The people's voice. [volume], August 02, 1963, VACATION ISSUE NO. 2, Image 1

About The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969

Image provided by: Montana Historical Society; Helena, MT

                
First Order of Business:
Montana Indians Had
To Give Ground to
Manifest Destiny
Before the machinery <xf government or
business could operate successfully in Mon
tana Territory, the nagging problem of
what to do about its nine major Indian
tribes had to be solved. That the problem
had to be solved has never been involved
in the appraisals and reappraisals which
have gone on since the Indian Wars. Noth
ing could have stopped onrushing Manifest
Destiny, a fact recognized by the great
Indian chiefs no less than their white coun
terparts.
Although there was always intertribal
warfare and occasional brushes with fur
traders, the tribes had the territory pretty
much to themselves until the gold strikes
triggered increasing white settlement. And
this came at the end of the Civil War, when
the traditional shrinking of the nation's
armed strength was going on. There were
not enough soldiers to patrol all the West,
and depredations by tribes (rarely in alli
ance with each other) began to grow and
along with them pressures on the Army
for white protection.
General Philip Sheridan, commander of
the Division of the Missouri which included
Montana, realized that with his small com
mand his only hope was to set up outposts
of safety, keeping lines of communication
open and forcing settlers to use well de
fined and traditional routes of travel. But
with the scattered gold strikes and the
growing numbers of usable roads leading
westward, settlers did not always keep to
defined routes.
Meanwhile, attempts were made to con
fine the Indians to reservations, which in
the face of the disappearing buffalo, offi
cial bungling, the inroads of smallpox and
alcoholism with its attendant debauchery
caused alternate despair and hostility
among the tribes. By 1868, Montana Terri
tory was in great danger. There were overt
and stupid acts on both sides. In August,
1869, a group of Piegans near Helena killed
the respected Malcolm Clarke, married to
a Piegan woman and considered a good
friend to the tribe. This led to the killing
of 173 Indians (nearly a third of them
women and children) near Fort Shaw in
a bitter January day in 1870 by four com
panies of cavalry commanded by Major
Eugene M. Baker.
Sporadic encounters followed, and in
1874 George Armstrong Custer led a gold
seeking expedition into the Black Hills,
bringing in its wake another surge of set
tlers on which the Sioux and Cheyenne
looked with mounting fear and fury. It
was in February, 1876, that the War De
partment took full responsibility for solv
ing the Indian problem, overruling the so
called "peace'' policies with which the In
terior Department had been grappling.
Forces under Generals George Crook
and Alfred Terry took the field and along
with soldiers already in Montana at Fort
Shaw, Camp Baker and Fort Ellis, planned
to squeeze the Sioux in a three-pronged
vise. Terry's command (which included
George Custer's Seventh Cavalry) left Fort
Abraham Lincoln in May, 1876, and later
that month was joined by Colonel John
Gibbon's combined Montana forces. On the
Yellowstone, they found an Indian trail
(Continued On Page Two)
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Vol. XXIV—No. 35
Helena, Montana,
August 2, 1963
Montana Boasted Territorial Status
; : "g of 1864, but Still
Struggled With Strife and Chaos
by
The bewildering series of divisions and subdivisions under which this
great area, now Montana, had functioned for so long finally ended in
the spring of 1864 when a remote Congress passed the enabling act cre
ating Montana Territory. Chief Justice Sidney Edgerton, stung by the
taunts of southern sympathizers who threatened to shoot anyone who
dared raise the national flag, made a hazardous trip to Washington,
gold ingots sewn in the lining of his overcoat and dust and nuggets in
his valise. This evidence of territorial wealth was displayed before the
startled lawmakers, most of whom had little or no conception of the vast
geography upon which they were conferring Territorial status.
MEASURE SIGNED BY LINCOLN
Abraham Lincoln, on May 26, 1864,
signed the measure and Edgerton hastened
toward Montana, receiving the news, when
he reached-Salt Lake City on June 22, that
he had been named the Territory's first
Governor. The President had also named
Montana's first judiciary: Chief Justice H.
L. Hosmer and Associate Justice L. P. Wil
liston and Lyman E. Munson.
Upon his return to Bannack, Governor
Edgerton went to work immediately, calling
for a census which revealed there were
20,600 inhabitants in the Territory, He
scheduled an election in October to select
memlbers of the first Legislature and to
choose a delegate to Congress. The latter
office was won by Samuel McLean, a Dem
ocrat, who opposed the popular and staunch
ly Republican Wilbur F. Sanders, a nephew
of Edgerton. Even the intercession of Ed
gerton failed to sway enough voters, a com
mentary on the fact that the Democratic
party was the majority party in Montana
despite the consistent appointment of Re
publican officials by Washington, and de
spite the fact that the Democratic party
had been equated with Southern sympathy.
FIRST SESSION IN BANNACK
Using the original county designations
made by the Idaho Legislature, Edgerton
alloted three of the council members to
Madison county; two to Beaverhead, one
to Jefferson, and one to Missoula, Deer
Lodge and Chouteau combined. The 13
members of the House were apportioned
by the same ratio. The Legislature met for
60 historic days in the winter of 1864-65
in a dirt-roofed cabin in Bannack, a wood
stove furnishing inadequate heat.
Edgerton had troubles aplenty, not the
least of which were monetary. There were
federally appropriated funds from which
to draw, but none could be spent without
the signature of a territorial secretary.
Edgerton had been paying initial expenses
out of his own pocket, a situation which
undoubtedly added to his increasing dis
illusionment. Two men appointed to the
secretarial post by President Lincoln had
declined to serve, and at the martyred
President's death in April, 1865, it was
still unfilled.
THOMAS FRANCIS MEAGHER
President Andrew Johnson, who had
troubles of his own, finally appointed a
man to the post of Territorial Secretary
for Montana, and possibly no President has
ever made a more colorful or dramatic
choice. He was Thomas Francis Meagher,
who arrived in Bannack in late September,
1865, eager to carve out a new career,
preferably one that would rekindle his
declining military glory.
A week later, Governor Edgerton left
for Ohio to put his children in school. He
went on to Washington on Territorial busi
ness, never to officially return to the Ter
ritory he had tried so bard to govern.
The Montana activities of Thomas Fran
cis Meagher are fraught with so much
drama, fcolor and controversy that people
still speak and write of this man who spent
(Continued On Page Four)
"No Name at All"
The name Montana is derived from the
Spanish word meaning "mountain''. When
James M. Ashley of Ohio (who became the
third Territorial Governor) introduced the
bill creating the territory in February,
1863, Representative Wilson of Massachu
setts made this remark; "I move to strike
out the name of the territory and insert
Idaho. Montana is no name at all".