma and California. Fearing this would lead to armed rebellion, the Army decided to arrest some of the chiefs. A botched attempt to arrest the famous Chief Sitting Bull resulted in his death, and some 200 of his Hunkpapa tribe left the reservation and took refuge with Chief Spotted Elk and his Miniconjou band. They were chased by the Army, and on December 28 1890 they were caught and forced to camp overnight along Wounded Knee Creek on the present day Pine Ridge Reservation. The next day the army went into the camp to try to disarm the Indians. After many weapons had been confiscated, an old deaf man named Buck Coyote refused to give up his rifle because it had been expensive to buy. In the struggle to take it, it went off, and that was sufficient excuse for the Army
to begin firing. Those warriors who were still armed fought back, but when they firing stopped over 250 Indian men, women, and children had been killed. Another 50 or so were wounded, some seriously enough that they later died. The women and children had been separated from the men earlier in the event, and as firing began they ran for the wagons and tried to take off, or they just ran away. The Army opened up with artillery on the wagons and when the wagons were stopped went in and systematically shot every person still alive. Some women were chased down as far as 3 miles from the initial action. Gen. Nelson Miles was appalled at the carnage and filed a scathing report on the massacre, wanting to force an inquiry into the acts of his subordinate Col. James W. Forsyth, who led the Army unit responsible. But President Harrison was in a very difficult election fight, and so the Miles report was buried and instead 20 Medal of Honor winners were named by Harrison himself. The dead Indians were buried in mass graves. The site has now been named a National Historic Landmark, and we had thought of visiting,
but demurred after looking into it and seeing that virtually nothing has been done to preserve or mark the site.
Former Pine Ridge Indian agent
Valentine T. McGillycuddy was asked his opinion of the "hostilities" surrounding the Ghost Dance movement, by General
Leonard Wright Colby, commander of the
Nebraska National Guard (portion of letter dated January 15, 1891):
"As for the 'Ghost Dance' too much attention has been paid to it. It was only the symptom or surface indication of a deep-rooted, long-existing difficulty; as well treat the eruption of smallpox as the disease and ignore the constitutional disease."
"As regards disarming the Sioux, however desirable it may appear, I consider it neither advisable, nor practicable. I fear it will result as the theoretical enforcement of prohibition in Kansas, Iowa and Dakota; you will succeed in disarming and keeping disarmed the friendly Indians because you can, and you will not succeed with the mob element because you cannot." "If I were again to be an Indian agent, and had my choice, I would take charge of 10,000 armed Sioux in preference to a like number of disarmed ones; and furthermore agree to handle that number, or the whole Sioux nation, without a white soldier. Respectfully, etc., V.T. McGillycuddy." "P.S. I neglected to state that up to date there has been neither a Sioux outbreak or war. No citizen in Nebraska or Dakota has been killed, molested or can show the scratch of a pin, and no property has been destroyed off the reservation." - from Wikipedia
The name badlands is a literal translation of the Indian name mako sica. The characteristic formations we see are the result of deposition of mineral deposits beginning 75 million years ago at the bottom of the giant inland sea that covered this area. Later layers came about through different eras of varying climate and resulting deposition of soft sedimentary rocks such as sandstone, clay stone, mudstone, and siltstone. In many places, these are mixed with as much as 50%!v(MISSING)olcanic ash from the Great Basin eruptions to the west. Half a million years ago the White and Cheyenne rivers began carving through these soft deposits, at a rate estimated to be as much as 1 inch per year. The varied colored layers give us the stark but oddly beautiful landscape we see now, with butte walls carved into ridges, hoods, spires, and other formations. In places large spherical concretions can be found in the softer surrounding rock.
Dinosaur bones are really not found here, but the area is a rich place for finding the
fossils of ancient sea creatures and of later mammals. In fact, the park was originally established to protect these fossil remains from being carted off.
Perhaps as important is the status of the area as a wildlife refuge. There is a small population of whooping cranes that come through, representing a species that came near to extinction. By 1941 there were estimated to be only about 20 remaining birds. There are now about 500 in the wild and about another 300 in captivity. Another species making a recovery in Badlands NP is the black-footed ferret. The species was actually declared extinct in 1979, but then a small population was discovered in Wyoming. When the population got down to 18 individuals, they were all captured and a breeding program was started with the hope of returning them to the wild. There are now some 200 individuals in 18 groups across three states, including the group in Badlands NP. It represents a real triumph for species salvage programs. Buffalos and bighorn sheep have also been introduced back into the area. We spent the entire day searching in vain for glimpses of the elusive bighorn sheep.
We did take one detour
away from the loop around Badlands, Wall SD was just a few miles away, so we decided to go to Wall Drug, another touristy place with enough panache to be worth a short visit (and a small serving of ice cream).
A note on the photographs: I am including a picture of a Kiowa Gourd Dance which I think is similar in form to the Ghost Dance, but not at all related in theme as far as I know (although it does take place in a circle around a pole holding the tribes treasures, captured Army paraphernalia). I took the picture when our good friend Scott Momaday honored us by inviting us to the annual Gourd Dance at Carnegie OK.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.524s; Tpl: 0.03s; cc: 18; qc: 65; dbt: 0.1699s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
