History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 167

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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In answer to a statement by Father Genin that it was reported that Sitting Bull him- self killed General Custer, he said excitedly: "It is a lie. I did not kill the Yellow Hair. He was a fool and rode to his death." He said further that he did not personally see General Custer during the battle; that his people searched for the body of the long-haired white chief after the battle, but that no soldier with long hair was found.

On this point Father Genin himself says: "Our friend Colonel Keogh's body and that of another Catholie soldier were the only ones treated with respect by the Indians, who stripped the dead of their clothing on the battlefield. The Teton Indians are nearly all pagans yet, not that they do not desire to become Catholics; they often asked me to go and live permanently with them, and instruct them and their children, but I had already too much on hand, and could only pray for them, hesides seeing them at long intervals.

"Pagans though they may be, and used to savage practices, still they have learned to respect the cross wherever they find it, and finding on Colonel Keogh's neck a chain and cross, they did not cut up his body, but covered up his face respectfully and left him his cross and went by. A seapular found on the body of another man was the cause of similar treatment. I believe these to be the only two persons on that battlefield whose bodies were not mutilated more or less."

Sitting Bull further said that when all of General Custer's men had been killed his warriors rushed to surround the soldiers on the hill with Reno, and that they would soon have killed them, too, but a false alarm was raised that some soldiers had escaped and were attacking the women and children, and the whole Indian army surged in that direction. Then when the mistake was found out, and his command surged again to the hill where Reno's men were concealed, he gave the order that there should be no more fighting. "We have killed enough," he said. "Let the rest go back and take care of the women and children. and tell the people how the Indians can fight." Whereat his warriors were sor- rowful and wanted to kill all Reno's men, and then go to give battle to the "walking sol- diers" ( Terry's infantry). when they should leave the steamboat, but they obeyed his orders, although greatly disappointed.

At the period of the Custer massacre Sitting Bull was comparatively unknown to the white people. The fact that there was an Indian of the same name-who was well known as being the head soldier of the friendly Oglalas at the Red Cloud Ageney-tended to the origin of many remarkable stories about him.

Sitting Bull. who commanded the Indians at the Little Big Horn battle, was a nephew of Black Moon, the supreme chief of the Teton Sioux, and was elected to the position of head chief of the Indian army at the convention of the Sioux Nation held on the plains of North Dakota at their summer camps in June, 1867, near Lake Traverse and Big Stone. An important law was at this time adopted and promulgated by the assembly, as follows : "That any Indian who would show the gold fields in the Black Ilills, or reveal their existence to white men, must die, and the whites thus made aware of the presence of gold in the Black Hills should also die, for fear the country should be taken from them."

The Tetons, long aware of the existence of gold in their country and holding it as their last place of abode, enacted this law in solemn couneil; Sitting Bull approved it. Custer,

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as the leader of the expedition to the hills in 1874, was the first white man to give gen ral publicity to the fact that the Black Hills was a gold-bearing country, and was a prominent man in the nation, and Father Genin asks: "Who shall say that the enactment of this las by the Sioux Nation on the plains of Northern Dakota in 1867 was not in a measure con- nected with the destruction of General Custer and his men on the Little Big Horn n 1870?'

GALL'S STORY OF THE CUSTER FIGHT

Custer Battlefield, Montana, June 25. 12

The tenth anniversary of the dark and bloody tragedy, which will le a gloomy fade in American history, was today appropriately celebrated by a few survivors i thet dreadful June day. Early in the day the great Sioux chief, Gall, went over the entire field and described, in an intelligent and straightforward manner, the exact manner in which the Custer command was destroyed. Curley, the Crow scout, who was in reality the only sur- vivor of all who marched into the Valley of the Little Big Horn with Custer, was als present, but Gall turned his back on Curley, and said, "He ran away teo shon in the fight." Gall is a powerful, fine-looking specimen of the red race, forty-six years oll, and weighs Inver two hundred pounds. He first appeared reticent, and was inclined to act sullen, but when he stood on the spot which saw the last fight with Custer on earth, his dark eyes hightel with fire, he became earnestly communicative, and he told all he knew without restraint. His dignified countenance spoke truthfulness, and there is no doubt that the true huist ry i that dreadful day is at last made known. Gall was Sitting Bull's commander in the tell that day, and his narrative follows :

