USA > Montana > Then and now; or, Thirty-six years in the Rockies. Personal reminiscences of some of the first pioneers of the state of Montana. Indians and Indian wars. The past and present of the Rocky mountain country. 1864-1900 > Part 24
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Daniel Boone crossed the Alleghanies, behind which the In- dians made their first stand, thinking the white man would not cross that great breastwork thrown up by nature, and dis- covered Kentucky.
Then, following Boone, came Crockett, Bridger, Kit Carson and Cody, as the men who were the acknowledged leaders and chiefs of these wise men of the mountains, woods and prairies, during successive epochs.
Since these men and their kind made scouting a fine art, the great soldiers of Europe have acknowledged that they are match- less for the purposes of fighting in an enemy's country.
RETURNING OF SITTING BULL FROM CANADA.
It was but a few months after Sitting Bull had established, his camp in the Northwest Territory in the British possessions that the Canadian government requested the government of the United States to send a commission to have a council with Sit- ting Bull and induce him to return to the United States. Pur- suant to this request, a commission was sent to Fort Walsh, N. W. T., and met Oct. 17, 1877, with General Terry at the head. Colonel Macleod, who was in command of the Canadian mounted police, with four officers and forty policemen, were present. The council was held in the quarters of the com- manding officers of the police force, commencing at 2 o'clock p. m., and lasted one hour and a half. Sitting Bull desired to have the meeting take place in the open air, but it was thought judicious by the policemen in charge of the ceremony to have the council held in a convenient room, where the act of every participant could be held under strict surveillance and control. All were seated, and General Terry proceeded to state his mission. The following account of this remarkable meeting was published in the Benton Record, October 21, 1877, and was communicated by Captain J. J. Healy (now of Alaska), who was present at the council. Captain Healy de- scribes Sitting Bull as follows :
"ITe is a short, thick-set man, about forty-five years of age, and weighs, probably, 175 pounds. He is undoubtedly a full- blooded Sioux Indian, and not a remarkably intelligent look- ing one at that. He is minus one toe, having at some time or other had his feet frozen. He does not speak and apparently
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does not understand a word of the English language, and his conversations with the whites are always conducted through an interpreter."
GENERAL TERRY'S SPEECH TO THE SIOUX.
"We are sent here as commissioners of the United States, at the request of the Canadian government, to meet you (in- terrupted by Sitting Bull, who objected to a table in front of the speaker. The table was removed). The president has instructed us to say to you that he desires to make a lasting peace with you and your people, and that all the people of the United States may live in harmony. He wishes it for your sake as well as that of the whites, and if you will return to your country and leave your hostile life, a full pardon will be given you for any wrong you may have done in the past. You, or any man among you, shall be forgiven and permitted to enjoy all the liberties of any other Indians at the differ- ent agencies. We will not tell you what the president means by saying he will give you a full pardon. Of all the bands of Indians, yours among them, who were at war about a year ago, yours is the only one that has not come into the agency. Of those bands that have come in, not one has been punished, and every man, woman and child has been furnished food' and clothing. It is true these Indians have been required to give up their arms and ammunition, which were all sold and the money applied for their benefit. We have already sent 650 cows to one of the agencies, for the use of the Indians. This has been done to get you to leave your wild life and to help you to support yourselves. The president will not consent to have you return unless you give your consent to give up your arms and horses, but he invites you to come to your and his country, give up your arms when you cross the line, thence go to any agency he may assign you to, and there give up your
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horses (except such as you need for use in civil life), which will be sold and the money applied to buy cows, which will support you after the game has left the country. You will also receive clothes the same as other Indians. We have come many hun- dred miles to bring this message. Too much blood has already been shed. It is time war should cease. You cannot return to your country and your friends unless you accept these con- ditions ; otherwise you will be treated as enemies of the United States. Think well of these things, and when you have made up your minds we are ready to hear your reply."
The Indians were asked if they wanted to retire and hold a council among themselves, but they said their minds were already made up and they were ready to reply.
SITTING BULL'S SPEECH TO THE UNITED STATES COM- MISSION.
