Wagon train surrounded by Indians

A year ago on this same Crow Reservation, same road, a Native American family was attacked and brutally murdered when they stopped to provide assistance to a stranded motorist. While there was much sympathy expressed for their lives, the news media did not remind us then of how often such crimes were committed historically against Natives by members of wagon trains trespassing on tribal land.

Instead, around the first-year anniversary of that crime against Natives, we see a "circle the wagon train" sentiment published. And Natives are again portrayed as obstructing the fine white folks of the wagon-train era.

The crimes of history against Native tribes do not deserve to be re-enacted. Wagon trains trespassing on Native land and news media drumming up sympathy for them are a tragic chapter of this nation's history. Re-enacting that chapter in a light unfavorable to Natives is hardly appropriate to the first anniversary of the murders of a Native family who stopped to help a stranded motorist.

Just as our land managers restrict wheeled travel from encroaching upon wilderness areas, tribal authorities and land-holders have the right to restrict wagon trains from crossing tribal lands. As far as I'm concerned, the wagoners pleas can fall on deaf ears.

The wagon-train leaders knew there was a controversy brewing in that area before setting out to cross it. They were from a town nearby. The closure to non-Natives had been announced long before. And there was no public easement there. It's a ruse for the wagon-train leaders to pretend they deserve sympathy for being caught in the midst of that controversy. And it's a ruse that was too often employed historically by pioneers eager to take advantage of the Natives.

Especially disturbing are reports that wagon train members were well-armed, drinking, and littering as they crossed tribal land. If the wagon train re-enactors don't like the way they were treated, they can keep their re-enactments off tribal land. They don't belong there anyhow.

What's next? A re-enactment of the Sand Creek Massacre with headlines sympathetic to Colonel Chivington?

That is a polite way to say it. I would have other choice words for them.

I always have a sympathy and fascination with both sides of this part of history. My great grandmother, who lived with us until I was ten, was a Sioux teenager during Little Big Horn and at Wounded Knee. She left the tribe right after Wounded Knee and became wife to a white Stage driver and they helped Bill Cody settle the town of Cody. She was disowned by her father but not her Mother and didn't return to see her family until his funeral when she was 56 (1931) but by her death in 1973 she was back in contact with a ton of cousins and her funeral was filled with relatives from Pine Ridge.

I hadn't heard anything about the events of last year though. Thanks for sharing that Travis

I had heard about Sand Creek of course.

Here in my adopted hometown there was a huge massacre that you might be interested in but they just changed up the newspaper site so I'm not sure you can access this article without a subscription. www.triplicate.com/csp/mediapool/sites/Triplicate/News/story.csp?cid=4402581&sid=923&fid=151

@idahowalker , perfect graphic. If I was an artist, I might change the pilgrim to Donald Trump, who doesn't seem to understand that most of us are immigrants from one time or another.

I don't think it is a bad idea to ask them — if you are talking about camping while backpacking. I've never had a problem on the Wind River Indian Reservation. It's far better to ask than simply camp without permission.