History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 138

Author: Kingsbury, George Washington, 1837-; Smith, George Martin, 1847-1920
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : S.J. Clarke Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1198

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It would seem that Dakota's Indian population, admitting that it may have been the cause of keeping many reputable people from settling upon the public lands in the territory at that time, was a decided advantage during the early years of the territory's growth and development.

Peace was not secured with all the Sioux under the Sherman treaty, and the only apparent advantage, at the time, gained, was the collecting of the Sioux tribes within certain extensive limits known as the Great Sioux reservation. Sitting Bull now comes to the forefront as an uncompromising opponent of all treaties of cession, and the construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad west of the Missouri River, and is supported by a strong well-armed force of determined warriors made up of the young men of several tribes, but chiefly those enumerated in General Stanley's report, heretofore given, and probably a contingent from the Red Cloud Agency.

The conviction had gradually forced itself upon the minds of the authorities that so long as they fed and clothed the Indians and left it discretionary with them whether to work or play, they would make no progress in any industry, no matter how much in the direction of substantial aid was promised ; and it needed but the irresistible demand of the white people for the opening of the Black Hills and the lamentable tragedy at the Little Big Horn, to arouse public sentiment and compel the Government to abrogate the discretionary privileges granted the

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Indians by the Sherman treaty, practically, without consulting the other party and substitute in its stead an agreement by which the Indian would be compelled to work in a reasonable way, or go hungry and naked. With this alternative before them, virtually whole. tribes turned their attention to honest labor, and it is now universally conceded that the results attained completely justified the means employed in obtaining them.

The cupidity of the pale faces worked for the speedier civilization of the Indian. The pale face covets more land, and the Indian had more than he could use, while the pale face stands ready to purchase it. The white man's knowledge of what is best to promote the Indian's civilization is reliable, because he has learned it from the progressive career of his own race, and he knows it will do the same for the Indian, because he has already the object lesson in the advance of the Santees, the Yanktons, the Sissetons, and many individual cases within our borders,-Indians that have worked their way within a quarter of a century from barbarism to a condition of self-support, become patrons of schools, churches, and in some cases having gained a fair knowledge of representative republican government.

CHAPTER LXIII INDIAN CHIEFS VISIT WASHINGTON

1875-78

NAMES OF INDIAN AGENTS IN 1875, AND THEIR AGENCIES IN DAKOTA TERRITORY- INDIANS REMOVED TO MISSOURI RIVER AFTER BLACK HILLS TREATY AND THEN MOVED BACK AGAIN-INDIANS GO TO WASHINGTON-PRESIDENT HAYES AS GREAT FATHER TALKS TO HIS RED CHILDREN-RED CHILDREN HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY -COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS HAYT COMES OUT TO DAKOTA TO SEE INIS RED PEOPLE-PROHIBITS USE OF BEADS WHICH ARE A SERIOUS STUMBLING BLOCK IN THE PATII OF INDIAN WOMEN BECOMING CIVILIZED-REMARKABLE REVIVAL OF BEAD TRADE-MR. HAYT HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH SPOTTED TAIL.

Secretary Chandler, of the Interior Department, recommended the removal of the Indians under Chiefs Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, in 1875, to the Missouri River, at some points between Fort Randall and the mouth of the Cheyenne River, where they would have a better country, and recommended that future appropriations for them be made contingent upon such removal. He also suggested that inasmuch as the Government was then paying the Indians about two million two hundred and sixty thousand dollars a year in supplies above the amount required by any treaty, that the Indians be required to relinquish the Black Hills and right of way thereto in consideration of such sum, if it is to be longer continued-or that the payment to them be contingent upon their surrender of their claim to the Hills.

The principal object in removing the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies to the Missouri River was to save the enormous cost of transporting the Indian supplies to the agencies in the interior. Major Howard, who was in 1876, the agent at Spotted Tail Agency, stated that it cost more to pay for this overland transportation than the value of the goods transported. By removing the agencies to the Missouri River where the boats delivered the supplies, the Indians would assemble at these agencies, receive their supplies, and would save for their own benefit, a large sum of money.

