CK Van Dam's Blog, page 11

Fur trappers and traders made their mark

November 19, 2022

Proving Her Claim is set in Rendezvous, Dakota Territory. According to the story, the town was founded during those halcyon days of the early 1800s when French Canadian and Scots trappers were the only white men in this new wilderness. The town was named for the rendezvous — the annual gatherings where fur trappers and traders would meet to celebrate another year’s work before they traveled east to sell their pelts.

From the 1820s to 1840s, fur trappers and traders were the explorers of the lands west of the Mississippi River. Their quest was for the valuable beaver pelts used to make top hats so prized by fashionable men in the East and in Europe.

By the 1840s and 1850s, beavers were becoming more scarce which signaled the end of fur trade era. The fur trade and the relationships built by trappers, however, lead to settlement of the Louisiana Purchase. The next wave of Americans were poised to move west in search of new opportunities. Americans had been bitten by the wanderlust bug.

The trappers and traders weren’t “unemployed,” however. The US military as well as settlers with an eye to this new land hired those very trappers to guide them West. In order to create the new maps, they relied on the trappers’ geographic knowledge, much of which was learned from the native tribes they used to trade with. 

Thanks to the fur trade, these new pioneers were not venturing into the “unknown” — the land was already charted and a lot was known about the territories of the Louisiana Purchase. 

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What motivates you?

November 14, 2022

I volunteer on several boards, and at a recent meeting the organizer asked a “warm up” question to get the group ready for work. She asked: “Tell us about a meaningful extra curricular activity you did as a child or teen.”

Not being athletic or musical, my extra curriculars were mostly academic — like the Yearbook Committee. As a high school junior I applied to be a writer or editor, but the advisor said my writing wasn’t good enough. So, for two years I was a typist — typing up other people’s stories about high school activities and events.

But it was a meaningful experience for me. It inspired me to do better — to prove to that high school English teacher that I could write.

In college, as a journalism major, I practiced my craft as a writer. I applied for a reporting job at the SDSU Collegian. And they hired me. For three years I wrote stories about college life, about campus happenings and about community activities. My writing was good enough that I was promoted to Senior Reporter where I did investigative reporting. I worked hard to improve my writing. I looked for compelling human interest narratives. I found unexpected angles in news and feature stories. I loved telling those stories.

I made a career as a copywriter.

I still like to write. And, hopefully people like what I’m writing.

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Women’s Suffrage on the frontier

Election Day, Tuesday, November 8, 2022

The Women’s Suffrage Movement — the right to vote — took nearly 100 years before it was the law of the nation. In the 1820s and 1830s, men in most states could vote, regardless of whether they had property.

For many historians, the Seneca Falls Convention was the turning point for Women’s Suffrage. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a leading women’s rights advocate, was a driving force of the Seneca Falls Convention. The Convention resulted in the “Declaration of Sentiments”:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

(Side note: While Susan B. Anthony is closely associated with the Women’s Suffrage Movement, she did not attend the Seneca Falls Convention.)

With that, women’s suffrage became a national issue. And, while the 19th Amendment was not ratified until August 18, 1920, several western states saw women’s suffrage as an opportunity to draw females to their states.

Wyoming Territory had over 6,000 adult males and only 1,000 females. For some politicians, there was a desire to populate the prairies — and that required women. So, motivated more by interest in free publicity than a commitment to gender equality, Wyoming territorial legislators passed a bill that granted women the right to vote.

In December 1869, Territorial Governor John Campbell signed the bill into law, making Wyoming the first territory or state in the United States to grant women this fundamental right of citizenship.

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What does “proving a claim” mean?

November 3, 2022

Recently someone asked me about the origins of the term “proving a claim.” It’s a good question, and not a term that we use much today.

History geek activated
The Homestead Act in 1862 opened up 270 million acres of land to homesteaders. It specified that American citizens who were 21 and the head of a household could claim 160 acres for a registration fee. The Act also restricted persons who had borne arms against the United States Government or had given aid and comfort to its enemies. It was during the Civil War, after all.

Once the fee was paid, the homesteader was required to live on the land six months out of the year as a permanent residence and make improvements. These included building a home, planting trees, and growing crops or raising livestock. After five years, the prospective landowner would go to the land office with two witnesses to prove that the requirements had been met. For an additional fee, the homesteader took official possession of the land.

The transcript of the original Homestead Act (there were actually several after 1862 to “fine tune” the land distribution) uses the term “making proof of settlement and cultivation” as a determinant of completion of this agreement with the United States government.

So, my interpretation of the term “proving her claim” is that “proving” is the action verb for providing “making proof.”

I’ll be interested to hear from readers if this “settles” the question.

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The congressmen laughed

October 28, 2022

The Homestead Act of 1862 was, no pun intended, landmark legislation that changed the course of our nation.

Professor Hannah Haksgaard, who teaches Property and Family Law at the University of South Dakota, has researched and written about the impact of the Homestead Act. One of her white papers, Including Unmarried Women in the Homestead Act of 1862, provides an interesting perspective on this legislation.

