THE INDIANS OF THE MISSOURI VALLEY.
The course of this narrative has shown that a large portion of the
business of the Missouri River steamboats pertained to the Indians who
dwelt on the banks of that stream. The great valley had been their home
for unknown generations. The tribes were distributed along its course
or those of its tributaries, from its mouth to their sources. First
came the Missouris, whose name the river still bears--a tribe long
since extinct as a separate organization. The Osages and the Kansas
likewise bequeathed their names to the rivers in whose valleys they
dwelt. The Omahas have lived, since the white man knew them, a short
distance above the city which perpetuates their name, while a hundred
miles to the westward in the valley of the Loup Fork of the Platte
dwelt the four tribes of the Pawnees. From the point where Sioux City
now stands, northward nearly to the British line, the great nation of
the Sioux held a wide tract of country on both sides of the river.
Within their territory dwelt the treacherous Aricaras, near the mouth
of the Grand River, and the stalwart Cheyennes at the eastern base of
the Black Hills. The unhappy tribe of the Mandans lived near the river
some distance north of the modern town of Bismarck, and near them were
the Minnetarees, or Grosventres of the Missouri. Along the northern
shore of the river from the Mandans to Milk River, and northward far
into British territory, roamed the numerous bands of the Assiniboines,
one of the most populous of the plains tribes. From Milk River to the
sources of the Missouri was the land of the hostile Blackfeet, where
dwelt the Piegan, Blood, and Blackfoot bands and the Grosventres of
the Prairies. Finally, in the valley of the Yellowstone and its great
tributary the Bighorn, was Absaroka, the home of the proud tribe of the
Crows.
[Sidenote: GRAVITATE TOWARD THE RIVER.]
All of these tribes gravitated toward the great watercourses, as man,
in every stage of his history has done. It was not in this case the
use of the stream as a transportation route that made it attractive.
The Missouri Valley tribes, unlike those of the Great Lakes, or the
Coast, or the northern rivers, were not good navigators. The stream
was a treacherous one, and its shores did not yield a timber suitable
to the crude workmanship of the Indian. Skin boats were used to a
limited extent, but as a rule the horse and not the boat was the means
of travel and transportation. The great importance of the river
arose from other considerations. In a region where streams are scarce
and where most of them dry up in the summer, this river furnished a
never-failing supply of as healthy a drinking water as flows on the
surface of the globe. Then its valley was the only timbered region of
consequence for hundreds of miles on either side. Groves of cottonwood,
walnut, cedar, and willow lined its banks, and the Indian here found
all the wood that his simple order of life required. The abundant
groves along the bottoms gave splendid shelter from the heat of summer
and the cold of winter.
[Sidenote: STRANGE VISITORS.]
The entire watershed of the river was thus originally occupied by
Indians. Considering its extensive area, their numbers were very
few--scarcely one to ten square miles. But as they mostly dwelt near
the rivers, the country seemed to the early navigators more densely
populated than it really was. Into this primeval domain there came,
more than two centuries ago, strange visitors who never went away. They
were welcomed at first; but every foot of ground they gained was held,
farther and farther up the river to its source among the mountains,
thence to the River of the West, and down its rugged valleys to the
western sea. It was a sad day to the tribes of the Missouri Valley, as
to every other, when the white man came, but a far sadder day when
the emigrant and settler came. Between these two epochs there was
a long interval in which the paleface and his red brother lived in
comparative harmony together. It was the era of the trader. Under the
fur-trade régime the Indian might have continued his native mode of
life indefinitely. The trader never sought to change it. He introduced
but few innovations; had no desire to introduce any; and looked with as
jealous an eye as the Indian himself upon the approach of civilization.
This relation of the two races was ideal, and during its continuance
the Indian is seen at his best.
[Sidenote: THE COMING OF THE EMIGRANT.]
All this was changed when the emigrant came. The traders were few in
number and made no permanent settlements. The emigrants came by the
thousand and spread themselves all over the country. They made roads,
discovered rich mines, laid out cities, and declared their purpose
to send the “fire-horse” across the plains, as they had sent the
“fire canoe” up the great river. Before this ever-increasing host the
game wasted away. It was estimated that in the single year 1853 four
hundred thousand buffalo were slain. As the buffalo was the very life
of the plains tribes, its extermination meant inevitable starvation or
hopeless dependence upon the government.
[Sidenote: AN UNSOLVABLE PROBLEM.]
All this the Indian foresaw with unerring vision, and it affected
him just as it would any other independent people. A state of unrest
ensued. Depredations and outrages occurred--for the Indian understood
no other way of expressing his displeasure,--and the government was
forced to interfere. The era of the fur trade came to an end, and that
of the treaty, the agent, and the annuity, began--an era whose history
will bring the blush of shame to its readers to the latest generations.
