Almost immediately after the ratification of the purchase of New Mexico
by the United States under the stipulations of the "Guadalupe-Hidalgo
Treaty," the Utes, one of the most powerful tribes of mountain
Indians, inaugurated a bloody and relentless war against the civilized
inhabitants of the Territory. It was accompanied by all the horrible
atrocities which mark the tactics of savage hatred toward the white
race. It continued for several years with more or less severity; its
record a chapter of history whose pages are deluged with blood, until
finally the Indians were subdued by the power of the military.
Along the line of the Santa Fe Trail, they were frequently in
conjunction with the Apaches, and their depredations and atrocities
were very numerous; they attacked fearlessly freight caravans,
private expeditions, and overland stage-coaches, robbing and murdering
indiscriminately.
In January, 1847, the mail and passenger stage left Independence,
Missouri, for Santa Fe on one of its regular trips across the plains. It
had its full complement of passengers, among whom were a Mr. White and
family, consisting of his wife, one child, and a coloured nurse.
Day after day the lumbering Concord coach rolled on, with nothing to
disturb the monotony of the vast prairies, until it had left them far
behind and crossed the Range into New Mexico. Just about dawn, as the
unsuspecting travellers were entering the "canyon of the Canadian,"[30]
and probably waking up from their long night's sleep, a band of Indians,
with blood-curdling yells and their terrific war-whoop, rode down upon
them.
In that lonely and rock-sheltered gorge a party of the hostile savages,
led by "White Wolf," a chief of the Apaches, had been awaiting the
arrival of the coach from the East; the very hour it was due was well
known to them, and they had secreted themselves there the night before
so as to be on hand should it reach their chosen ambush a little before
the schedule time.
Out dashed the savages, gorgeous in their feathered war-bonnets, but
looking like fiends with their paint-bedaubed faces. Stopping the
frightened mules, they pulled open the doors of the coach and,
mercilessly dragging its helpless and surprised inmates to the ground,
immediately began their butchery. They scalped and mutilated the dead
bodies of their victims in their usual sickening manner, not a single
individual escaping, apparently, to tell of their fiendish acts.
If the Indians had been possessed of sufficient cunning to cover up the
tracks of their horrible atrocities, as probably white robbers would
have done, by dragging the coach from the road and destroying it by fire
or other means, the story of the murders committed in the deep canyon
might never have been known; but they left the tell-tale remains of
the dismantled vehicle just where they had attacked it, and the naked
corpses of its passengers where they had been ruthlessly killed.
At the next stage station the employees were anxiously waiting for the
arrival of the coach, and wondering what could have caused the delay;
for it was due there at noon on the day of the massacre. Hour after hour
passed, and at last they began to suspect that something serious had
occurred; they sat up all through the night listening for the familiar
rumbling of wheels, but still no stage. At daylight next morning,
determined to wait no longer, as they felt satisfied that something out
of the usual course had happened, a party hurriedly mounted their horses
and rode down the broad trail leading to the canyon.
Upon entering its gloomy mouth after a quick lope of an hour, they
discovered the ghastly remains of twelve mutilated bodies. These were
gathered up and buried in one grave, on the top of the bluff overlooking
the narrow gorge.
They could not be sure of the number of passengers the coach had brought
until the arrival of the next, as it would have a list of those carried
by its predecessor; but it would not be due for several days. They
naturally supposed, however, that the twelve dead lying on the ground
were its full complement.
Not waiting for the arrival of the next stage, they despatched a
messenger to the last station east that the one whose occupants had been
murdered had passed, and there learned the exact number of passengers
it had contained. Now they knew that Mrs. White, her child, and the
coloured nurse had been carried off into a captivity worse than death;
for no remains of a woman were found with the others lying in the
canyon.
The terrible news of the massacre was conveyed to Taos, where were
stationed several companies of the Second United States Dragoons,
commanded by Major William Greer; but as the weather had grown intensely
cold and stormy since the date of the massacre, it took nearly a
fortnight for the terrible story to reach there. The Major acted
promptly when appealed to to go after and punish the savages concerned
in the outrage, but several days more were lost in getting an expedition
ready for the field. It was still stormy while the command was preparing
for its work; but at last, one bright morning, in a piercing cold wind,
five troops of the dragoons, commanded by Major Greer in person, left
their comfortable quarters to attempt the rescue of Mrs. White, her
child, and nurse.
Kit Carson, "Uncle Dick" Wooten, Joaquin Leroux, and Tom Tobin were
the principal scouts and guides accompanying the expedition, having
volunteered their services to Major Greer, which he had gladly accepted.
