PAP.^fo.lsf ^^^"^ PIERRE II — SMITH 101 



the subsistence of the posts, and they also had other duties; Indian 

 women were doubtless also employed from time to time. It is of 

 course possible that of the 13 Indians counted here some were included 

 who were actually no more than camp followers, who happened to re- 

 side near the post but had no direct relation with it. 



By a treaty made at Washington in 1858 with the Yankton tribe, 

 a large part of the present State of South Dakota east of the Missouri 

 had been opened for legal settlement, with the exception of a reserva- 

 tion in present Charles Mix County (D. Robinson, 1904, pp. 248 ff. ; 

 W. G. Robinson, 1954, pp. 246-249, digest of treaty of April 19, 1858) . 

 This cession was, however, unpopular with the Yankton, and caused 

 dissension among the Yanktonais and Teton, who also claimed the area. 

 Not until much later were further White settlements made along the 

 Missouri above Yankton, and then only after the virtual disappear- 

 ance of the steamboat. Such permanent settlements in present-day 

 North and South Dakota could not, in fact, come about until after 

 the Indian Wars of 1862-66, and the dispersal of most of the native 

 occupants of the region, ever farther west. 



Two noteworthy events occurred in the vicinity of Fort Pierre II 

 during its brief existence ; the first was the murder, previously referred 

 to, of a prominent Dakota leader. Bear's Rib, in the immediate vicinity 

 in June 1862, at the hands of his own people. Events leading to this 

 murder may be briefly summarized here. 



By the early 1850-s, occupation of the territory tributary to Fort 

 Pierre had been divided between two groups of the Dakota who had 

 dispossessed earlier native occupants of the area. These were the great 

 Teton nation and the smaller, closely related Yankton and Yank- 

 tonais. Though no fixed boundaries marked the range of these 

 vigorous and then powerful peoples, the Teton (particularly the 

 Oohenonpa or Two Kettle, Miniconjou, Uncpapa, Brule, Blackfoot, 

 and Sans Arcs subdivisions, constituting embryonic tribes) ranged 

 particularly to the west of the Missouri, while the Yankton and 

 Yanktonais ranged specially to the east. 



Bear's Rib first appears in history in 1855, when he was appointed 

 "first chief" among his people by General Harney (Warren, 1856, 

 quoted in Robinson, 1904, pp. 227-230). He was referred to as a 

 "great warrior," and was the leader of a mixed group of Miniconjou, 

 Sans Arcs, and Oohenonpa (Primeau, June 20, 1862, quoted by Rob- 

 inson, 1954, p. 305). In the summer of 1856, an exploring party 

 under Lieutenant Warren encountered him in the southern Black 

 Hills, at which time he promised to endeavor to influence his people 

 not to molest that party, which was striving to penetrate as far as 

 Bear Butte, in the northern Hills. Bear's Rib, however, protested 

 vigorously to Warren that if the "treaty" presents (by the arrange- 

 ment of the previous year) had been intended to purchase right of 



