From a Visit to Fort Laramie
Poems and Thoughts from our American Odyssey
From a Vist to Fort Laramie An old faded photograph of a Fort Laramie parley is evidence of an another way. The river bend behind and off to the right the army jailhouse with its hard iron bars and locking doors. They are sitting on the ground in a council circle facing into the issues they speak of. Elders of the Lakota and Cheyenne who knew that to face an enemy in a circle of equality was the only way to measure true peace. These circles had served them well for generations, speaking sticks handed down through blood lines of oratory and long seasons of deep seated listening. This was not the white way, his was the way of politics and shifting alliances, the dominance of rhetoric and one sent to achieve the will of others far away. The treaties of these men were no sooner made than flouted and when the greed for gold was awoken, by its unearthing in the Black Hills, then all bets were off, all oaths broken. We still have not learned, it seems, that there is another way, that leaders are those who walk the path not those who shout the loudest. Crazy horse, it is said, went through the camp with his head down and refused to engage in the recitation of his victories. Though there is no photograph of him, we do have this picture of the elders seated on the ground, ready to make a noble treaty, to save the Bison and keep their land. This photograph of council is still testament that we can take a different path, we can sit on the earth and find another way.
Part One
My son Tom and I decided, a few months ago, that we wanted to make a trip through the Mid West of the USA. It all started with us watching the Paramount+ Series - Yellowstone. Set in Wyoming and Montana and on the edge of the National Park the landscapes looked awe inspiring. I then watched the spin off 1883 and learned more about the Oregon Trail and was even more intrigued by the thought of the Wild West. Though we had been to the USA many times visiting New Mexico, Arizona, Utah in the South West and Oregon in the Pacific North West we had never seen the Mid West, often referred to as the flyover states. This was an area where the frontier once existed between the White incomers and the Indian1 American lands with all the heartache and tragedy associated with that history. A frontier and a history that we wanted to see and feel for ourselves. So we worked out an itinerary and began to plan our visit.
The best direct flight was to Denver, Colorado and so on Friday 18th August we flew out of Heathrow USA bound. The next day we hired a car and headed north crossing the state line between Colorado and Wyoming and the beginning of our long drive through the prairie. Those endless grasslands, green and windswept, have their own lonely beauty.
After a night in Cheyenne, the capital of the state of Wyoming we decided that our first stop had to be Fort Laramie. This fort was established by trappers in the 1830s and by the 1840s had become an army fort. As soon as the Oregon Trail became firmly established the whites felt they needed stronger protection from the native peoples. In fact, up until then, relations between the Indians and the newcomers had been largely friendly.
The Oregon trail went from the Missouri River to Oregon at the North Western edge of the land mass that was to become the USA. It was the draw of green pastures and the mountains of Oregon that pulled thousands of European refugees and immigrants to make the arduous and often deadly 2000 mile journey. The fact that it took them through the southern part of the Lakota territory was to become a seminal part of the history of the West.
In the National Park Information Centre we read about the different treaties that were made with the Indian nations of the region at Fort Laramie. In 1851 there was a treaty that allowed safe passage for those on the Oregon Trail and brought together many peoples. The Cheyenne, Sioux, Arapaho, Crow, Assiniboine, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara nations all pledged peace with each other, it was also known as the Horse Creek Treaty and it set forth the traditional territorial claims of the tribes. It is said that all that was asked for was the width of the settlers wagon wheels. For this privilege annuities were to be paid by the US government and these were collected each year by the Indian peoples from Fort Laramie.
Unfortunately, as well as all kinds of changes to the treaty that occurred including the length of time the annuities would be paid - being cut from 50 years to 10, gold was discovered in the Black Hills of what is now South Dakota, right in the middle of Lakota territory. By 1868 a new treaty was being urged on the Indian nations that would include the sale of the Back Hills and the gold therein, gold which held no attraction to the Indians. The decision of many of the tribes was that they were fighting a losing battle against an implacable foe who seemed to have endless resources. The most famous of the leaders being Red Cloud and Spotted Tail both of whom had fought bravely and with some success. They were rewarded with their own agencies, a predecessor of the reservation, however, what they lost was the nomadic existence that had been their way of life before the arrival of the whites and of course the Black Hills from which some say 5 billion dollars worth of gold was mined. 2 There was also the matter of the wholesale slaughter of the Bison. ‘In the 16th century, North America contained 25-30 million buffalo (bison) ; by the late 1880s less than 100 remained wild in the Great Plains states.’3 This destroyed the entire symbiotic way of life that the indigenous cultures had created around the Bison.4 This act of ecocide on the part of the white settlers was devastating to the Indians, economically, sociologically and mythologically. No better method of subjugation could have been devised!
Crazy Horse, probably the most famous Lakota, along with Sitting Bull, did not agree with the putting of pen to paper, or the ceding of land and rights and so began the final conflict of what many historians call the Indian Wars.
As we walked around the fort in the warm sunshine and looked at the recreated mess hall and sleeping quarters and the officers houses and then reached the Tepee that was the only nod to the presence of the indigenous people who lived all around the the fort for many years, we felt history seeping out of the soil. The photograph at the head of this post was one we saw in the visitor centre and triggered all my memories of engaging in the Way of Council as envisaged by Frank Zimmerman and Gigi Coyle in their book of that name and the Council Training I did with the Centre for Council at Oracle in Arizona.5
Though this never claimed to have any direct lineage or cultural appropriation from the First Nations it did have echoes from these ways of seeking wisdom and common ground. I have always thought this way of doing business whether in organisations, families or communities would yield a different outcome than our top down, pyramidal, power orientated ways of getting things done. What struck me powerfully in the photograph was the fact that the Indians were sitting on the earth maintaining a connection to the land that we so desperately need to establish for ourselves in this present age of climate crisis. I also felt the powerful difference between the square solid structures of the soldiers and the round fluidity of the Indian shelter. We left in a quiet reverie and as we drove away I began to compose the poem above. Trying to capture all the feelings that swirled around and through us as we walked around the fort and then as we drove the prairie to Rapid City.
Many people use the epithet Native Americans - I am following Joseph M Marshall III a Lakota who says that anyone born in the USA is entitled to call themselves a native and though Indian is utterly inaccurate and a name given to the people by the europeans it seems a name he says they have taken for themselves. In the end I can only try to be respectful of a culture I have only a readers knowledge of.
This is a present day approximation of what the extracted precious metal would have been worth.
Buffalo Hunt: International Trade And The Virtual Extinction Of The North American Bison, M. Scott Taylor in the American Economic Review
People call these large animals Buffalo but technically Buffalo are native to Africa and Asia and the Bison are found in North America and Europe
https://www.centerforcouncil.org - The Way of Council by Jack Zimmerman, Virginia Coyle.