The massacre having occurred three weeks before the command had
arrived at the canyon of the Canadian, and snow having fallen almost
continuously ever since, the ground was deeply covered, making it almost
impossible to find the trail of the savages leading out of the gorge. No
one knew where they had established their winter camp--probably hundreds
of miles distant on some tributary of the Canadian far to the south.
Carson, Wooton, and Leroux, after scanning the ground carefully at every
point, though the snow was ten inches deep, in a way of which only men
versed in savage lore are capable, were rewarded by discovering certain
signs, unintelligible to the ordinary individual[31]--that the murderers
had gone south out of the canyon immediately after completing their
bloody work, and that their camp was somewhere on the river, but how far
off none could tell.
The command followed up the trail discovered by the scouts for nearly
four hundred miles. Early one morning when that distance had been
rounded, and just as the men were about to break camp preparatory to
the day's march, Carson went out on a little reconnoissance on his own
account, as he had noticed a flock of ravens hovering in the air when he
first got out of his blankets at dawn, which was sufficient indication
to him that an Indian camp was located somewhere in the vicinity; for
that ominous bird is always to be found in the region where the savages
take up an abode, feeding upon the carcasses of the many varieties of
game killed for food. He had not proceeded more than half a mile
from the camp when he discovered two Indians slowly riding over a low
"divide," driving a herd of ponies before them. The famous scout was
then certain their village could not be very far away. The savages did
not observe him, as he took good care they should not; so he returned
quickly to where Major Greer was standing by his camp-fire and reported
the presence of a village very close at hand.
The Major having sent for Tom Tobin and Uncle Dick Wooton, requested
them to go and find the exact location of the savages. These scouts came
back in less than half an hour, and reported a large number of teepees
in a thick grove of timber a mile away.
It was at once determined to surprise the savages in their winter
quarters by charging right among their lodges without allowing them time
to mount their ponies, as the gallant Custer rode, at the head of his
famous troopers of the Seventh Cavalry, into the camp of the celebrated
chief "Black Kettle" on the Washita, in the dawn of a cold November
morning twenty years afterward.
The command succeeded in getting within good charging distance of the
village without its occupants having any knowledge of its proximity; but
at this moment Major Greer was seized with an idea that he ought to have
a parley with the Indians before he commenced to fight them, and for
that purpose he ordered a halt, just as the soldiers were eager for the
sound of the "Charge!"
Never were a body of men more enraged. Carson gave vent to his wrath
in a series of elaborately carved English oaths, for which he was noted
when young; Leroux, whose naturally hot blood was roused, swore at the
Major in a curious mixture of bad French and worse mountain dialect,
and it appeared as if the battle would begin in the ranks of the troops
instead of those of the savages; for never was a body of soldiers so
disgusted at the act of any commanding officer.
This delay gave the Indians, who could be seen dodging about among their
lodges and preparing for a fight that was no longer a surprise, time
to hide their women and children, mount their ponies, and get down into
deep ravines, where the soldiers could not follow them. While the Major
was trying to convince his subordinates that his course was the proper
one, the Indians opened fire without any parley, and it happened that
at the first volley a bullet struck him in the breast, but a suspender
buckle deflected its course and he was not seriously wounded.
The change in the countenance of their commanding officer caused by the
momentary pain was just the incentive the troopers wanted, and without
waiting for the sound of the trumpet, they spurred their horses, dashed
in, and charged the thunderstruck savages with the shock of a tornado.
In two successful charges of the gallant and impatient troopers more
than a hundred of the Indians were killed and wounded, but the time lost
had permitted many to escape, and the pursuit of the stragglers would
have been unavailing under the circumstances; so the command turned back
and returned to Taos. In the village was found the body of Mrs. White
still warm, with three arrows in her breast. Had the charge been made as
originally expected by the troopers, her life would have been saved. No
trace of the child or of the coloured nurse was ever discovered, and it
is probable that they were both killed while en route from the canyon
to the village, as being valueless to keep either as slaves or for other
purposes.
The fate of the Apache chief, "White Wolf," who was the leader in the
outrages in the canyon of the Canadian, was fitting for his devilish
deeds. It was Lieutenant David Bell's fortune to avenge the murder
of Mrs. White and her family, and in an extraordinary manner.[32] The
action was really dramatic, or romantic; he was on a scout with his
company, which was stationed at Fort Union, New Mexico, having about
thirty men with him, and when near the canyon of the Canadian they
met about the same number of Indians. A parley was in order at once,
probably desired by the savages, who were confronted with an equal
number of troopers. Bell had assigned the baggage-mules to the care of
five or six of his command, and held a mounted interview with the chief,
who was no other than the infamous White Wolf of the Jicarilla Apaches.