"We saw the soldiers early in the morning crossing the divide. When Reno and Cister separated, we watched them until they came down into the valley. A cry was raised that the white soldiers were coming, and orders were given for our village to move immediatel, Reno swept down so rapidly on the upper end that the Indians were forced to fight Sitting Bull and 1 were at the point where Reno attacked. Sitting Bull was a big medicine man. The women and children were hastily moved down stream where the Chevennes were camped. The Sioux attacked Reno, and the Cheyennes Custer, and then all became mixed up. The women and children caught the horses for the bucks to mount. Then the buck> mounted and charged back on Reno, checked him and drove him into the timber. The > 1 diers tied their horses to trees, came out and fought on icot. As soon as Kenu was leaten and driven back across the river, the whole force turned upon Custer and fought him until they destroyed him. Custer did not reach the river, but was about half a mile up a riv ne now called Reno Creek. They fought the soldiers and beat them back, step by step, int l all were killed. The Indians ran out of ammunition and then used arrows They fred from behind their horses. The sokliers got shells stuck in their guns, and had to throw them away. They then fought with little guns (pistols). The Hubans were in c ulees Ichint and in front of Custer as he moved up the ridge to take position, and were not as many as the grass. The first two companies, Keogh's and Calhoun's, dismounted, and tuelt on foot. They never broke, but retired, step by step, until forced back to the rule non w i all finally perished. They were shot down in the line where they stood. Kong i's our ats rallied by company, and were all killed in a bunch. The warriors directed i special tire against the troopers who held the horses while the others fought. Vs oon . il 11 r wa killed, by waving blankets and great shouting, the horses were stampeded wh h maler impossible for the soldiers to escape afterward. The soldiers fought desperately and rl and never surrendered. They fought standing. They fought in line al ig the the fast as the men fell the horses were herded and driven towards the Quaw .r 1 1 who gathered them up. When Reno attempted to find Custer by throwing mit & kirmi line, Custer and all with him were dead. When the skirmishers reached a hielp nt ner looking Custer's field, the Indians were galloping around and over the w un lal, dy te ir 1 dead, popping bullets and arrows into them. When Reno made his attack at the 11 1 he killed my two squaws and three children, which made my heart Fr 1 thentw (s. the hatchet ( mutilating the soldiers). The soldiers ran out of ammumn timer y in the dar Their supplies of cartridges were in the saddle packets of ther stat paler Indians then ran up to the soldiers and butchered them with batchet Aittir

away and jumped into the river and were caught by the spouw killed on Reno Creek, and several Indians i'll over and died Only & mis tore In unser killed altogether, but a great many wounded ones came across . river to hushes. Some soldiers got away and ran down a ravine er sel the river and were killed. We had Oglalas, Minnecomeaus, Brule, Fet n. Unor enne, Arapahoes and Gros Ventres. When the bir dust ( 1

(Terry and Gibbon) we struck our lodges and went up a creek toward 1 Mountains. The Big Horn ranges were covered with sim We wantan then went over to the Wyoming mountains."

This ended Gall's narrative.

G P. Netherly, of Deadwood, visited the Custer battk fellows consiMan The theater of the tragedy was then a national cemetery !

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Agency. Netherly had with him Rev. J. G. Burgess, the Congregational mis- sionary with the Crows, and briefly states :

A great monument, enclosed with strong iron pickets, stands near where the last stand was made. Every soldier dying in that fight is registered there. Their bodies, except perhaps a few officers, lie inside the picket, near the great monument. Curley, the Indian scout, was the only one in Custer's immediate personal command who escaped. He is said to live at Billings now. The victims of the Fort Phil Kearney or Fetterman massacre, though killed ten years before the Custer fight, and in Wyoming, are also buried in compact order near this monument on the Custer field in Montana. Then farther away lie rows of veterans of the great Civil war, who wandered West to die.

