CHAPTER V.

THE SIOUX.

The word Sioux is a contraction from the old French word "Nadouessioux,"

or "Enemies," the name given by the French traders to this most powerful

and warlike of all the North-western tribes. They called themselves

"Dakota," or "many in one," because so many bands under different names

were joined together. At the time of Captain Carver's travels among the

North American Indians there were twelve known bands of these

"Nadouwessies." They entertained the captain most hospitably for seven

months during the winter of 1766-'7; adopted him as one of their chiefs;

and when the time came for him to depart, three hundred of them

accompanied him for a distance on his journey, and took leave with

expressions of friendship for him, and good-will toward the Great

Father, the English king, of whom he had told them. The chiefs wished

him to say to the king "how much we desire that traders may be sent to

abide among us with such things as we need, that the hearts of our young

men, our wives, and children may be made glad. And may peace subsist

between us so long as the sun, the moon, the earth, and the waters shall

endure;" and "acquaint the Great King how much the Nadouwessies wish to

be counted among his good children."

Nothing in all the history of the earliest intercourse between the

friendly tribes of North American Indians and the Europeans coming among

them is more pathetic than the accounts of their simple hospitality,

their unstinted invitations, and their guileless expressions of desire

for a greater knowledge of the white men's ways.

When that saintly old bigot, Father Hennepin, sailed up the Illinois

River, in 1680, carrying his "portable chapel," chalice, and chasuble,

and a few holy wafers "in a steel box, shut very close," going to teach

the savages "the knowledge of the Captain of Heaven and Earth, and to

use fire-arms, and several other things relating to their advantage,"

the Illinois were so terrified that, although they were several thousand

strong, they took to flight "with horrid cries and howlings." On being

reassured by signs and words of friendliness, they slowly returned—some,

however, not until three or four days had passed. Then they listened to

the good man's discourses with "great attention; afterward gave a great

shout for joy," and "expressed a great gratitude;" and, the missionaries

being footsore from long travel, the kindly creatures fell to rubbing

their legs and feet "with oil of bears, and grease of wild oxen, which

after much travel is an incomparable refreshment; and presented us some

flesh to eat, putting the three first morsels into our mouths with great

ceremonies."

It was a pity that Father Hennepin had no more tangible benefit than the

doctrine of the "efficacy of the Sacraments" to communicate to the

hospitable Illinois in return for their healing ointments. Naturally

they did not appreciate this, and he proceeded on his way disheartened

by their "brutish stupidity," but consoling himself, however, with the

thought of the infants he had baptized. Hearing of the death of one of

them, he says he is "glad it had pleased God to take this little

Christian out of the world," and he attributed his own "preservation

amidst the greatest dangers" afterward to "the care he took for its

baptism." Those dangers were, indeed, by no means inconsiderable, as he

and his party were taken prisoners by a roaming party of these Indians,

called in the Father's quaint old book "Nadouwessians." He was forced to

accompany them on their expeditions, and was in daily danger of being

murdered by the more riotous and hostile members of the band. He found

these savages on the whole "good-natured men, affable, civil, and

obliging," and he was indebted for his life to the good-will of one of

the chiefs, who protected him again and again at no inconsiderable

danger to himself. The only evidence of religion among the Nadouwessies

which he mentions is that they never began to smoke without first

holding the pipe up to the sun, saying, "Smoke, sun!" They also offered

to the sun the best part of every beast they killed, carrying it

afterward to the cabin of their chief; from which Father Hennepin

concluded that they had "a religious veneration for the sun."

The diplomatic relations between the United States Government and the

Sioux began in the year 1815. In that year and the year following we

made sixteen "treaties" of peace and friendship with different tribes of

Indians—treaties demanding no cessions of land beyond the original

grants which had been made by these tribes to the English, French, or

Spanish governments, but confirming those to the United States;

promising "perpetual peace," and declaring that "every injury or act of

hostility committed by one or other of the contracting parties shall be

mutually forgiven and forgot." Three of these treaties were made with

bands of the Sioux—one of them with "the Sioux of the Leaf, the Sioux of

the Broad Leaf, and the Sioux who shoot in the Pine-tops."

In 1825 four more treaties were made with separate Sioux bands. By one

of those treaties—that of Prairie du Chien—boundaries were defined

between the Chippewas and the Sioux, and it was hoped that their

incessant feuds might be brought to an end. This hostility had continued

unabated from the time of the earliest travellers in the country, and

the Sioux had been slowly but steadily driven south and west by the

victorious Chippewas. A treaty could not avail very much toward keeping

peace between such ancient enemies as these. Fighting went on as before;

and white traders, being exposed to the attacks of all war-parties,

suffered almost more than the Indians themselves. The Government

consoled itself for this spectacle of bloody war, which it was powerless

to prevent, by the thought that the Indians would "probably fight on

until some one or other of the tribes shall become too reduced and

feeble to carry on the war, when it will be lost as a separate power"—an

equivocal bit of philosophizing which was unequivocally stated in these

precise words in one of the annual reports of the War Department.

In the third Article of the next treaty, also at Prairie du Chien, in

1830, began the trouble which has been from that day to this a source of

never ending misunderstanding and of many fierce outbreaks on the part

of the Sioux. Four of the bands by this article ceded and relinquished

to the United States "forever" a certain tract of country between the

Mississippi and the Des Moines River. In this, and in a still further

cession, two other bands of Sioux, who were not fully represented at the

council, must join; also, some four or five other tribes. Landed and

"undivided" estate, owned in common by dozens of families, would be a

very difficult thing to parcel out and transfer among white men to-day,

with the best that fair intentions and legal skill combined could do;

how much more so in those days of unsurveyed forests, unexplored rivers,

owned and occupied in common by dozens of bands of wild and ignorant

Indians, to be communicated with only by interpreters. Misconstructions

and disputes about boundaries would have been inevitable, even if there

had been all possible fairmindedness and good-will on both sides; but in

this case there was only unfairmindedness on one side, and unwillingness

on the other. All the early makers of treaties with the Indians

congratulated themselves and the United States on the getting of acres

of valuable land by the million for next to nothing, and, as years went

on, openly lamented that "the Indians were beginning to find out what

lands were worth;" while the Indians, anxious, alarmed, hostile at

heart, seeing themselves harder and harder pressed on all sides, driven

"to provide other sources for supplying their wants besides those of

hunting, which must soon entirely fail them,"[19] yielded mile after

mile with increasing sense of loss, which they were powerless to

prevent, and of resentment which it would have been worse than impolitic

for them to show.

Footnote 19:

Treaty of Prairie du Chien.

The first annuities promised to the Sioux were promised by this

treaty—$3000 annually for ten years to the Yankton and Santee bands; to

the other four, $2000. The Yankton and Santee bands were to pay out of

their annuity $100 yearly to the Otoes, because part of some land which

was reserved for the half-breeds of the tribe had originally belonged to

the Otoes. "A blacksmith, at the expense of the United States; also,

instruments for agricultural purposes; and iron and steel to the amount

of $700 annually for ten years to some of the bands, and to the amount

of $400 to the others; also, $3000 a year 'for educational purposes,'

and $3000 in presents distributed at the time," were promised them.

It was soon after these treaties that the artist Catlin made his famous

journeys among the North American Indians, and gave to the world an

invaluable contribution to their history, perpetuating in his pictures

the distinctive traits of their faces and their dress, and leaving on

record many pages of unassailable testimony as to their characteristics

in their native state. He spent several weeks among the Sioux, and says

of them: "There is no tribe on the continent of finer looking men, and

few tribes who are better and more comfortably clad and supplied with

the necessaries of life. *** I have travelled several years already

among these people, and I have not had my scalp taken, nor a blow struck

me, nor had occasion to raise my hand against an Indian; nor has my

property been stolen as yet to my knowledge to the value of a shilling,

and that in a country where no man is punishable by law for the crime of

stealing. *** That the Indians in their native state are drunken, is

false, for they are the only temperance people, literally speaking, that

ever I saw in my travels, or expect to see. If the civilized world are

startled at this, it is the fact that they must battle with, not with

me. These people manufacture no spirituous liquor themselves, and know

nothing of it until it is brought into their country, and tendered to

them by Christians.

"That these people are naked, is equally untrue, and as easily disproved

with the paintings I have made, and with their beautiful costumes which

I shall bring home. I shall be able to establish the fact that many of

these people dress not only with clothes comfortable for any latitude,

but that they dress also with some considerable taste and elegance. ***

Nor am I quite sure that they are entitled to the name of 'poor' who

live in a country of boundless green fields, with good horses to ride;

where they are all joint tenants of the soil together; where the Great

Spirit has supplied them with an abundance of food to eat."

Catlin found six hundred families of the Sioux camped at one time around

Fort Pierre, at the mouth of the Teton River, on the west bank of the

Missouri. There were some twenty bands, each with their chief, over whom

was one superior chief, called Ha-won-je-tah (the One Horn), whose

portrait is one of the finest in Catlin's book. This chief took his

name, "One Horn," from a little shell which he wore always on his neck.

This shell had descended to him from his father, and he said "he valued

it more than anything which he possessed:" affording a striking instance

of the living affection which these people often cherish for the dead,

inasmuch as he chose to carry this name through life in preference to

many others and more honorable ones he had a right to have taken from

different battles and exploits of his extraordinary life. He was the

fleetest man in the tribe; "could run down a buffalo, which he had often

done on his own legs, and drive his arrow to the heart."

