Custer State Park is located in southwest South Dakota in the Black Hills mountain range. We stayed here last year and liked it so much we decided to pay another visit. Calvin Coolidge visited here when he was President and his three-week stay swelled to 11 weeks, resulting in the park being labeled the Western White House. We set up in the Grand Lodge Campground, not the Presidential suite at the Grand Lodge. The campground has electricity but not water at the sites, so water has to be hauled in. Its what they call primitive camping, I think.
The Black Hills are so-called because they are covered with pines and appear black from a distance. This part of the country is really spectacular and has long been considered special, even sacred to the people that lived here prior to the arrival of those of European decent. Massive spires of exposed granite top many of the hills in the park and are best viewed from their namesake, the Needles Highway. This highway is named after this particular spire of granite.
One of the largest herds of buffalo in the country lives in Custer State Park and we met this guy driving on the 16-mile wildlife loop. I noticed right away that he did not have any of his wives with him, so I am sure he was having a very pleasant afternoon meander along treacherous highway 16. I was impressed with his lane placement and his talent in keeping a straight line. Clearly not his first afternoon outing!
George Armstrong Custer of Little Big Horn Fame was in command of the 7th cavalry in 1874 when he was ordered to travel to the uncharted Black Hills in search of a suitable location for a fort, a possible route to the southwest and to determine the possibility of gold mining. He established his camp on the location of present day Custer, South Dakota and while he looked for sites for a fort, the civilians with him hunted for gold. It has always been in dispute as to how much gold was found but local legend has it that Custer sent back word that he had “found gold in the roots of the grass.”
Prior to this expedition, The United States Government executed the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. This treaty established the Great Sioux Reservation west of the Missouri and prohibited white settlement forever in the Black Hills. At this time the Lakota tribe had been in control of the Black Hills for almost 100 years and like the Cheyenne before them, they considered the Black Hills to be sacred ground.
Custer’s report of gold, of course, sparked a gold rush to the area and the US Government took back the Black Hills from the Lakota. Custer was subsequently killed at the Battle of Little Big Horn in June of 1876. The Lakota Chief Crazy Horse is generally credited with the organizational and strategic leadership of the Lakota in this battle.
As we drove through New Mexico, Arizona and California visiting parks, memorials and museums, I was struck by the amount of information provided on the native peoples of these areas. Even when we got to Oregon, Idaho, Montana and South Dakota each stop provided great details about the people that lived on these lands prior to settlement by “Whites”.
It is impossible to know how many indigenous people were living in what is now the United States when Europeans first arrived but I have seen estimates as high as 18 million. Most scholars think this is high and more numerous estimates place the number at between 2-5 million.
These people did not think of themselves as separate from nature, they considered themselves to be part of nature, partners with all the plants and animals in the struggle to survive. Not on the land, but of the land. By the end of 1876 most Native peoples were living on reservations where many still live today.
In the end guns beat arrows but I wonder how different our country might be if we had only bothered to ask questions of those we found here.
Love To All!