SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE
Looking back, after the expiration of a year, upon Fort Laramie and its
inmates, they seem less like a reality than like some fanciful picture
of the olden time; so different was the scene from any which this tamer
side of the world can present. Tall Indians, enveloped in their white
buffalo robes, were striding across the area or reclining at full length
on the low roofs of the buildings which inclosed it. Numerous squaws,
gayly bedizened, sat grouped in front of the apartments they occupied;
their mongrel offspring, restless and vociferous, rambled in every
direction through the fort; and the trappers, traders, and ENGAGES of
the establishment were busy at their labor or their amusements.
We were met at the gate, but by no means cordially welcomed. Indeed,
we seemed objects of some distrust and suspicion until Henry Chatillon
explained that we were not traders, and we, in confirmation, handed to
the bourgeois a letter of introduction from his principals. He took
it, turned it upside down, and tried hard to read it; but his literary
attainments not being adequate to the task, he applied for relief to
the clerk, a sleek, smiling Frenchman, named Montalon. The letter read,
Bordeaux (the bourgeois) seemed gradually to awaken to a sense of what
was expected of him. Though not deficient in hospitable intentions, he
was wholly unaccustomed to act as master of ceremonies. Discarding all
formalities of reception, he did not honor us with a single word, but
walked swiftly across the area, while we followed in some admiration to
a railing and a flight of steps opposite the entrance. He signed to us
that we had better fasten our horses to the railing; then he walked
up the steps, tramped along a rude balcony, and kicking open a door
displayed a large room, rather more elaborately finished than a barn.
For furniture it had a rough bedstead, but no bed; two chairs, a chest
of drawers, a tin pail to hold water, and a board to cut tobacco upon. A
brass crucifix hung on the wall, and close at hand a recent scalp, with
hair full a yard long, was suspended from a nail. I shall again have
occasion to mention this dismal trophy, its history being connected with
that of our subsequent proceedings.
This apartment, the best in Fort Laramie, was that usually occupied by
the legitimate bourgeois, Papin; in whose absence the command devolved
upon Bordeaux. The latter, a stout, bluff little fellow, much inflated
by a sense of his new authority, began to roar for buffalo robes. These
being brought and spread upon the floor formed our beds; much better
ones than we had of late been accustomed to. Our arrangements made, we
stepped out to the balcony to take a more leisurely survey of the long
looked-for haven at which we had arrived at last. Beneath us was the
square area surrounded by little rooms, or rather cells, which opened
upon it. These were devoted to various purposes, but served chiefly for
the accommodation of the men employed at the fort, or of the equally
numerous squaws, whom they were allowed to maintain in it. Opposite to
us rose the blockhouse above the gateway; it was adorned with a figure
which even now haunts my memory; a horse at full speed, daubed upon
the boards with red paint, and exhibiting a degree of skill which might
rival that displayed by the Indians in executing similar designs upon
their robes and lodges. A busy scene was enacting in the area. The
wagons of Vaskiss, an old trader, were about to set out for a remote
post in the mountains, and the Canadians were going through their
preparations with all possible bustle, while here and there an Indian
stood looking on with imperturbable gravity.
Fort Laramie is one of the posts established by the American Fur
Company, who well-nigh monopolize the Indian trade of this whole region.
Here their officials rule with an absolute sway; the arm of the United
States has little force; for when we were there, the extreme outposts
of her troops were about seven hundred miles to the eastward. The little
fort is built of bricks dried in the sun, and externally is of an oblong
form, with bastions of clay, in the form of ordinary blockhouses, at two
of the corners. The walls are about fifteen feet high, and surmounted by
a slender palisade. The roofs of the apartments within, which are built
close against the walls, serve the purpose of a banquette. Within,
the fort is divided by a partition; on one side is the square area
surrounded by the storerooms, offices, and apartments of the inmates;
on the other is the corral, a narrow place, encompassed by the high clay
walls, where at night, or in presence of dangerous Indians, the horses
and mules of the fort are crowded for safe-keeping. The main entrance
has two gates, with an arched passage intervening. A little square
window, quite high above the ground, opens laterally from an adjoining
chamber into this passage; so that when the inner gate is closed and
barred, a person without may still hold communication with those within
through this narrow aperture. This obviates the necessity of admitting
suspicious Indians, for purposes of trading, into the body of the fort;
for when danger is apprehended, the inner gate is shut fast, and all
traffic is carried on by means of the little window. This precaution,
though highly necessary at some of the company’s posts, is now seldom
resorted to at Fort Laramie; where, though men are frequently killed in
its neighborhood, no apprehensions are now entertained of any general
designs of hostility from the Indians.
