USA > Oklahoma > A standard history of Oklahoma; an authentic narrative of its development from the date of the first European exploration down to the present time, including accounts of the Indian tribes, both civilized and wild, of the cattle range, of the land openings and the achievements of the most recent period, Vol. II > Part 7
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"It was a long night. Dixon wanted to avail himself of the pro- tection of the darkness to start for Camp Supply for help but the wounded, who depended upon his skill as a marksman to protect . them, protested. Rath than started out but came back two hours later and reported that he had been unable to find the trail. In the morning the sun came out and the air was soon warmed. Not an Indian was in sight. It was decided that Dixon should make an effort to reach Camp Supply. He soon found the trail. Then he discovered a detachment of troops approaching. It was under the command of Major Price. The surgeon examined the wounded men but did not dress their wounds. Then they were left where they were found, with no reinforcement, except that they were given some hardtack and dried beef. They were hopeful, for they knew the news of their sorry plight would be carried to Colonel Miles, at least. All the rest of that day, all of the following night, all of another day, they waited and far into another night. And then, about midnight they heard the faint sound of a bugle afar off. Again it sounded, and nearer, too. 'Billy' Dixon said, 'It made us swallow a big lump in our throats and bite our lips.' Then they fired their guns and soon the troopers rode up to them in the darkness, and they were saved. Three of the survivors had been seriously wounded and the other two, Dixon and Rath, were slightly wounded. Each of the five received honorable mention in General Miles' report, were recommended for medals of honor, which were granted by joint resolution of Congress and were the subjects of a complimentary order issued by the commander of the troops in the field.16 The remains of Private Smith were buried in the buffalo wallow where he died."
16 The version of the buffalo wallow fight herein given is con- densed from the account which appears in the "Life of 'Billy' Dixon." Although it differs in some important details from the one which was first published "Our Wild Indians" (pp. 328-32), by Col. Richard I. Dodge, United States Army, whence it has been
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With the end of winter, the Cheyennes became convinced of the futility of further opposition to the Government. They did not surrender to the troops which had been actively campaigning against them in the field but made their way toward their tribal agency at Darlington, near which they were met by Colonel Neil, who received their surrender March 6, 1875. They were led by the
largely copied and credited, Dixon's statement appears to be the more reasonable of the two and, moreover, has the support of corro- borative evidence. William Dixon was born in Ohio County (West) Virginia, in 1850. His mother died when he was ten years old and his father, two years later. For a time he lived with a paternal uncle in Missouri. At the age of fourteen he set out to make his own way in the world, inspired with an ambition to go further west and see something of its wild life. He first "hired out" to a freight- ing outfit at Leavenworth, which was to cross the Plains, but the wagon train (which was in the Government service) was ordered to Southern Kansas instead. Later, he took his first trip across the Plains to Fort Collins, Colorado, as driver of a mule team with a freighting train. The winter of 1866-7 was spent by young Dixon attending a country school near Leavenworth-he had only had two terms of schooling before. The following spring he was back in the service as a freighter on the Plains. In the autumn of that year he drove one of the wagon teams in the train that accompanied the peace commission escort to the Medicine Lodge peace council. Con- tinuing to follow the life of a freighter, he drove one of the wagons in the train which accompanied Custer's command to Camp Supply, in November, 1868. The next year he fell in with two men engaged in hunting and trapping. From this he drifted into the occupation of buffalo hunting as a business, which he followed more or less con- tinuously until the Indians put a stop to it in the summer of 1874. Thereafter he served with the Government as a civilian scout at Fort Griffin until 1883, when he settled upon a tract of land embrac- ing the original Adobe Walls, in Hutchinson County, Texas, where he made his home for twenty years. In 1894 he married Miss Olive King, of Virginia, who had gone to that vicinity to visit her brothers who were neighboring settlers. In 1902 he sold his ranch at Adobe Walls and moved to Plemons, Texas, and two years later to a home- stead in Beaver (now Cimarron) County, Oklahoma. In the autumn of 1912, his wife insisted that the story of his life should be written for publication. She wrote at his dictation and even fol- lowed him to his work in order that no salient fact should escape. He was a strong man in rugged health at the time yet within a few months he was stricken by a fatal illness, his death occurring as the result of pneumonia, March 9, 1913. His autobiography, the manu- script of which was edited by Frederick S. Barde, one of Okla- homa's ablest newspaper men, has since been published and is rightly regarded as one of the most important of the recent literary contributions to the history of the Great Plains.