As Bell approached, White Wolf was standing in front of his Indians, who
were on foot, all well armed and in perfect line. Bell was in advance
of his troopers, who were about twenty paces from the Indians, exactly
equal in number and extent of line; both parties were prepared to use
firearms.
The parley was almost tediously long and the impending duel was
arranged, White Wolf being very bold and defiant.
At last the leaders exchanged shots, the chief sinking on one knee and
aiming his gun, Bell throwing his body forward and making his horse
rear. Both lines, by command, fired, following the example of their
superiors, the troopers, however, spurring forward over their enemies.
The warriors, or nearly all of them, threw themselves on the ground, and
several vertical wounds were received by horse and rider. The dragoons
turned short about, and again charged through and over their enemies,
the fire being continuous. As they turned for a third charge, the
surviving Indians were seen escaping to a deep ravine, which, although
only one or two hundred paces off, had not previously been noticed. A
number of the savages thus escaped, the troopers having to pull up at
the brink, but sending a volley after the descending fugitives.
In less than fifteen minutes twenty-one of the forty-six actors in this
strange combat were slain or disabled. Bell was not hit, but four or
five of his men were killed or wounded. He had shot White Wolf several
times, and so did others after him; but so tenacious of life was the
Apache that, to finish him, a trooper got a great stone and mashed his
head.
This was undoubtedly the greatest duel of modern times; certainly
nothing like it ever occurred on the Santa Fe Trail before or since.
The war chief of the Kiowa nation in the early '50's was Satank, a most
unmitigated villain; cruel and heartless as any savage that ever robbed
a stage-coach or wrenched off the hair of a helpless woman. After
serving a dozen or more years with a record for hellish atrocities
equalled by few of his compeers, he was deposed for alleged cowardice,
as his warriors claimed, under the following circumstances:--
The village of his tribe was established in the large bottoms, eight
miles from the Great Bend of the Arkansas, and about the same distance
from Fort Zarah.[33] All the bucks were absent on a hunting expedition,
excepting Satank and a few superannuated warriors. The troops were out
from Fort Larned on a grand scout after marauding savages, when they
suddenly came across the village and completely took the Kiowas by
surprise. Seeing the soldiers almost upon them, Satank and other
warriors jumped on their ponies and made good their escape. Had they
remained, all of them would have been killed or at least captured;
consequently Satank, thinking discretion better than valour at that
particular juncture, incontinently fled. His warriors in council,
however, did not agree with him; they thought that it was his duty to
have remained at the village in defence of the women and children, as he
had been urged to refrain from going on the hunt for that very purpose.
Some time before Satank lost his office of chief, there was living on
Cow Creek, in a rude adobe building, a man who was ostensibly an Indian
trader, but whose traffic, in reality, consisted in selling whiskey to
the Indians, and consequently the United States troops were always after
him. He was obliged to cache his liquor in every conceivable manner so
that the soldiers should not discover it, and, of course, he dreaded
the incursions of the troops much more than he did raids of the Indian
marauders that were constantly on the Trail.
Satank and this illicit trader, whose name was Peacock, were great
chums. One day while they were indulging in a general good time
over sundry drinks of most villanous liquor, Satank said to Peacock:
"Peacock, I want you to write me a letter; a real nice one, that I can
show to the wagon-bosses on the Trail, and get all the 'chuck' I want.
Tell them I am Satank, the great chief of the Kiowas, and for them to
treat me the best they know how."
"All right, Satank," said Peacock; "I'll do so." Peacock then sat down
and wrote the following epistle:--
"The bearer of this is Satank. He is the biggest liar, beggar, and thief
on the plains. What he can't beg of you, he'll steal. Kick him out of
camp, for he is a lazy, good-for-nothing Indian."
Satank began at once to make use of the supposed precious document,
which he really believed would assure him the dignified treatment and
courtesy due to his exalted rank. He presented it to several caravans
during the ensuing week, and, of course, received a very cool reception
in every instance, or rather a very warm one.
One wagon-master, in fact, black-snaked him out of his camp. After
these repeated insults he sought another white friend, and told of his
grievances. "Look here," said Satank, "I asked Peacock to write me a
good letter, and he gave me this; but I don't understand it! Every time
I hand it to a wagon-boss, he gives me the devil! Read it to me and tell
me just what it does say."
His friend read it over, and then translated it literally to Satank. The
savage assumed a countenance of extreme disgust, and after musing for a
few moments, said: "Well, I understand it all now. All right!"
