252 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Boll. 176 



The following data concerning the Columbia Fur Company's opera- 

 tions near the mouth of the Knife River are largely abstracted from 

 Wied-Neuwied (1906, vol. 23, pp. 223-228), who apparently collected 

 them from James Kipp at Fort Clark in 1834. 



James Kipp, a Canadian of German descent, came to the Mandan 

 and Hidatsa country in 1822 as an agent of the Columbia Fur Com- 

 pany. At that time, Joshua Pilcher of the Missouri Fur Company 

 operated a trading post (Fort Vanderburgh) a little above the 

 Hidatsa villages on the Knife River which was abandoned in the 

 spring of 1823. In May of 1823, Kipp began building a fort in the 

 prairie between the later Fort Clark and the site of a winter village 

 of the Mandan inhabitants of Mili-Tutta-Hang-Kush. By Novem- 

 ber of that year, he had the post completed. This is the nebulous 

 Tilton's Post, of which little is known. 



It was in that year that prolonged hostilities between the Arikara 

 tribe and the Americans began. After the Arikara surprise attack 

 on General Ashley's keel boats, a few miles above the mouth of the 

 Grand River in early June of 1823, Col. Henry Leavenworth retaliated 

 ineffectively with an attack on the Arikara villages. Thereafter, the 

 unawed Arikara killed every white man who came their way and 

 removed themselves to the vicinity of the INIandan villages near the 

 Knife River and the short-lived Tilton's Post. 



The personnel of Tilton's Post consisted of Tilton, Kipp, and four 

 other men. They were in constant danger of attack from the neigh- 

 boring Arikara. Indeed, one of the Columbia Fur Company's employ- 

 ees was killed at the entrance of Tilton's Post by an Arikara chief, 

 Stanapat (The little hawk with the bloody hand) . Other white people 

 on the Missouri River were also murdered. Neither Tilton nor Kipp, 

 nor any other employees, dared venture out of the fort during the whole 

 of the autumn of 1823. Tilton moved to a nearby Mandan village 

 and remained there until the fort was completed in November. 



Although the Mandan were friendly with the Arikara, they were 

 aroused by the death of the Columbia Fur Company employee at the 

 entrance to the post and wished to make war on the Arikara. Tilton 

 dissuaded the Mandan from this course of action as he feared the 

 Arikara would then cause serious trouble with the transportation of 

 supplies from the Company's post on Lake Traverse to the Mandan 

 post. 



In early December of 1823, William Laidlaw, a partner in the com- 

 pany, came from Lake Traverse to the Mandan post with six wagons 

 of trade goods. The Arikara now made a tenuous peace with the per- 

 sonnel of Tilton's Post, as they could not get supplies from any other 

 source. Difficulties with the Arikara continued, however, and Tilton 

 removed to a Mandan village where the chief, Tohp-Ka-Sinka (the 



