South Dakota: "Piedmont man cashes in on historic gun"

[cuchulainn]

from the Rapid City Journal

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2003/11/17/news/state/news03.txt

Piedmont man cashes in on historic gun

SIOUX FALLS (AP) - A rifle said to have belonged to a 19th-century Mdewakanton Dakota chief was sold at an auction this weekend to the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe, which includes several of the chief's descendants.

The gun was one of more than 400 items on sale Saturday from the collection of Jim Aplan of Piedmont. Most were 19th-century firearms, with storied pasts from the Civil War or from one of the battles between American Indian tribes and white settlers.

The rifle is a muzzle loader with stars on the barrel, identifying it as "chief's grade." A letter in pencil identifies it as having belonged to Chief Little Crow.

Little Crow was born near what is now St. Paul, Minn., and led his tribe in a six-week war against the U.S. Army in 1862. He was killed a year later trying to surrender to Minnesota authorities. He is now buried on Flandreau Reservation.

Several of his descendants now live there and asked tribal treasurer Tom Allen to bid on the gun.

Allen said he was not convinced the gun was Little Crow's but bid on it, buying it for $3,500.

"The family had expressed a concern that we buy this now, because the opportunity may never come again," Allen said.

Despite doubts about its authenticity, he said the gun would be put on display at the tribal office in Flandreau.

The oldest document describing the gun is a letter in pencil, written by the former owners 50 years after it supposedly left Little Crow's hands. But the rifle's distinctive markings indicate it was probably given to an Indian chief in return for some favor, Allen said.

"It's part of the tribe's history," he said. "If it's not his, it's somebody's."

Aplan, who bought the gun in Wyoming, would not say how much he paid for it.

Other items sold at the auction included a cast-iron arrowhead found at the site of Lewis and Clark's winter camp at Mandan, N.D., which sold for $2,550; and a Harper's Ferry rifle used on the expedition, which sold for $3,800, and a Colt six-shooter that belonged to Jack Sully, a Charles Mix County sheriff in 1872 who reportedly stole livestock. That sold for $3,400.

And there is more where that came from, Aplan said.

"This is just a drop in the bucket of what we have," said Aplan, who has been collecting guns since he was little boy.

"I was buying guns from my playmates' fathers," he said.

Now he makes his living buying and selling these pieces of history. He rarely thinks about the significance of his transactions any more, he said.

But the Little Crow gun sale was an exception.

"I'm glad that it went home," Aplan said.

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