The names of the United States Indian agents in the Territory of Dakota, in January, 1876, were: Sisseton Agency, J. G. Hamilton : Ponca. A. J. Carrier ; Cheyenne, H. W. Bingham; Devil's Lake, Paul Beckwith: Yankton, John G. Gassmann; Spotted Tail, Edwin A. Howard; Crow Creek, 11. F. Livingston; Standing Rock, John Burke: White River, Thomas A. Reilly: Fort Berthokl, Lyman B. Sperry ; Red Cloud, James S. Hastings ; Flandreau, John P. William- son, special agent.

At this time ( 1875, '76), negotiations were pending that looked to a cession of the Black Hills region to the Government. The Indians were, already, under the treaty of 1868, required to remove to the Missouri River and receive their supplies, but this provision had not been insisted upon, and they were occupying their agencies at Beaver Creek and Fort Robinson, and were strongly opposed to the proposed removal. On the eve of the Black Hills treaty was not an opfor- tune time to ruffle the feathers of the red men, who were the party of the first

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part, and such a misfortune would undoubtedly have been the result had Mr. Chandler's recommendation been followed, hence the matter rested in abeyance.

The Black Hills treaty being satisfactorily concluded in 1876 ( see Black Hills chapters), containing a similar removal agreement, and President Hayes having succeeded President Grant, the reader will understand the proceedings which here follow :

PRESIDENT HAYES AND INDIANS-HAYES MAKES A PROMISE

Delegations of the Sioux and Arrapahoe Indians, with Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, visited Washington in September, 1877, for the purpose of protesting against the action of the Government in locating their agencies on the Missouri River : the Indians preferring to have these central stations in the interior of their reservation. The visitors obtained an interview with President Hayes at the White House, where were gathered the members of the cabinet, General Crook, the Indian commissioner, Hayt, and others.

The President opened the council by stating that he was ready to hear the Indians. Spotted Tail broke the silence by urging that the lands now occupied by his people as agreed by the treaty of 1876, be secured to them. His sentiments were applauded by the other chiefs.

Red Cloud, always in a gruff humor, then said :

The foot of the Black Hills is a good place to put my agency. I did not come here to beg anything. The Black Hills were mine; I gave them to the commissioners. Suppose you are going to decide what you are going to give us for the hills, and I have come to get it.

General Crook advocated the claims of the Indians, and the President was presented with the pipe of peace. The President then said :

My good friends, you have desired to take counsel with me and I have permitted you to come. I am glad to see you. I have attentively listened to what you have said. I have also heard Mr. Wm. Welsh, and General Crook, who spoke for you as your friends, and who have my confidence. I have well considered all that was said. Now listen to my answer. I have your welfare at heart. I will be a good friend to you. The wishes you express I shall be glad to gratify when it is in my power, and for your own good. There is an understanding between you and the white people which I want to have carried out by both. That understanding is that you should go to your reservation and occupy it. That the lands should be yours. I have removed the Poncas to the Indian Territory to give you more room. I have promised to procure food for your people to eat. The great Council of my nation, the Congress of the United States, resolved, and your chiefs and headmen agreed, that supplies to be furnished to you should be delivered to you near the Missouri River. This is what I was told; this is what the the great Council of my nation believed. I have fulfilled that promise. You say you do not like to go to the Mis- souri River ; but your supplies cannot be taken to any place before your people will need them, and before the cold days of winter will come. If you do not go near that place where your supplies are, your people will be hungry and I shall not be able to give them food. I desire to do all for you I can, therefore want you to be in that place this winter, where my helping hand can reach you. But I do not mean that you and your people shall stay near the Missouri River always. You shall stay there only this winter. When spring comes you shall select for your permanent abode such land on your reservation as you like best. The agents will aid you in making a selection. Your country is large and there is much land, where you can cultivate the soil, and raise crops and where cattle can be fed. That land is to be surveyed and allotted to each family to be its homestead. There your people can build cabins and make homes for their families. When that land is surveyed and allotted, and your families have taken possession, I shall ask the great Council of my nation to give you cows and oxen. and tools with which to till the soil, that you may be able to provide for your own necessities. I desire you to have schools for your children, so that they may be educated to take care of themselves (right here the Indians smiled broadly), and become industrious and prosperous like the children of my people. I also wish your people to have churches where they can worship. I shall speak good words for you in the great Council of my nation, that it may grant your people these benefits. If you are wise you will heed my advice. Game is fast disappearing from your country, and you cannot always live as hunters; neither can we for all the time provide for your wants, and feed your people and their children. If you want to live in

