pip.Na'lsf FORT PIERRE II — SMITH 117 



security from theft, raid, and petty annoyance caused by native 

 visitors. 



Unlike many other such posts, however, this stockade had been very 

 simple in plan, and upon excavation little evidence was encountered 

 that it had ever been provided with blockhouses, a familiar feature 

 of many other posts. It is possible that by the year 1859 such facilities 

 were deemed unnecessary in this area, in view of changing relation- 

 ships between trader and Indian ; it is also possible that blockhouses 

 were not provided because of lack of funds or materials during the 

 brief period of the use of the post, or because uncertainties of the trade 

 at the time did not favor such elaboration of a basic plan. ^Whatever 

 the reason for omitting the protection of blockhouses, which ordi- 

 narily were paired and offset, to permit flanlving fire along adjacent 

 sections of a stockade, this post does not seem to have been furnished 

 with them, from evidence surviving at ground level. No documentary 

 evidence on the point is known; the reference cited above (p. 105) to 

 the "southeast bastion comer" may signify no more than the southeast 

 corner of the entire stockade, and no evidence of any special structure 

 such as a blockhouse was found at this place upon excavation. 



Within the enclosing stockade, buildings appear to have been located 

 near the perimeter, either connected with, or close to, the line of the 

 stockade, as was frequently the case with such establishments. Only 

 two definite building sites were encountered (House-sites A and B), 

 and that of a cellar (A), which lacked evidence of having been pro- 

 vided with a superstructure. Extensive trial blading and close exami- 

 nation of the whole site, moreover, failed to reveal traces of other build- 

 ings within the stockade. Along the north stockade line, and connected 

 with it, secondary trenches were encountered, which may mark the sites 

 of minor structures (House-site C). Little had been preserved, how- 

 ever, to reveal their exact nature, and they may have been no more 

 than minor sheds and corrals. On the basis of surviving evidence, and 

 taking account of the probability that sites of certain buildings for- 

 merly in use here had been completely obliterated by cultivation of 

 the entire area, it nevertheless seems probable that buildings of the 

 post had always been few in number and that the central yard or com- 

 pound had always been relatively open. 



On excavation, the sides of the stockade enclosure were found to 

 describe a somewhat irregular quadrilateral. The intent of the de- 

 signers and builders probably was that the enclosure should be a rec- 

 tangle, but no two sides were of identical length, or any corner a true 

 right angle. Little is known of actual steps in the construction of any 

 of the many trading posts of the Missouri valley, from accounts made 

 at the time and on the spot, such as w^ould be useful for comparative 

 purposes. From evidence accumulating at excavated sites of a few 

 such posts, however, it seems improbable that attention was paid by 



