truth. General Miles dared not cross the line, but he chased my
people whenever they ventured over it. At Wolf Point, on the
Missouri, was a trader who spoke our language (he had an Indian wife)
and with him my chief often talked. He had spies also at Fort Peck,
which was an agency for the Assiniboines, and so knew where the
soldiers were at all times.
I had a friend, a Cree, who could read the papers, and from them I
learned what the white people said of us. Through him I heard that
many people sympathized with The Sitting Bull and declared that it
was right to defend one’s native land.
These words pleased the chief, but it made two of his head men
bitter. They grew jealous because their names were not spoken by the
white man, and they would have overthrown my chief if they dared, but
now the “Silent Eaters” came to his aid. With them to guard him, the
chief could treat the jealous ones with contempt. Wherever he went my
father and others of his bodyguard went with him, so that no traitor
could kill him and sell his head to the white people.
The redcoats liked my chieftain well. He was always just and
peaceful. If a reckless young man did a wrong thing against the
settlers The Sitting Bull punished him and said: “A righteous man
does not strike the hand which saves him from the wolf. No one can
steal from these our friends and not be punished.”
Once when he went to visit the trader at Wolf Point I went with him,
and was present at a long talk which they held. The trader gave us
a tent and some food and at night when we had eaten he came and sat
down to smoke.
“Sitting Bull,” he began, “I cannot understand you. I cannot see as
you do. We white people look ahead, we ask ourselves what is going to
happen in the future; but you seem to go on blindly. My friend, what
do you intend to do?”
The chief considered this carefully, but said nothing.
The trader went on: “The buffalo will soon be gone—you can see that.
The cold is killing them and the guns of the white hunters crack,
crack all the time. What will you do when they are gone?”
The chief broke forth passionately: “I did not leave the Black Hills
of my own will; the soldiers pushed me out. I loved my home, but
the paleface came and with his coming all the old things began to
change. I kept out of his way, I did not seek war with him, but he
never slept till he drove me among the redcoats. The redcoats do not
say much to us, but what they speak is fair and straight. So long as
a gopher remains on the plains I will stay and I will fight. All my
life I have been a man of peace, but now my back is to the rock; I
shall run no more. I am not afraid to die and all my warriors are of
my mind.”
The trader replied: “Your people are poor and suffering. The Canadian
government cannot help you. Our Great Father is rich. He will take
care of you and your people. Why don’t you do as the Yanktonaise
did—go to a reservation and settle down.”
“Because I am a red man. If the Great Spirit had desired me to be
a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in
your heart certain wishes and plans, in my heart he put other and
different desires. Each man is good in His sight. It is not necessary
for eagles to be crows. Now we are poor, but we are free. No white
man controls our footsteps. If we must die we will die defending our
rights. In that we are all agreed. This you may say to the Great
Father for me.”
The trader waited till the chief’s emotion passed away, and then he
said: “Look you, my friend, all white men are not your enemies. There
are many who are on your side.”
“I cannot trust them. A few months ago some men came professing
friendship; they offered me land and a house, but I fear all those
who come bearing gifts. I will trade; I will not take gifts. I do not
make war; I only defend my women and children as you would do.”
The trader rose. “Very well. I have said all I care to say on that
head, but I shall be glad to see you at any time and I wish to trade
with you.”
“Will you trade guns?”
“No, I can’t do that.”
“If we kill game we must have guns.”
“I know that, but I fear the soldiers as well as you, chief. They
tell me not to sell you guns, and I must obey.”
The Sitting Bull rose and took from his side his embroidered tobacco
pouch.
“You are of good heart and I will trade with you.” He handed the
pouch to the trader, for this is an emblem of respect among my
people, and they shook hands and parted. If all men had been like
this man, we would not now be an outcast race.
All that autumn while I studied the white man’s books my people
camped not far away and traded at Wolf Point. It was well they did,
for the winter set in hard. The cold became deadly and they had
few robes. They were forced to sell all they had to buy food and
ammunition. It is a terrible thing to be hungry in a land of iron. Do
you wonder that we despaired?