She wrote, The Homestead Act of 1862—largely understood as the most  important land distribution statute in American history—was a  monumental shift in the legal status of unmarried women. The inclusion of women in this legislation was the result of decades of debate, discussion, opposition and, finally, approval by the 36th Congress (1861-1863). These congressMEN (author’s emphasis) assumed that these unmarried women would attract single men and eventually marry, at which point the land would become the property of their husbands. Problem solved.

In her research, Haksgaard examined Congressional Records from 1843 to 1863, and included excerpts from floor debates in her white paper. For instance, in 1852 Rep. John Allison of Pennsylvania proposed to amend a homestead bill to include women. “Allison’s proposal, after generating laughter, was soundly rejected.” The same response — laughter — happened in 1854 when Sen. William Dawson of Georgia suggested including women in a homestead bill.

Haksgaard wrote, In fact, some members of Congress found the mere suggestion of including unmarried women to be comical. I count five instances of laughter when legislators discussed including unmarried women.

Ultimately, these these legislators believed that women were not capable of homesteading.

In the end, Congress did include all men and all women who were “heads of households” in the 1862 legislation that President Abraham Lincoln signed into law.

But the joke was on the CongressMEN, when 37% of male homesteaders proved their claims, while 42% of women successfully proved their homestead claims.

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Little soddy on the prairie

October 19, 2022

In her letter to her mother, Anna describes her new home: My home is what they call a “soddy.” It is small, about the same size as your dining room and kitchen, Mamma. Most of the homesteaders live in sod homes like mine. There are few trees on the prairie, so we make do. The sod houses are actually warm in the winter and cool in the summer, I’m told. I know first-hand that the dirt floors are muddy in the spring!

Sod homes were usually the first dwellings for homesteaders. As Anna explained, there weren’t a lot of trees for lumber on the prairie, so homesteaders made do with what they had: the thick, tough prairie sod. These one-room soddies were small, usually 10’x10 or a little larger. Furnishings included a wood stove, a bed, kitchen table and chair(s), and a few necessities.

Often times these pioneers would paper over the interior walls, or even white wash them. The rough-cut windows might be covered in parchment paper to keep out the weather, with calico curtains to brighten up the inside. But inhabitants had to be wary of bugs and worms falling from the ceilings or crawling out of the walls!

I recently had the opportunity to visit the Woolsey Burton Dugout on the Frawley Ranch just outside of Spearfish, SD. The dugout provides a glimpse into how those first-time homeowners lived in the late 1800s. The Woolsey Burton Dugout is actually a bit “uptown” with brick walls and framed windows and door — but those improvements probably came later. Built into the side of hill, the one-room home was a good use of natural resources.

Proving Her Claim is now available in Kindle and paperback on Amazon.

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Letters home tell the story

October 11, 2022

One of my beta readers commented that it appeared I’d done a lot of research while writing Proving Her Claim.

She was right. I wanted to learn about the lives of real women homesteaders, and there was no better resource than reading their accounts in letters sent “back home.” These letters documented the challenges and triumphs that women on the frontier experienced. The letters are an intimate look into their lives, how they interacted with other homesteaders, and why they persevered under trying circumstances.

A highlighted, dog-eared copy of gave me insights into these women — and inspired me to end each chapter with a letter home to Anna’s family, or letters from Anna’s family. These letters allow my readers to learn more about the characters: their back stories, their motivations, and, yes, even their secrets.

From Land in Her Own Name:

Eliza Crawford, a widow with two children, wrote “…Holding down a claim is not what it is cracked up to be. I wish I had not taken this one for I will have to go through so much before I can prove up.”

On the other hand, Bess Cobb, a Grant county settler, was more upbeat. She wrote “Suppose you girls are saying ‘Poor Bess’ and feeling dreadfully sorry for me out here in the wild and wooly uncivilized regions of America. But really time just seems to fly…Wish you could come out, but I suppose you think I am too far away.”

The accounts from actual women homesteaders helped me to see the frontier through their eyes, and hopefully, helped me to portray that life in Proving Her Claim.

Proving Her Claim is now available in Kindle and paperback on Amazon.

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The path to publishing

October 6, 2022

When I began this project I really didn’t give much thought to the whole “publishing a book” part of the path to publishing.

Boy, did I have a lot to learn!

Since starting down this road, I’ve read countless (really, I stopped counting) “how to” articles. I’ve attended even more webinars on everything from “do you need an editor?” (yes) to “how to find beta readers” — and so much more.

I learned that I needed to find an editor to review the manuscript, recommend style changes, ideas for additional content, copy clarification…I could go on. She was great! With that completed, I hired a proofreader to check for grammar, punctuation, word usage, etc. Not so great. Thankfully my Beta Readers were a good back up for this part of the journey.

But what’s the most important element in book sales? The book cover design. People do judge a book by its cover. I am lucky that my friend and former partner at Insight offered to create a cover for me. It’s gorgeous!

And, since I’m not a name-brand author, the chances of one of the Big Five publishing houses signing me were slim to none. That meant I needed to find another path. That path was self-publishing. After vetting several experts in the field, I selected an organization to help me navigate a book launch via Amazon. (Amazon, by the way, accounts for about 90 percent of all self-published book sales.)

That brings me to today. I am so proud to announce that Proving Her Claim is now available on Amazon! (Yes, I know I buried the lead.)

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