We did not long enjoy our new quarters undisturbed. The door was
silently pushed open, and two eyeballs and a visage as black as night
looked in upon us; then a red arm and shoulder intruded themselves, and
a tall Indian, gliding in, shook us by the hand, grunted his salutation,
and sat down on the floor. Others followed, with faces of the natural
hue; and letting fall their heavy robes from their shoulders, they took
their seats, quite at ease, in a semicircle before us. The pipe was now
to be lighted and passed round from one to another; and this was the
only entertainment that at present they expected from us. These visitors
were fathers, brothers, or other relatives of the squaws in the
fort, where they were permitted to remain, loitering about in perfect
idleness. All those who smoked with us were men of standing and repute.
Two or three others dropped in also; young fellows who neither by their
years nor their exploits were entitled to rank with the old men and
warriors, and who, abashed in the presence of their superiors, stood
aloof, never withdrawing their eyes from us. Their cheeks were adorned
with vermilion, their ears with pendants of shell, and their necks with
beads. Never yet having signalized themselves as hunters, or performed
the honorable exploit of killing a man, they were held in slight
esteem, and were diffident and bashful in proportion. Certain formidable
inconveniences attended this influx of visitors. They were bent on
inspecting everything in the room; our equipments and our dress alike
underwent their scrutiny; for though the contrary has been carelessly
asserted, few beings have more curiosity than Indians in regard to
subjects within their ordinary range of thought. As to other matters,
indeed, they seemed utterly indifferent. They will not trouble
themselves to inquire into what they cannot comprehend, but are quite
contented to place their hands over their mouths in token of wonder, and
exclaim that it is “great medicine.” With this comprehensive solution,
an Indian never is at a loss. He never launches forth into speculation
and conjecture; his reason moves in its beaten track. His soul is
dormant; and no exertions of the missionaries, Jesuit or Puritan, of the
Old World or of the New, have as yet availed to rouse it.
As we were looking, at sunset, from the wall, upon the wild and desolate
plains that surround the fort, we observed a cluster of strange objects
like scaffolds rising in the distance against the red western sky. They
bore aloft some singular looking burdens; and at their foot glimmered
something white like bones. This was the place of sepulture of some
Dakota chiefs, whose remains their people are fond of placing in the
vicinity of the fort, in the hope that they may thus be protected from
violation at the hands of their enemies. Yet it has happened more than
once, and quite recently, that war parties of the Crow Indians, ranging
through the country, have thrown the bodies from the scaffolds, and
broken them to pieces amid the yells of the Dakotas, who remained pent
up in the fort, too few to defend the honored relics from insult. The
white objects upon the ground were buffalo skulls, arranged in the
mystic circle commonly seen at Indian places of sepulture upon the
prairie.
We soon discovered, in the twilight, a band of fifty or sixty
horses approaching the fort. These were the animals belonging to the
establishment; who having been sent out to feed, under the care of armed
guards, in the meadows below, were now being driven into the corral for
the night. A little gate opened into this inclosure; by the side of it
stood one of the guards, an old Canadian, with gray bushy eyebrows,
and a dragoon pistol stuck into his belt; while his comrade, mounted
on horseback, his rifle laid across the saddle in front of him, and
his long hair blowing before his swarthy face, rode at the rear of the
disorderly troop, urging them up the ascent. In a moment the narrow
corral was thronged with the half-wild horses, kicking, biting, and
crowding restlessly together.
