Part 12

One day in 1854, while the Uncapappas, a branch of my father’s people, were camped in pursuit of buffalo on a tributary of the Platte River, a half-breed scout came into the circle from the south, bearing a strange message. He said: “The great war chief of the whites is coming with beads and cloth and many good things. He desires all the red men to meet him in a council of peace. He is sorry that we are at war. Therefore, he is inviting all your chieftains to his lodge to receive presents and to smoke.”

Up to this time the Uncapappas had never made talk with the soldiers, and many, like myself, had never seen a white man. Our home lay to the east and north of the Black Hills, far away from contact with the settlers. Of them we had heard, but only remotely. Many of our own men had never seen a French trapper. Our lives still went on as they had been going since the earliest time.

We followed the buffalo wherever they went within the limits of the hunting grounds which we claimed. On the east were our cousins, the Yanktonaise and Minneconjous. To the north of the Cannonball lived the Rees and Mandans; to the northwest, across the Powder River lurked the Crows, our ever-ready enemies. On the headwaters of the Arkansaw the Utes, a powerful mountain people, dwelt. The Comanches and many other unknown folk held the country far, far to the south, while to the east lay a land more mysterious than any other, for it was said that both white men and red men claimed it and warred for the mastery of it. Of the rest of the world most of us knew nothing; all was dark as a cave inhabited by bats and serpents.

Therefore, when the messenger had made his plea the chiefs called a great council to ponder this new and important matter. At this time the four head men, the civic chiefs, of my people, were The Four Horns, The Red Horn, The Running Antelope and The Loud-Voiced Hawk. These men had full power to call a convention and all the people came together obediently and some of the boys, like myself, crept near to listen.

It was in early summer. The grass was new and sweet; the buffalo were fat, the horses swift, and each day was a feast, with much dancing, and we lads raced horses when the old men would permit. Not one of all our tribe had care as a bedfellow at this time. Even the aged smiled like children.

In those days the plains were black with buffalo and the valleys speckled with red deer and elk, and no lodge had fear of hunger or frost. In winter we occupied tepees of thick warm fur with the edges fully banked with snow and we were not often cold. We had plenty of buckskin to wear and no one went unsatisfied. You would look long to find a people as happy as we were, because we lived as the Great Spirit had taught us to do, with no thought of change.

Nevertheless, our wise men had a foreboding of coming trouble, and when The Hawk, who was a very old man, rose in the council to speak, his face was deeply troubled. Once he had been ready of speech, but his tongue now trembled with age and his shoulders weighed heavy upon his lungs, for he coughed twice before he could begin.

“My friends, listen to me. I am an old man. I shall not be able to meet in council again. The rime of many winters has stiffened my lips, but I am glad this matter has come up now. My heart is full of things to tell you. My children, I have had a dream. Last night I went forth on the hill to pray and as I prayed I grew weary and fell asleep, and I saw a great council such as that the Graybeard now asks us to attend. I beheld much food and many blankets given away, and then a great fight began. A cloud of thick smoke arose. There were angry confusion and slaying and wailing in the midst of the smoke, so that my limbs seemed rooted to the ground in my fear. Now I know this dream was intended for a warning. Beware of those who come bringing gifts. They seek to betray you.” With uplifted hand he faced all the people and called again, very loud, “Beware of those who bring presents, for they will work sorrow among you.”

Then he sank back exhausted and all the chiefs were silent, but The Hawk’s wife began to sing a sad song, and as she sang, one by one the other chiefs rose and said: “The Hawk is wise. We will not go to meet this man. We will not take his presents. He comes like a Comanche disguised as a wolf. We will be as cunning as he. Why should he offer presents unless he wishes to gain an advantage of us?”

At last a young warrior, a grave man of gentle and serious face, stood in his place and said: “My father, I am a young man. I have seen only twenty-two winters and perhaps you will not listen to me, but I intend to speak, nevertheless. I have always listened when my elders have spoken, and especially have I opened my ears when strangers from the East came to our lodges. Your decision is wise. It is well to have nothing to do with these deceitful ones. Listen now to my request. I desire to be the chief soldier in this matter. If you wish to oppose the givers of gifts and the policy which goes with their refusal, place the matter in my hands and I will see that your desires are carried out.”