And yet it would be wholly unjust to charge the flagrant wrongs which
followed to this or that particular cause. History will exonerate
the government from any but the purest motives in its dealings with
the Indians. It may have been unwise in some of its measures; it was
certainly weak in carrying its purposes into effect; but it always
sought, with the light it possessed, the highest good of the Indian.
The problem, unfortunately, was beyond human wisdom to solve. The
ablest minds of this country and century have grappled with it in
vain. It was the problem of how to commit a great wrong without doing
any wrong--how to deprive the Indian of his birthright in such a way
that he should feel that no injustice had been done him. It was the
decree of destiny that the European should displace the native American
upon his own soil. No earthly power could prevent it. _This_ was the
wrong; all else was purely incidental; and whatever consideration or
generosity might attend the details of the change, nothing could alter
the stern and fundamental fact.[64]
[Sidenote: THE TREATY SYSTEM.]
[Sidenote: POLICY OF INSINCERITY.]
With this impossible problem our law-givers wrestled for a century
in vain. They sought to deal with the Indian on a basis of political
equality, where such equality did not and could not exist. The treaty
system was the outgrowth of this attempt. Perhaps it was impossible to
deal with the Indians except by treaty, but it is difficult at this day
to see the wisdom of that method. It only deferred the inevitable. It
made promises which, in the nature of things, could not be kept.[65]
Made to be broken, they served no other purpose than to lull the
natives into temporary quiet while the paleface was fastening his
grip ever more tightly upon their country. It was throughout a policy
of insincerity; the fostering of a spirit of independent sovereignty
when in fact the tribes were only vassals. Like all insincerity, it
bred endless wrong. The loss of his lands would not have been so bad to
him if he had understood it from the start; but as it was, he had not
only to bear this loss, but the ever-increasing evidence of the white
man’s bad faith; and he thus came to hate the whites and distrust their
government.[66]
This, if we were to venture a criticism, has been the government’s
one great mistake in dealing with the Indians. A firm attitude of
authority toward the tribes, with an unqualified claim to sovereignty
of the soil, and an assertion of the right to reduce it and them to a
condition of ultimate civilization, would have eliminated the element
of bad faith which has always characterized the treaty system. But
instead of this the government continued to foster to the last the
notion of tribal sovereignty over the lands of the West. Under the
farce of obtaining these lands by treaty it saved itself from the
charge of wresting them by force from the Indian. It was a distinction
without a difference, and in its effort to save its honor in one
direction, it hopelessly sacrificed it in another.
[Sidenote: TREATY OF FORT LARAMIE.]
[Sidenote: A SUCCESSFUL COUNCIL.]
The first general treaty with the tribes of the upper Missouri was
held at Fort Laramie in September, 1851. It included nearly every
tribe in the valley from the Omahas up, except the Blackfeet. The
Indians came from far and near and pitched their separate camps on
the council ground. Tribes that had never met before here made each
other’s acquaintance. Others, who had met only on the battlefield,
encamped side by side in peace. The government was represented by
men of experience and dignity. In particular, Superintendent D. D.
Mitchell and Father P. J. De Smet were men in whom the Indians felt
the most implicit trust. The council was convened for the purpose of
coming to some understanding among the tribes themselves and between
them and the whites as to their immediate future relations. It was
hoped to put an end to inter-tribal wars and to outrages upon the
emigrants, and to secure the right of way for roads and railroads
across the Indian lands. The several tribes showed the greatest
interest in the work of the council. The deliberations were conducted
with solemnity and evident sincerity on both sides. The presents from
the government were munificent and well chosen, and were received with
deep satisfaction. When the work of the council was completed, the
tribes bade each other farewell, and departed for their several homes
with every appearance of mutual trust and friendship. To all outward
appearances the council had been a complete success. Treaties were
made with all the tribes present. The gifts received were to be in
full compensation for all previous losses caused by the white man, and
the Indians were to receive goods annually to the aggregate amount of
fifty thousand dollars. The treaties, as amended in Washington, were to
remain in force for fifteen years. Four years later a similar treaty
was made near Fort Benton with the several bands of the Blackfeet by a
commission consisting of Governor I. I. Stevens and Alfred Cummings,
Superintendent of Indian Affairs.
[Sidenote: A MIXING OF GOODS.]