This chief came to his death, several years later, in a tragic way. He

had been in some way the accidental cause of the death of his only son—a

very fine youth—and so great was the anguish of his mind at times that

he became insane. In one of these moods he mounted his favorite

war-horse, with his bow and arrows in his hand, and dashed off at full

speed upon the prairies, repeating the most solemn oath that he would

slay the first living thing that fell in his way, be it man or beast,

friend or foe. No one dared follow him, and after he had been absent an

hour or two his horse came back to the village with two arrows in its

body covered with blood. Fears of the most serious kind were now

entertained for the fate of the chief, and a party of warriors

immediately mounted their horses and retraced the animal's tracks to the

place of the tragedy, where they found the body of their chief horribly

mangled and gored by a buffalo-bull, whose carcass was stretched by the

side of him.

A close examination of the ground was then made by the Indians, who

ascertained by the tracks that their unfortunate chief, under his

unlucky resolve, had met a buffalo-bull in the season when they are very

stubborn, and unwilling to run from any one, and had incensed the animal

by shooting a number of arrows into him, which had brought him into

furious combat. The chief had then dismounted and turned his horse

loose, having given it a couple of arrows from his bow, which sent it

home at full speed, and then had thrown away his bow and quiver,

encountering the infuriated animal with his knife alone, and the

desperate battle had resulted in the death of both. Many of the bones of

the chief were broken, and his huge antagonist lay dead by his side,

weltering in blood from a hundred wounds made by the chief's long and

two-edged knife.

Had the provisions of these first treaties been fairly and promptly

carried out, there would have been living to-day among the citizens of

Minnesota thousands of Sioux families, good and prosperous farmers and

mechanics, whose civilization would have dated back to the treaty of

Prairie du Chien.

In looking through the records of the expenditures of the Indian Bureau

for the six years following this treaty, we find no mention of any

specific provisions for the Sioux in the matter of education. The $3000

annually which the treaty promised should be spent "on account of the

children of the said tribes and bands," is set down as expended on the

"Choctaw Academy," which was in Kentucky. A very well endowed

institution that must have been, if we may trust to the fiscal reports

of the Indian Bureau. In the year 1836 there were set down as expended

on this academy: On account of the Miamis, $2000; the Pottawattomies,

$5000; the Sacs, Foxes, and others, $3000; the Choctaws, $10,000; the

Creeks, east, $3000; the Cherokees, west, $2000; the Florida Indians,

$1000; the Quapaws, $1000; the Chickasaws, $3000; the Creeks, $1000:

being a total of $31,000.

There were in this year one hundred and fifty-six pupils at the Choctaw

Academy, sixteen of them being from the Sacs, Foxes, Sioux, and others

represented in the Treaty of Prairie du Chien of 1830. For the education

of these sixteen children, therefore, these tribes paid $3000 a year.

The Miamis paid more in proportion, having but four youths at school,

and $2000 a year charged to them. The Pottawattomies, on a treaty

provision of $5000, educated twenty.

In 1836 Congress appropriated $2000 "for the purpose of extinguishing

the Indian title between the State of Missouri and the Missouri River.

The land owned here by the Indians was a long, narrow belt of country,

separated from the rest of the Indian country by the Missouri River. The

importance of it to the State of Missouri was evident—an "obvious

convenience and necessity." The citizens of Missouri made

representations to this effect; and though the President is said to have

been "unwilling to assent, as it would be in disregard of the guarantee

given to the Indians in the Treaty of Prairie du Chien, and might be

considered by them as the first step in a series of efforts to obtain

possession of their new country," he nevertheless consented that the

question of such a cession should be submitted to them. Accordingly,

negotiations were opened, and nearly all the Indians who had rights in

these lands, "seeing that from their local position they could never be

made available for Indian purposes," relinquished them.[20]

Footnote 20:

For this relinquishment the Government gave to the Lower Sioux

presents to the amount of $400, and to the upper bands $530 in goods.

In 1837 the Government invited deputations of chiefs from many of the

principal tribes to come to Washington. It was "believed to be important

to exhibit" to them "the strength of the nation they would have to

contend with" if they ventured to attack our borders, "and at the same

time to impress upon them the advantages which flow from civilization."

Among these chiefs came thirty chiefs and headmen of the Sioux; and,

being duly "impressed," as was most natural, concluded treaties by which

they ceded to the United States "all their land east of the Mississippi

River, and all their islands in the same." These chiefs all belonged to

the Medawakanton band, "community of the Mysterious Lakes."

The price of this cession was $300,000, to be invested for them, and the

interest upon this sum, at five per cent., to be paid to them "annually

forever;" $110,000 to be distributed among the persons of mixed blood in

the tribe; $90,000 to be devoted to paying the just debts of the tribe;

$8230 to be expended annually for twenty years in stock, implements, on

physicians, farmers, blacksmiths, etc.; $10,000 worth of tools, cattle,

etc., to be given to them immediately, "to enable them to break up and

improve their lands;" $5300 to be expended annually for twenty years in

food for them, "to be delivered at the expense of the United States;"

$6000 worth of goods to be given to them on their arrival at St. Louis.

In 1838 the Indian Bureau reports that all the stipulations of this

treaty have been complied with, "except those which appropriate $8230 to

be expended annually in the purchase of medicines, agricultural

implements, and stock; and for the support of a physician, farmers, and

blacksmiths," and "bind the United States to supply these Sioux as soon

as practicable with agricultural implements, tools, cattle, and such

other articles as may be useful to them, to an amount not exceeding

$10,000, to enable them to break up and improve their lands." The

fulfilment or non-fulfilment of these stipulations has been left to the

discretion of the agent; and the agent writes that it "must be obvious

to any one that a general personal intercourse" on his part "is

impracticable," and that "his interviews with many of the tribes must

result from casualty and accident." This was undoubtedly true; but it

did not, in all probability, occur to the Indians that it was a good and

sufficient reason for their not receiving the $18,000 worth of goods

promised.

Five thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine dollars were expended the

next year under this provision of the treaty, and a few Indians, who

"all labored with the hoe," raised their own crops without assistance.

Six thousand bushels of corn in all were housed for the winter; but the

experiment of turning hunters into farmers in one year was thought not

to be, on the whole, an encouraging one. The "peculiar habits of

indolence, and total disregard and want of knowledge of the value and

uses of time and property," the agent says, "almost forbid hope." A more

reasonable view of the situation would have seen in it very great hope.

That out of five hundred warriors a few score should have been already

found willing to work was most reassuring, and promised well for the

future of the tribe.

For the next ten years affairs went on badly with the Sioux; they were

continually attacked by the Chippewas, Ottawas, and others, and

continually retaliated. The authorities took a sensible view of this

state of things, as being the easiest way of securing the safety of the

whites. "So long as they (the Indians) are at war with each other they

will not feel a disposition to disturb the peace and safety of our

exposed frontier settlements," wrote Governor Dodge, in 1840.

Whiskey traders flocked faster and faster into the neighborhood; fur

traders, also, found it much more for their interest to trade with

drunken Indians than with sober ones, and the Sioux grew rapidly

demoralized. Their annuities were in arrears; yet this almost seemed

less a misfortune than a blessing, since both money, goods, and

provisions were so soon squandered for whiskey.

In 1842 several of the bands were reduced to a state of semi-starvation

by the failure of corn crops, and also by the failure of the Senate to

ratify a treaty they had made with Governor Doty in 1841.[21] Depending

on the annuities promised in this treaty, they had neglected to make

their usual provisions for the winter. Frosts, which came in June, and

drought, which followed in July, combined to ruin their crops. For

several years the water had been rapidly decreasing in all the lakes and

streams north-west of Traverse de Sioux: the musk-rat ponds, from which

the Indians used to derive considerable revenue, had dried up, and the

musk-rats had gone, nobody knew where; the beaver, otter, and other

furry creatures had been hunted down till they were hard to find; the

buffalo had long since been driven to new fields, far distant. Many of

the Indians were too poor to own horses on which to hunt. They were two

hundred miles from the nearest place where corn could be obtained, even

if they had money to pay for it. Except for some assistance from the

Government, they would have died by hundreds in the winter of this year.

Footnote 21:

Never ratified.

In 1849 the "needs" of the white settlers on the east side of the

Mississippi made it imperative that the Sioux should be again removed

from their lands. "The desirable portions of Minnesota east of the

Mississippi were already so occupied by a white population as to seem to

render it absolutely necessary to obtain without delay a cession from

the Indians on the west side of the river, for the accommodation of our

citizens emigrating to that quarter, a large portion of whom would

probably be compelled to precipitate themselves on that side of the

Mississippi."

Commissioners were accordingly sent to treat with the Indians owning

these desired lands. In the instructions given to these commissioners

there are some notable sentences: "Though the proposed purchase is

estimated to contain some twenty millions of acres, and some of it no

doubt of excellent quality," there are "sound reasons why it is

comparatively valueless to the Indians, and a large price should not be

paid for it." Alive to the apparent absurdity of the statement that

lands which are "absolutely necessary" for white farmers are

"comparatively valueless" to Indians whom the Government is

theoretically making every effort to train into farmers, and who have

for the last ten years made appreciable progress in that direction, the

commissioner adds, "With respect to its being valuable to the United

States, it is more so for the purpose of making room for our emigrating

citizens than for any other; and only a small part of it is now actually

necessary for that object. *** The extent of the proposed cession should

be no criterion of the amount that should be paid for it. On a full

consideration of the whole matter, it is the opinion of this office that

from two to two and a half cents an acre would be an ample equivalent

for it." Some discretion is left to the commissioners as to giving more

than this if the Indians are "not satisfied;" but any such increase of

price must be "based on such evidence and information as shall fully

satisfy the President and Senate."[22]

Footnote 22:

"Chrysostom was of opinion, and not without reason, that, in

contracts, as often as we strive earnestly to buy anything for less

than it is worth, or to have more than our just measure or weight,

there was in that fact a kind of theft."—GROTIUS _on Contracts_.

