(Massacre Hill; The Battle of the Hundred Slain/Fetterman Massacre, photo by Larry)
as described in Black Elk Speaks:
...the soldiers came and built themselves a town of logs there on the Piney Fork of the Powder...
"Dead men and horses and wounded Indians were scattered all the way up the hill, and their blood was frozen, for a storm had come up and it was very cold and getting colder all the time. "
"There is a wide flat prairie with hills around it... Our women were watching us from the hills and we could hear them singing and mourning whenever the shooting stopped. "
The places mentioned in Black Elk Speaks are timeless and little changed over the last 150 years. The soldier's "town of logs" is mostly gone except for placards and a visitor's center. About 40 years after The Battle of the Hundred Slain and The Wagon Box Fight, the United States Government established a post office here solidifying settlement of the area. We now have a year round population of just under 900 people (a number which increases significantly if you count summer residents).
5 comments:
This gave me chills... I could just imagine the women's voices rolling down the hills.
So interesting but yet sad - that part about the women mourning..
Just the other day I was wondering how many people I meet in blog world, have an interesting history in their little corner of the world.
Thanks for sharing that - the photo is awesome.
Hey Anet! When you're standing in that field the hills are right behind you and it's very easy to imagine them watching and wailing.
It's is sad Sandy that so much blood and strife should have happened in such a serene and beautiful place. The injustice of it all is particularly stark when you leave our gorgeous (and primarily white) area and drive north to the reservation which is flat and stark and ugly.
There is a haunting kind of beauty in the landscape photos you post. It is rich and melancholy at the same time. The thought of people being driven off this beautiful land to a flat and ugly reservation makes me sad.
Yeah, it is sad.
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