USA > Colorado > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 46
USA > Nevada > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 46
USA > Wyoming > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 46
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Whether or not there was found sufficient proof to sustain the complaint of the knights of labor in this case, it is evident that the danger which threatens society is the overweening influence of wealth. The temptation to men who have acquired millions, right- fully or wrongfully, in a few years is to consider themselves better than their neighbors, and less re- gardful of the rights of men. At bribery or any moral or political corruption they do not hesitate. They would constitute themselves a privileged class, and return toward feudalism by surrounding them- selves with the largest number of dependents in the form of ill-paid laborers, that being the only form of
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POLITICAL AFFAIRS.
serfdom at present known under our government. How long they can maintain that position in political economy and ethics will depend upon the nerve of the working classes to resist the tendency ; and nowhere is the struggle more apparent than in mining states, not even in manufacturing states, where tender child- hood is pressed into the service of the capitalist, and made to earn its daily bread at the sacrifice of its future manhood and womanhood.
It is difficult to determine which class exercises the more baneful influence upon public morals, the low ignorant foreigner, orthe unprincipled monied monopo- list. But aside from these, Colorado has a larger proportion of men of culture among its men of business and affairs than any of the intra-montane common- wealths ; and, in proportion to its population, more college bred men than most of the older states. In its people, its climate, its impressive scenery, natural wealth, and liberal institutions it is altogether a noble state, needing no encomiums from its historian other than the simple narrative of the achievements of its founders.
CHAPTER VII.
INDIAN WARS.
1860-1880.
TRIBES AND TREATIES-ABORIGINAL BRIGANDAGE-UNRECORDED OUTRAGES OF THE WHITE MEN-APPROPRIATIONS -- WHITE FORCE IN THE FIELD- THE COLORADO REGIMENTS-DEPREDATIONS ON THE OVERLAND MAIL COMPANY-COMMUNICATION CUT OFF-THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE- CHIVINGTON CENSURED BY CONGRESS, BUT THANKED BY THE PEOPLE OF COLORADO -- FORTS AND RESERVATIONS-WEST OF THE MOUNTAINS WIDE-SPREAD HOSTILITIES AND BATTLES.
WHEN the territory of Colorado was organized, its governor and Indian superintendent found there sev- eral powerful tribes, with which the government had already had dealings. As early as September 17, 1851, a treaty was made at Fort Laramie with the Ogalalah and Brulé Sioux, and the Arapahoes and Cheyennes, by which the country claimed by them should be included within the following limits ; com- mencing at Red Buttes, on the south side of the north fork of the Platte river, at the crossing of the immigrant road, following this stream to its source in the Rocky mountains, thence along their summits to the head waters of the Arkansas river, down the Arkansas to the crossing of the Santa Fé trail, thence northwesterly to the forks of the Platte, and up the north branch to the place of beginning. It was esti- mated that the area contained in the Upper Platte agency, as it was called, was 122,500 square miles, while the population did not exceed 5,500, not more than 2,000 of these being warriors. The treaty re- quired them to keep in their own country, to avoid
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INDIAN WARS.
wars with the neighboring tribes, to refrain from rob- bing travellers, and for this righteousness they were to receive annuities, to be distributed at Fort Laramie. Of the region here designated, the Sioux and one band of Cheyennes ranged the portion lying north of the present state of Colorado, while the Cheyennes and Arapahoes occupied the country next the Arkansas.
That part of the country south of the Arkansas was traversed by the Kiowas, Apaches, and Comanches, with whom a treaty, similar to the Laramie treaty, had been made in 1853, but with whom the govern- ment had now and then occasion to display armed force, in order to punish or prevent depredations upon persons and property upon the Santa Fé trail, which was traversed by the caravans of the Santa Fé traders, the supply trains en route to the military posts in New Mexico, the United States mail for California, and frequent companies of immigrants and travellers. These Indians also were looked after by the incumbent of the Platte agency.
That portion of Colorado lying west of the Rocky mountains was inhabited by the Utes, branches of which great nation extended to the Sierra Nevada, as I have shown. In Colorado there were three divis- ions ; two in the southern portion yearly presented with goods at the New Mexico agencies, but the more northern tribes were still wild and shy, although numerous and warlike. The whole number was esti- mated at 10,000.
