The Cowboy Band from Bonesteel, South Dakota

 

 The first thing you might notice
are the big cowboy hats and neckerchiefs.
It's a fashion style that not many bands
would choose for a uniform.

 

 

 

 

 

 And though there are a clutch of clarinets on one side,
this is still a standard brass band
with cornets, tenor horns, trombone, tuba
and a couple of drums.
 

And a few pistols, too.
 

It's never a good sign
of musical confidence
when a band feels a need
to defend itself in concert.

 

 

But there's no mistaking who they are
as the band's name is painted large
on the bass drum.

 

 

 

  Yet it's the fellow sitting center
who really grabs all the attention.
Very few bandleaders
can wear an Indian warbonnet
and look this good. 

His name was Yellow Horse
and he was the drum major
of the Rosebud Cowboy Band
of Bonesteel, South Dakota.

 

 

Posed indoors at a studio, this group numbered seventeen with all 16 bandsmen wearing matching cowboy outfits, and one man dressed in a full Indian costume with feathered bonnet, fringed robe, and beaded moccasins. His dark complexion, in stark contrast with the other white men, gives him the countenance of an authentic Native American. He is definitely not a pretend Indian from the fraternal Order of Red Men.

The postcard was sent from Bonesteel, South Dakota on 19 September 1907 to Miss Myrtle Ri... (?) of Vermilion, S. D.  Evidently people enjoyed harness racing (?) or some other kind of racing out in Bonesteel.

 

 

 Jack won the 2:25 pace (?)
in straight heats
Willie Boy got 2nd Money
in the 3:00
Willie Boy will start in 2:30
Pace today.  I may start Jack in
the free for all (?) Tomorrow
we will write you Sat how we
come out  we got to Platte S.D.
Sat  we are all well & hope
yours well and you are the same 
                                                      C R

Bonesteel is a very small town out on the south central prairie of South Dakota near the state line with Nebraska. It was named for H. E. Bonesteel, a freight forwarder who worked there in its early years. The town got its first postmaster in 1892 and in 1902 the streets were first platted when the Chicago and North Western Railway built a spur line into the region. By 1905 Bonesteel could boast a population of 754, though today it has less than half that number with just 258 residents.

 

The name Rosebud refers to the Rosebud Indian Reservation which is about 100 miles west of Bonesteel. It was established in 1889 after the federal partition of the Great Sioux Reservation, which had once covered all of the area west of the Missouri River, as well as part of northern Nebraska and eastern Montana. Like many of the other Lakota and Dakota reservations in the western United States, in the late 19th century the Rosebud reservation was considerably reduced in size as the result of various treaties made between the United States government and Native American tribes. It is the homeland of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, who are the Sicangu, a band of Lakota people.

 

In 1904, as a result of the partition of the Great Sioux Reservation, an enormous number of large land grants on the eastern side of the reservation were offered to the public. They were sold in a lottery system which brought over 50,000 people out to Bonesteel hoping to secure a tract of land. Most were legitimate honest settlers while others came to seek their fortune through fraudulent, and at times violent, means. It was a turbulent time for the region and about a year later a group of Bonesteel's businessmen decided to organize a band to promote the peaceful nature of their town. Among the farmers, ranchers, and shop keepers around the area they found enough competent musicians to put together a decent band which they named after the Rosebud reservation. Soon it was good enough to take on the road acting as boosters for the little town of Bonesteel and dressing up in a popular cowboy style. In October 1906 the band traveled 250 miles southeast to Omaha, Nebraska in order to play at an Omaha carnival. The Omaha newspaper published a colorful report that captures the glamorized imagery that cowboys and Indians once roused in American journalism. 

 

 

Omaha NE Evening Nonpareil
3 October 1906

The Rosebud cowboy band from Bonesteel, S. D., arrived in Omaha Tuesday forenoon to participate in the carnival celebration.  The band is uniformed in full puncher regalia of leather shaps (sic), spurs, sombreros, six-shooters, red silk handkerchiefs, blue flannel shirts, etc.  Nevertheless this band Is not simply a bunch of expert spur, lasso and pistol artists—they are musicians as well. Under the able directorship of Foreman Art Eastman of the X-7 ranch. Commonly known as "Hair Trigger Eastman," who can hit high notes on the cornet as well as remove the heel of a tenderfoot with his six-shooter, the boys have attained to a proficiency that will surprise more pretentious organizations.