Reading farther on in these instructions, we come at last to the real

secret of this apparent niggardliness on the part of the Government. It

is not selfishness at all; it is the purest of philanthropy. The

Government has all along been suffering in mind from two conflicting

desires—"the desire to give these Indians an equivalent for their

possessions," and, on the other hand, "the well-ascertained fact that no

greater curse can be inflicted on a tribe so little civilized as the

Sioux than to have large sums of money coming to them as annuities." ***

On the whole, the commissioner says that we are called on, "as a matter

of humanity and duty toward this helpless race, to make every exertion

in our power not to place much money at their discretion." The

Government is beginning very well in this direction, it must be

admitted, when it proposes to pay for Mississippi Valley lands in

Minnesota only two and a half cents per acre. "Humanity and duty" allied

could hardly do more at one stroke than that.

We cannot ascribe to the same philanthropy, however, the withholding

from 1837 to 1850 the $3000 a year which the treaty of 1837 provided

should be expended "annually" as the President might direct, and which

was not expended at all, because President after President directed that

it should be applied to educational purposes; and there being no evident

and easy way of expending it in that manner, it was allowed to

accumulate, until in 1850 it amounted, according to the report of

Governor Ramsey, of Minnesota, to $50,000. The governor also thinks

better than the United States Government does of the country to be

relinquished this year by the Sioux. He says that it will be "settled

with great rapidity, possessing as it does from its situation

considerable prospective commercial as well as agricultural advantages."

It was evidently very cheap at two and a half cents an acre.

In this same code of instructions by the Indian Bureau there is a record

of another instance of the Government's disregard of treaty

stipulations. At the time of the treaty of Prairie du Chien, in 1850,

the Sioux chiefs had requested that a certain tract be set apart and

bestowed upon the half-breeds of their nation. This was provided for in

the ninth Article of that treaty; but the Government refused to give to

the half-breeds any title to this land, except "in the same manner as

other Indian titles are held." It was agreed, however, that the

President might "assign to any of said half-breeds, to be held by him or

them in fee-simple, any portion of said tract not exceeding a section of

six hundred and forty acres to an individual." This tract of land was

known as the "Half-breed Reservation on Lake Tepin."

The half-breeds had made almost unintermitting efforts to have these

assignments made, but the Government had as constantly refused to do it.

The Indian Bureau now assigns two reasons why this treaty stipulation

was never fulfilled: 1st, that "the half-breeds, or most of them, would

be speculated upon by designing persons, and cheated out of their

reservations;" 2d, that, "on account of the quality of the lands, some

would necessarily have much better reservations than others, which would

engender dissatisfaction and heart-burning among themselves as well as

against the United States." The Bureau felicitates itself that "the only

title they now have to this land, therefore, is that by which other

Indians hold their lands, viz., the occupant or usufruct right, and this

they enjoy by the permission of the United States." Such being the case,

and as the Government would probably never find it expedient and

advisable to make the assignment referred to, this tract, whatever may

be the character of the land, must be and would continue comparatively

worthless to them.

Nevertheless, it appears that in 1841 one of the three treaties made

with the Sioux, but not ratified, was with these very half-breeds for

this same "valueless" tract of 384,000 acres of land; that they were to

be paid $200,000 for it, and also to be paid for all the improvements

they had made on it; and that the treaty commissioners are still

instructed "to allow them for it now whatever sum the commissioners deem

it to be" fairly worth; "under no circumstances," however, "to exceed

the sum stipulated in 1841." Putting this all into plain English, it

simply means that in 1830 the Government promised to let a band of men

take out tracts of land in fee-simple, and settle down like other men on

their homesteads; that for ten years the men begged to do so, and were

refused; that at the end of ten years, thinking there was no hope of

anything better, they agreed to sell the whole tract back to the

Government for $200,000; that this bargain, also, the Government did not

fulfil (the treaties never being ratified), and nine years later was

found congratulating itself on the fact that, by reason of all these

unfulfilled agreements, the land was still "held only in the same manner

as other Indian titles are held"—_i.e._, not "held" at all—only used on

sufferance of the Government, and could be taken possession of at any

time at the Government's pleasure. (This matter was supposed to be

finally settled in 1854 by a law of Congress; but in 1856 the thing

appears to have been still unsettled. A commission had been sent out to

investigate it, and the report was that "the subject has been one of

some difficulty and intricacy; but the final report of the commissioners

has just been received, and steps will be taken at once to cause the

scrip to issue to the parties entitled thereto.")

A little farther on in this same notable document is a mention of

another tract, of which it is now "desirable to extinguish the title."

This was set apart by the tenth Article of that same old treaty for the

half-breeds of the Omahas, Otoes, Iowas, and Yankton and Santee Sioux.

This contains about 143,000 acres, but is "supposed to be of much less

value than that on Lake Tepin much less value than 'valueless;'" but the

"amount to be paid for it is left to the discretion" of the

commissioners.

At this time the bands of the Medewakanton Sioux were occupying a tract

of over two hundred miles along the west shore of the Mississippi,

reaching also some twenty-five miles up the St. Peter's. The Yanktons,

Santees, and other bands lived high up the St. Peter's, reaching over

into the lands west of the Missouri, out of reach of ordinary facilities

of intercourse. These bands were often in great distress for food, owing

to the failure of the buffalo. They never lost an occasion to send

imploring messages to the Great Father, urging him to help them. They

particularly ask for hoes, that they may plant corn. In his report for

1850 the superintendent of the territory embracing these Indians says:

"The views of most of those who have lived the longest among the Indians

agree in one respect—that is, that no great or beneficial change can

take place in their condition until the General Government has made them

amenable to local laws—laws which will punish the evil-disposed, and

secure the industrious in their property and individual rights."

Superintendents, agents, commissioners, secretaries, all reiteratedly

recommending this one simple and necessary step toward civilization—the

Indians themselves by hundreds imploring for titles to their farms, or

at least "hoes"—why did the United States Government keep on and on in

its obstinate way, feeding the Indian in gross and reckless improvidence

with one hand, plundering him with the other, and holding him steadily

down at the level of his own barbarism? Nay, forcing him below it by the

newly added vices of gambling and drunkenness, and yet all the while

boasting of its desire to enlighten, instruct, and civilize him. It is

as inexplicable as it is infamous: a phenomenal thing in the history of

the world.

In the summer of 1851 the desired treaties were made, the upper and

lower bands of Sioux being treated with separately at Traverse de Sioux

and at Mendota. The upper bands were soon disposed of, though "some few

of them, having been taught to read," had become impressed with the idea

that their country was of immense value, and at first demanded six

million dollars for the lands to be ceded. The treaty with the lower

bands—the Medawakantons and Wahpacootas—was "exceedingly difficult of

attainment" on account of, firstly, "their proximity to the flourishing

settlements on the east side of the Mississippi producing necessarily

frequent contact with the whites, whose ideas of the great value of the

country had been imparted to these Indians; secondly, their great

experience in Indian diplomacy, being in the enjoyment already of

liberal annuities under former stipulations"—all these things rendered

them as "indifferent to the making of another treaty at present as the

whites on their borders were anxious that their lands should be

acquired." In consequence of this indomitable common-sense on the part

of the Indians the sessions of the commissioners were tedious and long;

not until a month had passed did they prevail on these Indians to sign

away the coveted lands, "the garden-spot of the Mississippi Valley," and

they were obliged to more than treble the number of cents per acre which

they had been instructed to pay. For thirty-five millions of acres of

land they agreed to pay nominally $3,075,000, which would be between

eight and nine cents an acre. But as $2,500,000 was to be held in trust,

and only the interest at five per cent, to be paid to the Indians, and

this only for the term of fifty years, at which time the principal was

to revert to the Government, it will be easily reckoned that the Indians

would receive, all told, only about six and one-quarter cents an acre.

And taking into account the great value of the relinquished lands, and

the price the Government would undoubtedly obtain for them, it will be

readily conceded that Governor Ramsey was not too sanguine when he

stated, in his report to the Interior Department, that the "actual cost

to the Government of this magnificent purchase is only the sum paid in

hand" ($575,000).

The governor says that it was "by no means the purpose" of the

commission "to act other than justly and generously toward the Indians;"

that "a continuation of the payment of large sums of interest annually

would do them no further good "after fifty years had expired, and would

be "inconsistent with sound governmental policy." He says that the

Dakota nation, although warlike, is "friendly to the whites," and that

it may be reasonably expected that, "by a judicious expenditure of the

civilization and improvement funds provided for in these treaties," they

will soon take the lead "in agriculture and other industrial pursuits."

One of the provisions of this treaty forbade the introduction of ardent

spirits into the new reservation. This was put in in accordance with the

"earnest desire" of the chiefs, who requested that "some stringent

measures should be taken by the Government to exclude all kinds of

liquors from their new home."

By this treaty the four great bands of Minnesota Sioux were all to be

"consolidated together on one reservation in the upper part of the

Mississippi Valley." This region was thought to be "sufficiently remote

to guarantee" them against any pressure from the white population for

many years to come. Farms were to be opened for them, mills and schools

to be established, and dwelling-houses erected. They were to have now a

chance to own "that domestic country called home, with all the living

sympathies and all the future hopes and projects which people it." From

this time "a new era was to be dated in the history of the Dakotas: an

era full of brilliant promise." The tract of territory relinquished by

them was "larger than the State of New York, fertile and beautiful

beyond description," far the best part of Minnesota. It is "so far

diversified in natural advantages that its productive powers may be

considered almost inexhaustible. *** Probably no tract on the surface of

the globe is equally well watered. *** A large part is rich arable land;

portions are of unsurpassed fertility, and eminently adapted to the

production in incalculable quantities of the cereal grains. The

boundless plains present inexhaustible fields of pasturage, and the

river bottoms are richer than the banks of the Nile. In the bowels of

the earth there is every indication of extensive mineral fields."