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security you must do as white people do-you must learn to work and produce for your- selves that which you need. Cattle and horses and plows will be more useful to you that ponies and guns. To be educated so as to know how to work ( the aboriginal smile again greeted the distinguished speaker), how to make their own living by raising cattle and tilling the soil, will be better for your children than hunting buffalo, and dancing war dances (the chiefs smiled incredulously). When you look around you you will see that the white people are in a great multitude, which you can not count. Every year their num- bers increase by far more than the number of all the red men in this great land. They cannot be kept away from the western country, and year after year more and more of them go there. If you live, roaming about, without homes, they will sweep over you like a great flood of water. To sustain yourselves against that flood, you must have homes in which you and your families permanently live, and land on which you raise that which is necessary to support you. Then you will have firm ground to stand upon, and the flood will not sweep you away. I am a good friend to you and your people, and as a good friend I give this answer and advice.

Now I will speak a word to the Arrapahoes. You desire to go West with your people, to join the Shoshones, and live with them as friends. But if you go, you must provide for your own support. The grand Council of my nation has given me no money to aid you on your way. If without such aid you will make the journey, then I am willing you should go, and an agent whom I have sent to the Shoshones shall also be the agent for you. You have been good friends to the white people and I hope you will remain so. You all have the best wishes of my heart; let us live in peace and friendship together, and I will protect you with all the power I have.

I heard yesterday morning that forty lodges of the people of Crazy Horse and Lame Deer have gone north. As long as those people are north we do not know our friends from our enemies among them. It is of the greatest importance you should keep all these people at the agencies. I know that your hearts are right; that will make you strong with me. It is impossible for me to let those people go up into the Tongue River country until we know they are all our friends. It is necessary that all the Indians should go down in the direction of the Missouri River to get their supplies, so as to be ready early in the spring to select the best lands on the White River, and other places on the reservation, for cultivation.

The conference or council closed with this address from the "Great Father" in person.

The Indian delegation left Washington early in October, and to the last moment protested that they could not persuade their people to go to the Missouri River for their supplies. A final council was held with Secretary Schurz, when Red Cloud said to him :

I know when I go back all my young men will feel very badly because we have got to go to the Missouri River, where they say all our stock will die.

Spotted Tail said to the secretary :

The decision the Great Father has made is yours, not ours. We cannot go near the Missouri River this winter. Our delegation here has so decided. If i should tell my people we had been ordered to go there, and had sanctioned the order, they would scatter all over the country. We would like to be at peace and keep peace with the whites, but it is impos- sible for us to move away this fall. We want our agency at Wounded Knee Creek. Where we are at present we are all prepared for winter. Your words to me are very good, but we do not want to move. The white men never throw away their labors. What the white men have they love. It is the same with us. If you want us to throw that property away you should pay us for it. If you pay us for it, probably we can move away ; otherwise we cannot.

The secretary then told them it was too late to make any change in the place where their supplies were delivered; and inasmuch as they would need food for the winter, and inasmuch as their food could not be carried to the Indians where they then were located, about one hundred and fifty miles west of the Missouri River, the Indians must go near the place where the food is. A grand hand-shaking followed, and the Indians then departed for Dakota by way of New York.

The Indians finally consented to gather at their Missouri River agencies and receive their supplies for the year then passing ; having been assured that Vol. 1-51

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they should have their agencies located in the interior of their reservation the following year.