The discordant jingling of a bell, rung by a Canadian in the area,
summoned us to supper. This sumptuous repast was served on a rough table
in one of the lower apartments of the fort, and consisted of cakes of
bread and dried buffalo meat--an excellent thing for strengthening the
teeth. At this meal were seated the bourgeois and superior dignitaries
of the establishment, among whom Henry Chatillon was worthily included.
No sooner was it finished, than the table was spread a second time (the
luxury of bread being now, however, omitted), for the benefit of
certain hunters and trappers of an inferior standing; while the ordinary
Canadian ENGAGES were regaled on dried meat in one of their lodging
rooms. By way of illustrating the domestic economy of Fort Laramie, it
may not be amiss to introduce in this place a story current among the
men when we were there.
There was an old man named Pierre, whose duty it was to bring the meat
from the storeroom for the men. Old Pierre, in the kindness of
his heart, used to select the fattest and the best pieces for his
companions. This did not long escape the keen-eyed bourgeois, who was
greatly disturbed at such improvidence, and cast about for some means to
stop it. At last he hit on a plan that exactly suited him. At the side
of the meat-room, and separated from it by a clay partition, was another
compartment, used for the storage of furs. It had no other communication
with the fort, except through a square hole in the partition; and of
course it was perfectly dark. One evening the bourgeois, watching for
a moment when no one observed him, dodged into the meat-room, clambered
through the hole, and ensconced himself among the furs and buffalo
robes. Soon after, old Pierre came in with his lantern; and, muttering
to himself, began to pull over the bales of meat, and select the best
pieces, as usual. But suddenly a hollow and sepulchral voice proceeded
from the inner apartment: “Pierre! Pierre! Let that fat meat alone! Take
nothing but lean!” Pierre dropped his lantern, and bolted out into
the fort, screaming, in an agony of terror, that the devil was in the
storeroom; but tripping on the threshold, he pitched over upon the
gravel, and lay senseless, stunned by the fall. The Canadians ran out
to the rescue. Some lifted the unlucky Pierre; and others, making an
extempore crucifix out of two sticks, were proceeding to attack the
devil in his stronghold, when the bourgeois, with a crest-fallen
countenance, appeared at the door. To add to the bourgeois’
mortification, he was obliged to explain the whole stratagem to Pierre,
in order to bring the latter to his senses.
We were sitting, on the following morning, in the passage-way between
the gates, conversing with the traders Vaskiss and May. These two men,
together with our sleek friend, the clerk Montalon, were, I believe, the
only persons then in the fort who could read and write. May was telling
a curious story about the traveler Catlin, when an ugly, diminutive
Indian, wretchedly mounted, came up at a gallop, and rode past us into
the fort. On being questioned, he said that Smoke’s village was close at
hand. Accordingly only a few minutes elapsed before the hills beyond the
river were covered with a disorderly swarm of savages, on horseback and
on foot. May finished his story; and by that time the whole array had
descended to Laramie Creek, and commenced crossing it in a mass. I
walked down to the bank. The stream is wide, and was then between three
and four feet deep, with a very swift current. For several rods the
water was alive with dogs, horses, and Indians. The long poles used in
erecting the lodges are carried by the horses, being fastened by the
heavier end, two or three on each side, to a rude sort of pack saddle,
while the other end drags on the ground. About a foot behind the horse,
a kind of large basket or pannier is suspended between the poles, and
firmly lashed in its place on the back of the horse are piled various
articles of luggage; the basket also is well filled with domestic
utensils, or, quite as often, with a litter of puppies, a brood of small
children, or a superannuated old man. Numbers of these curious vehicles,
called, in the bastard language of the country travaux were now
splashing together through the stream. Among them swam countless dogs,
often burdened with miniature travaux; and dashing forward on horseback
through the throng came the superbly formed warriors, the slender figure
of some lynx-eyed boy, clinging fast behind them. The women sat perched
on the pack saddles, adding not a little to the load of the already
overburdened horses. The confusion was prodigious. The dogs yelled and
howled in chorus; the puppies in the travaux set up a dismal whine
as the water invaded their comfortable retreat; the little black-eyed
children, from one year of age upward, clung fast with both hands to the
edge of their basket, and looked over in alarm at the water rushing so
near them, sputtering and making wry mouths as it splashed against their
faces. Some of the dogs, encumbered by their loads, were carried down by
the current, yelping piteously; and the old squaws would rush into the
water, seize their favorites by the neck, and drag them out. As each
horse gained the bank, he scrambled up as he could. Stray horses and
colts came among the rest, often breaking away at full speed through the
crowd, followed by the old hags, screaming after their fashion on all
occasions of excitement. Buxom young squaws, blooming in all the charms
of vermilion, stood here and there on the bank, holding aloft their
master’s lance, as a signal to collect the scattered portions of his
household. In a few moments the crowd melted away; each family, with its
horses and equipage, filing off to the plain at the rear of the fort;
and here, in the space of half an hour, arose sixty or seventy of
their tapering lodges. Their horses were feeding by hundreds over the
surrounding prairie, and their dogs were roaming everywhere. The fort
was full of men, and the children were whooping and yelling incessantly
under the walls.
