Hamlin Garland: A Life

3. Dakota Homesteader, 1881-84

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'..'·.* In the 1870s Dakota Territory was still unsettled land. For years, the Yanktonais and other divisions of Sioux had been resisting, with little success, incursions of would-be settlers and government survey parties. By 1865 most of the Yanktonais had been removed to the Standing Rock Reservation, which straddles the border of presentday North and South Dakota, or to the Crow Creek Reservation in South Dakota. One band, however, headed by Magabobdu, or Drifting Goose, chief of the Hunkpati band of Yanktonais, remained in the James River valley, a fertile trough of fifty to seventy miles in width cutting through eastern South Dakota, running north to south for 250 miles. In 1873 General W. H. H. Beadle led a surveying party through the area but was turned back by Drifting Goose’s band near present-day Redfield. Three years later, another survey party, this time in the charge of M. T. Wooley, met similar resistance. Not until 1878 did a survey party, this one under the command of Thomas Marshall, complete its mission, surveying the James River valley into southern Brown County. Although they too were menaced by Drifting Goose, Marshall convinced the chief that if the survey was held up Washington would send soldiers. To remove this last obstacle to white settlement, in July 1879 President Rutherford B. Hayes established a reservation for Drifting Goose’s band in three townships about eight miles south of presentday Aberdeen. But when it became apparent that white squatters had already settled in these townships, Hayes revoked his order, on July 13, 1880, and Drifting Goose agreed to remove his band to the Crow Creek Reservation in exchange for additional supplies. Surveys of the townships proceeded rapidly, for until the government of- dakota homesteader 41 ficially accepted the survey the land could not legally be opened for settlement.1 Hamlin would later base an early story—“Drifting Crane”—upon this incident. Dick Garland apparently learned of this newly opened land from the many broadsides and advertisements boosting Dakota farms that flooded the newspapers. Perhaps he saw a broadside from the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, then extending its tracks in Dakota, whose headline trumpeted “2,000,000 Farms of Fertile Prairie Lands to be had Free of Cost! In central dakota.” Small print then explained: “The United States offers as a Gift Two Million Farms to Two Million Families who will occupy and improve them. . . . In the belt is 30 Millions of Acres of the Most Productive Grain Lands in the World.” A map showing the location follows, with the railroad’s line prominently displayed, and then the text continues: “you need a farm! Here is one you can get simply by occupying it.” Lest readers miss the point, the broadside advises, “It will be noticed that the Chicago and Northwestern Has Two Lines of Road that run through to these Lands. It is the only Rail Road that reaches them.” And to remind the curious that country-building requires all sorts of people, the broadside notes, “Along the Lines in Dakota have been laid out a number of Towns in which are needed the Merchant, Mechanic and Laborer. central dakota is now, for the first time, open to settlement.” Finally, to allay any worries about inhospitable country, the advertisement concludes cavalierly, “The Indians have been removed and their reservations offered to those who wish to occupy them.”2 In May 1881 Dick Garland embarked on a scouting trip to this newly opened land, intending to claim a homestead. To his experienced eyes, the James River valley seemed rich with promise. The newly melted snows had made the prairie bloom, and the rich clay loam soil was well suited for wheat farming . And the land was flat—so flat, as one geologist has remarked, “that it takes water three weeks to travel the length of the state in the James River.”3 To encourage settlement in the territories, the U.S. Congress passed a number of laws designed to give away much of the public domain. In 1841 Congress had enacted the Preemption Law, which 42 dakota homesteader became the quickest means to enable settlers to own a quarter section , or 160 acres. The law recognized that many settlers were squatting on land prior to its being offered for sale and, in many cases, prior to its being surveyed. The law gave these settlers...