The earliest recorded discoveries of mineral resources in the Missouri River West area were made by explorers in 1875, who alerted the general public to deposits of gold in the northwestern Black Hills. A few years later, copper was found along the North Platte River, now in Wyoming, and iron prospecting began in 1888. Coal discoveries were first reported in 1877, just northwest of the Black Hills. By 1877, the Sioux had lost their rights to the entire Black Hills region. By 1928, the gross value of coal production in the Missouri River West area was reported at $31 million. Most of the coal found in the Wyoming part of the Black Hills was used by railroads to power their coal-fired steam engines. Other minerals that have since been discovered and mined in the region have included mica, silver, tin, tungsten, quartz, iron and petroleum.
It has been gold, however, that has proven to be the area's greatest lure and has accounted for around two-thirds of the total mineral production in the Black Hills. Although numerous reports regarding the existence of gold in the Black Hills had been floating around along the 'moccasin grapevine', it was Lieutenant G.K. Warren who supplied the first official statement of its existence after he had commanded an expedition of western Dakota in 1857. Further official reports followed, but it wasn't until the government had sent out Lieutenant Colonel G.A. Custer on an expedition through the Hills, in 1874, to investigate communication routes and possible military posts and which found gold, that the rush to the Black Hills began in earnest.
The news report that appeared in an 1874 edition of a mining newspaper expressed the gushing sentiments of many:
"Who has not heard of the Black Hills and the rich treasures of gold and other precious metals supposed to exist there? […] As the Christian looks forward with hope and faith to that land of pure delight, so the miner looks forward to the Black Hills, a region of fabulous wealth, where the hills repose on beds of gold and the rocks are studded with the precious metal. Nuggets of pure gold as large as walnuts have been shown and evidence produced as undisputable [sic] as that on which the Christian founds his hope, that they come from this promised land. And hence it has come to pass that with the return of every spring-time bold men make their arrangements to explore this region, and the government officials are kept constantly on the alert to prevent it, but the time has now come when the entire army could not, much longer, keep the country from being overrun by the invincible white man - by the hardy pioneer."
A month later, a correspondent accompanying Custer's Expedition wrote back from the field in prose geared to further fuel the flames of desire among young men seeking to make their fortunes in the new Eldorado:
"THE BLACK HILLS - In no portion of the United States, not excepting the famous blue grass region of Kentucky, have I ever found grazing superior to that which grows wild in these hitherto unknown regions. I know of no portion of our country where nature has done so much to prepare homes for husbandmen, and left so little for them to do, as here. Everything indicates an abundance of moisture within the space occupied by the Black Hills. Gold has been found […]."
A local, Wyoming, newspaper noted the effects of growing numbers of white people in the Black Hills on the Sioux. Recognising its sacredness to the Sioux and the fact that the Sioux were gathering in the Hills to decide what to do next, the paper nevertheless concluded that white intrusion and Sioux defeat was inevitable:
"This is God's country. He peopled it with red men and planted it with wild grasses, and permitted the white man to gain a foothold; and as the wild grasses disappear when the white clover gains a footing, so the Indian disappears before the advance of the white man. Humanitarians may weep for poor Lo, and tell of the wrong he has suffered, but he is passing away. Their prayers, their entreaties cannot change the law of nature; cannot arrest the causes which are carrying them on to their ultimate destiny - extinction."
By 1876, the population of the Black Hills was estimated at 10,000. Immediately after the cessation of the Black Hills from the Sioux, the counties of Lawrence, Pennington and Custer were formally organised and the mining for gold became official.
In 1876, the Californian-based Homestake Mine was located in the vicinity of the towns of Lead and Deadwood. The Homestake belt in the Hills has proven to be the most successful gold mining region in the United States, and, for several years, in the world. The "1877 fair market value" of the Homestake gold belt has been appraised to be $9,812,175. The appraised "1877 fair market value" for gold found throughout the Black Hills was $13,558,489. Between 1878 and 1962, gold bullion production at Homestake's Black Hills mine totaled $715 million.
The process of mining Homestake has largely used is open-pit, heat-leach gold-mining where the ore is blasted out of a mountain, hauled in trucks, crushed and then a cyanide solution is used to separate the gold. The system has led to many accusations of water and air contamination by individuals and organisations, including nearby Lakota tribes. Several suits have been filed against the company by tribal, state and federal governments and by local environmental organisations.
In November 1997, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe with the US Justice Department filed a civil suit against Homestake Mining Company for allegedly dumping thirty million tonnes of toxic mine tailings, including cyanide, mercury and arsenic, into waterways of the Black Hills - such as Whitewood Creek and the Cheyenne River and Belle Fourche Rivers - which drain the Cheyenne River Reservation. In addition to the tailings, the suit also alleges daily discharges of zinc, copper, cadmium, chromium, lead, nickel and selenium. The suit is seeking monetary compensation to cover the 100-year period the mining company has been operating in the Hills. One of the lawyers acting on behalf of the tribe told me that the suit was a critical one in terms of protecting the health and safety of Lakota residents, for protecting the environment and for protecting Lakota treaty rights (1998). To date, the case is still in court.
© 2002 by Bornali HalderSite, Page and Article © Copyright 2002 by Bornali Halder