The next morning at daylight, Satank called for some of his braves and
with them rode out to Peacock's ranch. Arriving there, he called out
to Peacock, who had not yet risen: "Peacock, get up, the soldiers are
coming!" It was a warning which the illicit trader quickly obeyed, and
running out of the building with his field-glass in his hand, he started
for his lookout, but while he was ascending the ladder with his back to
Satank the latter shot him full of holes, saying, as he did so: "There,
Peacock, I guess you won't write any more letters."
His warriors then entered the building and killed every man in it, save
one who had been gored by a buffalo bull the day before, and who was
lying in a room all by himself. He was saved by the fact that the Indian
has a holy dread of small-pox, and will never enter an apartment where
sick men lie, fearing they may have the awful disease.
Satanta (White Bear) was the most efficient and dreaded chief of all who
have ever been at the head of the Kiowa nation. Ever restlessly active
in ordering or conducting merciless forays against an exposed frontier,
he was the very incarnation of deviltry in his determined hatred of the
whites, and his constant warfare against civilization.
He also possessed wonderful oratorical powers; he could hurl the most
violent invectives at those whom he argued with, or he could be equally
pathetic when necessary. He was justly called "The Orator of the
Plains," rivalling the historical renown of Tecumseh or Pontiac.
He was a short, bullet-headed Indian, full of courage and well versed in
strategy. Ordinarily, when on his visits to the various military posts
he wore a major-general's full uniform, a suit of that rank having been
given to him in the summer of 1866 by General Hancock. He also owned
an ambulance, a team of mules, and a set of harness, the last stolen,
maybe, from some caravan he had raided on the Trail. In that ambulance,
with a trained Indian driver, the wily chief travelled, wrapped in a
savage dignity that was truly laughable. In his village, too, he assumed
a great deal of style. He was very courteous to his white guests, if at
the time his tribe were at all friendly with the government; nothing
was too good for them. He always laid down a carpet on the floor of his
lodge in the post of honour, on which they were to sit. He had large
boards, twenty inches wide and three feet long, ornamented with brass
tacks driven all around the edges, which he used for tables. He also had
a French horn, which he blew vigorously when meals were ready.
His friendship was only dissembling. During all the time that General
Sheridan was making his preparations for his intended winter campaign
against the allied plains tribes, Satanta made frequent visits to the
military posts, ostensibly to show the officers that he was heartily for
peace, but really to inform himself of what was going on.
At that time I was stationed at Fort Harker, on the Smoky Hill. One
evening, General Sheridan, who was my guest, was sitting on the verandah
of my quarters, smoking and chatting with me and some other officers
who had come to pay him their respects, when one of my men rode up and
quietly informed me that Satanta had just driven his ambulance into the
fort, and was getting ready to camp near the mule corral. On receiving
this information, I turned to the general and suggested the propriety of
either killing or capturing the inveterate demon. Personally I believed
it would be right to get rid of such a character, and I had men under
my command who would have been delighted to execute an order to that
effect.
Sheridan smiled when I told him of Satanta's presence and the excellent
chance to get rid of him. But he said: "That would never do; the
sentimentalists in the Eastern States would raise such a howl that the
whole country would be horrified!"
Of course, in these "piping times of peace" the reader, in the quiet of
his own room, will think that my suggestion was brutal, and without any
palliation; my excuse, however, may be found in General Washington's own
motto: Exitus acta probat. If the suggestion had been acted upon, many
an innocent man and woman would have escaped torture, and many a maiden
a captivity worse than death.
As a specimen of Satanta's oratory, I offer the following, to show the
hypocrisy of the subtle old villain, and his power over the minds of
too sensitive auditors. Once Congress sent out to the central plains a
commission from Washington to inquire into the causes of the continual
warfare raging with the savages on the Kansas border; to learn what
the grievances of the Indians were; and to find some remedy for the
wholesale slaughter of men, women, and children along the line of the
Old Trail.
Satanta was sent for by the commission as the leading spirit of the
formidable Kiowa nation. When he entered the building at Fort Dodge in
which daily sessions were held, he was told by the president to speak
his mind without any reservation; to withhold nothing, but to truthfully
relate what his tribe had to complain of on the part of the whites.
The old rascal grew very pathetic as he warmed up to his subject. He
declared that he had no desire to kill the white settlers or emigrants
crossing the plains, but that those who came and lived on the land of
his tribe ruthlessly slaughtered the buffalo, allowing their carcasses
to rot on the prairie; killing them merely for the amusement it afforded
them, while the Indian only killed when necessity demanded. He also
stated that the white hunters set out fires, destroying the grass, and
causing the tribe's horses to starve to death as well as the buffalo;
that they cut down and otherwise destroyed the timber on the margins of
the streams, making large fires of it, while the Indian was satisfied to
cook his food with a few dry and dead limbs. "Only the other day," said
he, "I picked up a little switch on the Trail, and it made my heart
bleed to think that so small a green branch, ruthlessly torn out of the
ground and thoughtlessly destroyed by some white man, would in time have
grown into a stately tree for the use and benefit of my children and
grandchildren."