The firm, courageous bearing of this youth pleased the elders, and after deliberation they said: “It is well. We will make you our executive in this matter. You shall be Chief Soldier of Treaties.”

In this way was my chief _Ta-Tank-io-Tanka_, The Sitting Bull, made what you would call “Secretary of War” over seven hundred lodges of my people. He had already attained rank as a valiant but not reckless warrior. The Rees knew him, and so did the Crows. He came of good family, though his father was only a minor chief. His uncle was Four Horns, and his grandfather, The Jumping Bull, was an active and powerful man whose influence undoubtedly was of use to the young chief. His name had never been borne by any other man of his tribe. At fourteen he had counted _coup_ on a Crow. He had been wounded in the foot while dashing upon an enemy, and he still walked with a slight limp. He was active, unassuming, and capable of many things.

But his fame as a peacemaker had already far outrun his renown as a warrior. He had been made a chief by the Ogallallahs because of his firm sense of justice. Only a year before this time a band of the young warriors of his own tribe had stolen from their cousins a herd of horses while the two tribes were camped side by side, and The Sitting Bull, having heard of this, went to the young men and said:

“We do not make reprisals upon our friends. We only take from our enemies,” and thereupon had led the horses back to their owners.

In return for this good deed the Ogallallahs had made him a chief among them, though he took no part in their councils.

He was a natural leader and a persuasive orator. A chief among my people, you know, is a peacemaker, and The Sitting Bull was always gentle of voice. If he saw two men squabbling he parted them and said: “Do not make war among yourselves. What is the matter? Tell me your dispute.” Sometimes he would say: “Here is a horse for each of you. Go and wrangle no more.” When he was very successful in the hunt he always went about the camp, and wherever a sick man or an aged woman lived, there he left a haunch of venison or some buffalo meat. This made him many friends. He did not desire riches for himself, but for his tribe.

Therefore nearly all the tribesmen were glad when he was made treaty chief and given the charge of all such matters. He was at once what the white people would call Secretary of State and of War.

Immediately after his election he called the treaty messenger into his lodge and said: “Return to those that sent you and say this: ‘The Uncapappas have no need of your food or clothing. The hills are clouded with buffalo, the cherries are ripening in the thickets. When we desire any of the white man’s goods we will buy them. Go in peace.’”

In this way the white men first heard of The Sitting Bull.

Yes, in those wondrous days my people were many and powerful. The allied tribes of Sioux (as you white men call them) held all the land from Big Stone Lake westward to the Yellowstone River and south to the Platte—that is to say, all of what you call South Dakota, part of Wyoming, and half of Nebraska. We often went as far as the Rocky Mountains in our search for food, for the buffalo were always shifting ground. As the phantom lakes of the plain mysteriously appear and disappear, so they came and went.

Where the bison were, there plenty was; we had no fear. But they roamed widely. For these reasons my people required much territory, and, though the wild cattle were many, we were sometimes obliged to enter the lands of our enemies to make our killing, and these expeditions were the causes of our wars with the Crows on the west and with the Comanches on the south. However, these wars were not long or bloody. For the most part we lived quietly, peacefully, with only games to keep our sinews tense.

In the expeditions which followed The Sitting Bull’s promotion he became the executive head. He was chief of police by virtue of his office, and his was the hand which commanded tranquillity and order in the camp. Whenever a messenger entered the circle the sentinels brought him directly to the chief’s lodge and there waited orders. No one thought of stepping between The Sitting Bull and his duties, for, though so quiet, he could be very stern.

He laid aside all weapons—for this is the custom among the chiefs—and carried only his embroidered pipe-bag and his fan, nothing more. His face was always calm and his voice gentle. He seemed to have no thought of self, but spoke always of the welfare of his tribe. When a question came to him for decision he said: “This is good for my people. We will do it.” Or, “This is bad for my people. We will refuse.” He raised himself by building upon the welfare of his race.

It was for this reason he refused again to meet General Harney in 1855 at Fort Pierre. He knew something then of the floods of white men pouring into Iowa and Minnesota. He had his spies out and was aware of every boat that came up the Missouri. He already possessed a well-defined policy. To every trader he said: “Yes, I am glad to see you. My people have skins to sell and tobacco and ammunition to buy. This exchange is good. Come and trade.” But to the messenger of the white men’s government he said: “I do not want your presents. My young men earn their goods by hunting. We are not in need of treaty makers.”