It would seem that the assertion made only a few lines before this

glowing paragraph—"to the Indians themselves the broad regions which

have been ceded are of inconsiderable value"—could not be true. It would

seem that for eight thousand people, who, according to this same writer,

"have outlived in a great degree the means of subsistence of the hunter

state," and must very soon "resort to the pursuits of agriculture,"

nothing could have been more fortunate than to have owned and occupied

thirty-five millions of acres of just such land as this.

They appear to be giving already some evidence of a disposition to turn

this land to account. The reports from the different farms and schools

show progress in farming industry and also in study. The farming is

carried on with difficulty, because there are only a few carts and

ploughs, which must be used in turn by the different farmers, and

therefore must come to some quite too late to be of use, and there is

much quarrelling among them owing to this trouble. Nevertheless, these

bands have raised over four thousand bushels of corn in the year. There

is also a great opposition to the schools, because the Indians have been

told that the accumulated fifty thousand dollars which is due to them

would be paid to them in cash if it were not for the schools.

Nevertheless, education is slowly progressing; in this year fifty copies

of a little missionary paper called _The Dakota Friend_ were subscribed

for in the one mission station of Lac qui Parle, and sixty scholars were

enrolled at the school. The blacksmith at St. Peter's reports that he

has made during the year 2506 pieces of one sort and another for the

Indians, and repaired 1430 more. Evidently a community keeping

blacksmiths so busy as this are by no means wholly idle themselves.

It is worth while to dwell upon these seemingly trivial details at this

point in the history of the Minnesota Sioux, because they are all

significant to mark the point in civilization they had already reached,

and the disposition they had already shown toward industry before they

were obliged to submit to their first great removal. Their condition at

the end of two years from the ratification of these treaties is curtly

told in the official reports of the Indian Bureau:

"The present situation of that portion of the Sioux Indians parties to

the treaties of July 23d and August 5th, 1851, is peculiar, unfortunate,

and to them must prove extremely injurious. By these treaties they

reluctantly parted with a very large extent of valuable country, which

it was of the greatest importance to the Government to acquire. An

insignificant portion of it near its western boundary, not deemed

necessary or desirable for a white population for many years, if at all,

was agreed to be reserved and assigned to them for their future

residence. The Senate amended the treaties, striking out this provision,

allowing ten cents an acre in lieu of the reservations, and requiring

the President, with the assent of the Indians, if they agreed to the

amendments, to assign them such tracts of country, beyond the limits of

that ceded, as might be satisfactory for their future home. To the

amendments was appended a proviso 'that the President may, by the

consent of the Indians, vary the conditions aforesaid, if deemed

expedient.' The Indians were induced to agree to the amendments;

'confiding in the justice, liberality, and humanity of the President and

the Congress of the United States, that such tracts of country will be

set apart for their future occupancy and home as will be to them

acceptable and satisfactory.' Thus, not only was the assent of the

Indians made necessary to a country being assigned to them without the

limits of that ceded, but, by the authority given to the President to

vary the conditions of the amendments to the treaties, he was empowered,

with the consent of the Indians, to place them upon the designated

reservations, or upon any other portion of the ceded territory, 'if

deemed expedient.'

"To avoid collisions and difficulties between the Indians and the white

population which rapidly commenced pouring into the ceded country, it

became necessary that the former should vacate at least a large portion

of it without delay, while there was neither the time nor the means to

make the requisite explorations to find a suitable location for them

beyond the limits of the cession.

"Under these pressing and embarrassing circumstances the late President

determined to permit them to remain five years on the designated

reservations, if they were willing to accept this alternative. They

assented, and many of them have been already removed. However

unavoidable this arrangement, it is a most unfortunate one. The Indians

are fully aware of its temporary character, and of the uncertainty as to

their future position, and will consequently be disinclined and deterred

from any efforts to make themselves comfortable and improve their

condition. The inevitable result must be that, at the end of the time

limited, they will be in a far worse condition than now, and the efforts

and expenditures of years to infuse into them a spirit of improvement

will all have been in vain.

"The large investments in mills, farms, mechanic shops, and other

improvements required by the treaties to be made for their benefit, will

be entirely wasted if the Indians are to remain on their reservations

only during the prescribed five years. At the very period when they

would begin to reap the full advantage of these beneficial provisions

they would have to remove. Another unfortunate feature of this

arrangement, if temporary, is that the Indians will have expended the

considerable sums set apart in the treaties for the expenses of their

removal to a permanent home, and for subsistence until they could

otherwise provide it, leaving nothing for these important and necessary

purposes in the event of another emigration. In view of these facts and

considerations, no time should be lost in determining upon some final

and permanent arrangement in regard to them."

The Governor of Minnesota also writes at this time: "The doubtful tenure

by which this tribe hold their supposed reservation is well understood

by their chiefs and headmen, and is beginning to give deep

dissatisfaction, and throwing daily more and more obstacles in the way

of their removal. This reservation will not be wanted for white men for

many years.

"There is not wood, or timber, or coal sufficient for the purposes of

civilization, except immediately on the St. Peter's and its tributaries.

From near the vicinity of the new agency there commences a vast prairie

of more than one hundred miles in extent, entirely destitute of timber,

and I feel confident that we never shall be able to keep any very large

number of them at their new agency, or near there.

"Already the fund set apart for the removal and subsistence the first

year of the Sissetons and Wah-pa-tons has been expended, and all their

provisions eaten up. Seventeen thousand dollars and upward have been

expended by Governor Ramsey, and one year in advance of the time fixed

by the treaty for their removal. This expenditure was made while he was

getting them to sign the Senate amendments to the treaty of 1851, which

they were very reluctant to do, and which not more than half the chiefs

have signed. These Indians want the Government to confirm this

reservation to them. I would recommend that this be done as the only

means to satisfy them, and humanity demands it."

Here is a picture of a helpless people! Forced to give up the

"garden-spot of the State," and accept in its stead an "insignificant

tract, on the greater part of which there is not wood, or timber, or

coal sufficient for civilization;" and then, before the ink of this

treaty is dry, told that even from this insignificant tract they must

promise to move at the end of five years. What words could characterize

such a transaction between man and man? There is not a country, a

people, a community in which it would be even attempted! Was it less

base, or more, being between a strong government and a feeble race?

From the infamy of accomplishing this purpose the United States was

saved. Remonstrances, and still more the resistance of the Indians,

prevailed, and in 1854 we find the poor creatures expressing "much

satisfaction" that the President has decreed that they are to remain

permanently on their "insignificant tract."

The Upper Missouri Sioux are still suffering and destitute; a few of

them cultivating little patches of ground, depending chiefly on the

chase, and on roots and wild berries; when these resources fail there is

nothing left for them but to starve, or to commit depredations on white

settlers. Some of the bands, nevertheless, have scrupulously observed

the stipulations of the Fort Laramie treaty in 1851, show a "strong

desire for improvement," and are on the most friendly terms with the

whites. These peaceable and friendly bands are much distressed, as well

they may be, at the reckless course pursued by others of their tribe.

They welcome the presence of the soldiers sent to chastise the

offenders, and gladly render all the service to them they can, even

against their relatives and friends.

In 1855 it is stated that "various causes have combined to prevent the

Minnesota Sioux from deriving, heretofore, much substantial benefit from

the very liberal provisions of the treaties of 1851. Until after the

reservations were permanently assured to the Indians (1854) it would

have been highly improper to have made the expenditures for permanent

improvements, and since then the affairs of the agency have not been

free from confusion."

"Large sums of money have been expended for these Sioux, but they have

been indolent, extravagant, intemperate, and have wasted their means

without improving, or seeming to desire to improve their condition."

Both these statements are made in grave good faith; certainly without

any consciousness of their bearing on each other. It is not stated,

however, what specific means the Sioux could have employed "to improve

their condition," had they "desired" to do so.

The summer of 1857 was one which will long be remembered by the citizens

of Minnesota. It was opened by terrible massacres, which were all the

work of a strolling outcast band of Sioux, not more than fifteen in

number. They had been driven out of their tribe some sixteen years

previous, and had been ever since then leading a wandering and marauding

life. The beginning of the trouble was a trivial difficulty between one

of the white settlers on Rock River and an Indian. The settler's dog bit

the Indian, and the Indian shot the dog. For this the white settlers

beat the Indian severely, and then went to the camp and by force took

away all the guns of the band. This was at a season of the year when to

be without guns meant simply to be without food, and the Indians were

reduced at once to a condition of great suffering. By some means they

either repossessed themselves of their guns or procured others, and,

attacking the settlement, killed all the inhabitants except four women,

whom they carried away with them, and treated with the utmost barbarity.

The inevitable results of such horrors followed. The thousands of

peaceable Indians in Minnesota, who did not even know of this outrage,

were all held in one common terror and hatred by the general public;

only the very great firmness and discretion of the military officers

sent to deal with the outbreak saved Minnesota from a general uprising

and attack from all the Sioux bands, who were already in a state of

smouldering discontent by reason of the non-payment of their annuities.

However, they obeyed the demands of the Government that they themselves

should pursue this offending band, and either capture or exterminate it.

They killed four, and took three prisoners, and then returned "much

jaded and worn," and said they could do no more without the help of

United States soldiers; and that they thought they had now done enough

to show their loyalty, and to deserve the payment of their annuities.