After the pow-wow had ended, and Satanta had got a few drinks of red
liquor into him, his real, savage nature asserted itself, and he said to
the interpreter at the settler's store: "Now didn't I give it to those
white men who came from the Great Father? Didn't I do it in fine style?
Why, I drew tears from their eyes! The switch I saw on the Trail made my
heart glad instead of sad; for I new there was a tenderfoot ahead of me,
because an old plainsman or hunter would never have carried anything
but a good quirt or a pair of spurs. So I said to my warriors, 'Come on,
boys; we've got him!' and when we came in sight, after we had followed
him closely on the dead run, he threw away his rifle and held tightly on
to his hat for fear he should lose it!"
Another time when Satanta had remained at Fort Dodge for a very long
period and had worn out his welcome, so that no one would give him
anything to drink, he went to the quarters of his old friend, Bill
Bennett, the overland stage agent, and begged him to give him some
liquor. Bill was mixing a bottle of medicine to drench a sick mule. The
moment he set the bottle down to do something else, Satanta seized it
off the ground and drank most of the liquid before quitting. Of course,
it made the old savage dreadfully sick as well as angry. He then started
for a certain officer's quarters and again begged for something to cure
him of the effects of the former dose; the officer refused, but Satanta
persisted in his importunities; he would not leave without it. After
a while, the officer went to a closet and took a swallow of the most
nauseating medicine, placing the bottle back on its shelf. Satanta
watched his chance, and, as soon as the officer left the room, he
snatched the bottle out of the closet and drank its contents without
stopping to breathe. It was, of course, a worse dose than the
horse-medicine. The next day, very early in the morning, he assembled
a number of his warriors, crossed the Arkansas, and went south to
his village. Before leaving, however, he burnt all of the government
contractor's hay on the bank of the river opposite the post. He then
continued on to Crooked Creek, where he murdered three wood-choppers,
all of which, he said afterward, he did in revenge for the attempt to
poison him at Fort Dodge.
At the Comanche agency, where several of the government agents were
assembled to have a talk with chiefs of the various plains tribes,
Satanta said in his address: "I would willingly take hold of that part
of the white man's road which is represented by the breech-loading
rifles; but I don't like the corn rations--they make my teeth hurt!"
Big Tree was another Kiowa chief. He was the ally and close friend of
Satanta, and one of the most daring and active of his warriors. The
sagacity and bravery of these two savages would have been a credit to
that of the most famous warriors of the old French and Indian Wars. Both
were at last taken, tried, and sent to the Texas penitentiary for life.
Satanta was eventually pardoned; but before he was made aware of the
efforts that were being taken for his release, he attempted to escape,
and, in jumping from a window, fell and broke his neck. His
pardon arrived the next morning. Big Tree, through the work of the
sentimentalists of Washington, was set free and sent to the Kiowa
Reservation--near Fort Sill in the Indian Territory.
The next most audacious and terrible scourge of the plains was
"Ta-ne-on-koe" (Kicking Bird). He was a great warrior of the Kiowas,
and was the chief actor in some of the bloodiest raids on the Kansas
frontier in the history of its troublous times.
One of his captures was that of a Miss Morgan and Mrs. White. They were
finally rescued from the savages by General Custer, under the following
circumstances: Custer, who was advancing with his column of invincible
cavalrymen--the famous Seventh United States--in search of the two
unfortunate women, had arrived near the head waters of one of the
tributaries of the Washita, and, with only his guide and interpreter,
was far in advance of the column, when, on reaching the summit of an
isolated bluff, they suddenly saw a village of the Kiowas, which
turned out to be that of Kicking Bird, whose handsome lodge was easily
distinguishable from the rest. Without waiting for his command, the
general and his guide rode boldly to the lodge of the great chief,
and both dismounted, holding cocked revolvers in their hands; Custer
presented his at Kicking Bird's head. In the meantime, Custer's column
of troopers, whom the Kiowas had good reason to remember for their
bravery in many a hard-fought battle, came in full view of the
astonished village. This threw the startled savages into the utmost
consternation, but the warriors were held in check by signs from Kicking
Bird. As the cavalry drew nearer, General Custer demanded the immediate
release of the white women. Their presence in the village was at first
denied by the lying chief, and not until he had been led to the limb of
a huge cottonwood tree near the lodge, with a rope around his neck, did
he acknowledge that he held the women and consent to give them up.