So it was that his fame spread among the border men and he came to be called a fierce warrior, ever ready to kill, when the truth is he protected those who came to his camp; even the spies of Washington had reason to thank The Sitting Bull for his clemency.

The years passed pleasantly and my tribe had little foreboding of danger. Our game remained plentiful and, though the rumors of the white man’s coming thickened, the people paid little heed to them, though the chiefs counciled upon it gravely. Then one day came the news that the Dakotas, our cousins, were at war with the whites. Soon after this, word came that they had been driven out of their land into our territory. Then it was that the Uncapappas first began to know the power of the invaders. I was but a lad, but I remember well the incredulous words of my father and mother when the story of the battles first were told at our fireside. The head men were uneasy and The Sitting Bull seemed especially gloomy and troubled.

In council he said: “Our brothers have been wrong. They should not make war upon the white man. He has many things that we need—guns and cloth and knives. We should be friendly with him. I do not make war on him, though I fear his presents and stop my ears to his promises. I forecast that we shall be pushed out.”

The news came to us also at this time that the white men were fighting among themselves far to the south, but we never met anyone who had seen this with his own eyes. We had no clear conception of what lay to the east of us. We only knew that the Chippewas lived there and many whites who were friendly with them, but no one of all our wise old men could tell us more.

Once I heard the chief say: “I do not understand why the white man leaves his own land to invade ours. It must be a sad country with little game, and if he came here only to hunt or trade we would make him welcome—but I fear he comes to steal our hunting grounds away. If he is in need and comes peaceably, let him share our buffalo. There is enough to feed all the world.”

Meanwhile the four head chiefs were growing old and lethargic, and so, naturally, step by step, The Sitting Bull came to be the head of all our band. He drew toward him all those who believed in living the simple life of our ancestors far away from all enemies. With songs and dances and feasts we marked the seasons, living peacefully for the most part, except now and then when a small party was sent out against the Crows or the Mandans, till in the 110th mark of my father’s winter count—that is in 1869—the whites established a trading post at the Grand River and put some soldiers in it and sent out couriers to all the Sioux tribes to assemble there for a council. The time had come (as it afterward appeared) when the settlers wanted to inhabit our lands.

This, I think, was the first time the chief clearly understood the attitude of the government toward him. Another day marks the beginning of the decline of my people.

I remember well the coming of that messenger. I was awakened by the sound of a horse’s feet, and, looking out of the tepee, I saw a small man on a big horse—bigger than any I had ever seen before. Warriors were surrounding him, asking, “Who are you?”

“Take me to The Sitting Bull,” he said, and just then the chief looked from his lodge and said, “Bring him to me.”

He was brought and set before The Sitting Bull, and they looked at each other for a time in silence. I was peering in under the side of the lodge and could not see the chief’s face, but the stranger smiled and said: “Are The Sitting Bull’s eyes getting dim that he does not know his old playmate?”

“The Badger,” replied the chief. Then he smiled and they shook hands. “You are changed, my friend; you were but a boy when we played at hunting in The Cave Hills.”

“That is true,” replied the man, who was a French half-breed. “I do not blame you for looking at me with blind eyes. I would not have known you. I have a message for you.”

“Bring food for our brother,” commanded the chief, and after The Badger had eaten the chief said, “Now tell me whence you come and why are you here?”

“That is a long tale,” said The Badger. “It is a story you must think about.”

And so for three days The Badger sat before the chief and they talked. And each night the camp muttered gravely, discussing the same question. The chief’s face grew sterner each day. He smoked long and there were times when his eyes rested on the ground in a silence of deep thought while The Badger told of the mighty white man—of his wonderful deeds, of his armies, of his iron horses, of all these things which we afterward saw for ourselves. He went farther. He told us of the white man’s government which was lodged in a great village made of wood and stone. He said the white men were more numerous than the buffalo and that their horses were plenty as prairie dogs. “You do well, my friend, not to go to war against these people. They are all-conquering. What can you do against magicians who create guns and knives and powder?”

