History Found, Thrown Back -- Finder Disheartened By Clamor For Plate

CHIEFLAND, Fla. - When Dr. Max Rittgers and his dog started their South Dakota canoe trip, they didn't realize they would cross the path of 18th-century explorers - and rewrite a bit of history.

While canoeing in May 1995, Rittgers, a retired therapist from Chiefland, Fla., and his black Labrador, Ben, stopped near the confluence of the Cheyenne and Belle Fourche rivers. Ben dug into a hillside - and uncovered evidence of the earliest white visitors to this region.

The dog uncovered an artifact that has been dubbed the "A Miotte Plate" - a 6-inch-by-7-inch slab of lead bearing the name A Miotte and the date March 7, 1743.

A French-Canadian fur trader had apparently left the commemorative marker there, 252 years earlier.

It predated by 23 days the region's earliest known white artifact - the Verendrye Plate.

Apparently, the same expedition left both markers. The French crown and a more formal inscription are carved in the face of the Verendrye Plate, the reverse of which also carries the name "A Miotte" and is dated March 30, 1743.

That artifact, discovered by children in 1913, is in a Pierre, S.D., museum.

But five months after discovering the A Miotte Plate, Rittgers - disgusted with what it represented and the trouble it had brought him - returned it to the banks of the Cheyenne River.

He says a collector in Orlando, Fla., had offered him $1 million for the plate, and his friends called him a chump for not

taking it.

But, Rittgers says, "I can't build happiness on someone else's tears."

Explorers brought death

"I felt a fiduciary responsibility to the (Native American) people who died because of the smallpox that was brought in by the people who left the plate," Rittgers says.

The Verendrye family of fur traders led expeditions into present-day North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana in the late 1730s and early 1740s.

Within three years after contact with the Verendrye party, the Mandan tribe along the Missouri River was devastated by smallpox and diphtheria.

Museums, France wanted it

Scientists and museums were excited by Rittgers' discovery.

"I did see it this past summer. I did hold it and examine it," says Harry Thompson, curator of the Center for Western Studies at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D. "It was, in our estimation, exactly what it appeared to be."

Jack Redden, a professor at the School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, S.D., figures the explorers fashioned the plate from a lead sheet they carried to fabricate musket balls. "I don't have the slightest doubt about its authenticity," he said.

Rittgers says word got out, and he was hounded by museums across South Dakota and elsewhere. He said he had three conditions for a museum to qualify:

-- First, he felt that no one, including himself, should benefit financially.

-- Second, he asked that proper security be provided.

-- Third, he wanted his dog to get the credit for the discovery.

Thompson said several museums expressed an interest, "and ours was certainly one of them."

Redden said Rapid City wanted it for a new museum of exploration in the works, to be called The Journey. "It would have been a centerpiece."

Then the French government got wind of the discovery and made a request - "more of a demand" - for the plate, Thompson said. The Verendrye party had been on a mission to open trade routes for France. "This was placed by one of their people, so in their opinion it should be returned to them."

But then the Bureau of Land Management contacted Rittgers. "That's what put him over the edge," Thompson said.

Apparently the discovery site was government land. Rittgers perceived their inquiry as a demand for return of government property.

"So ultimately, Max felt under some duress not to make a decision in favor of some repository," Thompson said. "He felt that if he gave it to a museum, the state agency would pursue them and wind up with it anyway."

Rittgers imagined the artifact ending up on some bureaucrat's wall.

"The government and the museums perceived themselves to be the owners," he said. "I never said I was the owner of the plate. I was trying to be the protector of the plate."

Back to the mud

In October, Rittgers hired a pilot to fly him over the stretch of the Cheyenne River where the plate was found. He said he dropped four packages out the airplane window. Three were decoys, containing Florida sand and seashells.

The fourth package, he said, contained the A Miotte Plate.

"Coming to this decision was not easy," he said. "But now, having reinserted it into the mud of the great Cheyenne River in South Dakota, I feel the joy of my own humanity returning."

Now Rittgers says if he ever makes another historical find, "I'll take a picture of it and keep going."

And his dog Ben's days of discovery are also over. On Christmas Eve, he was killed by a car.

Seattle Times copy editor Greg Rasa contributed to this report.