It would have required greater diplomacy than the average superintendent of Indian affairs can command to adjust the yoke of civilization to the necks of 15,000 free-born American savages without galling. The task was made more difficult by the animosity between the Utes of the mountains and the Arapahoes and Cheyennes of the plains ; but in a double degree by the feeling already engendered by the action of the military in punishing the plains people for attacks
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TREATIES.
on travellers.1 And, while the retaliations of the sava- ges are written in letters of blood, the outrages of the white men upon the Indians mustgo forever unrecorded.
In June 1860 congress appropriated $35,000 for the purpose of making a new treaty with the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, and also with the Kiowas and Co- manches, who for three years previous had occupied the country on the south side of the Arkansas, which was crossed by the Santa Fé trail, to the peril of travellers. Commissioner A. B. Greenwood arrived
1 The history of aboriginal brigandage on the plains has never been writ- ten, and only now and then related, in part as a frontier experience, to enliven some traveller's tale. From the authorities in my possession I learn that following the Mexican war certain tribes made an alliance to war on the traffic of the Santa Fe trail. They succeeded in cutting off the connec- tions between the troops in New Mexico and their base of supplies in the United States. In 1847 the southern Utes were pursued into Fremont county by Mexican troops, and, making a stand in the defile of the Arkansas above Cañon City, sustained a heavy loss; hence the name of the gorge, Ute cañon. Londoner relates that 8 out of a party of 9 trappers were murdered by the Utes in California gulch in 1854. Colorado Mining Camps, MS., 8. On Christmas day of that year all the inhabitants at the Pueblo, on the Arkansas river, were massacred in a drunken revel by a wandering band of Utes, who had been invited to partake of the hospitalities of the season. Thomb's Mex. Colo, MS., 1-3. The authorities differ as to whether there were 17 or 29 of the victims, all of whom were Mexicans. In 1855 I find the troops from Fort Massachusetts, now Fort Garland, pursuing and punishing the Utes of southern Colorado, for their raids into New Mexico. When en route to the Platte agency point of distribution, with annuity good 3 in 1854, the agent met at the crossing of the Arkansas from 1,200 to 1,500 lodges of Kiowas, Comanches, Osages, Arapahoes, and Cheyennes, being a war party en route to wipe out, as they expressed it, all frontier Indians on the plains. When near the Kansas River they were defeated by 100 Sacs and Foxes, in a three hours' battle. The Mexicans of New Mexico were their chief source of supply, and as long as these could be made to furnish horses, mules, and captives to the United States Indians, with which they carried on a profitable trade among themselves, they were comparatively well-behaved towards travellers on the great western highways; but when New Mexico became a part of the United States, and they were forbidden to rob and kill its people, they quarrelled with those tribes who made and observed treaties, and began robbing and killing anywhere to make up the loss.
In 1855 Agent Thomas S. Twiss, on arriving on the ground, found that the Arapahoes had been charged with killing cattle and sheep to the amount of $15,000, which would stop their annuity for some years. They admitted the thefts, but excused them on the plea of sickness in their band, and fam- ine consequent on not being able to go after buffalo, and submitted cheerfully to the loss of their annuities. A war was going on between the United States troops, under Harney, and the Sioux, which had put an end to Indian trade in buffalo skins, etc,. so that the prospect looked dark for the coming winter. In March 1856, Harney entered into a peace treaty with all the Sioux of the plains, which was intended to restore the former equilibrium in affairs; or, rather, he proposed to improve the condition of the Sioux and other tribes by teaching them agriculture. But before the plan could be carried out a
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INDIAN WARS.
at Fort Wise-formerly Bent's fort-about the mid- dle of September, but finding only the Arapahoes on the ground, appointed A. G. Boone special agent to carry out the intentions of the government, and re- turned to Washington. In February 1861 Boone concluded a treaty with the Cheyennes and Arapa- hoes, by which one third of the area claimed by them between the South fork of the Platte and Arkansas rivers was ceded to the United States. Their reser-
collision occurred at Platte bridge, beyond Laramie, where a company of troops were stationed to protect immigrants to California and Oregon. The commandant accused the Cheyennes of having stolen some horses which they had in their possession, and imprisoned them. The savages attempting escape were fired at and one killed. Later the Cheyennes were attacked by a body of United States troops, and six killed. They then sued for peace, which was granted. Nevertheless, some of them continuing hostile, Colonel E. V. Sumner, with United States troops, in July 1857, destroyed their prin- cipal village. Meanwhile the agent coming to Bent's fort with annuity goods, and desiring to leave them there, Bent refused, but finally rented the place to the government, fearing to remain.