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chief, Stone Calf, and were in a most destitute and poverty stricken condition. They were promptly disarmed and treated as prisoners of war. Part of the Quahada Comanches went to Fort Sill, in April, where they surrendered to Colonel Mckenzie, the new post commander. The remainder of the Quahada Comanches, number- ing about. 400, under the lead of Quanah (since known as Quanah Parker), arrived at Fort Sill and surrendered June 2, 1875. It may be remarked that the ferocity of some white men remained unap- peased until the end of the war. In April, 1875, a party of six Comanches was attacked in Texas, five of them being killed, includ- ing one woman, only one Comanche man escaping. The dead In- dians were beheaded and the heads carried to the nearest town where they were said to have been preserved in alcohol.17 A small party of Northern Cheyennes who had been with their southern brethren during the war of 1874, on their way to their home coun- try, encamped on the Middle Fork of Sappa Creek, in Decatur County, Kansas, on the night of April 23d. A small detachment of the Sixth United States Cavalry, under the command of Lieut. Austin Henely, was following their trail. Several buffalo hunters and civilians joined the Indian hunt which ended at that camp. The Indian village, consisting of twelve lodges, was attacked at day- light. In his report to his superior officers, Lieutenant Henely stated that "eight squaws and children were unavoidably killed by shots intended for the warriors." As a matter of fact with one ex- ception, every soul in the band, regardless of age or sex, was killed with as much ruthlessness as that which had distinguished the Chiv- ington massacre in Colorado, ten years before. In his account of this tragedy, the late William D. Street, of Oberlin, Kansas, related the following interesting incident of the one surviving member of the band of Cheyennes : 18
"But one Indian, and one only, made his escape. A young man without a family in the camp, and another older one, made a dash for their lives toward the north, up the long, sloping hill. After getting a mile or more from the camp, and entirely out of range of the big buffalo guns the hunters were using in the fight, they halted and gazed back at the field of carnage, when the one with a family said to the other : 'You are safe now, go on. I am going back to die
17 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1875, p. 274.
18 "The Cheyenne Indian Massacre on the Middle Fork of the Sappa," "Kansas Historical Society's Collections," Vol. X, pp. 369-73.
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with my family,' then wheeled his pony and rode back into the val- ley, and to his death. This information came to the writer several years after the fight, through Ben Clark, an interpreter for the Cheyennes, and at one time General Custer's chief of scouts. He said to me: 'The Cheyennes continue to sing the praise of the hero who rode back to death with his family,' in that little valley far out on the Kansas frontier. Such a deed of valor deserves more than passing notice, even if enacted by a child of the prairie."
FORT RENO
The last great Indian war of the Southern Plains (including Western Oklahoma) was ended and thenceforth the dominion of the white man throughout that vast region could never again be seri- ously called in question. It only remained to re-establish the tribes lately engaged in hostilities on their respective reservations'and also to punish the leaders of the outbreak and those who were known to be guilty of brutal atrocity.19
19 The accounts of the Indian war of 1874 are contained in the reports of the department and district commanders in the Annual Reports of the Secretary of War for the years 1874 and 1875; also the reports of the tribal agents of the tribes involved in the war in the Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the same years.
