While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
"The United States hereby agrees and
stipulates that the country north of the North Platte River
and east of the summits of the Big Horn Mountains shall be
held and considered to be unceded Indian territory, and also
stipulates and agrees that no white person or persons shall
be permitted to settle upon or occupy any portion of the
same, or, without the consent of the Indians first had and
obtained, to pass through the same; and it is further agreed
by the United States that, within ninety days after the
conclusion of peace with all the bands of the Sioux Nation,
the military posts now established in territory in this
article named, shall be abandoned, and the road leading to
them and by them to the settlements in the Territory of
Montana shall be closed."
So read the treaty
of 1868, made at fort Laramie, Dakota, with
a dozen or more tribes of Sioux who had been
at war continuously for a half dozen years.
For between the nine treaties of 1865 and
this new agreement warfare had been going on
unceasingly, the annihilation of Fetterman's
command near Fort Phil Kearney being one of
the outstanding events of this officially
peaceful period.
Among the
many causes of trouble with the Indians was
the division of authority between the
military and the civil arm of the
government, or between the legislative and
the administrative powers. The army offered
bullets while the Indian agent offered
bread. The exasperated and ungentle folk of
the pioneer country took a leaf from the
Indian's own book and perpetrated an outrage
or two on their own account while the
friends of oppressed races in the east were
calling for clemency and sending
missionaries and teachers to the Indian.
Treaty commissioners would hold council and
sign an agreement with the various bands;
Congress would deliberate a year or two
before ratifying the compact-perhaps would
change its tenor completely. If there are
any bright spots in the record, they are not
caused by the luster of the jewel
consistency. And consistency is absolutely
the first need in any dealings with simple
and primitive people. No wonder that the
wavering policy of the white man failed
either to convince the Sioux of the good
intent of the government or to give him a
wholesome fear of its power.
So, after years of fighting, forts were
abandoned, and the inevitable result was
fresh attack from the hostile Indian. In the
gifts of goods and money that the treaty
provided, he saw a confession of weakness.
With equal inconsistency, the makers of the
treaty had promised something impossible of
performance. The pioneer was advancing
farther and farther each year. Already,
under armed guard, the line of the first
transcontinental railroad had been laid
across the plain in the very face of the
hostiles.
Already the lure of
gold in the northern hills was bringing such
impassioned hordes as the greed for fortune
alone can create. In the midst of all this
the treaty-makers solemnly promised to keep
white men forever out of this vast territory
of the Dakotas. King Canute threatening the
ocean made a far less futile gesture.
It was
Red Cloud, the leader of the
Oglala band of
Teton Sioux, who dictated the terms
concerning the abandonment of forts and
exclusion of whit men from the lands of his
people; and indeed the whole treaty, with
its liberal annuities and its wide
reservation of lands, was a triumph for his
prowess in was and diplomacy. Bus his eager
young warriors could not become reconciled
to any treaty; it may be suspected, since
the Sioux have always been notable for their
warlike tendencies, that they preferred the
warpath to the quiet life of the agency. In
spite of his victory, Red Cloud lost caste
with the red man as he conducted himself in
a manner more satisfactory to the white; his
remaining years found him faithful to his
agreements, but found
Sitting Bull, the medicine man, gaining
the power over the Sioux which Red Cloud had
let slip through his hands.
When General Grant became president, the
situation as to the Indians throughout the
west was anything but satisfactory.
Everywhere the army was engaged against
hostile bands and everywhere fighting at the
disadvantage which guerilla warfare imposes
on the professional soldier who cannot adopt
the tactics of the savage. Grant determined
upon a "peace policy." In short, the motto
of the government became "It is cheaper to
ration the Indians than to conquer them."
Commissioners were sent out to make peace
with all the tribes. The issuance of rations
to all who would come to the agencies to
receive them became more and more a settled
practice. With the early Seventies a measure
of quiet descended upon the Dakotas. But out
in Montana Sitting Bull with his increasing
band of malcontents was roaming and making
medicine against the time when the red man
should again go on the warpath.
In 1869, at Fort Sully in Dakota territory,
Major General Stanley reported on the
various bands of Sioux, their numbers,
disposition and activities. He concluded his
survey:
"At the agencies
established for the Sioux, there is one
class of Indians which has been friendly for
four or five years and are nearly residents,
only leaving from time to time to hunt or
pick wild fruit. With this class there is no
trouble. There is another class passing half
its time at these agencies and half in the
hostile camps. They abuse the agents,
threaten their lives, kill their cattle at
night and do anything they can to oppose the
civilizing movement, but eat all the
provisions they can get, and thus far have
taken no lives.
"During the
winter for the past two years, almost the
entire hostile Sioux have camped together in
one big camp on the Rosebud, near the
Yellowstone. In the summer time they break
up and spread over the prairies, either to
hunt, plunder, or come into the posts to
beg."
The early Seventies saw
many infractions of the treaty of 1868.
Reconnoitering parties visited the Black
Hills from time to time. A projected change
in the line of the Northern Pacific Railroad
was another source of complaint. Gold
seekers prospected and staked out claims,
and when warned by the military that they
were violating treaty stipulations, excused
their actions by instancing the many cases
in which the Indians had violated their part
of the agreement.
