Heading to Mobridge
24/10/14 05:30
Later today I’m heading up to Mobridge. I don’t go up there very often these days. To get there, I’ll drive up and cut through the Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Reservations. Years ago, when I lived in North Dakota, I spent more time in Standing Rock Country. We had a small church at Cannonball, which now is part of the Dakota Association and served by a South Dakota pastor, but at the time was served by a North Dakota Pastor. These days people think of it as Dakota country. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe has a long and influential history. Among the last of tribes located in the US to be confined to reservations, Lakota and Dakota people were known for their military expertise. They demonstrated significant military savvy before settlement and that prowess was demonstrated in many conflicts, though the Battle of the Little Big Horn is probably the most well-known.
Much less known is the long period of time when the Mobridge area and many points north and south of there were in the heart of Mandan country. The Mandan were traders and had the most powerful economic network of the upper plains country. At one time their trading network stretched from the Spanish settlements of early Mexico as far east as the Lake of the Woods and north into what is now Saskatchewan and Alberta. They were a plains tribe that was far less nomadic than others, living in permanent earth lodges. They ran a sophisticated business operations including fairs with fancy dancers and special bargains. They exerted a lot of control over the trading of many valuables including horses and pipestone. It was not uncommon for horses to be traded by the Crow from the Shoshoni to the Mandan at a 100% markup. The Mandan would in turn sell them to the Cree at a price that was at least doubled from what they paid. Pipestone from Minnesota made its way throughout the Mandan trading network. The Mandan held a virtual monopoly on pipestone throughout the plains.
One of the reasons that the great Mandan trading nation is less known by some students of US history is that the Mandan nation didn’t fall to the forces of military defeat as was the case with other tribes. The Mandan were near the height of their power when Lewis and Clark made their way up the Missouri in 1804. They reached Mandan country in early October after having rather pleasant contact with the Yankton Sioux in August and a somewhat scary encounters with Lakota and Teton Sioux in September. The Mandan showed great interest in forming radian alliances with the Corps of Discovery and the expedition wintered with them near the present day site of Mandan, North Dakota.
Thirty years later there were almost no survivors of what had been the largest economic powerhouse of the upper plains. Following Lewis and Clark up the Missouri River were expeditions of US Calvary and eventually steamboats on the river. Both groups brought smallpox to which the Mandan had no natural immunity. The ensuing epidemic nearly wiped out the entire tribe. By 1837 there were less than 100 survivors.Many of the modern day descendants of the survivors live as part of the United Tribes’ Fort Berthold Reservation, where Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara and Sioux share common land.
Maybe today is a good day to remember the power of an epidemic and the ways in which history has been shipped by illness. With deaths from Ebola in West Africa nearing 5,000, the illness has been altering the populations of Libera, Guinea and Sierra Leone. And the fear and panic is radiating out from Africa around the world. Recently, when a Nurse from Texas flew on US domestic airlines before being diagnosed with Ebola there was widespread fear that human to human spread of the disease would break out across the United States. A coordinator of hospital emergency preparations in Seattle - about as far away from the area the nurse had traveled as you can get in the continental US - was receiving over 60 phone calls per hour from worried people within the hospital system.
The disease is definitely serious. The mortality rate is high, especially in areas where there is a shortage of care. And the disease is spreading in geography, primarily traveling with health care workers who have been on the front line of fighting the disease in West Africa and then return to their homelands. New York City confirmed its first case yesterday: a doctor who recently returned from Guinea. Dr. Spencer is a fellow of international emergency medicine employed by New York Presbyterian Hospital. He showed no symptoms of the disease upon leaving Africa and it wasn’t until about ten days later than he developed a fever. Since Ebola is primarily spread by droplets through coughs or sneezes, it is unlikely that Dr. Spencer infected others during his travels.
Still, there will be widespread fear. And a certain amount of fear is warranted. Disease can be deadly. It can change the course of history.
Irrational fear, however, can be paralyzing. Too much fear can cause resources to be invested in wasteful ways and actually divert funds from treating disease where it really exists.
Still, it is good for us to take this disease seriously in our country. From the perspective of those who are attempting to stem the epidemic in West Africa, the United States’ reaction to the outbreak has been a case of “too little, too late.” They would argue that we have suffered from a failure of empathy - simply not making the human-to-human connection between our lives here in the US and the suffering of those on a different continent.