One result of the Indian War of 1874 was the establishment of a military post just across the North Canadian River from the Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency at Darlington. It was named
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For a time it was seriously proposed to deport the Indians lately engaged in hostilities from their reservations and settle them in re- stricted areas at points remote from their previous habitats, com- pelling them to labor in return for the supplies furnished.20 This project was finally abandoned, however, and, instead, the leaders of the outbreak and those who were known to have been guilty of the most brutal outrages were to be imprisoned. They were also de- prived of most of their horses, without which war was impossible. The rest were released from confinement and were turned over to their agents. Thirty-three Cheyennes, two Arapahoes, nine Co- manches and twenty-six Kiowas were selected for imprisonment. These were sent to Fort Marion, at St. Augustine, Florida, where they were held until May, 1878. While there they were under the care of Capt. R. H. Pratt, of the Tenth Cavalry, who took great in- terest in their welfare. At the end of their imprisonment a number of them consented to remain in the East and continue their educa- tion which had been begun under Captain Pratt's supervision while they were in prison. They were taken to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where the school thus organized in the abandoned cavalry barracks, has since become world famous for the part it has had in civilizing the Indians. A number of the Indian prisoners died in Florida.21
Fort Reno, in honor of Gen. Jesse L. Reno, of the Federal Army, who was killed in action at the South Mountain, Maryland, in September, 1862, while in command of the Ninth Army Corps. It was continuously garrisoned until after Oklahoma became a state. . In recent years it has been used as a remount station for cavalry and artillery horses.
20 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1875, pp. 12, 261 and 281.
21 Kicking Bird died May 3, 1875, at which time he was lead- ing chief and most influential counselor in the Kiowa tribe, although then of only middle age. During the last six years of his life, his voice and example were always on the side of right and peace. At the time of his death permanent peace had been established between the people of his own and the neighboring tribes and the whites, and this consummation of his earnest desire, due as it was, in no small degree to his own noble example and patient efforts, was a source of great satisfaction to him. Kicking Bird's death was very sudden and it was generally believed at the time that he had been secretly poisoned by some of the less progressive rivals for the leadership of the Kiowa tribe.
Quanah, or Quanah Parker, as he was afterward called, who was one of the most unique and interesting characters in the annals of Oklahoma, first came into prominence during this last Indian war. The mother of Quanah was Cynthia Ann Parker, a white
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woman who, in 1836, was captured by the Comanches when she was but nine years old. She grew to womanhood among the Comanches and became the wife of their great war chief, Peta Nocona. She was captured with an infant daughter during a fight between a band of Comanches and a company of Texas Rangers under the command of Capt. Lawrence S. Ross, in 1860. She was restored to her relatives, by whom she was most kindly treated, but she con- stantly yearned for the people of her adoption, among whom her two sons were still living. Quanah was about ten years old when he thus lost his mother, for she died about three years after she was recaptured by the Rangers. His regard for her memory became one of the ruling passions of his life. When he became old enough to be a warrior, he soon developed the qualities of leadership and won rank as a chieftain through sheer force of character. He re- mained irreconcilably hostile to the white people until his final surrender in 1875. He then visited his mother's relatives in Texas and began to make an earnest and serious effort to prepare his people for the great change which he foresaw would have to be made by them. As he had been a leader in war, so he then became a counselor of peace and the ways of civilization which he adopted. As such, his influence eventually extended far beyond the bounds of his own tribe. He was a man of much thought and few words, albeit his words were heavy with meaning when he did speak. Many of his terse and expressive sayings will long be treasured by the white people who came to know and respect him during his later years. Quanah died at his home near Cache, Comanche County, February 23, 1911.
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SEVENTH PERIOD
1875-1890
THE RANGE CATTLE INDUSTRY AND THE STRUGGLE FOR THE RIGHT OF SETTLEMENT
CHAPTER LIII
THE EXTERMINATION OF THE BUFFALO
The American bison, or buffalo, as it was commonly called, had a habitat that extended from the Allegheny Mountains to the Rocky Mountains, and from sub-tropical Northern Mexico to sub- arctic Western Canada. East of the Mississippi River and in the wooded portions of the states immediately west of the Mississippi, these animals were never found in extensive herds, and they were practically exterminated east of that river by the end of the eight- eenth century. Nuttall saw buffalo in the valley of the Kiamitia in 1819, and the Leavenworth-Dodge expedition found them near the mouth of the North Canadian in 1834.
