Gold in the
Black Hills
The Native Americans - who considered Paha Sapa (direct translation: hills
that are black) to be too sacred to be inhabited and therefore roamed the
surrounding plains - always knew there was gold there. They also knew it was
worthless: it was too soft to fashion utensils out of. It was too soft
for use as weapons. What good was it? So they let it lie in the streambeds and
dry washes where it had been accumulating for centuries as the granite
fastnesses of the Black Hills slowly weathered.
Likewise, the French fur traders plying their trade on the northern plains
learned of the probable existence of gold in the nearby mountains. But they were
too busy snaring their own gold: the beaver pelts that were so highly prized
early in the 19th century. They passed on panning gold - at least for
the time-being.
When Lewis and Clark brought their traveling medicine show to the West in
1804, they undoubtedly heard the rumors of gold. After all, they had many a long
winter’s night at the Mandan Villages on the upper Missouri to listen to tales
of golden wealth in a place called Paha Sapa. But they too were so focused on
the task at hand that they were not tempted to take a side trip to investigate.
But what if they had?
For a number of reasons, the Black Hills were one of the last places on the
continent to be settled. The Teton Sioux, as stated before, considered the
region to be sacred, and penetrated only its foothills (and then only during
daylight hours). Explorers and settlers for the most part followed the major
rivers West, thus bypassing the plains of what would become western South
Dakota. It was not until a restless former boy general decided to prove the
existence of gold that the area was finally settled (1874) in direct violation
of the Treaty of Fort Laramie.
After the initial rush, the rest of Dakota was settled slowly and actually
spent 27 years in territorial limbo before reaching the minimum population for
statehood.
If Lewis and Clark had acted on the rumors they heard about the existence of
gold in the Black Hills - or even if they had included such rumors in their
official report back to Washington - the Black Hills and South Dakota could have
been settled as many as seventy years sooner.
What difference would this have made to subsequent events? How would it
have affected the settlement of the West? Remember, the discovery of gold at
Sutter’s Mill near Sacramento created a nearly instant state of California prior
to the Civil War. What if Dakota* were discovered and settled as early as 1810?
If Dakota had entered the Union as a northern state, could it have tipped the
balance to the north and perhaps prevented the Civil War? Would the discovery
have accelerated other gold rushes around the West, or delayed them?
* the two subsequent states of North and South Dakota would undoubtedly have
entered the Union as one state had they been deprived the contentious
territorial period, but that’s another story!
