Chief Giles Goose, also known as Joseph, was an Arikara scout, soldier, and mail carrier whose life reflected the rapid change on the Great Plains. Between 1870 and 1882, Goose served as a scout for the U.S. Army while military posts lined the Missouri River. During this time, he guided and protected settlers and traders traveling along this route, the primary transportation and trade corridor.
In 1871, he was appointed head of a small band consisting of 15 lodges and around 105 members at the Grand River Agency before the community was later relocated to the Standing Rock Reservation.
One of his most significant roles as a scout came in 1874, when he accompanied Lt. Col. George Custer's expedition into the Black Hills in search of gold, alongside 61 other Native scouts representing the Crow, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara. Goose was the one who informed Custer of a cave that would later become known as Ludlow Cave, a site that is archaeologically and culturally important to multiple Native nations, including the Hidatsa, Crow, Arikara, Cheyenne, Assiniboine, and Sioux. By that time, the cave had already been vandalized by members of Custer's expedition.
Goose later served with Custer during the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, where he was wounded in the hand. He and the other scouts were assigned the dangerous task of chasing off the Dakota's horses, as well as relaying messages when it became clear that Custer's men were in trouble.
After his years as a scout, Goose worked as a mail carrier between Fort Rice and Fort Bennett. He also enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving from 1891 to 1893 as a corporal in Company I, 22nd Infantry, a unit stationed at Fort Yates that was composed entirely of Native American soldiers. He was among the relatively few Native veterans of his era to receive a military pension.
Even in his later years, Goose frequently returned to the Black Hills in search of gold, making the journey many times before his death. On this date in 1915, the Oakes Times reported that Chief Giles Goose had passed away in Corson County, South Dakota. He was buried at Fort Yates.
Dakota Datebook by Grace Kaiser
Sources:
- “Chief Giles Goose (1838-1915) - Find a Grave...” Find a Grave, www.findagrave.com/memorial/133773068/chief_giles-goose. Accessed 31 July 2026.
- “Noted Indian Passed Away.” The Oakes Times, 12 Aug. 1915, p. 3, https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn87096017/1915-08-12/ed-1/?dl=page&q=august+12&sp=3&st=image&r=-0.232,0.041,0.616,0.528,0.
- “Joseph Goos, Old Indian Scout, Dead.” The Sioux County Pioneer, 30 July 1915, p. 1, https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn88076639/1915-07-30/ed-1/?sp=1&q=Joseph+Goose&r=0.36,0.105,0.468,0.401,0.
- Jackson, Donald Dean. Custer’s Gold. Yale University Press, 1966.
- Libby, Orin G., editor. North Dakota State Historical Society Collections. Vol. 6, 1920.
- NDGenWeb Sioux County, North Dakota, ndgenweb.com/sioux/biosg.htm.