It was thus that the annuity system came into extensive vogue among the
tribes of the upper Missouri. It probably gave rise to more abuses than
any other one thing in the conduct of Indian affairs. The temptations
for fraud were as great as the opportunities for its commission were
numerous and excellent, and it required more than average public
virtue to resist them. The Indian could not go to the market and
help select his goods; he had no hand in awarding the contracts for
their transportation to his country; nor any means of seeing that he
received what he was entitled to. His only function was to accept
what the agent saw fit to give him. During the Civil War, when the
currency depreciated to such an enormous extent, the annuities shrank
in quantity as prices went up, and the Indian was a heavy loser from
causes that he could not comprehend. The annuities were always sent
up the river in the boats of the traders, generally in those of the
American Fur Company. The agents were given no escort and no separate
residence or warehouse, and were compelled to throw themselves upon
the hospitality of the traders. In this way the annuity goods became
mixed with those of the traders, and the Indian paid in furs for what
he was entitled to as a free gift. This abuse was a grave one and very
difficult to correct, for all that the Department required in evidence
of the delivery was the signature of the chiefs, witnessed in the usual
manner. It is easy to see how wide open the door was in this business
for the commission of almost unlimited fraud.[67]
[Sidenote: ANNUITY SYSTEM.]
It is doubtful if, during the period from 1850 to 1870, the Indian
tribes along the Missouri River received more than half the bounty
which was promised them by the government.
[Sidenote: A CORRUPT ATMOSPHERE.]
In the early days of the Republic the conduct of Indian affairs was in
the hands of the military authorities, and it has always been a mooted
question whether it ought not to have remained there. The verdict of
history will undoubtedly be that it should. The spoils system came
into absolute control of the agencies, and fitness and experience
received scant consideration. There was more or less friction between
the agents and the military, for the latter always had to be called
in when the former could no longer control their flocks. But the
greatest defect of the system was the total absence of anything like
a fixed and recognized procedure. The annual reports of the agents
show how utterly lacking in all the elements of practical business was
their haphazard management. Every new agent felt called upon, as a
necessary preliminary to his own work, to criticise the conduct of his
predecessor. He put forth new schemes and tried new experiments, until
finally he himself made way for a successor who in turn deplored the
failures of those who had gone before him.
Probably the majority of the agents were men of average integrity, but
there were many who sought the business solely for “what there was in
it.” The whole atmosphere of the Indian trade was so against an honest
conduct of the business that an agent who should undertake to enforce
strict integrity in his official work was regarded as a fit subject
for an asylum of the feeble-minded. At one time the experiment was
tried of appointing only clergymen to the agencies. But the scheme was
a visionary one. What these agents made up in honesty they lacked in
experience, and were pliant tools in the hands of the shrewd trader.
Their saintly character, moreover, was not always a sure panoply
against the attacks of worldly temptation. To more than one of them,
in the words of Captain La Barge, “a dollar looked bigger than a
cart wheel,” and they, like the rest, learned how to connive at the
crookedness of the traders. But whatever their virtues or intentions,
they were powerless to accomplish any good work. The fault was in
the system, which was inherently vicious, and mere honesty in the
individual could not eliminate its defects.
[Sidenote: THE SYSTEM AT FAULT.]
The actual results of the treaty-annuity-agency system in the conduct
of Indian affairs are now matters of history. No treaty that it
was possible to devise could stand. The encroachment of settlement
continually increased. It led to resistance on the part of the
Indians, and resistance to chastisement and to new treaties, and these
invariably to loss of territory and abridgment of rights. At last it
led to war, and the final transition of nearly all the tribes to their
present situation was accompanied by scenes of blood.
It is not possible to follow here the intricate pathway of the treaty
system through the quarter century after 1850, for it is a long story.
There were treaty after treaty, commission after commission, and a
constant exercise of its best offices on the part of the government
to reach some satisfactory result; but in vain. The life of a people,
like that of an individual, cannot be extinguished without a struggle.
Whether in this case the inevitable struggle was intensified by the
procrastinating policy of the government may be an open question.
It probably was, for it was preceded by years of bad faith, broken
pledges, and cruel wrongs, until the hearts of this unhappy people were
embittered, and they drew the sword in a spirit of hatred and revenge.
[Sidenote: THE INDIAN AND THE STEAMBOAT.]
Throughout the painful annals of the river tribes during the past
century there was no more attractive feature of their relations with
the whites than the means of transportation by which the paleface came
to their country. The keelboat and the steamboat are a part of their
life history. The steamboat in particular came to be what the buffalo
had been--their principal resource for the necessities of life. It was
a difficult rôle that it had to fill. To the Indian it was friend and
foe, truth and falsehood, honor and shame, alike. It brought the early
traders with their welcome merchandise, and alas! with their liquor and
the smallpox. It brought the Commissioners to make treaties, and the
annuities which those treaties guaranteed. It brought the Indian agent
and the evils that followed in his train, and finally it brought the
sword. When the Indian at last gave up the fight he and the steamboat
abandoned the river together, and both are now strangers where once
they made the entire valley teem with life.