One of the chiefs said: "The man who killed white people did not belong

to us, and we did not expect to be called to account for the people of

another band. We have always tried to do as our Great Father tells us."

Another said: "I am going to speak of the treaty. For fifty years we

were to be paid $50,000 per annum. We were also promised $300,000 that

we have not seen. I wish to say to my Great Father we were promised

these things, but have not seen them yet. Why does not the Great Father

do as he promised?"

These hostilities were speedily brought to an end, yet the situation was

by no means reassuring for the Indians. But one sentiment seemed to

inspire the whole white population, and this was the desire to

exterminate the entire Indian race.

"For the present," writes the superintendent, "it is equally important

to protect the Indians from the whites as the whites from the Indians

and this in spite of the fact that all the leading bands of the treaty

Sioux had contributed warriors to go in pursuit of the murderers, had

killed or captured all they could find, and stood ready to go again

after the remaining eight, if the United States troops would go also and

assist them. Spite of the exertions of one of the chiefs of the Lower

Sioux, "Little Crow," who, the superintendent says, labored with him

"night and day in organizing the party, riding continually between the

lower and upper agencies," so that they "scarcely slept" till the

war-party had set out on the track of the murderers; spite of the fact

that the whole body of the Sioux, without exception, "received the

intelligence with as much indignation and disapprobation as the whites

themselves, and did their best to stand clear of any suspicion of or

connection with the affair—spite of all this, they were in continual

danger of being shot at sight by the terrified and unreasoning settlers.

One band, under the chief Sleepy Eyes, were returning to their homes

from a hunt; and while they were "wondering what the panic among the

whites meant" (they having heard nothing of the massacre), were fired

into by some of the militia volunteers.

The next day a white settler was found killed near that spot—presumably

by some member of Sleepy Eyes' band. This excitement slowly abated, and

for the next four years a steady improvement was visible in the

Minnesota Sioux. Hundreds of them threw aside the blanket—the

distinctive badge of their wild state; schools were well attended, and

farms were well tilled. That there was great hostility to this

civilization, on the part of the majority of the tribe, cannot be

denied; but that was only natural—the inevitable protest of a

high-spirited and proud race against abandoning all its race

distinctions. When we see the men of Lorraine, or of Montenegro, ready

to die for the sake merely of being called by the name of one power

rather than by that of another, we find it heroic, and give them our

sympathies; but when the North American Indian is ready to die rather

than wear the clothes and follow the ways of the white man, we feel for

him only unqualified contempt, and see in his instinct nothing more than

a barbarian's incapacity to appreciate civilization. Is this just?

In 1861 the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, visiting these Sioux,

reports: "I was much surprised to find so many of the Sioux Indians

wearing the garb of civilization, many of them living in frame or brick

houses, some of them with stables or out-houses, and their fields

indicating considerable knowledge of agriculture. Their condition," he

says, "affords abundant evidence of what may be accomplished among the

Sioux Indians by steadily adhering to a uniform, undeviating policy.

"The number that live by agricultural pursuits is yet small compared

with the whole; but their condition is so much better than that of the

wild Indian, that they, too, are becoming convinced that it is the

better way to live; and many are coming in, asking to have their hair

cut, and for a suit of clothes, and to be located on a piece of land

where they can build a house and fence in their fields."

Many more of them would have entered on the agricultural life had the

Government provided ways and means for them to do so. In this same

report is a mention of one settlement of two thousand Indians at Big

Stone Lake, who "have been hitherto almost entirely neglected. These

people complain that they have lived upon promises for the last ten

years, and are really of opinion that white men never perform what they

promise. Many of them would go to work if they had any reasonable

encouragement."

The annuities are still in arrears. Every branch of the industries and

improvements attempted suffers for want of the promised funds, and from

delays in payments expected. The worst result, however, of these delays

in the fulfilment of treaty stipulations was the effect on the Indians.

A sense of wrong in the past and distrust for the future was ever

deepening in their minds, and preparing them to be suddenly thrown by

any small provocation into an antagonism and hostility grossly

disproportionate to the apparent cause. This was the condition of the

Minnesota Sioux in the summer of 1862.[23]

Footnote 23:

See Appendix, Art. VI.

The record of the massacres of that summer is scarcely equalled in the

history of Indian wars. Early in August some bands of the Upper Sioux,

who had been waiting at their agency nearly two months for their annuity

payments, and had been suffering greatly for food during that time—so

much so that "they dug up roots to appease their hunger, and when corn

was turned out to them they devoured it uncooked, like wild

animals"—became desperate, broke into the Government warehouse, and took

some of the provisions stored there. This was the real beginning of the

outbreak, although the first massacre was not till the 18th. When that

began, the friendly Indians were powerless to resist—in fact, they were

threatened with their lives if they did not join. Nevertheless, some of

them rescued whole families, and carried them to places of safety;

others sheltered and fed women and children in their own lodges; many

fled, leaving all their possessions behind—as much victims of the

outbreak as the Minnesota people themselves. For three days the hostile

bands, continually re-enforced, went from settlement to settlement,

killing and plundering. A belt of country nearly two hundred miles in

length and about fifty in width was entirely abandoned by the

population, who flocked in panic to the towns and forts. Nearly a

thousand were killed—men, women, and children—and nameless outrages were

committed on many. Millions of dollars' worth of property were

destroyed. The outbreak was quickly quelled by military force, and a

large number of Indians captured. Many voluntarily surrendered, bringing

with them over two hundred whites that they had taken prisoners. A

military commission tried these Indians, and sentenced over three

hundred to be hung. All but thirty-nine were reprieved and put into

prison. The remainder were moved to Dakota, to a barren desert, where

for three years they endured sufferings far worse than death. The

remainder escaped to the Upper Missouri region or to Canada.[24]

Footnote 24:

All the Winnebagoes were removed from Minnesota at the same time.

Minnesota, at a terrible cost to herself and to the United States

Government, was at last free from the presence of Indians within her

borders—Indians who were her enemies only because they had been treated

with injustice and bad faith.

During this time the bands of Sioux in the Upper Missouri region had

been more or less hostile, and military force in continual requisition

to subdue them. Re-enforced by the Minnesota refugees, they became more

hostile still, and in the summer of 1863 were in almost incessant

conflict. In 1864 the Governor of Dakota Territory writes to the

Department that the war is spreading into Nebraska and Kansas, and that

if provision is not made for the loyal treaty Indians in that region

before long, they also will join the hostiles. One band of the Sioux—the

Yanktons—has been persistently loyal, and rendered great service through

all the troubles. Fifty of these Yankton Sioux had been organized by

General Sibley into a company of scouts, and had proved "more effective

than twice the number of white soldiers." The only cost to the

Government "of this service on the part of the Yanktons had been fifty

suits of condemned artillery uniforms, arms, and rations in part to the

scouts themselves."

In 1865 the Government, having spent about $40,000,000 on these

campaigns, began to cast about for cheaper, if not more humane methods,

and, partly at the instance of the Governor of Dakota, who knew very

well that the Indians desired peace, sent out a commission to treat with

them. There were now, all told, some 14,000 Sioux in this region, nearly

2000 being the refugees from Minnesota.

The report of this commission is full of significant statements. There

seems to be no doubt that the great majority of the Indians are anxious

for peace; but they are afraid to meet the agents of the Government,

lest they be in some way betrayed. Such bands as are represented,

however, gladly assent to a treaty of peace and good-will. The

commissioners speak with great feeling of the condition of the loyal

Yanktons. "No improvements have been made on their lands, and the

commissioners were obliged to issue provisions to them to keep them from

starving. *** No crops met the eye, nor is there the semblance of a

school-house."

Yet by Article four of the treaty with the Yankton Sioux the United

States Government had agreed to expend $10,000 in erecting a suitable

building or buildings, and to establish and maintain one or more normal

labor schools; and it is to be read in the United States Statutes at

Large that in each of the years 1860, 1861, 1862, and 1863, Congress

appropriated $65,000, as per treaty, for the benefit of the Yankton

Sioux.

"With the exception of a few miserable huts, a saw-mill, and a small

amount of land enclosed, there are few vestiges of improvement. *** They

are reduced to the necessity of hunting for a living, and, unless soon

reassured and encouraged, they will be driven to despair, and the great

discontent existing among them will culminate in another formidable

Indian war."

Nine treaties were concluded by this commission with as many different

bands of Sioux, the Indians pledging themselves to abstain from all

hostilities with each other and with the whites, and the Government

agreeing to pay to the Indians fifteen dollars a head per annum, and to

all who will settle down to farming twenty-five dollars a head.

In the winter following these treaties all these Indians faithfully kept

their promises, in spite of terrible sufferings from cold and from lack

of food. Some of them were at the old Crow Creek Reservation in Dakota,

where they were "kept from absolute starvation only by the issue to them

of such scanty supplies as could be spared from the stores at Fort

Sully, and from the agency." It is much to the credit of these Indians

that, in spite of their manifold sufferings, scarcely a case of stealing

occurred among them, they being determined to keep their faith to the

Government.

"They will run like chickens to gather the offal from the slop buckets

that are carried from the garrison kitchens; while they pass a pile of

corn and hundreds of loose cattle without touching a thing, except when

told they may gather up the grains of corn from the ground where the

rats in their depredations have let it fall from the sacks," says the

report of one of the commissioners.

In the summer of 1865 still further treaties were concluded with the

Indians of the plains, and all the Sioux, with the exception of those in

the British possessions, were now pledged to peace. This summer also saw

the first recognition on the part of the Government of its flagrant

injustice toward the friendly Minnesota Sioux who were moved to Crow

Creek, Dakota, at the time of the massacre. There were nearly one

thousand of these—mostly old men, women, and children—many of them the

widows and children of those who had been hung or were in prison at

Davenport. For three years they had been "quiet and patient in their

sufferings."

