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Published: March 22nd 2012
Fort Robinson Parade Ground
The original parade ground at Fort Robinson, with officers' housing behind itToday begins several days investigating the history of the western plains.
The most notable parts of that history, unfortunately, involve greed, betrayal, and warfare.
Fort Robinson was a center for much of it.
The story of the fort is told in a
museum in the original commander’s quarters.
Fort Robinson Museum
The story starts with a treaty called the
Fort Laramie Treaty, signed in 1868.
At the time, the Sioux, a group of related tribes, were the most feared Native American group on the plains.
They were nomadic hunters and excellent horsemen, who lived hunting buffalo.
They agreed to give up the eastern half of what is now North and South Dakota, in return for eternal possession of the
western half, the removal of all army bases and settler’s trails in the area, and provisions.
The US government agreed because they believed at the time the western half of the territory was worthless arid land (how wrong they were).
The
Red Cloud Agency, named after the chief that negotiated the treaty, was set up to manage trade between the Sioux and area settlers.
Exactly what happened next is disputed to this
The Country Club of the Army
Artifacts from Fort Robinson's days as a horse training center. Note the red bottle on the upper right, from a polo tournament. day, but the final result was petty raids by both settlers and Sioux that killed a number of people.
One of those people was employed by the agency.
The agent in charge of the Red Cloud Agency demanded protection.
The army agreed and founded
Camp (later Fort) Robinson to provide it in 1874.
In a minor insult to the Sioux, it was named after a soldier killed in one of the raids, Levi Robinson.
That same year
George Armstrong Custer (yes, the same officer later killed at Custer’s Last Stand, see below) led an
expedition into the Black Hills in the western portion of the Great Sioux Reservation.
His nominal mission was to scout locations for forts to prevent yet more raids.
In reality, the expedition had geologists and miners on staff, and they found gold.
The Sioux were incensed at the resulting gold rush, and attacked miners.
The army then declared war.
Fort Robinson became a supply base for the campaign, and the coordination headquarters.
Two years later, a large group of plains tribes (not just Sioux) destroyed George Armstrong Custer’s cavalry at the Battle of Greasy Grass
Death site of Crazy Horse
Recreation of the cabin where Crazy Horse was killed, on the original location (Little Big Horn to those outside this region), popularly known as
Custer’s Last Stand.
The army responded with a campaign of deliberate starvation to force the tribes to surrender and move to reservations specified by the US government.
Part of this campaign involved
wholesale slaughter of the buffalo, which the Sioux depended on for survival.
The tactic was very successful, and one by one the tribes came in.
Many of them surrendered at Fort Robinson.
In 1877, the US government forced several tribes to sign the so called
Manypenny Treaty, which surrendered the Black Hills.
In 1980, the US Supreme Court ruled this treaty violated provisions of previous ones and was thus
invalid.
People are still
arguing over what that will ultimately mean.
By this point the Oglala Sioux tribe led by
Crazy Horse, who refused to deal with the United States under any circumstances, was one of two remaining holdouts (the other tribe, led by
Sitting Bull, soon fled to Canada).
In 1877, another chief, Spotted Tail, persuaded him to surrender.
Exactly what he promised has never been revealed.
After Crazy Horse surrendered, he was arrested and confined to a barracks.
The museum
Crazy Horse monument
Memorial to Crazy Horse at Fort Robinson. This is not his gravesite. display states that the army planned to take him to Chicago to meet with the head general for the west, but I’m not entirely convinced.
The museum, after all, describes everything from the army’s point of view.
Crazy Horse tried to escape, and the guard
killed him with a bayonet.
The Great Sioux War ended soon afterward.
With its original mission complete, Fort Robinson became a supply depot for the army.
Eventually, it became the main center for raising and training cavalry horses.
The soldiers needed something to do during their spare time, so the fort became known for horse sports of all sorts, including polo.
Soldiers stationed elsewhere starting calling the place the country club of the army.