The Government has placed a small white headstone where every man fell. Away to the south the horse holders were killed. Along that "hogback," or ridge leading north, the row of white monuments shows where Custer stubbornly retreated; the cluster of monu- ments and the cross show where the last stand was made and where Custer died. Those scattering twenty or thirty headstones down the ravine toward the Little Big Horn River show where some poor fellows tried to get away. But as at Fort Phil Kearney, "There were no survivors."

But this was no massacre. It was a battle-a stand-up fight with the Sioux under their great leaders, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and Rain In The Face. Custer forced the fight. not the Indians, and both sides fought as long as there was anything left to fight.

CHAPTER LAXI

BLACK HILLS LAWFULLY OPENED-INDIANS HOSTILE 1877 ( Black Hills-Concluded )

REPORT OF THE BLACK HILLS TREATY COMMISSION-TREATY CONSIDERED OF GREATER VALUE THAN ANY FORMER AGREEMENT-EXPLAINING THE ALLIANCE OF THI CHEYENNES AND ARAPAHOES-BLACK HILLS COUNTIES AND BOUNDARIES- INDIAN HOSTILITIES-SHERIFF BULLOCK CALLS FOR TROOPS-GOVERNOR AUTHOR- IZES CALLING OUT THE MILITIA-SEVERAL HOME COMPANIES ORGANIZED DIS- AGREEMENT AS TO TENURE OF APPOINTED COUNTY OFFICIALS COURT DECIDES AN ELECTION MUST BE HELD-DEMOCRATS CARRY THE ELECTION WAGON ROAD ROUTES FROM THE MISSOURI RIVER TO THE GOLD FIELDS-FIRST SESSION OF COURI AT DEADWOOD-EVIDENCES OF AN EARLIER WHITE OCCUPATION THE OPI NING OF THE HILLS OF PRIME IMPORTANCE IN PROMOTING THE PEACE POLICY.

REPORT OF THE BLACK HILLS TREATY COMMISSION

In reviewing their work in making the agreement with the Sioux at this time the commissioners submitted a comprehensive report in which they did not hesi- tate to criticise the policy of the United States Government in its administration of Indian affairs, and without qualification pronounce that all our Indian wars can be traceable to the neglect of the Government in observing the letter of its solemn treaties and the perfidy of those employed to conduct the details of its Indian intercourse in accordance with treaty stipulations. After a general review of their proceedings, in which the speeches of the Indian chiefs form the principal feature, the commissioners say :

Of the results of this year's ( 1870-Custer massacre) war we have no wish to speak It is a heartrending record of the slaughter of many of the bravest of our arms It has not only carried desolation and woe to hundreds of our own hearthstones but Las added to the cup of anguish which we have pressed to the life of the Indian We fear that when others shall have examined it in the light of history, they will repeat the words of the officers who penned the report of 1808: "The results of the year's campaign sati tel all reasonable men that the war was useless and expensive." Lo those who reflected n tio subject, knowing the facts, the war was something more than useless and expensive, it was dishonorable to the nation and disgracciul to those who originated it We brills know how to frame in words the feelings of shame and sorrow which till our hearts as w recall the long record of the broken faith of our Government. It is make more Ud m th the rejoicings of our Centennial year are mingled with the wall . [ sorrow f Wi w orphans made by a needless Indian war, and that sur fanvernment has expen ded ne fer in this war than all the religions bodies of our country have spent in Ind an our existence as a nation.

We are impelled, in this connection, to split ur viewer latina !! of Indian affairs. Until 1832 the war department had the entire management !! ! without the machinery of the Indian bureau. The chest duties were ful commanders, subject to the army rules in theking distorsements mode of dealing with Indians for half a century, the lon lames Bar under President J. Q. Adams, Frankly states, 11 an attal document tially failed, the sul experience of every day for Id strongly testites

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that "a most solemn question addresses itself to the American people, and whose answer is full of grave responsibility. Shall we go on quietly in a course which threatens their extinc- tion, while their past suffering and future prospects so pathetically appeal to our compassion ? The responsibility to which I refer is what a nation owes to itself, to its future character in all time to come. For next to the means of self-defense and the blessings of free govern- ment stands, in point of importance, the character of a nation."

