The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-08-31
THE BAD LANDS OF DAKOTA
Condition of the Remnants of Once
Powerful Indian Tribes.
America the Old World Instead of The New,
and the Broad Western Plains the
Unfinished Part of 1t,

description of the Bad Lands of Dakota, as
they appear at the Little Missouri river, but
so extraordinary is this region that a fuller
account of it will, | am sure, be of interest to
the general reader, as well as to the tourist or
naturalist. The three Pullman cars bearing
the Western Associated Press excursionsts
were made a special train from Bismarck,
$50 miles west to the Little Missouri river
where we arrived at A. NJ, Aug.
T. remaining until 3 o'clock to
visit the bad lands and burning mountains.
This railway station is variously known as
Fort Combs, Little Missouri City, and prop
bank of the Little Missouri here by courtesy
called a river, in a narrow valley overgrown
with sage brush, choke cherries and cotton
wood. On either side are ridges of bare gray
clay, which reveal black bands of Ignite,
here mined for railroad and domestic use.
The river here runs northeastward 200 miles,
near the Montana and Dakota boundary
line, forming a natural and well-watered
highway between Wyoming and northern
Dakota, which has long been followed by
the Indians in their migrations across this
region. Troops were stationed at Fort Combs
to protect the railroad interests They were
removed year ago, and their substantial
stone houses, barracks, and officers quarters
built of slabs and logs, are now a resort
for hunters and tourists. Mr.. Frank
Moore, former sutler, is in possess
sion, and furnished the newspaper men
wagons and saddle-horses to take ten-mile
ride through landscapes the details of which
are extraordinary and perhaps unparalleled
outside of purely volcanic region. The
name Pyramid Park is given to the station
on account of the prevalent form of the
clay masses in the vicinity, and there is an
effort on the part of the railway company to
do away with the old name of Bad Lands,
so as not to hurt the market of this area,
which will probably never be successful.
Kansas and Nebraska also have bad lands.
Those of the Little Missouri are without
water, are hard to travel, and probably well
deserve the characteristic name given them
by the early French travelers-Mauvaises
Terres-and now suppanted by the English
name of bad lands, But among them are
ranches, and in fact the whole area is only
adapted to cattle raising and the mining, in
limited areas, of the Ignite Goals. The Mar
quis de Mores, who has received endless
writing up from the press party, has made
heavy investments here and is building an
abbatoir from whence beef will be shipped
eastward in refrigerator cars. But as so
much has been said of him and his prospects
and adventures by Ball, of the Terre Haute
Gazette; Paul Selby, of Springfield; General
B. r. Cowen, of Columbus and others, |
will PASS him by and restrict myself to the
Bad Lands which will still be a permanent
fixture when the son of the Duke of Valam-
brosa-soldier in Algiers, cowboy, terrifer
and Pyramid Park ranchman-is one of the
Dakota myths. The tendency our party de-
veloped to amplify any possible local scrap
of romance pertaining to this country is per-
haps excusable in the utter absence of any
native legends. An imported Franco Italian
Marquis of unimpeachable descent and I'M
doubted courage, with wealthy New York
heress as his bride, settling on ranch in
this treeless and waterless chaos of clay hills
was a rare find for the newspaper men who
are accustomed to deal so largely in person
alities
Longfellow's Indian edda only includes
the Ojibways of the south shore OF Lake Su-
perior and is based OH the legends and ira
ditions collected by Catlin and Schoolcraft.
DECLINE OF THE SIOUX
Following the meter of Hiawatha and
Evangeline, Mr.. H. l.. Gordon has poetized
some of the legends of the Sioux, properly
known as Dakotas-"W inonar and the
Feast of the Virgins are written
and issued from St. Paul. These are, as far
as 1 know, the EXTREMIST northwestern limits
of the poetic muse. But the Dakotas are
scattered The defeat OF Custer by Sitting
Bull and his braves is probably the last
grand rally of the tribes They linger around
the forts and agencies, and do a little hunt
ing and less farming. They will not work.
The braves will not carry to their tents the
presents given them by the peace commits
sion, and so there is no use or place for them
in any of the grazing or tillable lands of the
Northwest which the whites need for them
selves. They are poorly armed, know not
the use of tools, cannot count above twenty,
and are squalid in the extreme. Fed and
sheltered by the gov eminent as we do with
our city pauper classes the law of the sur
vival of the fittest does not hold with them;
they are prolific and are not decreasing in
numbers. General Cowen, who was with
Sitting Bull for eighty-fve days just preced-
ing the Custer humiliation, attempting to
pacify them, knows the character OF the In
dians well, and is not favorably impressed,
except with their personal bravery. They
have been at times subjugated, but never
conquered. With four railroads across
the Rockies, and with military tele-
graphs, the vicious tribes are
now easily headed Off and kept under
control. They are not likely to ever be self
supporting; have not the patience or mental
possibilities of the neGroid races. If Frank
Cushing has told the half truth of the Zunis
of New Mexico and Arizona in his Century
articles this remarkable handful of people
are thousand times more poetical and won
derful than the sayages to the north of them,
and in their culture allied to the Peruvian
races that i'll every point of virtue, govern
ment and morals were superior to their
Spanish destroyers. But whoever goes
along the Northern Pacific expecting to see
herds of buffalo or Indian villages will be
disappointed. You may travel from St.