"For sixty-four years you have kept us and treated us bad. What have we done ? Your people are the whole cause of the trouble; we could go no place but to this country. Here is where I learned to shoot, and that is why I came here. What did you come for? I did not give you the country, but you followed me and I had to leave. You took my country from me. I was born and raised with the Red River half-breeds, and wanted to come back. (Sitting Bull here shook hands with Colonel Macleod and said he would live with him.) You may think I am a fool, but you are a bigger fool than I am. This house is a medicine house. You come and tell us lies in it. We don't like it. Don't say two words more, but go back where you came from. I shake hands with these people (shakes hands with Colonel Macleod) ; so say no more. You gave that part of the country and then took it back. I want you to go home and take it easy as you go.
SITTING BULL (SIOUX CHIEF).
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THE REE'S SPEECH.
"Look at me. Seven years in the country. For the last sixty-four years you have treated us bad. I don't like you. You tell lies. I will keep peace with these people as long as I live. I shake hands with them. You come over and tell us lies. Go home, and take it easy as you go."
SPEECH BY A YANKTON SIOUX WHO WAS IN THE MIN- NESOTA MASSACRE.
"I don't wear the same clothes as you do. You come to tell us lies. You have treated us bad for sixty-four years and have been fighting us all the time. There were seven different tribes of us. You promised to take care of us when we were over there, but you did not do it. We like these people and intend to live with them. I don't intend to kill any one." (Shook hands with Generals Terry and Lawrence. )
SPEECH BY A SQUAW.
"You would not give me time to raise children, so I came over here to raise children and live in peace."
(To allow a squaw to speak in council is one of the worst insults that an Indian can offer.)
CROW'S SPEECH.
After kissing all the English officers, he said: "What do you mean by coming over here and talking this way to us ? We were driven out of your country and came to this one. I am afraid of God and don't want to do anything bad. For six- ty-four years you have treated us bad. These people give us plenty to eat. You can go back, and go easy. I come to this country, and my grandmother knows it, and is glad I came to live in peace and raise children."
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After the Crow had spoken, Sitting Bull sat down and said they were done. General Terry then stated that the commis- sioners had nothing further to say. The Indians then left, after shaking hands with the English officers.
The commission left the following day, and a few days later arrived at Fort Benton. No disappointment was expressed by the citizens of Montana that the commission did not succeed. The average citizen was glad rather than sorry that the old savage, imbued with the blood of Custer and his companions, decided to remain on British soil. To live in peace on their reservation-receiving no punishment for what they had done --- board and clothes free-to help to lead them from savage life, were some of the inducements proffered for the return of these hostiles. All offers were not only scornfully rejected, but the commission was treated to studied and offensively displayed insults.
After remaining in Canada nearly three years, and finding that the Canadian government had no use for him and that his people were starving, the old fugitive chieftain now sings a different tune and is anxious to return.
On February 4, 1880, he sent a commission to the agent at Pine Ridge Agency, indicating that he and his followers wanted to make arrangements with the United States government so that they could come back and live in peace, and, as a token of friendship, he sent a pipe hatchet; in case terms could not be had, it was to be returned. But, to his disappointment, the government did not wish to make any terms with him then. His followers kept coming, however, in small parties, and in a destitute and starving condition, to Fort Peck Agency, in northern Montana, turning over their guns and what ponies they had left; the other ponies they had eaten to keep from starving. By May 1st, 1,116 of the refugees had returned.
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Again Sitting Bull made an application to the government, through the war department, for permission to return, and all the property he wanted was his horse and gun. After both the Canadian and United States governments had several com- munications in regard to the matter, and after Sitting Bull-had been in Canada five years, he was permitted to return to the United States. He stood his trial and was taken to Standing Rock agency and kept there as a kind of prisoner of war. Now, he was not looked upon as a warrior, even by his own people. But it was not long before he began to gain influence, and many of them looked upon him as a kind of high priest and dreamer. It appears that he was determined to be a leader, if not in one thing he would be in another. The next letter will show him up in his new profession, or whatever you may call it, for he was one of the prime movers in the Indian Messiah craze and the floor manager of the ghost dance, which was finally the cause of his death.