This well-known warrior, with a foreknowledge not usually found in the
savage mind, seeing the beginning of the end of Indian sovereignty
on the plains, voluntarily came in and surrendered himself to the
authorities, and stayed on the reservation near Fort Sill.
In June, 1867, a year before the breaking out of the great Indian war on
the central plains, the whole tribe of Kiowas, led by him, assembled at
Fort Larned. He was the cynosure of all eyes, as he was without question
one of the noblest-looking savages ever seen on the plains. On that
occasion he wore the full uniform of a major-general of the United
States army. He was as correctly moulded as a statue when on horseback,
and when mounted on his magnificent charger the morning he rode out with
General Hancock to visit the immense Indian camp a few miles above
the fort on Pawnee Fork, it would have been a difficult task to have
determined which was the finer-looking man.
After Kicking Bird had abandoned his wicked career, he was regarded
by every army officer with whom he had a personal acquaintance as a
remarkably good Indian; for he really made the most strenuous efforts to
initiate his tribe into the idea that it was best for it to follow the
white man's road. He argued with them that the time was very near when
there would no longer be any region where the Indians could live as
they had been doing, depending on the buffalo and other game for the
sustenance of their families; they must adapt themselves to the methods
of their conquerors.
In July, 1869, he became greatly offended with the government for
its enforced removal of his tribe from its natural and hereditary
hunting-grounds into the reservation allotted to it. At that time
many of his warriors, together with the Comanches, made a raid on the
defenceless settlements of the northern border of Texas, in which the
savages were disastrously defeated, losing a large number of their most
beloved warriors. On the return of the unsuccessful expedition, a great
council was held, consisting of all the chiefs and head men of the two
tribes which had suffered so terribly in the awful fight, to consider
the best means of avenging the loss of so many braves and friends.
Kicking Bird was summoned before that council and condemned as a coward;
they called him a squaw, because he had refused to go with the warriors
of the combined tribes on the raid into Texas.
He told a friend of mine some time afterward that he had intended never
again to go against the whites; but the emergency of the case, and his
severe condemnation by the council, demanded that he should do something
to re-establish himself in the good graces of his tribe. He then made
one of the most destructive raids into Texas that ever occurred in the
history of its border warfare, which successfully restored him to the
respect of his warriors.
In that raid Kicking Bird carried off vast herds of horses and a large
number of scalps. Although his tribe fairly worshipped him, he was not
at all satisfied with himself. He could look into the future as well
as any one, and from that time on to his tragic death he laboured most
zealously and earnestly in connection with the Indian agents to
bring his people to live on the reservation which the government had
established for them in the Territory.
At the inauguration of the so-called "Quaker Policy" by President Grant,
that sect was largely intrusted with the management of Indian affairs,
particularly in the selection of agents for the various tribes. A Mr.
Tatham was appointed agent for the Kiowas in 1869. He at once gained
the confidence of Kicking Bird, who became very valuable to him as
an assistant in controlling the savages. It was through that chief's
influence that Thomas Batty, another Quaker, was allowed to take up
his residence with the tribe, the first white man ever accorded that
privilege. Batty was permitted to erect three tents, which were staked
together, converting them into an ample schoolhouse. In that crude,
temporary structure he taught the Kiowa youth the rudiments of an
education. This very successful innovation shows how earnest the former
dreaded savage was in his efforts to promote the welfare of his people,
by trying to induce them to "take the white man's road."
Batty succeeded admirably for a year in his office of teacher, the chief
all the time nobly withstanding the taunts and jeers of his warriors and
their threats of taking his life, for daring to allow a white man within
the sacred precincts of their village--a thing unparalleled in the
annals of the tribe.
At last trouble came; the dissatisfied members of the tribe, the
ambitious and restless young men, eager for renown, made another
unsuccessful raid into Texas. The result was that they lost nearly the
whole of the band, among which was the favourite son of Lone Wolf, a
noted chief.[34] After the death of his son, he declared that he must
and would have the scalp of a white man in revenge for the untimely
taking off of the young warrior. Of course, the most available white
man at this juncture was Batty, the Quaker teacher, and he was chosen by
Lone Wolf as the victim of savage revenge. Here the noble instincts of
Kicking Bird developed themselves. He very plainly told Lone Wolf, who
was constantly threatening and thirsting for blood, that he could not
kill Batty until he first killed him and all his band. But Lone Wolf
had fully determined to have the hair of the innocent Quaker; so Kicking
Bird, to avert any collision between the two bands of Indians, kidnapped
Batty and ran him off to the agency, arriving at Fort Sill about an hour
before Lone Wolf's band of avengers overtook them, and thus the Quaker
teacher was saved.