Early on during World War I, the army realized that mounted cavalry were obsolete, and this aspect of Fort Robinson ended.
During World War II, the fort held a
prisoner of war camp for German soldiers.
In one of that conflict’s odder efforts, it also hosted a regiment that trained bomb sniffing dogs.
After that conflict, it closed and became a state park.
The museum, like many
Pine Ridge Convience Store
Store from Pine Ridge Reservation, with signs in Lakota of this type, is filled with artifacts and memorabilia.
It has saddles, weapons, old uniforms, documents of all sorts, and polo trophies.
It has newsletters published by the German prisoners.
It has an entire wall of memorabilia from the forty year career of
Carter Johnson, a soldier who spent nearly every phase of his career at the fort, enlisting as a private and retiring as the commander.
My last activity at Fort Robinson was seeing the spot where Crazy Horse died.
The original wooden barracks were torn down as part of a facilities upgrade in the early 1900s, so they have been reconstructed.
The barracks is faithful to the era.
A sign out front gives the army’s version of the events that took place.
The parade ground nearby also has a pyramid shaped monument to Crazy Horse, erected in the 1930s.
Pine Ridge Reservation
After Fort Robinson, I headed north into the
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
The Oglala tribes ended up here after they surrendered.
The reservation has the most marginal land of their original hunting grounds.
The surrounding county ranks as one of the
poorest in
Wounded Knee Memorial
Memorial to those killed by the US Army at Wounded Knee in 1890. the United States, and has one of the highest alcoholism rates.
The place is not a conventional tourist destination, but for those with knowledge it’s a glimpse into another world.
At first glance, it looked like a poorer version of the sand hills.
The rolling landscape is similar, but the grass is browner and there is less visible water.
After a while, the differences appear.
The most obvious are the Oglala motifs painted on several buildings.
The store where I had lunch had all signs in Lakota.
Unlike Cherokee (see
The Majesty of Trees) the endless array of gift shops is absent.
The reservation is a hard lonely land.
Wounded Knee Memorial
The most evocative site on the reservation has to be the location of the sorriest episode ever in the history of Native American relations, the
Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890.
In the 1870s the
Ghost Dance religion (some would call it a cult) swept through multiple Native American tribes.
Practitioners believed that the dance would reset the world to the ways before American settlers took over the land.
They also believed that shirts worn during the ceremonies had
Road to Wakpamni
The road I drove to Wakpamni Bed and Breakfast mystical power and would protect from bullets.
The Army became concerned that ceremonies would turn into something else.
They rounded up the Oglala tribe and confined them to a grassy knoll they called Wounded Knee.
They then proceeded to disarm the tribal members.
One deaf Indian refused to give up his rifle.
Shots were fired, and the army opened fire.
When the smoke cleared hundreds of Native Americans were dead.
The site these days is a lonely hill above a road intersection.
It contains a church and cemetery, and is now a pilgrimage site of sorts.
The cemetery is filled with graves of Oglalas, including several important leaders.
The centerpiece is a tall monument commemorating the victims of the massacre.
The fence is covered in prayer flags.
Sadly, ususally just outside the gates are tribe members looking for donations for one cause of another, or just to eat.
I spent the night at the
Wakpamni Bed and Breakfast.
It is located on a wheat farm in what feels like the middle of nowhere on the reservation.
Tipis
Tipis near Wakpamni Bed and Breakfast. I spent the night here. To get there, one must drive a long and muddy dirt road filled with potholes.
The sense of isolation is profound.
The directions state to arrive before dark, otherwise one can’t find the place.
The B&B offers the chance to sleep in an authentic tipi, which I took.
Since I like to camp, I enjoyed the experience.
I will never forget
nightfall tonight.
The reservation is one of the most rural areas in the United States.
The night was both clouldless and near a new moon.
As twilight faded the stars slowly came out, until there were too many to count.
The Milky Way was clearly visible, along with thousands of faint points that most people never see.
I’ve been stargazing in rural Maine, and tonight exceeded that experience.
I wanted to stay awake all night.
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