July 15, 1898.
ROBERT VAUGHN.
THE INDIAN MESSIAH AND THE GHOST DANCE.
To give a true history of this phenomenal influence that had taken possession of the Indians at that time, I will here give the Indian commissioner's report, which gives a very correct account of this remarkable occurrence, also of the establishing at various agencies of an Indian police system which has been in force since, 1877 and now is a perfect success. It will be seen hereafter that this police force made the arrest of Sitting Bull at the time of his death :
"The one best thing that marked the vigorous policy and the giving place to sense for sentiment, was the appointment of In- dians to take care of Indians. Some of them had long since: served in the regular army, indifferently well, but it was not. until 1877 that the experiment of appointing Indian policemen to guard Indians and watch ill-disposed whites was seriously considered. From the report of the United States commissioner. of Indian affairs in 1880 it appears to have been a success from the very first. The practicability of employing an Indian po- lice to maintain order upon an Indian reservation is no longer a matter of question. In less than three years the system has been put in operation, at forty agencies, and the total force now numbers one hundred and sixty-two officers and six hundred and fifty-three privates. Special reports as to the character and efficiency of the service rendered by the police have recently been called for from its agents by this bureau, and those reports bear uniform testimony to the value and reliability of the po- lice service, and to the fact that its maintenance, which was at first undertaken as an experiment, is now looked upon as a ne- cessity.
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"The discipline of the force is excellent, failure to obey an order being followed by immediate dismissal. It is made up of the best young men of the tribes, many of them being mem- bers of the native soldier organization. There are also enlisted two chiefs-White Bird and Little Big Man, the latter being a northern Indian, and having taken a prominent part with Sit- ting Bull in the Big Horn campaign of 1876, afterwards sur- rendering at the agency with Crazy Horse.
"A member of the force is on duty all night at the guard house, making the rounds of the government buildings at inter- vals of fifteen or thirty minutes, which precluded the possibility of government supplies being surreptitiously made away with."
Says the Sioux agent, 1880: "The Indian police force at this agency consists of fifty members, all Indians : one captain, two lieutenants, ten sergeants and corporals, and the balance privates. The force is in charge of one of the white employes, who also acts as deputy United States marshal. There is also attached to the force one special detective and one special inter- preter. The members are all armed with the Springfield and Sharp's army carbine.
"In the autumn of 1890 we find the once famous disturber of the peace in Montana, Sitting Bull, established at Standing Rock agency on the Dakota side of the Missouri. He was now nearly sixty years of age, and had been fully half that time a formidable leader of wild red men. He lived in two little cabins in comfort and indolence, but was no longer rich in property or influence. As observed in his return from the British possessions he was still a true aborigine and superstitious as a child. Still he was dauntless in spirit, reckless of results, and fearless as a lion in the face of danger. It is something to know that this remarkable figure in the history of Montana fell not by the hands of those whom he had always counted as his enemies, but at the hands of his own people. For, gainsay it who will, as
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time goes forward he will grow taller, grander in the estima- tion of men, especially in the minds of imaginative red men, and it is very well for all, especially the Indians, to know that his following was not great in the end, and that he was slain by his own people.
"During the summer and fall of 1890 reports reaching this office from various sources showed that a growing excitement existed among the Indian tribes over the announcement of the advent of a so-called Indian Messiah or Christ, or Great Medi- cine Man of the North. The delusion finally became so wide- spread and well defined as to be generally known as the 'Mes- siah Craze.'
"In June, 1890, through the war department, came the ac- count of a 'Cheyenne Medicine Man, Porcupine,' who claimed to have left his reservation in November, 1889, and to have traveled by command and under divine guidance in search of the Messiah to the Shoshone agency, Salt Lake City, and the Fort Hall agency, and thence-with others who joined him at Fort Hall-to Walker River reservation, Nevada. There 'the Christ,' who was scarred on wrist and face, told them of his crucifixion, taught them a certain dance, counseled love and kindness for each other, and foretold that the Indian dead were to be resurrected, the youth of the good people to be renewed, the earth enlarged, etc.