Old Chief Yellow Horse, one of the most famous war chiefs of the Sioux tribe and one of the few present survivors of the sanguinary Minnesota massacre and the Wounded Knee uprisings, will go with the band as drum major. While it has been several years since Yellow Horse was engaged in open hostilities, he is yet one of the few Indians who has steadfastly refused to assimilate the white man's civilization, and while he has lost not an iota of his hatred for the paleface, he has promised to be on his good behavior while in Omaha, and it is believed and hoped by the members of the band that he will create no disturbance unless irritated in some way.

_ _ _

 

 

 

The bandleader was a young man named Arthur B. Eastman. In the 190O census he was living in Union, Iowa about 350 miles east of Bonesteel working at a restaurant. Arthur was then 30 years old, with a wife, Blanche, and living with his parents, but that marriage didn't work out and ended in divorce. Soon afterward Arthur joined the wave of western migrants moving to Bonesteel where he was employed by the Security State Band as a land manager.

In February 1905 he married Clara Brennan, proprietor of the Bargain Store in Bonesteel. But "Foreman" Art Eastman must have had more talent on the cornet than in account books as his Rosebud Cowboy Band found enough success that it changed his career path. But I think he had a little help from a surprising friend.

 

 

 

Homer NE Free Press
19 February 1909

 

The man seated front and center in the band was called Chief Yellow Horse, though his bio in the newspaper report should be tempered with more than a few grains of salt. In this era European-Americans had very little understanding about the relationships between Native American tribes, their languages, or their homelands which makes it very difficult to determine which Sioux tribe Yellow Horse was from or whether he was an actual chief. By his appearance it was clear he was an elder which in 1907 meant he was born in the Dakota Territory decades before the influx of White people. Yet somehow he created a name for himself that was recognized by the region's newspapers who made him out as a leader of his tribe and accepted as a "friendly" Native American. It helped that he was also kind of photogenic in his impassive way.

 

 

 

In this colorized photo postcard a stoic Native American man looks at the camera lens. His features and costume are very like the man pictured with the Rosebud Cowboy Band. Here he is holding a similar, if not identical stick as the other images, and the head band on his bonnet has the same triangle in the center over his forehead. The caption identifies him as:

1537 – Yellow Horse of the Ponca Tribe

Since the mid-17th century the Ponca people were native to the region around the mouth of the Niobrara River near its confluence with the Missouri River in what is now northeast Nebraska. In the early 19th century the Ponca tribe signed several treaties with the United States government to regulate trade and minimize inter-tribal conflicts in their region of the Northern Plains. They also sought protection from hostile tribes and a permanent reservation home along the Niobrara River. In the 1868 U. S.—Sioux Treaty of Fort Laramie all the Ponca lands were mistakenly included in the Great Sioux Reservation. This provoked more discord between the Ponca and the Sioux/Lakota people, who now claimed the land as their own. So in May 1877 the United States forcibly removed the Ponca people from their ancestral homeland and marched them 600 miles south to the Indian Territory in what later became the state of Oklahoma. 

 

As the Ponca people learned of their destination, they felt betrayed as they expected they were only going to a reservation near Omaha. When they arrived in Oklahoma they found the land there inhospitable and unsuitable as it was too late in the year to plant crops and the government failed to deliver farming equipment which it had promised as part of the treaty. By the following spring nearly a third of the tribe had died due to starvation, malaria, and related hardships caused by the long march and the harsh conditions in Oklahoma.  

 

Chief Standing Bear (c. 1829–1908), 1877
Illustration from The Indian Dispossessed
by Seth K. Humphrey, 1906
Source: Wikipedia

 

One of the dead was Bear Shield, the eldest son of Chief Standing Bear who had promised to bury him in the Ponca homeland in the Niobrara River valley. So in the winter of 1878-79 Standing Bear (c. 1829–1908), along with a small group of his tribesmen, left their Oklahoma reservation, without permission, and set off to return his son's body to Nebraska. When they reached the Omaha Reservation they were arrested and detained at Fort Omaha by General George Crook under orders from the Secretary of the Interior, Carl Schurz in Washington. Crook was actually sympathetic to the Ponca's plight and delayed returning them to the Oklahoma Reservation until they could rest, recover and maybe seek redress in federal court.