In 1832 an act was passed providing for the appointment of a commissioner of Indian affairs ; but, hy order of the President, he was made subject to the secretary of war, who prescribed rules for his government. The provisions of this act were so defective that in 1834 a committee of Congress, who made an investigation into its affairs, decided that imme- diate revision was imperatively demanded. This report says: "The system is expensive, inefficient and irresponsible." In 1842 another committee of Congress examined the man- agement of Indian affairs in the war department, and said: "The evidence is submitted as to the general management and condition of Indian affairs. It exhibits an almost total want of method and punctuality, equally unjust to the Government and the tribes with whom we have voluntarily assumed obligations which we are not at liberty to disregard." It will be seen that the accounts of millions of expenditures have been so loosely kept as scarcely to furnish a trace or explanation of large sums, and that others have been misap- plied so as to impose serious losses on the Indians and heavy responsibility on the Govern- ment; that in some books (the only record of these accounts) no entries have been made for a period of several years, and that where entries have been made, the very clerks who kept them could not state an account from them.

If we trace the management of Indian affairs in the interior department since 1849 we find much to call for prompt action to remedy existing evils.

We submit that the remedy for these evils is not to be found by again placing the care of the Indians in the war department. It had this duty for nearly three-quarters of a century, and during the whole period there is no page in the history of our Indian manage- ment upon which our recollection can linger with emotions of pleasure. We do not question the integrity of the officers of the army. We concede to them the same ability and integrity which are to be found in all professions. No one will contend that, in order to insure integrity in the management of the postal service, the land department, or the customs, it is necessary to remit these departments to the army; and yet, if the claim be allowed in the management of Indian affairs, we can see no reason why every department should not be controlled by the department of war.

The generals who made the treaty of 1868 say: "If we intend to have war with them, the bureau should go to the secretary of war; if we intend to have peace, it should be in a civil department. In our judgment such wars are wholly unnecessary, and hoping that the Government and the country will agree with us, we cannot advise the change.'

The habits and tastes of the officers of the army are foreign to those patient labors which are necessary to lead a savage race to civilization. The officers of rank and experi- ence who may, in some degree, be fitted for this work, would not accept the trust, and we fear that this responsible position would be either entrusted to junior officers or to men who had been foisted into the army as a reward for political services.

We cannot see that any reform will be secured by the removal of this bureau from one building into another. The same evils complained of in the agents of the Indian bureau will follow in the agents of the war department. The whole country was excited over the charges of fraud which were made against the civil agent at Red Cloud Agency for the over- estimate in weight in beef cattle and other issues to the Indians. During our visit at this agency we witnessed an issue of beef made under direction of an officer of the army, who was the temporary agent. The number of cattle issued was 153 and the average weight estimated was 954 pounds. This average attracted our attention, and after investigation and careful calculation by an experienced officer of the army it was believed that the actual weight did not exceed seven hundred and eighty-six pounds, making in this one issue a loss to the Indians and a gain to the contractor of 27,234 pounds of beef. We did not have the slightest doubt of the integrity of the officer acting as Indian agent. There were no scales, and we doubt whether the experience of this agent was such as to make him a com- petent judge of the weight of live cattle.

We are impelled to say that it is our unanimous recommendation that all these Indians ought to be placed as speedily as possible in the care of civil agents. * *

* * X

After long and careful examination we have no hesitation in recommending that it is wise to continue the humane policy inaugurated by President Grant. We believe that the facts will prove that under this policy more has been done in the work of civilization than in any period of our history. It has accomplished this one thing, that those who were placed in trust of the national honor did not receive their appointment as a reward for political service.

The great obstacle to its complete success is that no change has been made in the laws for the care of the Indians. The Indian is left without the protection of law in person, property or life. He has no personal rights. He has no redress for wrongs inflicted by lawless violence. He may see his crops destroyed, his wife or child killed ; his only redress is personal revenge. There is not a member of either house of Congress who does not

FRANK LINCOLN VAN TASSEL. Yankton pioniver of 1895

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know that, even with all the influences of Christian civilization, schools, churches and . c al restraints, there is not a community of whites which could protect itself from lawless \1 - lence under the same conditions; and yet we take it for granted that the superior virthe of a savage race will enable it to achieve civilization under circumstances which w ull wreck our own. In the Indian's wild state he has a rude government mi chris and heal men, which is advisory in its character. When located upon reservations under the char. . of a United States agent, this Government is destroyed and we give him nothing if it> place.

