Arikara War

Arikara War
Part of the American Indian Wars

An Arikara warrior, by artist Karl Bodmer
DateJune 2 – August 11, 1823
Location
South Dakota
Result Indecisive[1]
Belligerents
United States United States
Sioux		 Arikara
Commanders and leaders
United States James Monroe
United States William Ashley
United States Henry Leavenworth
United States Joshua Pilcher		 Grey Eyes
Little Soldier[2]
Units involved

Rocky Mountain Fur Company

  • "Ashley's Hundred": 70

Missouri Legion[3]

Arikara

  • At least 600 warriors[1]
Casualties and losses
12 members of Ashley's company killed[1]
Seven people from the Army drowned in Missouri River.[4]: 64 		 Likely more than 10 warriors and villagers, among them Grey Eyes.[2]
Henry Leavenworth
Map of the Arikara villages, the camp of the army and the position of the batteries

The Arikara War was a military conflict between the United States and Arikara in 1823 fought in the Great Plains along the Upper Missouri River in the Unorganized Territory (presently within South Dakota).[5] For the United States, the war was the first in which the United States Army was deployed for operations west of the Missouri River on the Great Plains. The war, the first and only conflict between the Arikara and the U.S., came as a response to an Arikara attack on U.S. citizens engaged in the fur trade. The Arikara War was called "the worst disaster in the history of the Western fur trade".[6]

  1. ^ a b c "Ashley’s fur trappers attacked by Indians", History.com, archived 12 November 2016.
  2. ^ a b Serial 89, 18th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Document No. 1, pp. 94-95.
  3. ^ Roger L. Nichols, "Backdrop for Disaster: Causes of the Arikara War of 1823", South Dakota History, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 93–113, Summer 1984, South Dakota State Historical Society.

    Reprinted as ch. 9 in, Roger L. Nihols (ed), The American Indian: Past and Present, University of Oklahoma Press, 2014 ISBN 0806186143.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ney1977 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Marley, David (1998). Wars of the Americas: a chronology of armed conflict in the New World, 1492 to the present. ABC-CLIO. pp. 464–465. ISBN 978-0-87436-837-6.
  6. ^ Meyer, Roy W.: The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri. The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln and London, 1977, p. 53.