On the 18th of August Sumner arrived at the fort, when he ordered the goods distributed to the Arapahoes. In 1859 W. W. Bent was appointed agent for the upper Arkansas. His extensive acquaintance with the Indian tribes gave him an influence over them which a stranger could not have had. In Bent's report for this year he remarks that the Kiowas and Comanches, being driven out of Texas, had for 2 years appeared in full numbers and for long periods upon the Arkansas, and were then permanently occupying the country between the Canadian and Arkansas rivers, with 2,500 warriors; and that so soon as the troops were withdrawn from Fort Riley, a post erected in the region of the Arkansas river in 1852, they had assumed a threatening attitude, for which reason he considered it essential to have two permanent posts for troops, one at the mouth of Pawnee fork, and one at Big Timbers, both on the Arkansas, for the protection of travellers upon that route, that since the gold discovery had become numerous. And this he urged for the sake of the Indians themselves, who were being gradually advanced upon from all sides, and who should be brought into subjection and treated with, to the end that they might be assigned reservations and assisted in learning to sup- port themselves by agriculture and stock-raising. Fort Larned was there- upon established at the mouth of Pawnee fork, and Bent's fort purchased and converted into an army post, under the name of Fort Wise. This year the Utes killed J. L. Shank and J. L. Kennedy in the South park, and a party of 7 unknown men, with 12 horses, in a gulch, to which from this cir- cumstance was given the name of Dead Men's gulch. Byers, in Dead Men's Gulch, MS., 1.
In June 1860 a large number of Arapahoes and Apaches, with a few Sioux, met at Denver, and organized an expedition against the Utes. They entered the Ute country midway between Platte canon and the present town of Morrison, the Ute village being near where the Platte leaves the South park. The Arapahoes were repulsed, and returned to Denver with 5 dead and 32 wounded. Another expedition, organized soon after, fled back in confusion, alarming the white population by representing that the Utes were assembled in great numbers, prepared to attack them, which, as they were encamped in the heart of Denver, was certainly not to be desired, but the alarm proved groundless. Such was the attitude of Indian affairs in Colorado at the period of its settlement.
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MILITARY MOVEMENTS.
vation was bounded westward by a line drawn north and south from the mouth of the Huerfano, in what is now Pueblo county ; but they did not keep upon it. Meanwhile some of the Arapahoes and Cheyennes who had not been present at the treaty of February, made that an excuse for nullifying it; and the Kiowas and Comanches, who had accepted annuities, had committed depredations in 1862 which called for the interference of troops. Further than this, civil war now came on, and the savages were not willing that the civilized men should have all the battling and butchering to themselves.2
The only force in the territory during the summer of this year was the 2d Colorado regiment, com- manded by Colonel J. H. Leavenworth. The Indians kept the recruits in practice. In August the head- quarters of the regiment was removed from Denver to Fort Lyon, as Fort Wise was now called, where in January 1863 they were joined by the 1st Colorado cavalry, under Chivington. In April the 2d regi-
ment was ordered to Fort Leavenworth, and in June to Fort Larned, to protect the Santa Fé road and watch the Texans, with whom they fought the battle of Cabin creek on the 2d of July, inflicting a loss of forty killed and wounded, with but one man killed and twenty wounded on the side of the Coloradans. These troops, with a few hundred others, on the 16th fought another battle in Kansas, in which the confederates lost 400 killed, wounded, and missing, the loss on their side being 14 killed and 30 wounded. Soon after the 2d regiment was ordered away from Colorado, Gov- ernor Evans was directed to raise a third, which was marched to the States as soon as organized. The 2d and 3d regiments were consolidated in October 1863, and formed the 2d Colorado cavalry, which was kept continually moving until the spring of 1865.3
2 See Fowler's Woman's Experience in Colorado, MS .; Gilpin's Pioneers of 1842, MS .; Howbert's Indian Troubles, MS .; Rocky Mountain News, passim.
3 Chivington's First Colorado Regiment, MS., 13; Prescott's Through Cañon De Shea, MS., 4; Byers' Hist. Colo, MS., 85; Evans, Interview, MS., passim.
460
INDIAN WARS.
