Annie D. Tallent

Annie Donna Tallent is recognized as the first white woman to enter the Black Hills region, arriving with the Gordon-Russell expedition in 1874. The Gordon-Russell party entered the Hills looking for gold, in violation of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty that recognized the Black Hills as a part of the Great Sioux Reservation. Tallent accompanied her husband David and son Robert on the illegal and dangerous journey overland from Sioux City, Iowa. The group of prospectors stayed at Fort Defiance/Gordon Stockade east of the current-day city of Custer during the winter, and were detained and escorted back to Sioux City by troopers from the U.S. Cavalry the following spring.

In spite of the great hardships, she fell in love with the Black Hills, describing them as "one continuous poem, replete with all that is grand, sublime, and beautiful."

The U.S. Government began to allow white settlement in the Black Hills in 1876. Tallent and her family then returned to the Hills, and settled in  for four years, after which she moved to  where she remained for fourteen years –– while there she served 4 years as superintendent of public instruction in Pennington County, and three as a member of the board of education (two years as its president).

Upon her retirement in 1897 she wrote ““The Black Hills: or  in which she defended the white incursion into the Black Hills that violated existing treaties with the Indians. Tallent maintained that "such treaties as tend to arrest the advance of civilization, and retard the development of the rich resources of our country," should not have been entered into.

Her life, her experiences, and her observations upon the Black Hills of her day have been long interpreted by historians and others as a valid record of that particular era of history, though her writings have been labeled as racist when viewed in a more contemporary context.

Tallent lived in the Black Hills from 1876 until her death in 1901. Despite the recent furor over her period racism, she is recognized as an interesting figure among the pioneers of the Black Hills, and especially in the annals of early educational history in the region.