These newcomers were scarcely arrived, when Bordeaux was running across
the fort, shouting to his squaw to bring him his spyglass. The obedient
Marie, the very model of a squaw, produced the instrument, and Bordeaux
hurried with it up to the wall. Pointing it to the eastward, he
exclaimed, with an oath, that the families were coming. But a few
moments elapsed before the heavy caravan of the emigrant wagons could
be seen, steadily advancing from the hills. They gained the river, and
without turning or pausing plunged in; they passed through, and slowly
ascending the opposing bank, kept directly on their way past the fort
and the Indian village, until, gaining a spot a quarter of a mile
distant, they wheeled into a circle. For some time our tranquillity
was undisturbed. The emigrants were preparing their encampment; but
no sooner was this accomplished than Fort Laramie was fairly taken by
storm. A crowd of broad-brimmed hats, thin visages, and staring eyes
appeared suddenly at the gate. Tall awkward men, in brown homespun;
women with cadaverous faces and long lank figures came thronging in
together, and, as if inspired by the very demon of curiosity, ransacked
every nook and corner of the fort. Dismayed at this invasion, we
withdrew in all speed to our chamber, vainly hoping that it might prove
an inviolable sanctuary. The emigrants prosecuted their investigations
with untiring vigor. They penetrated the rooms or rather dens, inhabited
by the astonished squaws. They explored the apartments of the men, and
even that of Marie and the bourgeois. At last a numerous deputation
appeared at our door, but were immediately expelled. Being totally
devoid of any sense of delicacy or propriety, they seemed resolved to
search every mystery to the bottom.
Having at length satisfied their curiosity, they next proceeded to
business. The men occupied themselves in procuring supplies for their
onward journey; either buying them with money or giving in exchange
superfluous articles of their own.
The emigrants felt a violent prejudice against the French Indians,
as they called the trappers and traders. They thought, and with some
justice, that these men bore them no good will. Many of them were firmly
persuaded that the French were instigating the Indians to attack and
cut them off. On visiting the encampment we were at once struck with
the extraordinary perplexity and indecision that prevailed among
the emigrants. They seemed like men totally out of their elements;
bewildered and amazed, like a troop of school-boys lost in the woods. It
was impossible to be long among them without being conscious of the high
and bold spirit with which most of them were animated. But the FOREST is
the home of the backwoodsman. On the remote prairie he is totally at a
loss. He differs much from the genuine “mountain man,” the wild prairie
hunter, as a Canadian voyageur, paddling his canoe on the rapids of the
Ottawa, differs from an American sailor among the storms of Cape Horn.
Still my companion and I were somewhat at a loss to account for this
perturbed state of mind. It could not be cowardice; these men were of
the same stock with the volunteers of Monterey and Buena Vista. Yet, for
the most part, they were the rudest and most ignorant of the frontier
population; they knew absolutely nothing of the country and its
inhabitants; they had already experienced much misfortune, and
apprehended more; they had seen nothing of mankind, and had never put
their own resources to the test.