“I have no hate of them,” replied the chief. “All I ask is to be let alone.”

“Listen, my friend. This is what the white man is doing. A great chief, whose name is Sheridan, followed by many warriors, is killing or subduing all the red people to the south. He has broken the Comanches; the Kiowas and Pawnees—all bend the neck to him. Ferocious leaders have been sent out from Washington with orders to gather all your race into certain small lands and there teach them the white man’s way. Whether they wish to do so or not does not matter. They must go or be blown to pieces by his guns. My friend, that is what they mean to do with you. They want you to come to the mouth of Grand River and to the Standing Rock, there to give up your hunting and learn the white man’s way. The great war chief of the whites has said it.”

The chief’s eyes flamed. “And if I refuse?”

“Then he will send a long line of his horsemen to fetch you.”

The chief grimly smiled. “Hoh! Well, go back and tell them to come. The Sitting Bull has got along very well in the ways of his fathers thus far and in those ways he will continue. The land is wide to the west and game is plenty.”

But The Badger then said: “My brother, you know me well. We can speak plainly. The white chief sent me, I say that now. He asked me to come, and I did so. I came as a friend in order that you might not be deceived. I tell you the truth—the white man is moving westward, like a feeding herd of buffalo, slow but sure. His heart is bitter toward us and we must keep silence before him. He wants all the land east of the Missouri and south of the Black Hills. He demands that you give it up.”

My chief was sitting in his soldiers’ lodge; few were there. My father was looking in at the door and I, a lad, was beside him. I saw the veins swell out in the chief’s neck as he rose and spoke: “My friend, out there” (he swept his hand to the west) “is our land, a big open space covered with game. Go back to your friends, the white men, and say that The Sitting Bull is Uncapappa and free to do as he wills. He chooses to live as his fathers lived. As the Great Spirit made him, so he is, and shall remain.”

II

POLICY AND COUNCIL

Nevertheless The Badger’s talk had enlightened my chief. He pondered deeply over his words and came at last fairly to understand the white man’s demands. He lived by planting; the red man by hunting. The palefaces said: “The red man has too much land. We will take part of it for ourselves. In return we will teach him how to plant and make bread and clothing.” But they did not stop there. They said if the red man does not wish to be a planter and wear our clothing we will send out soldiers with guns and make him do our will.

The chief’s first duty was to reject these terms, and this he did; but a second messenger came bringing tobacco and round disks of bread. The chief ground the tobacco under his heel and his soldiers spun the bread down the hill into the river. The emissary stood by and saw this merry game and was wise enough to remain silent.

Once a courier who would not cease talking when commanded by the chief was whipped out of the village. So it came to be that this great camp on the Little Missouri was called “The Hostile Camp of Sitting Bull.”

You have heard those who now deride my chief and say that he was no warrior, that he was a coward, a man of no account; but they are ignorant fools who say this. Go read in the books of the agent at Standing Rock; there you will find records of the respect and fear in which the agents of Washington held my chief in those days. You may read there of seven messengers who were sent out to tell “Sitting Bull and his irreconcilables they must come in and disarm”—and if you read on you will learn how these spies came straggling back without daring to utter one word of the government’s commands to my chief.

They lied about him, the cowardly whelps, and said he threatened them. In truth, they sneaked into his presence and said nothing. In this way the agent got a false impression of the chief, and reported that he was at war with the whites, which was not true.

The Sitting Bull was now both Secretary of War and commander-in-chief of all those who believed in the ways of the fathers. He drew men to him by the boldness and gentleness of his words. His camp was the refuge of those who declined to obey the agents of the white man’s government. The circle of his followers each year widened and his fame spread far among the white men who hated him for the lands he held.

But while my chief was thus holding hard to the ancestral customs, like a rock in a rushing stream, our cousins, the Yanktonaise and the Ogallallahs, were slowly yielding to the power of Washington. Like the Wyandottes, the Miamis and the Illini, they were retiring before the wonder-working plowmen.

In the autumn of the year 1869 the agent again sent out a call for us to come and join another peace council. Washington wanted to buy some more of our land. Of course The Sitting Bull refused, and gave commands that no one leave his camp, except such messengers as he sent to check the vote for a treaty. “I have made a vow and I will never treat with you,” he said.