Small Wonder(s)--A Fort Randall family

There's no fort there anymore. Unlike Laramie or Robinson or Scott or Wingate, where you can still almost hear the history, Ft. Randall has only a busted-up chapel and a long, thin graveyard. If a state highway didn't run right by, no one would ever stop; no one would know, and only a few would remember. 

Fort Randall's great claim to fame is having held Sitting Bull and his people when they returned from Canada some time after Little Big Horn. Once upon a time, Sitting Bull was detained, incarcerated here. 

Sitting Bull and his wife at Fort Randall

Unlike Fort Robinson, where Crazy Horse was murdered and the Northern Cheyenne made a mad and bloody dash north for home; and unlike Fort Laramie, where not one but two vapid treaties were signed--neither of them worth much; Ft. Randall has no memorable storied history. Beauty?--yes, nesting as it does in those broad hills just west of the Missouri. Once upon a time it must have bustled, the only place west of Yankton where you'd find enough people for a parade. 

Today there's a dam there, one of several on Old Muddy. What's more, there's a sparkling lake and perch and walleye and bass galore, fishing tournaments just about every summer weekend. But if you have the time, stop by the graveyard just up the hill from the old chapel. Take a walk around the place--it's not all that big and the graves are all marked. 


If you do, look for these three. I googled the name, but came up with nothing, in large part, I suppose, because none of them really ever amounted to much--"DAVID DEZAIRE," the first in line says, "Indian Interpreter." He died May 8, 1875, a year before Little Big Horn. Doesn't say why or how. Ft. Randall is far enough east that it stayed out of danger during the Great Sioux Wars, so I'm guessing DEZAIRE died right there at the fort. 

And I'm assuming he was Native--or part Native. The name doesn't suggest a racial or ethnic flavor, although it might be French, which would not be strange. Like so many other "mixed bloods," his genetic code may have carried the DNA of some rough-hewn French-Canadian trapper. Chances are he was of mixed parentage, although he might have been white, might have been raised on the reservation, a missionary kid. Still, even google can't locate the name.

And then there's his wife, Ashotia. Don't know how to pronounce the name really. The stone is helpful--it says she was a "colored citizen." Is that simply what somebody charged with writing on the stone wrote in, or does the designation have meaning? And why citizen? And why no date of death? 

Their daughter Sophie has one, after all--December 22, 1876, a year and a half after her father died, and three days before Christmas. If Mom was Black, Dad was Indian--maybe mixed blood--in the 1890s, Sophie likely would have had a low ceiling for possibilities. Fifty years before, Washington had designated a reservation on the Nemaha River, south on the Missouri, just for mixed bloods. That's true. 

Even though we don't know them, their being buried here beneath stones that still bear their names makes them privileged people. Translators weren't dime a dozen in Dakota Territory, especially if you were worth your salt, trustworthy, responsible. These three stones suggest a family unit intact. 

But the DEZAIRE family is long gone, along with their stories. Maybe they weren't among "the least of these" here at Ft. Randall. Maybe they had their own kind of standing. Here's Sitting Bull's people, incarcerated at Ft. Randall after "Custer's Last Stand." They look diminished. If any of them died, I doubt they got stones in the fort cemetery. 

When, after the Dakota War, the Fool Soldiers brought the Shetek captives they'd rescued to Ft. Randall, some rescuers were killed. People say that some of them dug their own graves, then fell into them when soldiers gunned them down. They were only Indians. I'm guessing those graves aren't marked.

But this family, somehow they were respected, even appreciated. They got stones. They must have had a place. Still do. Even if their stories are gone, their names remain--all three together. Someone even left descriptions. 

When you get out of the boat, clean the fish, put 'em on ice, and then drive across the dam to the west side. You'll see the chapel. The graveyard's harder to spot. But go find it, because even if that's all you'll see, those three stones are worth your time. Stop by and pay your respects to mom and dad and their little girl, Sophie. 

Ft. Randall chapel