One day, long after these occurrences, a friend of mine was in the
sutler's store at Fort Sill. In there was a stranger talking to Mr. Fox,
the agent of the Indians. Soon Kicking Bird entered the establishment,
and the stranger asked Mr. Fox who that fine-looking Indian was. He was
told, and then he begged the agent to say to him that he would like to
have a talk with him; for he it was who led that famous raid into Texas.
"I never saw better generalship in the field in all my experience. He
had three horses killed under him. I was the surgeon of the rangers and
was, of course, in the fight."[35]
When Kicking Bird was told that the Texas doctor desired to talk with
him, he replied with great dignity that he did not want to revive those
troublous times. "Tell him, though," said Kicking Bird, "that was my
last raid against the whites; that I am a changed man."
The President of the United States sent for Kicking Bird to come to
Washington, and to bring with him such other influential Indians as
he thought might aid in inducing the Kiowas to cease their continual
raiding on the border of Texas.
In due time Kicking Bird left for the capital, taking with him Lone
Wolf, Big Bow, and Sun Boy of the Kiowas, together with several of the
head men of the Comanches. When the deputation of savages arrived in
Washington, it was received at the presidential mansion by the chief
magistrate himself. So much more attention was given to Kicking Bird
than to the others, that they became very jealous, particularly when the
President announced to them the appointment of Kicking Bird as the
head chief of the tribe.[36] But Lone Wolf would never recognize his
authority, constantly urging the young men to raid the settlements. Lone
Wolf was a genuine savage, without one redeeming trait, and his hatred
of the white race was unparalleled in its intensity. He was never known
to smile. No other Indian can show such a record of horrible massacres
as he is responsible for. His orders were rigidly obeyed, for he brooked
no disobedience on the part of his warriors.
In the summer of 1876, a party of English gentlemen left Fort Harker
for a buffalo hunt. They soon exhausted all their rations and started
a four-mule team back to the post for more. Some of Lone Wolf's band of
cut-throats came across the unfortunate teamster, killed him, and ran
off the team. After the occurrence, Kicking Bird came into the agency at
Fort Sill and told Mr. Haworth, the agent, that he had given his word
to the Great Father at Washington he would do all he could to bring in
those Indians who had been raiding by order of Lone Wolf, particularly
the two who had killed the Englishmen's driver.
He succeeded in bringing in twelve Indians in all, among them the
murderers of the driver. They, with Lone Wolf and Satank, were sent to
the Dry Tortugas for life. The morning they started on their journey
Satank talked very feelingly to Kicking Bird, with tears in his eyes.
He said that they might look for his bones along the road, for he would
never go to Florida. The savages were loaded into government wagons.
Satank was inside of one with a soldier on each side of him, their
legs hanging outside. Somehow the crafty villain managed to slip the
handcuffs off his wrists, at the same instant seizing the rifle of one
of his guards, and then shoved the two men out with his feet. He tried
to work the lever of the rifle, but could not move it, and one of the
soldiers, coming around the wagon to where he was still trying to get
the gun so as he could use it, shot him down, and then threw his body on
the Trail. Thus Satank made good his vow that he would never be taken to
Florida. He met his death only a mile from the post.
After the departure of the condemned savages, the feeling in the tribe
against Kicking Bird increased to an alarming extent. Several times
the most incensed warriors tried to kill him by shooting at him from
an ambush. After he became fully aware that his life was in danger, he
never left his lodge without his carbine. He was as brave as a lion,
fearing none of the members of Lone Wolf's band; but he often said it
was only a question of a short time when he would be gotten rid of; he
did not allow the matter, however, to worry him in the least, saying
that he was conscious he had done his duty by his tribe and the Great
Father.
In a bend of Cash Creek, about half a mile below the mill, about half
a dozen of the Kiowas had their lodges, that of their chief being among
them. At ten o'clock one Monday in June, 1876, Mr. Haworth, the agent,
came in haste to the shops, called the master mechanic, Mr. Wykes, out,
told him to jump into the carriage quickly; that Kicking Bird was dead.
When they arrived at the home of the great chief, sure enough he was
dead, and some of the women were engaged in folding his body in robes.
Other squaws were cutting themselves in a terrible manner, as is their
custom when a relative dies, and were also breaking everything breakable
about the lodge. Kicking Bird had always been scrupulously clean and
neat in the care of his home; it was adorned with the most beautifully
dressed buffalo robes and the finest furs, while the floor was covered
with matting.