 

The Ponca's unfortunate situation received a lot of sympathetic publicity in Omaha and around the nation. Two prominent attorneys agreed to take Standing Bear's case pro bono and in April 1879 they presented the Ponca's suit, Standing Bear v. Crook, at the U.S. District Court in Omaha. As the trial drew to a close, Judge Elmer S. Dundy granted permission for Chief Standing Bear to speak in his own behalf. As he began he raised his right hand. "That hand is not the color of yours, but if I prick it, the blood will flow, and I shall feel pain," said Standing Bear. "The blood is of the same color as yours. God made me, and I am a Man." He continued with an eloquence that was very persuasive.

 

On 12 May 1879, Judge Dundy ruled that "an Indian is a person" within the meaning of habeas corpus. He further stated that the federal government failed to show a basis under law for the Poncas' arrest and captivity. It was a landmark civil rights case that established Native Americans as "persons within the meaning of the law" and entitled to all its rights and protection. "The right of expatriation is a natural, inherent and inalienable right and extends to the Indian as well as to the more fortunate white race," the judge concluded. 

statue of Chief Standing Bear
by sculptor Benjamin Victor, 2019
National Statuary Hall of the U. S. Capitol
Source: Wikipedia

In September 2019 a statue of Chief Standing Bear was installed in the National Statuary Hall of the United States Capitol by the state of Nebraska in honor of his leadership and advocacy for Native American civil rights. The artist Benjamin Victor, who lives and works in Boise, Idaho, is the only living artist to have three works in the National Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol. Currently he  is sculpting a fourth statue which will be installed there to honor Daisy Bates (1914–1999), an American civil rights activist, publisher, journalist, and lecturer who played a leading role in the 1957 Little Rock, Arkansas integration crisis.

Standing Bear's part in American history justly deserves recognition, but I think his story must have had a very special meaning to Chief Yellow Horse in the 1900s. By this era the remaining Ponca people living in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Oklahoma were very few, even compared to the Native Americans in other tribes of the region. Yellow Horse surely felt a responsibility to follow Standing Bear's example of leadership and advocacy for his people. It's also quite possible he knew him personally. I think by joining a cowboy band he was making a kind of political statement for Native Americans to be recognized and treated with respect.

 

Yellow Horse's colorized portrait has a postmark of 13 August 1909 from Seattle, Washington. It was addressed to Master George Walker of Portland, Oregon.

  

                       Friday
Does this look
like Rain in
the face?  How
are the little
chicks?
Kisses for my boy.
XXXX

 

In 1908, a year after the Rosebud Cowboy Band posed for their photograph, they signed a contract with the C. W. Parker Amusement Co. of Abilene, Kansas. The company manufactured carousels, thrill rides, and other arcade equipment for amusement parks and carnivals. As a professional music ensemble the Rosebud Band played a circuit, mostly in western states, still led by Art Eastman, but, as far as I can tell, without Chief Yellow Horse. However in May 1908 it was reported that the band had reorganized as the "Parker Band", given up their cowboy outfits, and joined a traveling tent show.

 

In 1910 the Parker Amusement Co. moved to Leavenworth, Kansas where it expanded into a major market selling carnival equipment and novel amusement rides to many national traveling shows and amusement parks. In the 1910 census, Arthur B. Eastman and his wife Clara were now living in Marionville, Missouri, a small town about halfway between Springfield and Joplin, Missouri. "Hair Trigger" Art Eastman listed his occupation as "Musician with Carnival Co."

 

 

 

Seattle WA Star
19 July 1909

I'm not entirely certain if Chief Yellow Horse ever really got to Seattle in 1909, but I have a good idea how it might have happened. In 1909, from June to October, the city of Seattle played host to a world's fair called the Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition, designed to promote the development of the Pacific Northwest. A very large fairground was built with grand exposition halls, numerous gardens, and a large midway amusement park. That summer the AYPE attracted over 3,700,000 visitors who came to see huge displays of technology, manufacturing, art, and culture. 

 

The event also attracted a lot of other entertainers to Seattle who wanted to take advantage of the large number of tourists. One of these was Cheyenne Bill's Wild West Show. This outdoor circus had "15 Stirring Events Depicting the Lawless Life of the Old Frontier West." that included rodeo action with bronco cowboys; a "Congress of Rough Riders" recreating President Teddy Roosevelt's military service in the brief Spanish-American War of 1898; and a "Big Tribe of Real Indians". There were two performances a day, including Sunday. Admission cost 50¢.