The first regiment remaining in Colorado was the only armed force in the country north of Fort Gar- land; and, notwithstanding treaties and negotiations conducted with great care and at a great expense, there was a general insolence among the treaty Ind- ians which boded no good. In 1864 affairs culminated. A combination was effected between the several bands of Sioux and all the plains Indians of Colorado and south of the Arkansas in Kansas, to attempt the expulsion or extermination of the white population. Their first overt act in Colorado was to replenish their commissary department by taking 175 cattle frm the herd of Irwin and Jackman, government con- tractors, who were encamped with their stock in Bijou basin, forty miles south-east of Denver, in April. A detachment of the 1st cavalry, under Lieut Ayre, was sent after them, which recovered only twenty head, having come up with them when night was closing in and snow falling, the Indians running off the stock while the officer in command parleyed with the chiefs. A soldier who became separated from the command was wounded, but no fighting occurred. Being without subsistence, the detachment returned to Denver. Soon afterward a second expedition of 100 cavalrymen and two howitzers, under Ayre, was ordered to go as far as Fort Larned, by the head of the Republican and Smoky Hill forks. When near the fort they encountered the Cheyennes, who charged the troops 400 strong. So desperate was the onslaught that they rushed up to the mouth of the cannon, falling within reach of the gunners. Twenty-five or thirty were killed, among them a chief who had signed the treaty.
In the same month another party of Cheyennes drove off a herd of horses from Kiowa creek, and Lieut Clark Dunn from camp Sanborn, near Fre- mont orchard, pursued them with twenty men. He found the Indians, about fifty strong, who attacked when the demand for the return of the horses was
461
ON THE PLAINS.
made, and killed and wounded four of the soldiers. The troops returned the fire, but being armed only with revolvers and sabres, inflicted but little loss, and after a chase of several miles returned for fresh horses and guns, the Indians in the meantime escaping. A. third depredation similar to the others being com- mitted near the junction of South Platte, a detach- ment under Major Downing, guided by an Indian trader named Ashcraft, surprised the Indian camp at Cedar cañon, where they had fortified, and killed twenty-five, destroying their village and capturing one hundred horses, one soldier being killed in the fight.
In June all the troops were ordered to the Arkan- sas, eastof Fort Lyon, except one squadron, and Gov- ernor Evans applied for permission to call the militia of Colorado into the service of the United States, as the territorial law was defective, and the means of arming and equipping them was wanting, at the same time askiug leave to raise a regiment of United States volunteers for one hundred days. This last request was finally granted, but not before the occasion for their services had been greatly augmented by repeated and horrible outrages. About the middle of June, when the last company of the 1st cavalry was encamped on Cherry creek, fifteen miles from Denver, under orders to join the regiment on the Arkansas, messengers arrived in Denver from the settlements on Box Elder creek, from two to twenty miles distant, with information of a general stampede of the stock in that region, and the murder of the Hungate family, consisting of the husband, wife, and two children. This event, which brought the war to the doors of Denver, caused great excitement. The remains of the murdered settlers were brought into town, and exhibited to the angry population. Governor Evans applied to the adjutant of the district to have the troops on Cherry creek sent in pursuit of the savages; orders were despatched to camp Sanborn, eighty miles below, to send after them a detachment, and
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INDIAN WARS.
General Curtis, commanding the department, was telegraphed to allow the cavalry then en route for Fort Lyon to return, which request was granted, but in the interval of delay the Indians made good their escape. The militia were ordered to organize as home guards. The friendly Indians were placed at camp Collins and Fort Lyon.
In July the agent for the upper Arkansas made a visit to Pawnee fork to meet a large concourse of Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Comanches, Apaches, and Kiowas, with whom he held a council. They all expressed the greatest regard for the white people, and disavowed all knowledge of hostile acts. A short time after this friendly council, according to the asser- tion of the agent, the Kiowas visited Fort Larned, and, while the war-chief was engaged in conversation with the officer in command, his braves stampeded all the horses, mules, and cattle belonging to the post. A few days afterward the Arapahoes made a raid on the settlers along the river, caused, as the agent asserted, by the commanding officer at Larned firing upon them as they were coming, under a flag of truce, to offer their services to recover the stolen stock. The situation was becoming critical. It was esti- mated that there was not more than six weeks' sup- ply of food in the territory. Mail communication with the east was cut off; mail-bags containing let- ters, money drafts, land patents, newspapers, and other miscellaneous matter were cut open and their contents scattered over the prairie. But one station was left standing on the overland mail-route for a dis- tance of 120 miles. The farms were all deserted between Fort Kearny and Julesburg, and for 400 miles the movable property of the company was with- drawn as much as possible, leaving a large amount of grain and provisions, which fell into the hands of the Indians. Trains of merchandise, all that were upon the way for hundreds of miles, were seized, their con- ductors killed, and the property appropriated.
