The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1910-06-22
WHITE FATHER TO OPEN LAND OF MYSTERY INDIANS.
THEIR HISTORY is TRAGIC

lIIIiN IllOIUN ~ ENAUIO
Palefaces to Occupy 100000 Acres
With Peaceful Fair-haired Red
men. Ruins of Villages Tell OF
Defeats Until They at Last Won
Victory.
MINOT, N. D.-The fair-haired
Mandans, anthropological mysteries,
the Gros-Ventres, and the Arickarees
soon will be deprived of their Sc
clusion, for the senate and the house
have approved the bill providing for
opening 100000 acres in the heart
of the historic Fort Berthold reser-
walton, and in all probability the
president will sign it. Then white
men will pour into the Opened"
strip, and the redmen will be con-
fined to smaller allotments and held
accountable to the laws that apply
to the invaders under government
sanction. There will be no lack of
room for the Indians, however, for
the whole reservation comprises A.
-
approximately the area of the state
of Connecticut.
Still, it appears to those who
know the history of the Indians IN
the upper valleys of the Mississippi
and Missouri that there is a larger
bit of pathos in this latest act of de-
privation-this latest step of 'civili-
zation"-because the Mandans, the
Gros-Ventres and the Arickarees have
been unlike the other tribes They
have an unparalleled reputation as
lovers of peace.
Lovers of Peace.
Seldom did they wage war for love
of conquest or bIindly fight with 9th
er Indian nations or with the whites
to satisfy only the within of a chief
tain or a chieftain's personal grudge.
They did fight, and hard, but only
when driven to bay. While living
they were good Indians" and are
not subject to the familiar classical
ton.
These tribes were once great and
prosperous, but peaceable when war
and conquest were the ruling creed
of their race they were stricken again
and again by the warlike tribes about
them. Like memorials stand the
ruins of village after village along
the Missouri river, telling the tragic
story of defeat and retreat before the
advancing Sious and Crees. At last, |
in this retreat, the three tribes re-
allied that they must unite or be ex-
terminated.
So they made last and success
full stand against the invaders at
Fort Berthod, which for many years
has been known as the last Dakota
Indian village. The government
buildings are now the most imposing
part of the picture there; clustered
about them in all directions are the |
huts and tepees.
Indians Acquiesce.
The ancient burial ground has dis
appeared; the government has made |
the Indians place their dead under !
ground. But the whole scene in the |
vast space in which the redmen have
lived and roamed has little in it that
suggests today; it all looks like yes
terday-prairies reaching out to the
far horizon and nothing on them but |
squat nuts ana conlcal tents and In !
dianS moving among them.
Upon this scene the settlers" will /
rush when the Great White Father,
to whom the Indians look with awe
and a strange confidence, so DEGREES. /
The Indians have acquiesced, realiz-
ing that that would be the better
part. Wounded Face of the Man
dams, Old Dog and Long Bear of the |
Gros-Ventres, and Sitting Bear of the /
Arikarees-they spoke for their peo-
pie, and, for them, were convinced 4
by the eloquent arguments made by
Congressman Hanna and F. H. Alb (
bott, assistant commissioner of In I
dian affairs.