Just when the winter was deep with snow a messenger came to warn us
that a great military expedition was on its way to catch The Sitting
Bull and his people. The chief immediately gave orders to pack, and
with stern face again led the way to the north across the Great
Divide. The white soldiers had plenty of blankets and food. They
followed us hard. The storms were incessant. The snow, swept to and
fro by the never-resting wind, blinded the eyes of the scouts and
path finders.
Oh, that terrible march! In the gullies the horses floundered and
fell to rise no more. There was no tree to shelter a tepee, no fuel
for our fire. Women froze their arms and breasts, and little children
died of cold and hunger. The camp grew each day more silent. The dogs
were killed for food, and each night the lodge poles were cut down to
make kindling, till each tepee became like a child’s toy. The guides
lost their way in the storm and the whole camp wandered desperately
in a great circle. My words cannot picture to you the despair and
suffering of that march.
When at last they came into the old camp at Wood Mountain they were
bleeding, ragged, and hollow eyed with hunger. The Sitting Bull
looked like an old man. The commander hardly recognized him, so worn
and broken was he, and I, who remembered him as the proud leader of
two thousand lodges of people, was made sorrowful and bitter by the
change in his face.
That winter was the coldest known to my people. They sat huddled over
their camp fires in the storms, while hunters ranged desperately for
game. The redcoats helped us as much as they could, and strangers far
away, hearing of our need, sent a little food and some clothing, but,
in spite of all, many of our old people died.
Hunting parties rode forth desperately to the south, and some of them
never returned. The buffalo were few and very, very distant, and our
scouts from the Yellowstone reported whole herds already frozen.
Myriads were starving because of the deep snow. “By spring none will
remain,” they said. “Surely the Great Spirit has turned his face away
from his red sons.”
The sufferings of the children broke the proud hearts of the chiefs.
One by one they began to complain. Some of them reproached The
Sitting Bull and there were those who would have delivered his head
to the white men, but were prevented by the “Silent Eaters,” who were
ever watchful.
Many now said: “Let us go back. The buffalo are gone. We are helpless
and our children starve while our brethren at the Standing Rock have
plenty and are warm. We are tired of fighting and fleeing. The Great
Spirit is angry with us. He has withdrawn his favor and we must do as
Washington wishes. We must eat his food and do his work. He is all
powerful. It is useless to hold out longer.”
To all this the chief made no reply, but brooded darkly, talking only
in the soldier’s lodge. His mind was busy with the problems of life
and death which the winter wind sang into his ears.
From my warm home with the priest, from the comfort and security
which I was just beginning to comprehend and enjoy, I went now and
again into the camp, and the pity of it was almost more than I could
bear. No one talked, no one sang, no one smiled. It was like some
dreadful dream of the night.
What could I do? I had nothing. I ate, but I could not carry food to
my chief. I had warm clothing, but I could not lend it to my father.
Though hardly more than a boy, my heart was big as that of a man. I
began to understand a little of the mighty spread of the white man’s
net, and yet I dared not tell the chief my secret thought.
How can I make you understand? Can you not see that we were facing
the end of our world? My chief was confronting captivity and insult
and punishment. His bright world of danger and freedom and boundless
activity was narrowing to a grave, and only the instinctive love of
life kept him and his “Silent Eaters” from self-destruction. In all
the history of the world there has been no darker day for a race than
this when midwinter fell upon us in that strange land of the north.
V
THE CHIEF SURRENDERS HIMSELF
The first days of spring were worse than the winter. Rain and sleet
followed each other, and the few remaining buffalo seemed to sink
into the ground, so swiftly they disappeared. White people read in
papers of wars and elections and the price of wheat; our news came by
brave runners, and their tales were ever of the same dole.
“What of the buffalo? Where are the buffalo? Are the buffalo
starving?” The answers always were the same. “The buffalo are gone.
We are lost!”
The report of our desperate condition went out over the world and
sympathetic people came to urge us to surrender. One messenger, a
priest, a friend of General Sherman, the great war chief, came, and
The Sitting Bull called a council to sit with him, and some Canadian
officers also were there.