So matters
went from bad to worse. Sitting Bull's band,
by this time about three thousand in number,
grew bolder and bolder in their attacks upon
settlers, their raids of the frontier posts,
their warfare with all the tribes
maintaining friendly relations with the
United States. It was decided to make a
final effort to return these hostile Sioux
to their reservations, and an order was
issued that unless they came in to the
agencies by January 31, 1876, the army would
be asked to take charge of the situation.
The Indians totally disregarded the warning.
A winter campaign was planned, Custer to
take his regiment-the Seventh Cavalry-in
pursuit of Sitting Bull, General Crook to
proceed to the capture of
Crazy Horse, Oglala leader of a mixed
force of Sioux and Cheyenne. Owing to the
bad weather, battle was not joined as soon
as was expected, and when Crook and Crazy
Horse met the result was not such as to
discourage the Indians. The army then
desisted from its efforts until the late
northern spring was at hand.
Meanwhile Custer had been in
trouble with his superiors at Washington and
was no longer in command, but under orders
from General Terry when, on the 22nd of
June, with six hundred cavalrymen, a pack
train and a group of free and Crow scouts he
set out southwest from the Yellowstone to
discover the trail of the hostiles. Up the
valley of the Rosebud and across the divide
to the course of the Little Big Horn, known
to the Indians as the Greasy Grass, in
southeastern Montana, they traveled for
three days. The scouts read signs and
reported a large force; how large they could
not tell, but they gave warning of impending
trouble. Custer, however, paid but little
attention to these warnings, for where was
the band of Indians who could stand up
before his brave fighters? And it may be the
desire to reestablish himself with
headquarters made him more reckless than he
should have been. He divided his force into
three columns and pushed boldly forward. In
that almost treeless country there was no
cover for the attacker, so his movements
were known at every turn to the enemy which
remained invisible to him until the two
parties were at last in contact.
There were ten thousand souls in the Indian
village into which Custer's command stumbled
on that memorable 25th of June, 1876, on the
banks of the Little Big Horn.
Gall and Crow King were their war
chiefs; Sitting Bull, the medicine man, fled
with his wives to the hills at Reno's
firing, and though he took no part in the
fighting, he gained great prestige with his
people through his prophecies and
predictions. The Indians were not expecting
attack; their numbers, they thought, were
sufficient protection. They knew how
pitifully few were the cavalrymen who had
come in search of them.
The
story of that fight has been told
innumerable times in song and story. The
division of the forces; Reno's attack at the
river bend and withdrawal to the heights
beyond; the delay that brought Benteen up
too late; the last stand of Custer and his
two hundred men on the ridge above the Sioux
village. Today stone markers thick along the
slopes tell where the bodies were found,
fallen like a harvest before the moving of
the Sioux village. Today stone markers thick
along the slopes tell where the bodies were
found, fallen like a harvest before the
moving of the Sioux warriors. Standing on
the bare wind-swept hilltop, now a national
reserve, one can see in imagination the
handful of blue-coated men huddled together
in small groups, making their last desperate
resistance, while all about the hill swarm
thousands of savage fighters. A great cloud
of smoke rises from reeking guns, an the
dust and thunder of galloping horses sweeps
the ridge; sweeps over it in a whirlwind,
and is gone. When the storm passes there is
no white man left alive; the ridge is
covered with the bodies of the slain, which
are at once attacked by boys and women from
the Indian camp in a barbaric orgy of
plunder and mutilation.
There
was great rejoicing that night in the
encampment along the river. Let a Sioux
woman give the ending of the tale as she
told it to her white friend, Major
McLaughlin;
" That night the
Sioux men, women and children, lighted many
fires and dances; their hearts were glad,
for the Great Spirit had given them a great
victory. All along the valley of the Greasy
Grass fires were lighted, and the women
laughed as they labored hard to bring in the
fuel; for in the darkness they could see the
gleam of the flames on the arms of the
soldiers fastened in a trap on Reno Hill.
The people had taken my guns, cartridges,
horses and much clothing from the soldiers,
and they rejoiced whit the fires lit up the
field on the hill across the river, where
the naked bodies of the soldiers lay….Since
the Sioux first fought the men who are our
friends now, they had not won so great a
battle, and at so little cost.
So we went out from the Greasy Grass River
and left Long Hair (Custer) and his dead to
their friends. The people scattered and the
pursuit did not harm us. But I still
remember the bitterness of the suffering of
the Sioux that winter, after we had met and
talked with Bear Coat (General Miles) on the
Yellowstone, when we were on our way north
into the land of the Red Coats, where we
remained five winters and were frequently
very destitute while we remained there.
"So it was that the Sioux defeated Long Hair
and his soldiers in the valley of the Greasy
Grass, which my people remember with regret
but without shame. We are now living happily
and in friendship with the whites, knowing
that their hears are good toward us. The
great chiefs who led that fight are dead;
Gall, Crow King, Crazy Horse, Big Road, and
the other head men are dead and gone to the
land of ghosts, but their deeds live and we
of the Sioux nation keep them in our
memories, even as we keep in remembrance
Long Hair and his men, whose bravery in
battle makes the bravery of their conquerors
a thing that cannot be buried in the grave
nor forgotten, because their ghosts are at
peace."
This site
includes some historical materials that may imply negative stereotypes
reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. These
items are presented as part of the historical record and should not be
interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes
implied .