 

In the amusement section of Seattle's newspapers it's interesting to read that simultaneous to the Wild West Show was an exhibit at the AYPE of Alaskan Native Americans and performances by a troupe from Peking, China of "jugglers, magicians, strong men" and a "native Chinese orchestra." This was an era when exotic acts played well in America and sold tickets.

 

Cheyenne Bill was just one of many imitators of the more famous "Buffalo Bill" William F. Cody, whose Wild West Show company originated this kind of traveling Western American show. Buffalo Bill's troupe included a cowboy band, of course, and lots of "real Indians" like Chief Sitting Bull, the leader of the  Hunkpapa Lakota tribe during the great Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. Also known as General Custer's Last Stand. So it seems very plausible that Cheyenne Bill's company engaged another Indian chief from a tribe of the Great Plains in order to present a genuine "wild" experience. From his work with the Rosebud Cowboy Band, I think Yellow Horse's resume made him a perfect hire for this job.

 

As far as I've been able to discover, after the Seattle world's fair closed in October 1909 Cheyenne Bill's Wild West Show rounded up its horses, folded up its tents, and disappeared into the sunset. Which in Seattle must have made a pretty wet exit. 

1921 census for Rosebud Indian Reservation, Ponca District

Tracking down an Indian name in the archives of Ancestry.com was challenging, to say the least. There are a surprising number of people named "yellow" or "horse". But not surprising was that records for Native Americans are very sparse or nonexistent. But after a deep dive in the archives I succeeded in finding Yellow Horse in the 1921 census for the Ponca district of the Rosebud Indian Reservation. He was near the end of a list of 470 people who lived in the Ponca district. He was not labeled as a chief but was living with a wife named Mary or Loader. Yellow Horse's birth year was listed as 1849 and Mary's was 1851. That made him about age 58-59 when he posed with the Rosebud Cowboy Band in 1907.

After the Rosebud Cowboy Band changed operations with the Parker Amusement Co. it seems likely that many members of the band found life on the road too stressful and returned to Bonesteel. I imagine Yellow Horse felt the same in 1909 and came back to his home as well. Yet he eventually proved that he would outlast Cheyenne Bill in newspaper attention . In June 1924 his picture ran in the Norfolk, Nebraska Daily News.  I think he might even be smiling.

Norfolk NE Daily News
23 June 1924

     Bonesteel, S. D. June 23—Special to The News: Chief Yellow Horse and his band of close to a hundred Indians will be one of the main attractions at the frontier days and Independence day celebration to be held here on July 4 and 5. The Indians will hold a pow-wow and give exhibition dances each day.

Chief Yellow Horse, fifteen years ago, accompanied the Rosebud band to Omaha and marched in the Ak-Sar-Ben parade. He has attended every band concert at Bonesteel since that time and no celebration in the Rosebud would he complete without him.

The big corrals and arena at the fair grounds, where the bucking and bulldogging, roping and riding contests will take place, have been finished and other arrangements to make the celebration here one of the largest ever held in this part of the state are nearing completion.

  

 

 

 

 

Three years later at the end of November 1927 the Sioux Falls SD Argus-Leader published a report on the death of Yellow Horse at his home near Bonesteel. It's an unusually sympathetic obituary, not unlike those written for a distinguished civic leader or esteemed town elder. The report is all the more remarkable because in this era newspapers rarely published anything charitable about individual Native Americans.

 

 

Sioux Falls SD Argus-Leader
30 November 1927

SIOUX BANDSMAN DIES;
GAINED FAME IN 1905

   

    Bonesteel, Nov. 29. - Chief Yellow Horse, a Rosebud Sioux Indian, 85 years old, died at his home on Ponca Creek, ten miles southwest of this city. He was born near Rosebud agency and lived here all his life.
   Chief Yellow Horse became famous in 1905, when he led the renowned Cowboy band of Bonesteel, which carried first prize at the Ak-Sar-Ben at Omaha. From that time and including the last fair, he had led the bands playing at the fair.
   He was well known throughout the northwest and was well liked
and respected. He was one of the few old timers who refused to sell his land and still retained it at the time of his death. The funeral was held Tuesday and burial was at the Ponca Creek burial ground.
   In the passing of Chief Yellow Horse the Rosebud has lost one of its real pioneers. Although a full-blood Sioux, over 30 years ago he learned to speak the English language. He was a great favorite with all the pioneers and especially the children, who will miss him at all public gatherings.

