BISMARCK, N.D. — A state park in North Dakota will no longer be named after a Civil War general who led raids that killed hundreds of Native Americans.
Sully Creek State Park, in the rugged Badlands near Medora, is now Rough Rider State Park, the state Parks and Recreation Department announced Sunday. The name change also came with the announcement of plans for a $4 million expansion of the campground and other park amenities. Established in 1970, the park is popular with hikers and horseback riders.
The change follows a national move to rename places with names that many people now find offensive or unfair. As part of that effort, the federal government has done just that in recent years renamed hundreds geographical features which had names that included an offensive term referring to Native American women, and they do replace the names of Army bases named after Confederate officers.
Department Director Cody Schulz said Monday that park officials were aware of the “complex history” surrounding Gen. Alfred Sully and the hostile military campaigns he led against the Sioux in the 1860s. Schulz said the name change reflects the equestrian nature of the park and the region’s Western heritage and culture, including President Theodore Roosevelt, who hunted and ranched in the area in the 1880s. A presidential library for Roosevelt, yes under construction nearby.
The name Sully was part of the considerations, but not the primary reason for the name change, Schulz said. A creek called Sully Creek runs near the park.
Sully led military campaigns against Sioux peoples, including the Battle of Whitestone Hill in 1863 and the Battle of Killdeer Mountain in 1864 in what is now North Dakota – attacks that killed an estimated hundreds of Indians combined.
Reconciliation and healing cannot move forward unless officials move away from “the conquest mentality (of) naming public places after people at war,” said Cheryl Kary, executive director of the Sacred Pipe Resource Center, which serves urban tribal populations in the Bismarck-Mandan area. She noted two parks in the Bismarck area named after other similar figures, including Custer Park, who was confronted with a failed attempt to rename it.
“It’s especially egregious when we give our parks these names because parks are supposed to be places of refuge, peace and serenity, family time and things like that, and yet they are named after violence, the people of violence,” Kary said , an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. She said the name Rough Rider is better than the name Sully Creek, but not ideal.
In 2019, Congress renamed Sullys Hill National Game Preserve near Devils Lake, North Dakota, to White Horse Hill National Game Preserve – a change requested by the Spirit Lake Tribe.