After they had all finished speaking, The Sitting Bull replied: “I am
ready to make a peace. But as for going to Standing Rock, that is a
question I must consider a long time. I am no fool. I know that the
man who kills me will be rewarded and I do not intend to be taken
prisoner. I have long understood the power of the whites. I am like a
fly in a mountain stream when compared with this wonderful and cruel
race. I do not care to have my head sold to make some man-coyote
rich. Now this is my answer: I will make a peace. I will keep my
people in order but I will not go to the Standing Rock. My children
can go if they think best.”
The council broke up at this point, but in private the chief said
to a friend: “The Gall is going back, so is The Polar Bear and many
others. I shall soon be alone. Black Moon, Running Crane, all are
deserting me, but I shall remain; I will not return to die foolishly
for the white man’s pleasure.”
All took place as he foresaw. Chief Gall went south and surrendered.
So did Red Fish and The Crane. Only a few remained, among them my
father and Slohan.
The chief was pleased to know I was getting skilled in the white
man’s magic. “I need an interpreter, one I can trust,” he said to me.
“Go on in the road you have taken.”
One day as he sat smoking in his tepee I heard him singing in a low
voice the “Song of the Chieftains,” but he had changed it to a sad
ending:
“I was born a soldier—
I have lived thus long.
Ah, I have lived to spend my days in poverty.”
It broke my heart to look upon him sitting there. I had seen him
when he was the master spirit of the whole Sioux nation—a proud and
confident chief. Now he hovered above his fire, singing a death song,
surrounded by a little circle of ragged lodges. Yet I could not
blame his followers. They surrendered, not to the white man, but to
the great forces of hunger and cold.
If you ask what defeated The Sitting Bull, I will answer, “The
passing of the buffalo.” If you ask what caused him to surrender his
body to the whites, I will say his tender heart. You hear officers
boast of conquering Sitting Bull, but the one who brought him to the
post was his daughter. The love of the parent for the child is strong
in my race; it is terrible. Sitting Bull was a chief, stern and
resolved, but he was a father also.
One day a letter came to the British officer from a friend of my
chieftain, who said, “Tell The Sitting Bull that the white men have
put his daughter in irons.”
This daughter, his best-beloved child, had left the camp, lured away
by her lover, and the chief did not know where she was. His heart
was bleeding for her, and now when he heard this letter read his
indignation was very great. “Is it so?” he cried out. “Do they make
war on a poor weak girl? I will go to her. I will kill her captors. I
will die beside her.”
That night he called the remnant of his band together and said, “My
children, you know that the white men have tried often to get me to
go south to act their pleasure, but I have always refused. Now they
have taken my daughter, a weak girl with no power to defend herself.
They have put irons on her feet and on her hands. At last I must
go south. I must follow her. I wish to find her and to kill those
who have abused her. I do not want you to go with me. I go alone to
suffer whatsoever comes to me.”
Then his people all said, “No, we will go with you.”
He replied: “Friends, you have stayed too long with me. If you wish
to go I cannot refuse, but the road is dark and dangerous; whereto it
leads I cannot tell.”
We made ready at once to go with him, and though our hearts were
filled with fear, we were also glad. “We’re going home,” the women
sang. For the last time he gave orders to break camp in Canadian
territory, and led the way across the invisible wonderful line into
the land of the bluecoats.
His following was very small now. Only his wives and sons and a few
of the more loyal of the “Silent Eaters” remained. Many of even this
bodyguard had gone away, but those who remained were doubly faithful,
and on them he relied to resent any indignity. “If we are assaulted
let us die fighting, as becomes warriors,” he said, and all the men
responded firmly, “Aye, that will we.”
Do you think it an easy thing to set your face toward the land of
your deadly foes, with only a handful of warriors to stand between
you and torture? Yet this is what my chieftain did. He knew the hate
and the fear in which the white man held him, for I could now read to
him and report to him what was said. He was aware of the price on his
head and that many men were eager to put him in chains; yet he went.
“I shall go to the white soldiers,” he said. “_They_ will know about
my daughter. They are warriors, and warriors respect a chieftain.”
Small as his escort was, the commander at Fort Buford respected it.
He received The Sitting Bull like a chief, and said, “I have orders
to take you as military prisoner to Fort Yates.”