"From the Tongue River agency in Montana came a report, made by the special agent in charge, dated August 20, 1890, that Porcupine, an Indian of that agency, had declared himself to be the new Messiah, and had found a large following ready to believe in his doctrine. Those who doubted were fearful lest their unbelief should call down upon them the curse of the 'Mighty Porcupine.' The order went forth that, in order to please the Great Spirit, a six days' and nights' dance must be held every new moon, with the understanding that at the expir-
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ation of a certain period the Great Spirit would restore the buf- falo, elk, and other game, resurrect all dead Indians, endow his believers with perpetual youth, and perform many other won- ders well calculated to inflame Indian superstittion. Dances, afterward known as 'ghost dances,' were enthusiastically at- tended. About the same time the Cheyenne and Arrapaho agent in Oklahoma reported that during the autumn of 1889 and the ensuing winter rumors had reached that agency from the Sho- shones of Wyoming that an Indian Messiah was located in the mountains about two hundred miles north.
"In August, 1890, Agent Gallagher stated that many at the Pine Ridge agency were crediting the report made to them in the spring that a great medicine man had appeared in Wyom- ing, whose mission was to resurrect and rehabilitate all the de- parted heroes of the tribe, restore to the Indians herds of buffa- loes, which were to make them entirely independent of aid from the whites, and bring such confusion upon their enemies (the whites) that they would flee the country, leaving the Indians in possession of the entire Northwest for all time to come. In- dians fainted during the performances which attended the re- cital of the wondrous things soon to come to pass, and one man died from the excitement.
"The effect of such meetings or dances was so demoralizing that on August 22, 1890, when about two thousand Indians were gathered on White Clay creek, about eighteen miles from the agency, to hold what they called a religious dance connected with the appearance of this supernatural being, the agent in- structed his Indian police to disperse them. This they were un- able to do. Accompanied by about twenty police, the agent himself visited the place, and, on hearing of his approach, most of the Indians dispersed. Several men, however, with Win- chester rifles in their hands and a good storing of cartridges belted around their waists, stood stripped for fight, prepared to
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die in defense of the new faith. They were finally quieted, but the dances continued, and October 12, 1890, Agent Royer, who had just taken charge of the agency, reported that more than half the Indians had already joined the dancing, and when re- quested to stop, would strip themselves ready for fight; that the police had lost control, and if his endeavors to induce the chiefs to suppress the craze should be unavailing, he hoped for a hearty co-operation in invoking military aid to maintain order.
"About the same time the Cheyenne river agent reported that Big Foot's band were much excited about the coming of a 'Mes- siah,' and, armed with Winchester rifles and of very threaten- ing temper, were beyond police control. A similar condition of affairs existed among the Rosebud Sioux.
"Agent MeLaughlin also reported from Standing Rock Oc- tober 17th, as follows: 'I feel it mny duty to report the present craze and nature of the excitement existing among the Sitting Bull faction of the Indians over the expected Indian millen- nium, the annihilation of the white men and supremacy of the Indian, which is looked for in the near future and promised by the Indian medicine men as no later than next spring, when the new grass begins to appear, and is known among the Sioux as the 'return of the ghosts.' They are promised by some mem- bers of the Sioux tribe, who have lately developed into medi- cine men, that the Great Spirit has promised them that their punishment by the dominant race has been sufficient, and that their numbers having now become so decimated will be rein- forced by all Indians who are dead; that the dead are all re- turning to reinhabit this earth, which belongs to the Indians ; that they are driving back with them, as they return, immense herds of buffaloes, and elegant wild horses to have for the catch- ing; that the Great Spirit promises them that the white men will be unable to make gunpowder in the future, and all at-
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tempts at such will be a failure, and that the gunpowder now on hand will be useless as against Indians, as it will not throw a bullet with sufficient force to pass through the skin of an In- dian ; that the Great Spirit had deserted the Indians for a long period, but is now with them and against the whites, and will cover the earth over with thirty feet of additional soil, well sodded and timbered, under which the whites will all be smoth- ered; and any whites who may escape these great phenomena will become small fishes in the rivers of the country; but to bring about this happy result the Indians must do their part and become deliverers and thoroughly organize.