If the buffalo were more or less sparsely distributed throughout timbered sections of the Mississippi Valley, the natural conditions presented by the prairies and high plains of the West must have been much more favorable, as they occurred throughout that vast region in numbers much greater than any other species of large game animal in any part of the world since the dawn of the historic period. Indeed, the buffalo herds were so common and so extensive upon the Great Plains, that the name for that extensive region and "the buffalo country," were in reality synonymous terms, until the extermination of the shaggy beasts put an end to the meaning. The description of the size and number of the buffalo herds which come down to us from thoroughly reliable sources are such as to seriously tax the credulity, yet the evidence is so credible that the facts as stated cannot be gainsaid. It would not seem to be out of place to quote some authorities upon this subject.
"At my request Colonel Dodge has kindly furnished me a care- ful estimate upon which to base a calculation of the number of buffaloes in that great herd (a herd seen by Colonel Dodge in May, 1871), and the result is very interesting. In a private letter dated September 21, 1887, he writes as follows :
"The great herd on the Arkansas, through which I passed, could not have averaged, at rest, over fifteen or twenty individuals
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to the acre, but was, from my own observation, not less than twenty- five miles wide, and from the reports of hunters and others, it was about five days in passing a given point, or not less than fifty miles deep. From the top of Pawnee Rock I could see from six to ten miles in every direction. This whole vast space was covered with buffalo, looking at a distance like one compact mass, the visual angle not permitting the ground to be seen. I have seen such a sight a great number of times, but never on so large a scale. This was the last of the great herds."
"With these figures before us it is not difficult to make a calcula- tion that will be somewhere near the truth of the number of buffaloes actually seen in one day by Colonel Dodge on the Arkansas River during that memorable drive, and also the number of head in the entire herd.
"According to his recorded observations, the herd extended along the river for a distance of twenty-five miles, which was in reality the width of the vast procession that was moving north, and back from the road as far as the eye could reach, on both sides. It is making a low estimate to consider the extent of the visible ground at one mile on either side. This gives a strip of country two miles wide by twenty-five long, or a total of fifty square miles, covered with buffalo, averaging from fifteen to twenty-five an acre. Taking the lesser number, in order to be below the truth rather than above it, we find that the number actually seen on that day by Colonel Dodge was in the neighborhood of 480,000, not counting the additional number taken at the view from the top of Pawnee Rock, which, if added, would easily bring the total up to a round half million.
"If the advancing multitudes had been at all points fifty miles in length (as it was known to have been in some places, at least) by twenty-five miles in width, and still averaged fifteen head to the acre of ground, it would have contained the enormous number of 12,000,000 head. But, judging from the general principles of such migrations, it is almost certain that the moving mass advanced in the shape of a wedge, which would make it necessary to deduct about two-thirds from the grand total, which would leave 4,000,000 as our estimate of the actual number of buffaloes in this great herd, which I believe is more likely to be below the truth than above it.
"No wonder that the men of the West of those days, both white and red, thought it would be impossible to exterminate such a mighty multitude. The Indians of some tribes believed that the
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buffaloes issued from the ground continually, and that the supply was necessarily inexhaustible. And yet in four short years the southern herd was almost totally annihilated." 1
The late Robert M. Wright, of Dodge City, who was engaged in buying and shipping buffalo hides and robes, in his volume of personal reminiscences, written during the latter years of his life, recorded his impressions as to the numbers of some of the great buffalo herds on the Southern Plains :
"I have shot buffalo from the walls of my corral at the fort (Dodge), and so many of them were there in sight it appeared impossible to count them. It was a difficult problem to determine just how many buffalo I saw at one time. I have traveled through a herd of them days and days, never out of sight of them; in fact, it might be correctly called one continuous gathering of great shaggy monsters. I have been present at many a cattle round-up, and have seen ten thousand head in one herd and under complete control of their drivers; but I have seen herds of buffalo so immense in number that the vast aggregation of domestic cattle I have mentioned seemed as none at all compared with them.