The two hundred prisoners in Davenport had also shown "an excellent

disposition and entire submission," although many of them were known and

proved to have been "absolutely guiltless of any acts of hostility; and

not only this, but deserving of reward for the rescue of white

captives." Certificates, petitions, and letters showing these facts were

forwarded from Iowa to the Department, but the commissioner says, in his

report for 1866, that "they have been mislaid in their passage through

the various departments, and cannot be found!"

There was still another class of these Indians deserving of help from

the Government—some two hundred and fifty friendly farmer Indians, who

were living in 1862 quietly on their farms, "who have acted as scouts

for the Government; who never committed any acts of hostility, nor fled

with those who did commit them," and have still remained friendly

through these four years, "while compelled to a vagabond life by the

indiscriminate confiscation of all their land and property."

"The crops belonging to these farmer Indians were valued at $125,000,

and they had large herds of stock of all kinds, fine farms, and

improvements. The United States troops engaged in suppressing the

massacre, also the prisoners taken by them—in all, some 3500 men—lived

for fifty days on this property."

Strong efforts were made by Bishop Whipple and others to obtain from the

Government some aid for these friendly Indians, and the sum of $7500 was

appropriated by Congress for that purpose. The letter of Bishop Whipple,

who was requested to report on the division of this sum, is so eloquent

a summing up of the case of these Indians, that it ought to be placed on

permanent record in the history of our country. He writes:

"There is positive injustice in the appropriation of so miserable a

pittance. *** A much larger sum would not pay the amount which we

honestly owe these men. The Government was the trustee of the Upper and

Lower Sioux. It held several millions of dollars for their benefit—the

joint property of the tribes. These friendly Sioux had abandoned their

wild life, and adopted the dress, habits, and customs of civilization;

and in doing this, which placed them in open opposition to the

traditions of their tribes, they were pledged the protection of the

Government. By a mistaken policy, by positive neglect to provide a

government, by the perversion of funds due them for the sale of one-half

their reservations, by withholding their annuities until two months

after they were due (which was caused by the use of a part of these

funds for claims), by permitting other causes of dissatisfaction to go

on unheeded, we provoked the hostility of the wild Indians, and it went

on until it ripened in massacre. These farmer Indians had been pledged a

patent for their farms: unless we violated our solemn pledge, these

lands were theirs by a title as valid as any title could be. They had

large crops, sufficient to support General Sibley's army for a number of

weeks. They lost all they had—crops, stock, clothing, furniture. In

addition to this, they were deprived of their share in these annuities,

and for four years have lived in very great suffering. You can judge

whether $5000 shall be deemed a just reward[25] for the bravery and

fidelity of men who, at the risk of their own lives, were instrumental

in saving white captives, and maintained their friendship to the whites.

Footnote 25:

Two thousand five hundred of the seven thousand five hundred dollars

had been especially set aside by the Government (unjust in its rewards

as in its punishments) for Chief Other Day, who was really less

deserving than many others.

"I submit to you, sir, and through you hope to reach all who fear God

and love justice, whether the very least we can do for all the friendly

Sioux is not to fulfil the pledges we made years ago, and give to each

of them a patent of eighty acres of land, build them a house, and

provide them cattle, seeds, and implements of husbandry?"

In 1866 all these Sioux were removed, and, in spite of the protestations

of the Nebraska citizens, settled on reservations on the Niobrara River,

in Northern Nebraska. It soon became evident that this place was

undesirable for a reservation, both on account of its previous occupancy

by the whites and scarcity of timber.

In the fall they removed again to the mouth of Bazile Creek. Temporary

buildings were again erected, and here they spent the winters of 1866

and 1867. In February they were cheered by the invitation sent their

chiefs and headmen to visit Washington. They went, feeling sure that

they should get a home for themselves and people. "All they got was a

promise that a commission should be sent out to visit them the next

year." They were told, however, to move to Breckenridge, on the west

bank of the Missouri, plant crops there, and were promised that, if they

liked the place, they should have it "secured to them as a permanent

home." Accordingly, the "agency buildings" were once more removed, and

two hundred acres of land were planted. Before the crops were harvested

the commission arrived, and urged the Indians to move farther up the

Missouri. The Indians being averse to this, however, they were allowed

to remain, and told that if they would cultivate the soil like white

men—take lands in severalty—the Government would assist them. The

Indians gladly consented to this, and signed a treaty to that effect.

But in 1868 their agent writes: "That treaty is not yet ratified, and,

instead of assistance to open farms, their appropriation has been cut

down one half. After paying for supplies purchased on credit last year,

it is entirely insufficient for clothing and subsistence, and leaves

nothing for opening farms, procuring cattle," etc. These Indians, only

five years previous, had been living on good farms, and had $125,000

worth of stock, implements, etc. No wonder their agent writes: "Leave

them without a home a few years longer, and you offer strong inducements

for them to become idle and worthless."

It is an intricate and perplexing task to attempt now to follow the

history of the different bands of the Sioux tribe through all their

changes of location and affiliation—some in Dakota, some in Nebraska,

and some on the Upper Arkansas with the hostile Cheyennes and

Arapahoes—signing treaties one summer, and on the war-path the

next—promised a home in spring, and ordered off it before harvest—all

the time more and more hemmed in by white settlers, and more and more

driven out of their buffalo ranges by emigrations—liable at any time to

have bodies of United States soldiers swoop down on them and punish

whole bands for depredations committed by a handful of men, perhaps of a

totally distinct band—the wonder is not that some of them were hostile

and vindictive, but that any of them remained peaceable and friendly.

Bandied about from civil authorities to military—the War Department

recommending "that all Indians not on fixed reservations be considered

at war," and proceeded against accordingly, and the Interior Department

neglecting to provide them with "fixed reservations," or to define or

enforce the boundaries of even their temporary reservations—tricked,

cheated on all sides—starving half the time—there is not a tribe of all

the persecuted tribes of Indians that has a more piteous record than the

Sioux. Nevertheless, we find many of the bands, in 1870, advancing in

civilization. In the Yankton band nearly one hundred children are in

school, and eight hundred acres of land are under cultivation. The Lower

Yanktons are peaceful and quiet, although they are near the Brulés, who

are always roving and hostile. The Sissetons and Wahpetons, who were by

a treaty of 1867 placed on reservations in Dakota, are "industrious, and

fast advancing in agricultural pursuits." Four schools are in operation

among them. The Yanktons are "anxious to farm, and state that the

Government has promised to assist and teach them to farm; that they are

and have been ready for some time, but as yet the agent has not received

any instructions or funds to permit of their accomplishing their

desire."

Two events, important in the history of the Sioux tribe, happened in

1869 and 1870. One was the visit of a delegation of chiefs and headmen

from several of the bands, under the leadership of the chief Red Cloud,

to Washington, Philadelphia, and New York. They had thus an opportunity

of relating all their grievances, and of receiving the Government's

declarations of good intentions toward them. Red Cloud, after his return

home, became an ardent and determined advocate of peace and loyalty. The

other was the withdrawal of a portion of the Santee Sioux from their

band, for the purpose of taking up farms under the Homestead Act, and

becoming independent citizens. The story of this experiment, and the

manner in which it was met by the United States Government, is best told

in the words of Dr. Williamson, a missionary, who had lived thirty-five

years among them, and who pleaded thus warmly for them in a letter

addressed to the Department in the summer of 1870: "Several

considerations have influenced the Dakotas in going to the Big Sioux

River: 1st. The soil and climate are more similar to that to which they

have been accustomed in Minnesota, their former home, than is that of

their reservation on the Missouri; 2d. Feeling that they were men

capable of sustaining themselves if a fair opportunity is afforded them,

they felt that it was degrading to live as sinecures and pensioners

dependent on Government for food and clothing; 3d. And chiefly a desire

to make homes for their families where they could be subjected to, and

protected by, the laws of the United States, the same as all other men

are. This they thought could not be the case on their reservation.

"These Sioux were parties to the treaties made in 1851, by which they

and other bands ceded to the United States all the best settled parts of

Minnesota west of the Mississippi for less than one-hundredth part of

its present value, and much less than the lands were worth to them as

hunting-grounds. And while as hunters they needed no protection of the

law, they knew that as agriculturists they could not live without it;

and they positively refused to sell their hunting-grounds till the

Commissioner of the United States promised that they should be protected

in their persons and property the same as white men. Government never

accorded to them this protection, which, in the view of the Indians, was

a very important consideration in selling the lands. This neglect on the

part of the Government led to yearly complaints, and the massacres of

1862. *** These Sioux were most of them previous to the war living in

comfortable homes, with well-cultivated farms and teams," and were

receiving by annuity provisions, either in money or the equivalent,

about $50 a head annually, from interest on their money invested in the

bonds of the Government. These Indians, in taking up their new

homesteads, were required by the Department to renounce, on oath, all

claims on the United States for annuities. Without doubt, citizenship of

the United States, the protection of our laws, is worth a great sum; but

is it wise or right in our Government to require these natives of the

country to purchase, at a price of several thousands of dollars, that

which is given without money or price to every immigrant from Asia,

Europe, or Africa that asks for it?