COMMISSIONER HAYT VISITS HIS INDIAN CHARGE

Hon. E. C. Hayt, who was commissioner of Indian affairs under President Hayes, and also under direction of the secretary of the interior, was not a popular official. The general criticism was that he was too officious; too offensively insistent upon the introduction of new notions regarding the treatment of the Indians by the agents ; assuming a superior knowledge of such matters in which he had no experience and which can be gained only by much experience in contact with the Indians. As a rule he was regarded as a theorist with impracticable theories, even conceding his honesty and sincerity which was not granted by many without at least mental reservations.

Grant's peace policy had been making commendable advances in civilizing the red man, and Hayt seemed desirous to stamp his name upon it somewhere as one of its most valuable promoters, and he accordingly issued an order prohibiting the sale of beads, paints, shells, etc., to the Indians; these beads he regarded as one of the most serious hindrances to their rapid moulding into civilized beings : they linked the Indian women with the wild life of the past which they had pursued, and Hayt was anxious that the Indians should become oblivious to their old savage ways and everything connected therewith before his term as Indian commissioner expired, and he purposed to hasten it by abolishing those relics of barbarism and folly and idleness, the beads that the partially civilized men and women of the race ornamented their moccasins and leggins and other articles of apparel with.

Spotted Tail was very much offended at the order and openly rebelled against it. He declared to Major Lee, the agent at Rosebud, that the Indians would not submit to such foolishness. He claimed that the young men and women of the Sioux had the same right to purchase ornamental articles and use them to adorn their persons, as the whites had. The old chief said that white women painted and powdered, bought beads, and fancy articles ; and he claimed further that if the young Indian women were forbidden to manufacture their various articles of bead work which were freely purchased by the whites, they would have nothing to do, and great evils would result from such enforced idleness. Mr. Hayt had designed it as a reformatory measure-that by depriving the Indian women of, these articles, they would the more readily turn their attention to improving themselves in the domestic arts of home making and housekeeping. The order is said to have stimulated the trade in the luxuries instead of diminishing it and many of the tribe who could do so laid in several years supply before the order went into effect.

The Indian agents were always inclined to obey the instructions of their superior officer, the commissioner, and in doing so it became necessary to explain to the Indians, that the new rule, or custom, or whatever it chanced to be, was "by order of the commissioner." In this way the Indians formed an opinion of Mr. Hayt, and did not regard him as a wise man. Mr. Hayt visited the Sioux of Dakota in 1878 for the purpose of obtaining, by personal association with them, or near them, but not dangerously near, the finishing touches of what he admiringly regarded as a complete mastery of the Indian problem (he had never seen an Indian tepee before except at Wild Bill's show). He was received at the agencies with respect, and every opportunity given him to investigate and inform himself concerning any matters that he felt had been omitted in his previous carcer. He must have borne himself somewhat hanghtily and by his austere manner betrayed his consciousness that he was a great man, in such manner that the intelligent and observing Indians, who had met scores and hundreds of great men, from President down, perceived in him something of the fabled animal

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inside the cloak of the lion's skin, for they were not inclined to render him more than seant homage.

On one occasion while Mr. Hlayt was at the old Spotted Tail Agency on the Missouri River (the former Ponca Agency), before the Indians were removed to the interior, he held a council with the chiefs and the headmen. Chief Spotted Tail and a hundred others were present. It should be stated here, parenthetically, when the Black Hills treaty was made in 1876, the Sioux Indians agreed 10 receive their supplies furnished by the Government at certain points on the Missouri River where their agencies were to be established. This was in 1876 under Grant's administration. In 1877, Spotted Tail and Red Cloud paid Wash- ington a visit as was their custom, and entered an objection to that requirement of the treaty, and insisted that their agencies should be established in the interior and western part of their reservation (they were then living in the interior not having removed to the Missouri . The chiefs succeeded in appealing the matter to President Hayes who presumably regarded it as a matter of small consequence, and he finally promised the Indians that if they would come over to the Missouri River and receive their supplies that year, 1877, they should have the privilege of returning to such points as they might select for their agencies or that woukl be selected for them, in the interior, the following year, 1878. The Indians would not agree to come to the Missouri for their supplies in 1877, but they were told in unmistakable terms that the Government had made its arrangements for the delivery of their supplies on the river, and this could not be changed. They must come and get them or go hungry. They concluded after reaching home and counciling with their brother Indians, not to go hungry. Buildings were put up for the accommodation of the Spotted Tail ( Brule ) Agency at old Ponca Agency ; and at Yellow Medicine above for accommodation of Red Cloud's people, and the twelve or fifteen thousand Indians belonging to Spotted Tail's and Red Cloud's tribes lived sumptuously on the banks of the Missouri all winter. When the spring of 1878 dawned the chiefs began to clamor for a fulfillment of President Hayes' promise that they should be removed to the interior. In the meantime this move had been reconsidered by the authorities. owing to the enormous expense of transporting the supplies for twelve or fifteen thousand people, in wagons, from the river to the interior. It was shown that the cost of transportation would exceed the cost of the supplies ; and anticipating that the Indians would finally yield, contracts were let for a number of expensive and necessary buildings at both agencies and the buildings constructed. But the Indians were inexorable. They refused to release the President from his promise ; and now, returning to Commissioner Hayt's visit to the Spotted Tail Agency, we find that he has in mind making a last appeal to the Indians to stay where they were and to abandon the thought of removal.