"In writing this brief description of animal life along the old trails, I have purposely left till the last the mention of the buffalo for it is the animal to which it is hardest to do justice. The southwestern plains, in early days, was the greatest country on earth, and the buffalo was the noblest as well as the most plentiful of its game animals. I have indeed traveled through buffaloes along the Arkansas river for two hundred miles, almost one continuous herd, as close together as it is customary to herd cattle. You might go north or south as far as you pleased and there would seem no diminution of their numbers. When they were suddenly frightened and stampeded they made a roar like thunder and the ground seemed to tremble. When, after nightfall, they came to the river, particularly when it was in flood, their immense numbers, in their headlong plunge, would make you think, by the thunderous noise, that they had dashed all the water from the river. They often went without water one and two days in summer, and much longer in winter. No one had any idea of their number.
"General Sheridan and Major Inman were occupying my office at Fort Dodge one night, having just made the trip from Fort Supply, and called me in to consult as to how many buffaloes
1 Quoted in W. T. Hornaday's "Extermination of the American Bison," pp. 388 and 390-1.
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there were between Dodge and Supply. Taking a strip fifty miles east and fifty miles west, they had first made it ten billion. Gen- eral Sheridan said, 'That won't do.' They figured it again, and made it one billion. Finally they reached the conclusion that there must be one hundred million; but said they were afraid to give out these figures; nevertheless they believed them. This vast herd moved slowly toward the north when spring opened, and moved steadily back again from the north when the days began to grow short and winter was setting in.
"Horace Greeley estimated the number of buffaloes at five mil- lion. I agree with him, only I think there were nearly five times that number. Mr. Greeley passed through them twice; I lived in the heart of the buffalo range for nearly fifteen years; now who do you think would be the best judge of the number? I am told that some recent writer, who had studied the buffalo closely, has placed their number at ninety millions, and I think that he is nearer right than I. Brick Bond, a resident of Dodge, an old, experienced hunter, a great shot, a man of considerable intelligence and judgment, says that he killed fifteen hundred buffaloes in seven days, and his highest killing was two hundred and fifty in one day, and he had to be on the lookout for hostile Indians all the time. He had fifteen skinners, and he was only one of the many hunters.
"Charles Rath and I shipped over two hundred thousand buffalo hides the first winter the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad reached Dodge City, and I think there were at least as many more shipped from there, besides two hundred cars of hind quarters and two cars of buffalo tongues. Often have I shot them from the walls of my corral, for my hogs to feed upon. Several times have I seen wagon trains stop to let the immense herds pass; and time and time again, along in August or September, when put- ting up hay in the Arkansas bottom, would we have to put out men, both night and day, to keep them out of our herd of work cattle. We usually hunted them on horseback; that is, we would single out one animal in a herd, and ride along by the side of it, and shoot it with a six-shooter. Sometimes we would kill several buffalo in a single run, but very few white men killed them wantonly." 2
Another writer, who had himself been one of the hunters who
2 "Dodge City, the Cowboy Capital," pp. 75-7.
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exterminated the vast herds of the Southern Plains region, thus describes them as he saw them :
"The immensity of the buffalo herds in this region was beyond comparison. The writer had seen them on the Arkansas river in the freighting days, in the great Southwest, in Southwest Kansas, Indian Territory, the Panhandle of Texas, and the Llano Estacado. One day, south of the Arkansas, between Wichita and Camp Sup- ply, they were so numerous that they crowded the marching columns of the Nineteenth Kansas so dangerously close that the companies were detailed to wheel out in front and fire volleys-into the charging masses. But it was not until I came to the northwest- ern frontier that I beheld the main herd. One night in June, 1869, Company D, Second Battalion, Kansas State Militia, then out on a scouting expedition to protect the frontier settlements, camped on Buffalo creek, where Jewell City is now located. All night long the guards reported hearing the roar of the buffalo herd, and in the stillness of the bright morning it sounded more like distant thunder than anything else it could be compared with. It was the tramping of the mighty herd and the moaning of the bulls. Just west of Jewell City is a high point of bluff that projects south of the main range of hills between Buffalo and Brown creeks, now known, we believe, as Scarborough's Peak. When the camp was broken, the scouts were sent in advance to reconnoiter from the point of bluff, to ascertain, if possible, whether the column was in the proximity of any prowling Indians. They advanced with great care, scanning the country far and near. After a time they signaled the command to advance by way of the bluff, and awaited our approach. When we reached the top of the bluff what a bewildering scene awaited our anxious gaze.
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