“I know the road home,” my chief haughtily replied. Then he handed
his gun to me and added, in a milder tone: “I do not come in anger
toward the white soldiers. I am very sad. My daughter went this road.
Her I am seeking. I will fight no more. I do not love war. I never
was the aggressor. I fought only to defend my women and children.
Now all my people wish to return to their native land. Therefore I
submit.” My heart ached to hear him say this, but it was true.
The colonel was very courteous. “You shall be treated as one soldier
treats another,” he said. “In two days a boat will come to take you
back to your people at Standing Rock. It is easy to ride on a boat
and you will have plenty to eat and I will send a guard to see that
you are not harmed by anyone.”
Thereupon he showed us where to camp and issued rations to us, and,
as we were all hungry, his kindness touched our hearts.
On the second day he came to see the chief again: “The boat has come
to carry you to Standing Rock. I hope you will go quietly and take
your place among your people who are living on their ancient hunting
grounds near the Grand River.”
“I do not wish to be shut up in a corral,” replied The Sitting
Bull. “It is bad for the young men to be fed by the agent. It makes
them lazy and drunken. All the agency Indians I have ever seen were
worthless. They are neither red warriors nor white farmers. They are
neither wolf nor dog. But my followers are weary of being hungry
and cold. They wish to see their brothers and their old home on the
Missouri, therefore I bow my head.”
Soon after this we went aboard the ship and began to move down the
river.
Some of us hardly slept at all, so deeply excited were we by the
wonder of the boat, but the chief sat in silence, smoking, speaking
only to remark on some change in the landscape or to point out some
settler’s cabin or a herd of cattle. “Our world—the Indian’s world—is
almost gone,” he muttered. But no one knew as well as I how deeply we
were penetrating the white man’s civilization.
We all became excited as the boat neared Bismarck, for there stood a
large village of white people and men and women came rushing out to
see us. They laughed and shouted insulting words to the chief, and
some of them called out, “Kill ’em!” The soldiers who guarded us kept
them back and we went on unharmed, but I could see that the sight of
this throng of palefaces had again made my chief very bitter.
I shall never forget the strange pain at my heart as we neared the
high bluff which hides Fort Yates. I did not know how near we were
till the old men pointed out the landmarks and began to sing a sad
song:
“We are returning, my brothers—
We are coming to see you,
But we come as captives.”
At last we came in sight of the fort, where a great crowd of people
stood waiting to see us. It seemed as if all the Sioux tribes were
there, all my chief’s friends and all his enemies. Some laughed, some
sang, some shouted to us. All on board were crazy with joy, but the
chief did not change countenance; only by a quiver of his lips could
his feelings be read. We saw The Gall and The Running Antelope and
The Crow’s Mane and many more of our friends. There were tears on the
cheeks of these stern warriors and their hands were outstretched to
greet us.
But the chief and my father were taken from the boat under military
guard and no one was allowed to come near them. My mother and
sister put up our tepee surrounded by the soldiers. Only a few were
permitted to come in and see us.
The chief inquired anxiously for his daughter. One day she came, and
when she passed into her father’s lodge her face was hidden in her
hands, her form shook with weakness. I could not hear what the chief
said to her, for his voice was low and gentle, but when I saw her
next she was smiling. He had forgiven her and was made happy by her
promise to stay with him.
He was greatly chagrined to find himself held a prisoner in the
face of all his people, and yet this care of his person—this fear
of him on the white man’s part—made some of his subordinates still
more jealous of his eminence. They were forgotten, while many
strangers came from afar and gave my chief many silver pieces for
his photograph. His fame was greater than even I could realize, and
chiefs who had no reason to hate him began to speak against him. “Why
should the white people send him presents?” they asked, and began to
belittle his position in the tribe.