463
THREATENED DEVASTATION.
There was this year a large immigration to the Pacific states, numbering, according to a memorandum kept at Fort Laramie, 19,000 persons who passed that post. From this account it would make proba- bly a total of double that number. Among these, how many fell by the hands of savages will never be known. The Coloradans thought they could count 200 victims for the season, over fifty of whom were their own people. On the 19th of August two Chey- ennes gave notice to Elbridge Gerry, Indian trader, living at his station, 67 mile below Denver, in the Platte valley, to remove his stock, as on the 21st they would make a raid along the river, and take whatever property came in their way. They would divide into parties of twenty or more, and strike sim- ultaneously at Fort Lupton, Latham, Junction, and the head of Cherry creek, and also at Pueblo. Their rendezvous was appointed for Point of Rocks, on Beaver creek, 125 miles from Denver. Gerry has- tened to Denver, arriving at midnight on the 20th, when orders were immediately issued, placing all the militia and recruits of the one-hundred-days' men, under the control of the district commander, Colonel Chivington. Messages were despatched to the threat- ened localities, and the force at command divided among them. At the appointed time the Indians stealthily approached the points indicated, but finding them guarded, retired.
For thirty days there had been no mails from the east, letters having to be sent round by sea to San Francisco, and being from four to six weeks on the way. No stages or trains moved in Colorado except under escort. Early in September, the hundred-days' regiment was completed, and dispatched by Colonel Chivington to points on the overland route to open communication ; while a portion of the home-guards under H. M. Teller, major-general of the militia, pa- troled the road between Denver and Julesburg, the 1st cavalry being employed as heretofore, chiefly on
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INDIAN WARS
the Arkansas. These movements produced two re- sults, the opening of communication with the Mis- souri, late in October, and the surrender of a small portion of the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, who had hitherto refused to make a permanent treaty with the superintendent of Indian affairs. When the outbreak first occurred, the governor issued a proclamation to the friendly Indians to repair to points which he named, to be taken care of by the agents; the Arapa- hoes and Cheyennes of the Arkansas to Fort Lyon ; the Kiowas and Comanches to Fort Laramie; the Sioux to Fort Laramie; and the Cheyennes and Arapahoes of the upper Platte to Camp Collins. In response to this invitation 175 Arapahoes, under a chief called Friday, took up their residence at Fort Collins, and another band of the same tribe, under chief Left Hand, repaired to Fort Lyons but did not long remain. The agent distrusted them, and they distrusted the agent. It has been asserted, and as strenuously denied, that although apparently friendly, some of them acting as spies to give information of the movements of the hostile Indians, that they were go-betweens for their own people as well.
About the time the hundred days' men took the field, the Cheyennes, who had their principal village on the head waters of Smoky Hill fork, 140 miles north-east from Fort Lyon, sent three messengers to that post to inform Major E. W. Wynkoop of the 1st cavalry that Bent, their former agent, desired them to make peace, and that they were prepared to do so, provided peace should also be concluded with the other plains tribes. They also informed him that they had a number of white captives. Wynkoop, who had just been reënforced by a detachment of infantry from the department of New Mexico, sent by General Carleton in command, deemed it his duty to attempt the release of the prisoners, who were women and children. He left Fort Lyon in charge of the infantry, and marched to the Cheyenne village with 130 mounted men and
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WIDE-SPREAD HOSTILITIES.
one battery, finding himself confronted there by from 600 to 800 warriors drawn up in battle array. Mak- ing the best display possible of his resources for defence in case of an attack, and putting on a bold front, he obtained a council, at which he urged the Cheyennes to prove their desire for peace by relin- quishing the captive women and children. Much hes- itation being shown, he left the village and retired one day's march to a strong position, taking with him the three messengers whom he held as hostages, giv- ing the Cheyennes three days in which to determine upon a course of action. At the end of that time the prisoners were delivered up, and several of the chiefs consented to accompany the major to Denver to learn upon what terms peace could be concluded with the Indian department.
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