Richard Franklin Pettigrew (July 23, 1848October 5, 1926) was an American lawyer, surveyor, and land developer. He represented the Dakota Territory in the U.S. Congress and, after the Dakotas were admitted as States, he was the first U.S. Senator from South Dakota.
Early life and education
Pettigrew was born to Andrew Jr. Pettigrew and Hannah B. Sawtelle on July 23, 1848 in Ludlow, Windsor County, Vermont, in the residences of his grandparents, parents, seven siblings, uncles, aunts and cousins. He was the sixth child produced out of nine total. Pettigrew's siblings included Hannah M., Alma Jane, Henrietta Adelaide, Luella Belle, Justin A., Frederick (Fred) Wallace, Elizabeth Medora, and Harlan Page. In 1853, Andrew Jr. sold his store to the partnership of Emerson and Richards, and the family moved to Wisconsin in 1854 while Pettigrew was 6 years old. Andrew Jr. moved the family because of his neighbors' tough anti-slavery beliefs, and the store was used for the circulation of anti-slavery literature. The store was boycotted by angry, pro-slavers who threatened the Pettigrew family with violence.
The family settled in Rock County, near Union, Wisconsin. Pettigrew attended Evansville Academy, in Evansville. In 1866, Pettigrew went to Beloit to enroll in Beloit College. In the winter of 1868, Pettigrew entered law school at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Career in the Dakotas
Pettigrew moved to Dakota Territory in 1869 to work with a United States deputy surveyor. He settled in Sioux Falls, where he practiced law and engaged in surveying and real estate. He was a member of the territorial House of Representatives and served on the Territorial council. He was elected as a Republican to the U.S. House, serving from March 4, 1881 to March 3, 1883. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1882 but returned to the territorial council from 1885 to 1889.
Pettigrew was also instrumental in the founding of many local communities around Sioux Falls by donating land. Pettigrew and his wife, Bessie, donated land in 1886 to aid the founding and development of Granite, Iowa in Lyon County. In 1888, he and S.L. Tate both donated more land and were responsible for the founding of South Sioux Falls. Pettigrew wanted to build a suburb of Sioux Falls to the south and west.
U.S. Senate
When South Dakota was admitted as a state, Pettigrew was elected as South Dakota's first Senator to the United States Senate. He served from November 2, 1889 to March 3, 1901. He introduced a bill to fund the structure, recommending that native Sioux quartzite be used for construction of the state's first Federal building. He was re-elected in 1894, but left the Republican Party on June 17, 1896 to join the Silver Republicans, a faction of the Republican Party that opposed the party's position in support of the monetary gold standard. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1900. Pettigrew was a strong opponent of President William McKinley's attempt to annex the Republic of Hawaii against the wish of its many native residents. In a congressional speech, he stated: "The American flag went up on Hawaii in dishonor; it came down in honor, and if it goes up again now it will go up in infamy and shame and this Government will join the robber nations of the world."
His speech about Hawaii and annexation were at odds with some of his other views, namely in Federal Indian policy. Pettigrew was a supporter of a bill that sought to unilaterally dissolve tribal governments so as to force them to agree to allotment of their lands. In 1897, he delivered a speech on the Senate floor saying:
"There is no question but that the Congress of the United States at one blow should not only provide that laws passed by those councils, by those governments, should be approved by the President before they go into force, but, on the contrary, that the [tribal] governments themselves should be destroyed; that their power to legislate should be taken away; that their courts should be ousted and a proper judicial system furnished to those people. It is our duty to do it."
In the Presidential Election of 1900, while still in the Senate, he was a delegate and a major figure in the national political convention of the Populist Party held in Sioux Falls that convened on May 9, 1900 and lasted three days. The party endorsed William Jennings Bryan as its candidate.