_ _ _

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

A 1907 postcard of a small town band is a pretty common piece of ephemera. Such bands were once an important part of American and American immigrant culture in the 19th and early 20th century. I have dozens hundreds of examples in my collection. These musical groups came in a variety of flavors, both amateur and professional, with bands for men, women, boys, girls, and even orphans. They often represented national groups who preserved the Old World's music heritage in bands for Germans, Italians, Czechs, Finns, and many more. And of course, there were bands for African Americans and even Native Americans too. My blog has many stories on the diverse musical traditions found in small town life in America.

 

A photo of a cowboy band, or more accurate, a band of men dressed up as cowboys who shopped at the same general store, is not uncommon to find. It was once a style invented to fit a novelty niche in American show business just like the long duster coats and top hats worn by minstrel bands. A recognizable costume identified the type of music a band played. Today we don't expect four men with scruffy long hair, torn tee-shirts, and ragged jeans to play a Beethoven string quartet. They have to be a rock band. Though what kind of rock might require more detailed wardrobe analysis.

 

But twisted around the personal and historical record in all of these photos is the United States' wicked history of racism. It once pervaded ever aspect of American society and even now in 2024 our country must still grapple with its tragic legacy.

 

What makes the Rosebud Band's photo rare is to see a genuine Native American prominently included with a bunch of White men. This is 1907 when Jim Crow laws, racial segregation, xenophobic discrimination, and other racist bigotry was so prevalent in America that it was considered acceptable by just about everyone everywhere in our society. 

How or why Chief Yellow Horse was invited to join the Rosebud Cowboy Band is likely to remain unknown. But from the few clues left in newspapers I think it's fair to say he was accepted by the band's musicians and given a level of respect that was unusual to find in this era. I've no doubt that he was sometimes the victim of a lot of practical jokes, disrespectful behavior, and even offensive intolerance. It's possible that he was exploited for his appearance and paid with a few coins. But I can't believe he would have continued being a regular part of band concerts and civic events in South Dakota and Nebraska for over 20 years if he didn't find it gratifying and worthwhile for himself and his own people.

 

In that first report on the Rosebud Band Yellow Horse is described as a "survivor of the sanguinary Minnesota massacre and the Wounded Knee uprisings." These are references to terrible violent events that occurred in the western territories. The Minnesota massacre was the Dakota War of 1862 also known as the Sioux Uprising of 1862. It began when several eastern bands of Dakota, known as the Santee Sioux, were facing starvation. A group of warriors attacked White settlements along the Minnesota River valley in southwest Minnesota. This led to a more widespread regional conflict that lasted for five weeks, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of settlers and the displacement of thousands more. 

 

After the uprising was crushed by federal and state forces the Dakota people were forcibly exiled westward from their ancestral homelands to reservations in the Dakotas and Nebraska. Their remaining land in Minnesota was confiscated and sold. The war also ended with the largest mass execution in United States history with the hanging of 38 Dakota men. Yellow Horse would have been a young man then, between 13-20 years old, depending on which of his birth years are used.

 

The Wounded Knee Massacre, also known as the Battle of Wounded Knee, occurred on 29 December 1890 when an encampment of Lakota people was attacked by soldiers of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment supported by a battery of four Hotchkiss mountain guns, an early type of machine gun.  Nearly three hundred Lakota people were killed in this infamous massacre.The Wounded Knee battle site is about 185 miles directly west of Bonesteel, South Dakota. In 1890 Yellow Horse was a mature man of 41-48 years. 

Whether Yellow Horse was present at these horrible events is impossible to say. But he surely understood the history of these atrocities and undoubtedly knew many of the native people involved. Likewise this history was still fresh to many of the White settlers in the Bonesteel region who would have their own perspective on the violence of the Indian Wars. How did Yellow Horse and his Ponca community reconcile this troubled time with their White neighbors? Sadly it is a question that can be applied to countless places around the world today where people have suffered senseless terror and endured brutal injustice. I wish I knew how Yellow Horse would answer that question. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Ponca Creek Cemetery where Yellow Horse is buried lies 15 miles west of Bonesteel. Google Maps gives us the best view of the rolling landscape around Ponca Creek that Yellow Horse and his people once loved. 

 

Ponca Creek Cemetery,
near Herrick, South Dakota
Source: Google Maps
[left is north]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where sometimes we don't know
where we are
until we get there.