[Illustration: Indians as Soldiers
_To the Indian, it was the soldier—the man in blue uniform—not
the civil agents sent out from Washington to dole out bad and
insufficient rations to a conquered race, that represented
courage, justice, and truth. Consequently the Indians took great
pride in being soldiers, and experience has shown that they make
not only the most efficient but also the most faithful of scouts
and the best possible material for light, irregular cavalrymen._
_Illustrations from_
INDIANS AS IRREGULAR CAVALRY
_by_ Frederic Remington
_Originally published in_
HARPER’S WEEKLY, _December 27, 1890_]
[Illustration: An Indian Dream
_Illustration from_
HOW ORDER No. 6 WENT THROUGH
_by_ Frederic Remington
_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _May, 1898_]
I do not think my chief counseled evil during this time, but it could
not be said that he was submissive. He merely waited in his tepee
the action of his captors. The news that he got of the condition
of the reservation was not such as to encourage him and the roar
of his falling world was still in his ears. He was not yet in full
understanding of the purpose of Washington. “I do not know whether I
am to live or die,” he said to my father. “Whatsoever my fate, I am
happier, now that I have seen my child.”
After some three weeks of this confinement we were startled by an
order to break camp and get on board the boat again. “You are to go
to Fort Randall as military prisoners,” the agent explained to me.
“Tell them these are my orders.”
When I told the chief he was greatly troubled and, calling his
“Silent Eaters” about him, he said: “This may mean that they are
going to take us into the mysterious East to kill us in sport, or to
starve us in prison, far from our kind. Now listen, be ready! Our
reservation ends at Fort Randall. If they attempt to carry us beyond
that point let each man snatch a soldier’s gun and fight. Let no one
cease battle till the last man of us is killed. I am old and broken,
but I am still a chief. I will not suffer insult and I will not be
chained like a wolf for the white man’s sport.”
All agreed to this plan, and as the boat neared the fort the chief
gave the word, and we were scattered, tense with resolution, ready to
begin our death struggle should the vessel pass beyond the line. No
one faltered. Nearer and nearer we floated, and all were expecting
the signal when the boat signaled to the shore and stopped. The
soldiers never knew how close they came to death on that day.
Again we went into camp under guard, well cared for by the soldiers.
The officers all treated The Sitting Bull with marked respect and
during the day the colonel himself came to sit and smoke and talk
with us.
Of him the chief abruptly asked, “Am I to be kept here all my life?”
“No. After a while you are to be sent back north. As soon as you are
prepared to sign a peace and after the anger of the whites dies out.
I do not hate you. Come and talk to me whenever you feel lonesome, I
will do all I can to make your stay pleasant.”
To this The Sitting Bull replied: “Your kindness makes my heart warm.
It gives me courage to tread the new paths that lie before me. I am
very sad and distrustful, for I am like a man who enters a land for
the first time. It is not easy for me to sit down as a prisoner and
dream out the future. It is all dark to me. You are my friend. You
are wise and your words have helped me. If we could have the aid of
men like you, the new road would be less fearsome to our feet.”
The young officers came and asked us many questions about our ways of
camping, our methods of fighting, and so on, and the chief was always
ready to talk. Sometimes I pretended not to understand English in
order that I might the better know what was being said, and often I
heard white people tell ridiculous things.
“Is _that_ The Sitting Bull? Why, he looks like an old woman. He
can’t be a warrior.” Others remarked, “What a sad face he has!” and
this was true, for he had grown old swiftly. He brooded much and
there were days when he spake no word to any one, not even to my
father.
These were days of enlightenment to me, as well as to my chief, but
they brought no sign of hope. My father was a kind man, naturally
cheerful and buoyant, and his eyes were quick to see all that the
white man did. He comprehended as well as my chief the overwhelming
power of the white man, but he was less tenacious of the past. “It
is gone,” he repeated to me privately. “The world of our fathers is
swallowed up. Go you, my son, and learn of the white man the secret
power that enables him to make carts and powder and rifles. How can
we fight him when we must trade with him to win his wonder-working
arms and ammunition?”
And so when one of the officers, Lieutenant Davies, saw me holding
a scrap of paper and asked me if I could read, I told him I could.
Thereafter he gave me books and helped me to understand them. We
called him “Blackbird,” because his mustaches were dark and shaped
like the wings of a bird. I came to love this man, for he was the
best paleface I ever knew. He did not condemn us because we were
red. He did not boast and he was a soldier. He talked much with The
Sitting Bull, and his speech did more to change my chief’s mind than
that of any other man.