Show SUBJUGATION THE SIOUX Not Enough Credit Given the Settlers of Gallatin Glatn County Helena Independent Judge H N Maguire once a citizen of Montana and a writer whose pen was poetical but who gave up literature to become an officeholder was in St Paul lately when among other thlngsNhe sid to the Pioneer Press reporter The facts constituting the cause of the war against the Sioux In which Custer lost his life are not reported in the records of the war department The settlers of the Gallatin valley in fact opened the war against the Sioux in 1874 or two years before the troops entered the field In retaliation of their marauding expeditions to steal stock and occasionally massacre whites who had ventured into the Yellowstone I country from the Gallatin settlements to hunt and prospect The troops stationed sta-tioned at Fort Ellis under command of the lamented Colonel E M Baker were hearty In sympathy with the settlers the colonel extending them all the extending al protection pro-tection he could consistently with his orders from the war department In the spring of 1875 a strong armed expedition of settlers organized at Bozeman Boze-man and moved down the Yelow tone and up the Big Horn knowing the Indians In-dians under the wily Sitting Bull would oppose their advance at all points The hope of nearly all composIng compos-ing this expedition was to force their way Into the Black Hills the existence of gold there having long before been known to the Montana frontiersmen I but the business men of Bozeman and I the Gallatin valley who provisioned I and equipped the expedition had in view another and still more Important I object At the time their communication communica-tion with the outside world was around by the Union Pacific railroad reached bv n trip of 500 miles to Corinne In Utah They wanted a direct outlet to the east They felt they could only realize re-alize the hope by themselves taking In hand and solving the problem of Sioux opposition and acting accordingly The Bozeman expedition of settlers against t the Sioux in 1875 a year before the government gov-ernment troops entered the field forced Its way down to the mouth of the BigHorn Big-Horn and then eastward as far as the site of old Fort Fetterman I had several sev-eral pitched battles with the hostile Indians whipping them In every conflict con-flict and returned to Bozeman with the loss of but two men They built a block house at the mouth of the BigHorn Big-Horn and a detachment of brave and determined men remained in i When Custer reached that point In 1S76 It was still held by representatives of the Gal latin valley settlers with the national colors floating over it The settlers ot the Gallatin valley I concluded Judge Maguire have never been accorded the credit due them for the important part they played In subjugating i sub-jugating the bloodthirsty Sioux and opening eastern Montana and western I Dakota to settlers and civilization |