So today I will drive. It will give me a few hours to think and sort out my mind - always a good thing. And as I drive across the now somewhat empty and open spaces, I’ll be looking forward to my first glimpse of the mighty Missouri river. As the name implies, the bridge itself is pretty spectacular. The town serves a rural area filled with ranches and pheasant hunters at this time of the year. But as I make my way down the breaks into town, I’ll be remembering the days when it was the heart of a huge trading empire and how much has changed since the Mandan controlled the area. I will also remember how the area was gripped by a devastating epidemic two centuries ago.
Much less known is the long period of time when the Mobridge area and many points north and south of there were in the heart of Mandan country. The Mandan were traders and had the most powerful economic network of the upper plains country. At one time their trading network stretched from the Spanish settlements of early Mexico as far east as the Lake of the Woods and north into what is now Saskatchewan and Alberta. They were a plains tribe that was far less nomadic than others, living in permanent earth lodges. They ran a sophisticated business operations including fairs with fancy dancers and special bargains. They exerted a lot of control over the trading of many valuables including horses and pipestone. It was not uncommon for horses to be traded by the Crow from the Shoshoni to the Mandan at a 100% markup. The Mandan would in turn sell them to the Cree at a price that was at least doubled from what they paid. Pipestone from Minnesota made its way throughout the Mandan trading network. The Mandan held a virtual monopoly on pipestone throughout the plains.
One of the reasons that the great Mandan trading nation is less known by some students of US history is that the Mandan nation didn’t fall to the forces of military defeat as was the case with other tribes. The Mandan were near the height of their power when Lewis and Clark made their way up the Missouri in 1804. They reached Mandan country in early October after having rather pleasant contact with the Yankton Sioux in August and a somewhat scary encounters with Lakota and Teton Sioux in September. The Mandan showed great interest in forming radian alliances with the Corps of Discovery and the expedition wintered with them near the present day site of Mandan, North Dakota.
Thirty years later there were almost no survivors of what had been the largest economic powerhouse of the upper plains. Following Lewis and Clark up the Missouri River were expeditions of US Calvary and eventually steamboats on the river. Both groups brought smallpox to which the Mandan had no natural immunity. The ensuing epidemic nearly wiped out the entire tribe. By 1837 there were less than 100 survivors.Many of the modern day descendants of the survivors live as part of the United Tribes’ Fort Berthold Reservation, where Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara and Sioux share common land.
Maybe today is a good day to remember the power of an epidemic and the ways in which history has been shipped by illness. With deaths from Ebola in West Africa nearing 5,000, the illness has been altering the populations of Libera, Guinea and Sierra Leone. And the fear and panic is radiating out from Africa around the world. Recently, when a Nurse from Texas flew on US domestic airlines before being diagnosed with Ebola there was widespread fear that human to human spread of the disease would break out across the United States. A coordinator of hospital emergency preparations in Seattle - about as far away from the area the nurse had traveled as you can get in the continental US - was receiving over 60 phone calls per hour from worried people within the hospital system.
The disease is definitely serious. The mortality rate is high, especially in areas where there is a shortage of care. And the disease is spreading in geography, primarily traveling with health care workers who have been on the front line of fighting the disease in West Africa and then return to their homelands. New York City confirmed its first case yesterday: a doctor who recently returned from Guinea. Dr. Spencer is a fellow of international emergency medicine employed by New York Presbyterian Hospital. He showed no symptoms of the disease upon leaving Africa and it wasn’t until about ten days later than he developed a fever. Since Ebola is primarily spread by droplets through coughs or sneezes, it is unlikely that Dr. Spencer infected others during his travels.
Still, there will be widespread fear. And a certain amount of fear is warranted. Disease can be deadly. It can change the course of history.
Irrational fear, however, can be paralyzing. Too much fear can cause resources to be invested in wasteful ways and actually divert funds from treating disease where it really exists.
Still, it is good for us to take this disease seriously in our country. From the perspective of those who are attempting to stem the epidemic in West Africa, the United States’ reaction to the outbreak has been a case of “too little, too late.” They would argue that we have suffered from a failure of empathy - simply not making the human-to-human connection between our lives here in the US and the suffering of those on a different continent.
So today I will drive. It will give me a few hours to think and sort out my mind - always a good thing. And as I drive across the now somewhat empty and open spaces, I’ll be looking forward to my first glimpse of the mighty Missouri river. As the name implies, the bridge itself is pretty spectacular. The town serves a rural area filled with ranches and pheasant hunters at this time of the year. But as I make my way down the breaks into town, I’ll be remembering the days when it was the heart of a huge trading empire and how much has changed since the Mandan controlled the area. I will also remember how the area was gripped by a devastating epidemic two centuries ago.