Arikara

This week in 1823, the National Intelligencer published a letter rebutting a New-York American editorial that had criticized the Monroe administration's policy of punishing Arikaras for attacking fur traders.

The War of 1823, often known as “The Arikara War,” forcibly opened the Upper Missouri River to trade. It also established Anglo-American military supremacy over the Upper Missouri River. This victory would be cemented by an Indian Peace Commission, an integral part of a military expedition led by General Atkinson in 1825. This commission was responsible for a series of unequal treaties throughout the region recognizing Anglo-American supremacy.

By this date in 1823, troops of the United States Sixth Infantry were back in their barracks after a punitive expedition against the Arikaras. A generation of tensions had led to the conflict. St. Louis fur traders felt entitled to go anywhere they wanted on the Missouri River, while the Arikara felt entitled to control their own territory.

On this date in 1823, Joshua Pilcher's men burned Arikara villages to the ground. This was directly against the express orders of Colonel Leavenworth.

This date in 1823 saw the second day of combat in “The Arikara War.” That morning, Colonel Leavenworth's Sixth Infantry bombarded the upper and lower villages of the Arikara in the vicinity of what is now Mobridge, South Dakota. His howitzers attacking the upper village mostly fell into the Missouri River or onto the river sands. By noon, his artillery ran out of ammunition.

Life was not easy at the Fort Clark fur trading post back in the 1830s. The fort was located on the Missouri river near present-day Washburn and it was a major economic center. The post manager, Francis Chardon, kept a journal, describing the cold weather, the fur trade, tribal activities, and the devastating smallpox epidemic. He also kept a regular tally of how many rats he had killed!

On this date in 1921, the front page of the second section of the Fargo Forum's Saturday evening edition led with the article headlined, “Arikara Indians Stage Ancient Ceremonial at Fort Berthold."

Perhaps the disease outbreak in North Dakota’s history was the smallpox epidemic that all but destroyed the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara peoples. In June of 1837, infected passengers aboard a steamboat spread the deadly virus up and down the Missouri River.

Thomas Rogers was born on June 4th, 1890 to a prominent Arikara family on the Fort Berthold Reservation. When the US declared war on Germany in 1917,…

Arikara, or Sáhniš as called by its people, is part of the Caddoan language family, a group of languages that comes from the Caddo dialect, which is over…