A full proportion of suspicion fell upon us. Being strangers we were
looked upon as enemies. Having occasion for a supply of lead and a few
other necessary articles, we used to go over to the emigrant camps to
obtain them. After some hesitation, some dubious glances, and fumbling
of the hands in the pockets, the terms would be agreed upon, the
price tendered, and the emigrant would go off to bring the article in
question. After waiting until our patience gave out, we would go in
search of him, and find him seated on the tongue of his wagon.
“Well, stranger,” he would observe, as he saw us approach, “I reckon I
won’t trade!”
Some friend of his followed him from the scene of the bargain and
suggested in his ear, that clearly we meant to cheat him, and he had
better have nothing to do with us.
This timorous mood of the emigrants was doubly unfortunate, as it
exposed them to real danger. Assume, in the presence of Indians a bold
bearing, self-confident yet vigilant, and you will find them tolerably
safe neighbors. But your safety depends on the respect and fear you are
able to inspire. If you betray timidity or indecision, you convert them
from that moment into insidious and dangerous enemies. The Dakotas saw
clearly enough the perturbation of the emigrants and instantly availed
themselves of it. They became extremely insolent and exacting in their
demands. It has become an established custom with them to go to the camp
of every party, as it arrives in succession at the fort, and demand a
feast. Smoke’s village had come with the express design, having made
several days’ journey with no other object than that of enjoying a cup
of coffee and two or three biscuits. So the “feast” was demanded, and
the emigrants dared not refuse it.
One evening, about sunset, the village was deserted. We met old men,
warriors, squaws, and children in gay attire, trooping off to the
encampment, with faces of anticipation; and, arriving here, they seated
themselves in a semicircle. Smoke occupied the center, with his warriors
on either hand; the young men and boys next succeeded, and the squaws
and children formed the horns of the crescent. The biscuit and coffee
were most promptly dispatched, the emigrants staring open-mouthed at
their savage guests. With each new emigrant party that arrived at Fort
Laramie this scene was renewed; and every day the Indians grew more
rapacious and presumptuous. One evening they broke to pieces, out of
mere wantonness, the cups from which they had been feasted; and this
so exasperated the emigrants that many of them seized their rifles and
could scarcely be restrained from firing on the insolent mob of Indians.
Before we left the country this dangerous spirit on the part of the
Dakota had mounted to a yet higher pitch. They began openly to threaten
the emigrants with destruction, and actually fired upon one or two
parties of whites. A military force and military law are urgently called
for in that perilous region; and unless troops are speedily stationed at
Fort Laramie, or elsewhere in the neighborhood, both the emigrants and
other travelers will be exposed to most imminent risks.
The Ogallalla, the Brules, and other western bands of the Dakota, are
thorough savages, unchanged by any contact with civilization. Not one
of them can speak a European tongue, or has ever visited an American
settlement. Until within a year or two, when the emigrants began to
pass through their country on the way to Oregon, they had seen no whites
except the handful employed about the Fur Company’s posts. They esteemed
them a wise people, inferior only to themselves, living in leather
lodges, like their own, and subsisting on buffalo. But when the swarm
of MENEASKA, with their oxen and wagons, began to invade them, their
astonishment was unbounded. They could scarcely believe that the earth
contained such a multitude of white men. Their wonder is now giving way
to indignation; and the result, unless vigilantly guarded against, may
be lamentable in the extreme.