"Sitting Bull is high priest and leading apostle of this latest Indian absurdity; in a word, he is the chief mischief maker at this agency, and if he were not here, this craze, so general among the Sioux, would never have gotten a foothold at this agency.
"On Thursday, the 9th inst., upon an invitation from Sitting Bull, an Indian named Kicking Bear, belonging to the Cheyenne River agency, the chief medicine man of the ghost dance among the Sioux, arrived at Sitting Bull's camp on Grand river, forty miles south of this agency, to inaugurate a ghost dance and initiate the members. Upon learning of his arrival there I sent a detachment of thirteen Indian policemen, including the captain and second lieutenant, to arrest and escort him from the reservation, but they returned without executing the order, both officers being in a dazed condition and fearing the powers of Kicking Bear's medicine. Several members of the force tried to induce the officers to permit them to make the arrest, but the latter would not allow it, but simply told Sitting Bull that it was the agent's orders that Kicking Bear and his six compan- ions should leave the reservation and return to their agency. Sitting Bull was very insolent to the officers, and made some threats against some members of the force, but said that the visitors would leave the following day. Upon return of the
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detachment to the agency on Tuesday, the 14th, I immediately sent the lieutenant and one man back to see whether the party had left or not, and to notify Sitting Bull that his insolence and bad behavior would not be tolerated longer, and that the ghost dance must not be continued. The lieutenant returned yester- day and reported that the party had not started back to Chey- enne before his arrival there on the 15th, but left immediately upon his ordering them to do so, and that Sitting Bull told him that he was determined to continue the ghost dance, as the Great Spirit had sent a direct message by Kicking Bear that to live they must do so, but that he would not have any more dancing until after he had come to the agency and talked the matter over with me; but the news comes in this morning that they are dancing again, and it is participated in by a great many Indians who become silly and intoxicated over the excitement. The dance is demoralizing, indecent and disgusting. Desiring to exhaust all reasonable means before resorting to extremes, I have sent a message to Sitting Bull by his nephew, One Bull, that I want to see him at the agency, and I feel quite confident that I shall succeed in allaying the present excitement and put a stop to this absurd 'craze.'
"Agent Royer, of the Pine Ridge agency, was especially ad- vised October 18th, that Major General Miles, commander of the military division in which the agency was situated, also chairman of the commission recently appointed to negotiate with the Northern Cheyennes, would shortly visit the agency, and that he would have opportunity to explain the situation to him and ask his advice as to the wisdom of calling for troops. Oe- tober 24, 1890, this office recommended that the war department be requested to cause Sitting Bull, Circling Hawk, Black Bird and Kicking Bear to be confined in some military prison and to instruct the proper military authorities to be on the alert to discover any suspicious movements of the Indians of the Sioux agencies:
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"Early in November reports received from the agents at Pine Ridge, Rosebud and Cheyenne River showed that the Indians of those agencies, especially Pine Ridge, were arming themselves and taking a defiant attitude toward the government and its representatives, committing depredations and likely to go to other excesses ; and November 13th this office recommended that the matter be submitted to the war department, with request that such prompt action be taken to avert an outbreak as the emergency might be found by them to demand. On that day the president of the United States addressed the following com- munication to the secretary of the interior :
" 'Replying to your several communications in regard to the condition of the Indians at the Sioux and Cheyenne agencies, I beg to say that some days ago I directed the war department to send an officer of high rank to investigate the situation and to report upon it from a military standpoint. General Ruger, I understand, has been assigned to that duty and is now probably at or on his way to these agencies. I have directed the seere- tary of war to assume a military responsibility for any threat- iejned outbreak, and to take such steps as may be necessary to that end. In the meantime, I suggest that you advise your agents to separate the well-disposed from the ill-disposed Indians, and while maintaining their control and discipline, so far as may be possible, to avoid forcing any issue that will re- sult in an outbreak, until suitable military preparations can be made.'
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