It seems that Kicking Bird, after visiting Mr. Wykes that morning, went
immediately to his lodge, and sat down to eat something, but just as he
had finished a cup of coffee, he fell over, dead. He had in his service
a Mexican woman, and she had been bribed to poison him.
An expensive coffin was made at the agency for his remains, fashioned
out of the finest black walnut to be found in the country where that
timber grows to such a luxuriant extent. It was eight feet long and four
feet deep, but even then it did not hold one-half of his effects, which
were, according to the savage custom, interred with his body.
The cries and lamentations of the warriors and women of his band were
heartrending; such a manifestation of grief was never before witnessed
at the agency. A handsome fence was erected around his grave, in the
cemetery at Fort Sill, and the government ordered a beautiful marble
monument to be raised over it; but I do not know whether it was ever
done.
Kicking Bird was only forty years old at the time of his sudden taking
off, and was very wealthy for an Indian. He knew the uses of money and
was a careful saver of it. A great roll of greenbacks was placed in his
coffin, and that fact having leaked out, it was rumoured that his grave
was robbed; but the story may not have been true.
One of the greatest terrors of the Old Santa Fe Trail was the half-breed
Indian desperado Charles Bent. His mother was a Cheyenne squaw, and his
father the famous trader, Colonel Bent. He was born at the base of
the Rocky Mountains, and at a very early age placed in one of the best
schools that St. Louis afforded. His venerable sire, with only a limited
education himself, was determined that his boy should profit by the
culture and refinement of civilization, so he was not allowed to return
to his mountain home at Bent's Fort, and the savage conditions under
which he was born, until he had attained his majority. He then spoke no
language but English. His mother died while he was absent at school, and
his father continued to live at the old fort, where Charles, after he
had reached the age of twenty-one, joined him.
Some Washington sentimentalist, philosophizing on the Indian character,
his knowledge being based on Cooper's novels probably, has said:
"Civilization has very marked effects upon an Indian. If he once learns
to speak English, he will soon forget all his native cunning and pride
of race." Let us see how this theory worked with Charley Bent.
As soon as the educated half-breed set his foot on his native heath
he readily found enough ambitious young bucks of his own age who were
willing to look on him as their leader. They loved him, too, if such a
thing were possible, as Fra Diavolo was loved by his wild followers.
His band was known as the "Dog-Soldiers"; a sort of a semi-military
organization, consisting of the most daring, blood-thirsty young men
of the tribe; and sometimes "squaw-men," that is, renegade white men
married to squaws, attached themselves to his command of cut-throats.
At the head of this collection of the worst savages, hardly ever
numbering over a hundred, Charles Bent robbed ranches, attacked
wagon-trains, overland coaches, and army caravans. He stole and murdered
indiscriminately. The history of his bloody work will never be wholly
revealed, for dead men have no tongues.
He would visit all alone, in the guise of plainsman, hunter, or
cattleman, the emigrant trains crossing the continent, always, however,
those which had only small escorts or none at all. Feigning hunger,
while his needs were being kindly furnished, he would glance around him
to learn what kind of an outfit it was; its value, its destination, and
how well guarded. Then he would take his leave with many thanks, rejoin
his band, and with it dash down on the train and kill every human being
unfortunate enough not to have escaped before he arrived.
He was indefatigable in his efforts to kill off the whole corps of army
scouts. He would pass himself off as a fellow-scout, as a deserter
from some military post, or as an Indian trader, for he was a wonderful
actor, and would have achieved histrionic honours had he chosen the
stage as a profession.
He would always time his actions so as to be found apparently asleep
by a little camp-fire on the bank of Pawnee Fork, Crooked, Mulberry, or
Walnut creeks, all of which streams intercepted the trails running north
and south between the several military posts during the Indian war, when
he would seem delighted and astonished, or else simulate suspicion. Then
he would either murder the unsuspecting scout with his own hands, or
deliver him to the red fiends of his band to be tormented.
The government offered a reward of five thousand dollars for Bent's
capture, dead or alive. It was reported currently that he was at last
killed in a battle with some deputy United States marshals, and that
they received the reward; but the whole thing was manufactured out of
whole cloth, and if the marshals received the money, Uncle Sam was most
outrageously swindled.
The facts are that he died of malarial fever superinduced by a wound
received in a fight with the Kaws, near the mouth of the Walnut and not
far from Fort Zarah. His "Dog-Soldiers" were whipped by the Kaws, and
his band driven off. Bent lingered for some time and died.