"Besides their annuities, there is due them from the Government the

proceeds of the sale of their old reservation on the Minnesota River,

which is more than forty miles long and ten wide; which, after paying

expenses of survey and sale, are, according to a law of the United

States, to be expended in assisting them to make homes elsewhere; and as

these lands were valued at $1.25 an acre and upward, and are rapidly

selling, the portion which will be due each of the Indians cannot be

less than $200 or $300—or $1000 for each family. The oath required of

them is supposed to bar them from any claim to this also. Now, I cannot

see how this decision of the Indian Department is consistent either with

justice or good policy, and it is certainly inconsistent with both the

spirit and letter of Articles six and ten of a treaty between the United

States of America and different bands of Sioux Indians, concluded in

1868, and ratified and proclaimed February, 1869. *** What I ask for

them is that our Government restore to them a part of what we took from

them, and give them the same chance to live and thrive which we give to

all the other inhabitants of our country, whether white or black. ***

That some aid is very necessary must be obvious to you, who know how

difficult it is for even white men, trained to work, and with several

hundred dollars in property, to open a new farm in this Western

wilderness. Their number is probably greater than you are aware of. When

I administered the Lord's Supper there on the first Sabbath of this

month, there were present seventy-seven communicants of our church,

besides quite a number of other persons. *** It is owing to the Santee

Sioux—partly to those on the Big Sioux River, chiefly to those near Fort

Wadsworth—that in the last five years not a single white inhabitant of

Minnesota or Iowa has been murdered by the wild Indians, while many have

been cut off in every frontier State and Territory south-west of the

Missouri. So long as the Christian Sioux can be kept on the frontier,

the white settlements are safe. *** In conclusion, I wish again to call

your attention to the fact that these Indians on the Big Sioux purchase

citizenship at a very great sum, and to entreat you to do all in your

power to secure for them that protection of person or property for which

they bargain, and without which nothing our Government can do will make

them prosperous or happy."

No attention was paid to this appeal; and the next year the

indefatigable missionary sent a still stronger one, setting forth that

this colony now numbered fifty families; had been under the instruction

of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions for many

years; had a church of one hundred members; a native preacher, partly

supported by them; had built log-cabins on their claims, and planted

farms, "many of them digging up the ground with hoes and spades."

Dr. Williamson reiterates the treaty provisions under which he claims

that these Indians are entitled to aid. The sixth Article of the treaty

of 1868 closes as follows: "Any Indian or Indians receiving a patent for

land under the foregoing provisions, shall thereby and henceforth become

and be a citizen of the United States, and be entitled to all the

privileges and immunities of such citizenship, and shall at the same

time retain all his rights and benefits accruing to Indians under this

treaty."

This treaty goes on to provide most liberally for all Indians adopting

the civilized mode of life. Article eighth specially provides for

supplying them with seed and agricultural implements, and this is what

they most of all need.

The encouragement held forth in this treaty was one great motive in

leading these people to break tribal influences, so deleterious to

improvement, and adopt our democratic civilization. Is it not base

tyranny to disappoint them? They are the first Sioux, if not the first

Indians in the United States to adopt the spirit and life of our

American civilization. They have of their own accord done just what the

Government has been for generations trying to get the Indians to do. And

now will the Government refuse this helping hand? To our shame, it has

for two years refused. And why? Because the Indians said, "If we become

civilized, it is necessary for us to break up tribal relations, and

settle down like white men."

In 1873 the Government at last yielded to this request, and sent out

oxen, wagons, ploughs, etc., enough to stock thirty farms. In 1874, Dr.

Williamson, having been appointed a special agent for them, reports

their progress: "They all live in log-houses and wear citizens' dress.

*** One hundred and nineteen can read their own language fluently. They

all go to church regularly. They have broken one hundred and

seventy-seven acres of new prairie. Twenty new houses have been built.

*** They have cut and hauled two hundred cords of wood, hauling some of

it forty miles to market. *** They have done considerable freighting

with their teams, going sometimes a hundred miles away. They have earned

thirty-five hundred dollars, catching small furs. *** One Indian has the

contract for carrying the mail through Flandreau, for which he receives

one thousand dollars a year. *** It is but a few miles from Flandreau to

the far-famed pipe-stone quarry, and these Indians make many little sums

by selling pipes, rings, ink-glasses, etc., made of this beautiful red

stone. *** They are anxious to be taught how to make baskets, mats,

cloth; and the young men ask to be taught the blacksmith and carpenter

trades."

This is a community that only five years before had pushed out into an

unbroken wilderness without a dollar of money, without a plough, to open

farms. "Without ploughs, they had to dig the sod with their hoes, and at

the same time make their living by hunting. They suffered severe

hardships, and a number of their best men perished in snow-storms.

Believing they were carrying out the wishes of the Great Father, as

expressed in the treaty of 1868, to which they were parties, they were

disappointed when for three years no notice was taken of them." There is

something pathetic in the gratitude they are said now to feel for the

niggardly gift of a few oxen, wagons, and ploughs. They have apparently

given over all hope of ever obtaining any of the money due them on

account of their lands sold in Minnesota. No further allusion is made to

it by Dr. Williamson.

From the Yankton Sioux this year comes a remarkable report: "We have no

jail, no law except the treaty and the agent's word, yet we have no

quarrels, no fighting, and, with one or two exceptions, not a single

case of drunkenness during the year. This I consider remarkable, when we

take into consideration the fact that the reservation is surrounded by

ranches where liquors of all kinds can be obtained." Is there another

village of two thousand inhabitants in the United States of which this

can be said?

In this year a commission was sent to treat with some of the wilder

bands of Sioux for the relinquishment of their right to hunt and roam

over a large part of their unneeded territory in Kansas and Nebraska.

Some of the chiefs consented. Red Cloud's band refused at first; "but on

being told that the right would soon be taken from them," after a delay

of two days they "agreed to accept," merely stipulating that their share

of the twenty-five thousand dollars promised should be paid in horses

and guns. They insisted, however, on this proviso: "That we do not

surrender any right of occupation of the country situated in Nebraska

north of the divide, which is south of and near to the Niobrara River

and west of the one hundredth meridian."

It was a significant fact that, when these Sioux gave up this hunting

privilege, "they requested that nearly all the $25,000 they received in

compensation for this relinquishment should be expended in cows, horses,

harness, and wagons," says the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1875.

There are still some thousand or more of hostile Sioux roaming about

under the famous chief Sitting Bull—living by the chase when they can,

and by depredations when they must; occasionally, also, appearing at

agencies, and drawing rations among the other Indians unsuspected. The

remainder of the bands are steadily working their way on toward

civilization. The Santees are a Christian community; they have their

industrial-schools, Sabbath-schools, and night-schools; they publish a

monthly paper in the Dakota tongue, which prints twelve hundred copies.

The Yanktons have learned to weave, and have made cloth enough to give

every Indian woman in the tribe one good dress. The Flandreau citizen

Sioux have a Presbyterian church of one hundred and thirty-five members,

and pay half the salary of the native preacher. On the occasion of an

anniversary meeting of the Dakota missionaries there, these people

raised one hundred dollars to pay for their entertainment. These three

bands are far the most advanced, but all the others are making steady

progress.

In 1876 the news from the Sioux on the agencies is that, owing to the

failure of appropriations, the Indian Bureau had been unable to send the

regular supplies, and the Indians, being in "almost a starving

condition," had been induced, by the "apparent purpose of the Government

to abandon them to starvation," to go north in large numbers, and join

the hostile camps of Sitting Bull. This was in the spring; again in

midsummer the same thing happened, and many of the Indians, growing

still more anxious and suspicious, left their agencies to join in the

war.

Congress would probably have paid little attention at this time to the

reading of this extract from "Kent's Commentaries:" "Treaties of peace,

when made by the competent power, are obligatory on the whole nation. If

the treaty requires the payment of money to carry it into effect, and

the money cannot be raised but by an act of the legislature, the treaty

is morally obligatory upon the legislature to pass the law; and to

repeal it would be a breach of the public faith."

A disturbed and unsettled condition of things prevailed at all the Sioux

agencies, consequent on this state of things. Companies of troops were

stationed at all of them to guard against outbreaks. Owing to lack of

funds, the Yanktons were obliged to give up their weaving and

basket-making. At the Standing Rock Agency, after the Indians had

planted eight hundred and seventy-two dollars' worth of seeds—of corn,

potatoes, and other vegetables—the grasshoppers came and devoured them.

"Many of these Indians, with their whole families, stood all day in

their fields fighting these enemies, and in several places succeeded so

far as to save a considerable part of their crops." The Santees were

made very anxious and unhappy by fresh rumors of their probable removal.

Public sentiment at the East, knowing no difference between different

tribes of Sioux, regarded it as maudlin sentimentalism to claim for the

Santees any more rights than for the hostiles that had murdered General

Custer. One of the agents in Dakota writes:

"The recent troubles in the Indian country, and the existing uncertainty

as to the future intentions of the Government toward the Indians,

occasion considerable uneasiness among them. *** Reports are circulated

that no further assistance will be rendered by the Government, as the

Great Council in Washington refuses to furnish money unless the Indians

are turned over to the War Department. Every inducement is held out to

encourage secession from the agencies, and strengthen the forces of the

hostile camp. It is not surprising that, in view of the non-arrival of

supplies, and the recent order of the War Department to arrest parties

leaving and arriving, that people less credulous than Indians would feel

undecided and uneasy. *** It must be remembered that the whole Sioux

nation is related, and that there is hardly a man, woman, or child in

the hostile camp who has not blood relations at one or the other of the

agencies."