We would especially call attention to the inadequate laws to punish white men for the sale of intoxicating liquors to the Indians.

There is another fearful evil in the unlawful marriages of white mer to Indian w men These unions are made after the customs of the Indians, and under their code they are regarded as valid. The law should declare that any Indian woman who thus live with a white man is his lawful wife, and that the children of such union are legitimate

The fact that the English Government in Canada has expended no money in Indian wars since the American Revolution, has lost no lives by massacre, has but no des I te f settlements, and that its Indians are today, as they have always been, loyal to the British crown, is due to the fact that it has fulfilled its plighted faith, has given to its Fid: is personal rights of property and the protection of law, and has fostered Christian ff ssio s and has placed over its Indians agents fitted for the task of guiding a savage race t civil a tion, and who generally hold their office during good behavior.

The greatest difficulty in the administration of Indian affairs is the inadequate salary of an Indian agent. He ought to be a man of ripe experience and mature d.c. fit d t superintend the building of houses, the opening of farms, the care of schools, and all thek. mechanical arts which are necessary for the work of civilization. The expenses of living are greatly increased. It is impossible for an agent to live with his family on his me zer salary. The department has lost some of its most valuable agents simply because they would not steal. and could not live on $1,500 a year. Our Indian affairs should be mana 'e 1 by an independent department. It ought to have at its head one of the first men of the nation, whose recommendations would be heeded, and who, as a member of the Cabinet could confer with the heads of the war and interior departments, and devise sich wise an l just plans as would equally protect the rights of the Indians and of our own citizens. 1. are painfully impressed with the fact that most of our Indian wars have net oh been cruel and unjust to the savage but have largely grown out of conthets ci turisdictum between different departments of the Government. The head of the department ite interior is already burdened with five distinct bureaus, viz. : Pension, patent land etu tion, and Indian. He cannot give to Indian affairs that patient attention which is necessary to success. The war department. as its name indicates, is unsuited for the work of 11 il. tion. Officers of the army are not fitted by inclination or training to teach Indian ch Mlret to read and write, or Indian men to sow and reap. If by placing this bureau in al nd pendent position we can save the fearfut cost of one Indian wir it will be the wi economy.

In conclusion, your commission respectfully urge that every effort shall be made t secure the ratification and faithful fulfillment of the agreement which we have male In direction of the Government with this hapless people. We entered upon this work w full knowledge that those who had heretofore mude treaties with these Indians 11 their promises broken. We accepted the trust as a solemn duty to our country perishing, and to God. The Indians trusted us. There were times when we trong be a we heard their earnest words of confidence and trust. Said a chiet who signed this ite ment, as he handed a pipe to our chairman, "Give this page of peace to the Great | r When we give and another receives a pipe, we regard it the sune as when i wollt Ist swears on the Bible in court. If they do not speak the truth, evtl will bappen "

We are satisfied that this agreement contains provisions which, if fa themn't will save these Indians and redress some of the wrongs which tirnish thu der our history. It is an eternal law of the government of God that what that and nothing but that shall it reap. If we sow bruken faith, i ui e acl vi shall reap in the future, as we have reaped in the past, a hairvet et manis it are not dealing simply with a pror perishing race ; we are d le w 1 6 | 11 afford to delay longer fulfilling out bounden duty to those from what we country, the possession of which has placed us in the foretr trott ni We make it our boast that our country is the home & the der welt we forget that there are also these whom we have made In berlin bound to give protection and care?

We are aware that many of our people think that the il lem is in their extermination We would remont auf that ther 1 exterminate. There are too many graves will in ur ber | tl hardly grown, for us to forget that field is pot man. He is one of the few savase nuff W

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History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 167

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