Commissioner Hlayt held a council with the Indians. Spotted Tail and a hundred others were present, and in addition were a number of whites, inchund- ing two or three who had accompanied the distinguished commissioner. The pipe of peace was not ignited, which may have been omitted in deference to the chief. Spotted Tail did not smoke. This is notable from the fact that he was probably the only Indian in the tribe who abstained from the weed. But as to fire water, the case is different. He indulged moderately on special occasions, and was pleasantly accused of having a phial in his closet, which would be uu- corked in case of snake bites.

Commissioner Hayt opened the proceedings with a patronizing sort of speech. not well-timed, and in the course of his remarks explained to them how much better off they were to remain at the agencies where they were then comfortabh located, and abandon the plan of removal. Hle also told them that the Great Father had in mind to give them a great many cows, and he wanted to know if the Indians would keep them, and not slaughter them for beef. To this Spotted Tail replied that they would. The commissioner, in the course of his remarks referred again to the cows, and wanted to know if they would keep them Set

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answered that they would keep them. The commissioner went on with his speech, which had to be interpreted to the Indians, and again referred to the large num- ber of cows the Great Father intended to send them, asking the question again with considerable emphasis: "Will you keep them?" Old Spot then went as close to the commissioner as he could get, and making a trumpet of his hands, pointed it toward the commissioner's ear and yelled: "Yes, we will keep them ; put this in your ear and take it to the Great Father."

While in Washington the Indians were disposed to treat the Government officials respectfully and decorously ; but they were prone to exhibit the other side of their nature when they met the same representatives at their agencies where they were at home, and not oppressed into obedience by any civilized environment.

When the commissioner had concluded, Spotted Tail arose to reply. Com- missioner Hayt, by the way, was a very bald-headed man. The matter of the removal of the Indians to points in the interior of their vast reservation was the one uppermost in the minds of the chiefs and head-men and they all demanded it, but the common people among them were indifferent and many opposed it. Spotted Tail, however, said:

I have not much to say, and there is no occasion for much talking. The Great Father has promised that we should be permitted to move in the spring, and I have confidence in him and believe that when he makes a promise he intends to fulfill it. The Great Father has a great many bald-headed men about him, and sometimes he sends some of his bald- headed men out among the Indians. My experience is that all bald-headed men are liars, and I can place no confidence in what they say. We have the promise of the Great Father that we shall be moved to an agency more to our liking in the spring. We have waited long beyond the time for the fulfillment of that promise. We will wait ten days longer, and then if the word of the Great Father is not redeemed, I will bring my young men here. burn these buildings, and move ourselves. I have selected a place for our future home; we are going there, and it is useless for you to say that we shall not go, or that we shall go to some other place.

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History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 138

Author: Kingsbury, George Washington, 1837-; Smith, George Martin, 1847-1920 Publication date: 1915 Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : S.J. Clarke Publishing Company Number of Pages: 1198

Author: Kingsbury, George Washington, 1837-; Smith, George Martin, 1847-1920
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : S.J. Clarke Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1198