Contrast the condition into which all these friendly Indians are

suddenly plunged now, with their condition only two years previous:

martial law now in force on all their reservations; themselves in danger

of starvation, and constantly exposed to the influence of emissaries

from their friends and relations, urging them to join in fighting this

treacherous government that had kept faith with nobody—neither with

friend nor with foe; that made no discriminations in its warfare between

friends and foes; burning villages occupied only by women and children;

butchering bands of Indians living peacefully under protection of its

flag, as at Sand Creek, in Colorado—no wonder that one of the military

commander's official reports says, "The hostile body was largely

re-enforced by accessions from the various agencies, where the

malcontents were, doubtless, in many cases, driven to desperation by

starvation and the heartless frauds perpetrated on them;" and that the

Interior Department is obliged to confess that, "Such desertions were

largely due to the uneasiness which the Indians had long felt on account

of the infraction of treaty stipulations by the white invasion of the

Black Hills, seriously aggravated at the most critical period by

irregular and insufficient issues of rations, necessitated by inadequate

and delayed appropriations."

It was at this time that Sitting Bull made his famous reply: "Tell them

at Washington if they have one man who speaks the truth to send him to

me, and I will listen to what he has to say."

The story of the military campaign against these hostile Sioux in 1876

and 1877 is to be read in the official records of the War Department, so

far as statistics can tell it. Another history, which can never be read,

is written in the hearts of widowed women in the Sioux nation and in the

nation of the United States.

Before midsummer the Sioux war was over. The indomitable Sitting Bull

had escaped to Canada—that sanctuary of refuge for the Indian as well as

for the slave. Here he was visited in the autumn by a commission from

the United States, empowered by the President to invite him with his

people to return, and be "assigned to agencies," and treated "in as

friendly a spirit as other Indians had been who had surrendered." It was

explained to him that every one of the Indians who had surrendered had

"been treated in the same manner as those of your nation who, during all

the past troubles, remained peaceably at their agencies." As a great

part of those who had fled from these same agencies to join Sitting Bull

had done so because they were starving, and the Government knew this

(had printed the record of the fact in the reports of two of its

Departments), this was certainly a strange phraseology of invitation for

it to address to Sitting Bull. His replies and those of his chiefs were

full of scathing sarcasm. Secure on British soil, they had for once safe

freedom of speech as well as of action, and they gave the United States

Commissioners very conclusive reasons why they chose to remain in

Canada, where they could "trade with the traders and make a living," and

where their women had "time to raise their children."[26]

Footnote 26:

See Appendix, Art. V.

The commissioners returned from their bootless errand, and the Interior

Department simply entered on its records the statement that "Sitting

Bull and his adherents are no longer considered wards of the

Government." It also enters on the same record the statement that "in

the months of September and October, 1876, the various Sioux agencies

were visited by a commission appointed under the Act of Congress, August

15th of that year, to negotiate with the Sioux for an agreement to

surrender that portion of the Sioux Reservation which included the Black

Hills, and certain hunting privileges outside that reserve, guaranteed

by the treaty of 1868; to grant a right of way across their reserve; and

to provide for the removal of the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail bands to

new agencies on the Missouri River. The commission were also authorized

to take steps to gain the consent of the Sioux to their removal to the

Indian Territory. *** The commission were successful in all the

negotiations with which they were charged, and the Indians made every

concession that was desired by the Government, although we were engaged

at that very time in fighting their relatives and friends." The only

comment needed on this last paragraph is to suggest that a proper list

of errata for that page should contain: "For 'although' read 'because!'"

"On behalf of the United States the agreement thus entered into provided

for subsisting the Sioux on a stated ration until they should become

self-supporting; for furnishing schools, and all necessary aid and

instruction in agriculture and the mechanical arts, and for the

allotment of lands in severalty."

In accordance with this act, a commission was sent to select a location

on the Missouri River for the two new Sioux agencies (the Red Cloud and

Spotted Tail).

"For the former the site chosen is the junction of Yellow Medicine and

Missouri rivers, and at that point agency buildings have just been

erected," says the Report of the Indian Bureau for 1877. "For the latter

the old Ponca Reserve was decided on, where the agency buildings,

storehouses, one hundred and fifty Indian houses, and five hundred acres

of cultivated fields, left vacant by the Poncas, offer special

advantages for present quarters."

The commissioner says: "The removal of fourteen thousand Sioux Indians

at this season of the year, a distance of three hundred miles from their

old agencies in Nebraska to their new quarters near the Missouri River,

is not a pleasant matter to contemplate. Neither the present Secretary

of the Interior nor the present Commissioner of Indian Affairs is

responsible for the movement, but they have carried out the law

faithfully though reluctantly. The removal is being made in accordance

with the Act of August 15th, 1876. It is proper to say here that I

cannot but look on the necessity thus imposed by law on the executive

branch of the Government as an unfortunate one, and the consequences

ought to be remedied as speedily as possible.

"Let us for a moment consider that the Spotted Tail Agency was in 1871

on the west bank of the Missouri River, where the whites became

exceedingly troublesome, and the river afforded abundant facilities for

the introduction of intoxicating liquors. In 1874 the Red Cloud and

Spotted Tail agencies were removed to what a subsequent survey proved to

be the State of Nebraska—the former agency one hundred and sixty-five

miles from Cheyenne, and the latter one hundred and eight miles from

Sidney, the nearest points on the Union Pacific Railroad. Here the usual

ill-fortune attending the removal of these Indians was again exemplified

in placing the agencies on absolutely barren land, where there was no

possibility of cultivating the soil, no hope of their being enabled to

become self-supporting, and where they have of necessity been kept in

the hopeless condition of paupers."

In the hope of placing these Indians upon arable land, where they might

become civilized and self-supporting, the determination was hastily

taken to remove them back to the Missouri River. This step was taken

without a proper examination of other points on their reservation, where

it is stated that "a sufficient quantity of excellent wheat lands can be

found on either bank of the White River, and where there is also timber

sufficient in quantity and quality for all practical purposes. *** The

Indian chiefs, in their interview with the President in September last,

begged that they might not be sent to the Missouri River, as

whiskey-drinking and other demoralization would be the consequence. This

was the judgment of the best men of the tribe; but the necessity was one

that the President could not control. The provisions and supplies for

the ensuing winter had been placed, according to law, on the Missouri,

and, owing to the lateness of the season, it was impossible to remove

them to the old agencies. Accordingly, the necessities of the case

compelled the removal of these Indians in the midst of the snows and

storms of early winter, which have already set in."

If there were absolutely no other record written of the management of

Indian affairs by the Interior Department than this one page of the

history of these two bands of the Sioux tribe, this alone would be

enough to show the urgent need of an entirely new system. So many and

such hasty, ill-considered, uninformed, capricious, and cruel decisions

of arbitrary power could hardly be found in a seven years' record of any

known tyrant; and there is no tyrant whose throne would not have been

rocked, if not upset, by the revolutions which would have followed on

such oppressions.

There is a sequel to this story of the removal of the Red Cloud and

Spotted Tail bands—a sequel not recorded in the official reports of the

Department, but familiar to many men in the Western country. Accounts of

it—some humorous, some severe—were for some time floating about in

Western newspapers.

The Red Cloud and Spotted Tail bands of Sioux consented to go to the old

Ponca Reserve only after being told that all their supplies had been

sent to a certain point on the Missouri River with a view to this move;

and it being too late to take all this freight northward again, they

would starve if they stayed where they were. Being assured that they

would be allowed to go back in the spring, and having a written pledge

from General Crook (in whose word they had implicit faith) that the

Government would fulfil this promise, they at last very reluctantly

consented to go to the Ponca Reserve for the winter. In the spring no

orders came for the removal. March passed, April passed—no orders. The

chiefs sent word to their friend, General Crook, who replied to them

with messages sent by a swift runner, begging them not to break away,

but to wait a little longer. Finally, in May, the Commissioner of Indian

Affairs went himself to hold a council with them. When he rose to speak,

the chief Spotted Tail sprung up, walked toward him, waving in his hand

the paper containing the promise of the Government to return them to

White Clay Creek, and exclaimed, "All the men who come from Washington

are liars, and the bald-headed ones are the worst of all! I don't want

to hear one word from you—you are a bald-headed old liar! You have but

one thing to do here, and that is to give an order for us to return to

White Clay Creek. Here are your written words; and if you don't give

this order, and everything here is not on wheels inside of ten days,

I'll order my young men to tear down and burn everything in this part of

the country! I don't want to hear anything more from you, and I've got

nothing more to say to you:" and he turned his back on the commissioner

and walked away. Such language as this would not have been borne from

unarmed and helpless Indians; but when it came from a chief with four

thousand armed warriors at his back, it was another affair altogether.

The order was written. In less than ten days everything was "on wheels,"

and the whole body of these Sioux on the move to the country they had

indicated; and the Secretary of the Interior says, naïvely, in his

Report for 1868, "The Indians were found to be quite determined to move

westward, and the promise of the Government in that respect was

faithfully kept."

The reports from all the bands of Sioux for the past two years have been

full of indications of their rapid and encouraging improvement. "The

most decided advance in civilization has been made by the Ogallalla and

Brulé Sioux," says the Report of the Indian Bureau for 1879. "Their

progress during the last year and a half has been simply marvellous."

And yet this one band of Ogallalla Sioux has been moved, since 1863,

eight times. Is it not a wonder that they have any heart to work, any

hope of anything in the future?

"It is no longer a question," says this same report, "whether Indians

will work. They are steadily asking for opportunities to do so, and the

Indians who to-day are willing and anxious to engage in civilized labor

are largely in the majority; *** there is an almost universal call for

lands in severalty; *** there is a growing desire to live in houses; the

demand for agricultural implements and appliances, and for wagons and

harness for farming and freighting purposes, is constantly increasing."

That all this should be true of these wild, warlike Sioux, after so many

years of hardships and forced wanderings and removals, is

incontrovertible proof that there is in them a native strength of

character, power of endurance, and indomitable courage, which will make

of them ultimately a noble and superior race of people, if civilization

will only give them time to become civilized, and Christians will leave

them time and peace to learn Christianity.