But to glance at the interior of a lodge. Shaw and I used often to
visit them. Indeed, we spent most of our evenings in the Indian village;
Shaw’s assumption of the medical character giving us a fair pretext. As
a sample of the rest I will describe one of these visits. The sun had
just set, and the horses were driven into the corral. The Prairie Cock,
a noted beau, came in at the gate with a bevy of young girls, with whom
he began to dance in the area, leading them round and round in a circle,
while he jerked up from his chest a succession of monotonous sounds, to
which they kept time in a rueful chant. Outside the gate boys and young
men were idly frolicking; and close by, looking grimly upon them, stood
a warrior in his robe, with his face painted jet-black, in token that
he had lately taken a Pawnee scalp. Passing these, the tall dark lodges
rose between us and the red western sky. We repaired at once to the
lodge of Old Smoke himself. It was by no means better than the others;
indeed, it was rather shabby; for in this democratic community, the
chief never assumes superior state. Smoke sat cross-legged on a buffalo
robe, and his grunt of salutation as we entered was unusually cordial,
out of respect no doubt to Shaw’s medical character. Seated around the
lodge were several squaws, and an abundance of children. The complaint
of Shaw’s patients was, for the most part, a severe inflammation of the
eyes, occasioned by exposure to the sun, a species of disorder which
he treated with some success. He had brought with him a homeopathic
medicine chest, and was, I presume, the first who introduced that
harmless system of treatment among the Ogallalla. No sooner had a robe
been spread at the head of the lodge for our accommodation, and we
had seated ourselves upon it, than a patient made her appearance; the
chief’s daughter herself, who, to do her justice, was the best-looking
girl in the village. Being on excellent terms with the physician, she
placed herself readily under his hands, and submitted with a good grace
to his applications, laughing in his face during the whole process, for
a squaw hardly knows how to smile. This case dispatched, another of
a different kind succeeded. A hideous, emaciated old woman sat in the
darkest corner of the lodge rocking to and fro with pain and hiding
her eyes from the light by pressing the palms of both hands against
her face. At Smoke’s command, she came forward, very unwillingly, and
exhibited a pair of eyes that had nearly disappeared from excess of
inflammation. No sooner had the doctor fastened his grips upon her than
she set up a dismal moaning, and writhed so in his grasp that he lost
all patience, but being resolved to carry his point, he succeeded at
last in applying his favorite remedies.
“It is strange,” he said, when the operation was finished, “that I
forgot to bring any Spanish flies with me; we must have something here
to answer for a counter-irritant!”
So, in the absence of better, he seized upon a red-hot brand from the
fire, and clapped it against the temple of the old squaw, who set up an
unearthly howl, at which the rest of the family broke out into a laugh.
During these medical operations Smoke’s eldest squaw entered the lodge,
with a sort of stone mallet in her hand. I had observed some time before
a litter of well-grown black puppies, comfortably nestled among some
buffalo robes at one side; but this newcomer speedily disturbed their
enjoyment; for seizing one of them by the hind paw, she dragged him out,
and carrying him to the entrance of the lodge, hammered him on the head
till she killed him. Being quite conscious to what this preparation
tended, I looked through a hole in the back of the lodge to see the
next steps of the process. The squaw, holding the puppy by the legs, was
swinging him to and fro through the blaze of a fire, until the hair was
singed off. This done, she unsheathed her knife and cut him into small
pieces, which she dropped into a kettle to boil. In a few moments
a large wooden dish was set before us, filled with this delicate
preparation. We felt conscious of the honor. A dog-feast is the greatest
compliment a Dakota can offer to his guest; and knowing that to refuse
eating would be an affront, we attacked the little dog and devoured him
before the eyes of his unconscious parent. Smoke in the meantime was
preparing his great pipe. It was lighted when we had finished our
repast, and we passed it from one to another till the bowl was empty.
This done, we took our leave without further ceremony, knocked at the
gate of the fort, and after making ourselves known were admitted.
One morning, about a week after reaching Fort Laramie, we were holding
our customary Indian levee, when a bustle in the area below announced
a new arrival; and looking down from our balcony, I saw a familiar red
beard and mustache in the gateway. They belonged to the captain, who
with his party had just crossed the stream. We met him on the stairs as
he came up, and congratulated him on the safe arrival of himself and his
devoted companions. But he remembered our treachery, and was grave and
dignified accordingly; a tendency which increased as he observed on our
part a disposition to laugh at him. After remaining an hour or two at
the fort he rode away with his friends, and we have heard nothing of him
since. As for R., he kept carefully aloof. It was but too evident that
we had the unhappiness to have forfeited the kind regards of our London
fellow-traveler.