by Dee Brown
Crow Creek on the Missouri River was the site chosen for the Santee reservation- The soil was barren, rainfall scanty, wild game scarce, and the alkaline water unfit for drinking.
Soon the surrounding hills were covered with graves; of the 1,300 Santees brought there in 1863, less than a thousand survived their first winter.
Among the visitors to Crow Creek that year was a young Teton Sioux. He looked with pity upon his Santee cousins and listened to their stories of the Americans who had taken their land and driven them away. Truly, he thought, that nation of white men is like a spring freshet that overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path.
Soon they would take the buffalo country unless the hearts of the Indians were strong enough to hold it. He resolved that he would fight to hold it. His name was Tatanka Yotanka, the Sitting Bull.
Four
War Comes to the Cheyennes
1861-January 13 Stephen Foster, composer of songs and ballads, dies at age 38. April 10, Archduke Maximilian, supported by a French army, becomes Emperor of Mexico.
April 17, bread riot in Savannah, Georgia. May 19, Nathaniel Hawthorne dies at age 60. June 30, Secretary of the Treasury Chase resigns; charges speculators are plotting to prolong war for monetary gain. Legislator and historian Robert C. Winthrop says: "Professed patriotism may be made the cover for a multitude of sins." September 2, Atlanta, Georgia, taken by Union Army. November 8, Lincoln re-elected president. December 8, in Rome, Pius IX
issues Syllabus Errorum, condemning Liberalism, Socialism, and Rationalism. December 21, Savannah falls to Sherman's army. December, Edwin Booth playing in Hamlet at New York's Winter Garden Theater.
Although wrongs have been done me I live in hopes. I have not got two hearts. . . Now we are together again to make peace. My shame is as big as the earth, although I will do what my friends advise me to do. I once thought that I was the only man that persevered to be the friend of the white man, but since they have come and cleaned out our lodges, horses, and everything else, it is hard for me to believe white men any more.
-Motavato (Black Kettle) of the Southern Cheyennes T
In 1851 the Cheyennes, Arapahos, Sioux, Crows, and other tribes met at Fort Laramie with representatives of the United States and agreed to permit the Americans to establish roads and military posts across their territory.
Both parties to the treaty swore "to maintain good faith and friendship in all their mutual intercourse, and to make an effective and lasting peace'" By the end of the first decade following the treaty signing, the white men had driven a hole through the Indian country along the valley of the Platte River. First came the wagon trains and then a chain of forts; then the stagecoaches and a closer-knit chain of forts; then the pony-express riders, followed by the talking wires of the telegraph.
In that treaty of 1851 the Plains Indians did not relinquish any rights or claims to their lands, nor did they "surrender the privilege of hunting, fishing or passing over any of the tracts of country heretofore described." The Pike's Peak gold rush of 1858 brought white miners by the thousands to dig yellow metal out of the Indians' earth. The miners built little wooden villages everywhere, and in 1859 they built a big village which they called Denver City. Little Raven, an Arapaho chief who was amused by the activities of white men, paid a visit to Denver; he learned to smoke cigars and to eat meat with a knife and fork. He also told the miners he was glad to see them getting gold, but reminded them that the land belonged to the Indians, and expressed the hope they would not stay around after they found all the yellow metal they needed.
The miners not only stayed, but thousands more of them came. The Platte Valley, which had once teemed with buffalo, began to fill with settlers staking out ranches and land claims on territory assigned by the Laramie treaty to Southern Cheyennes and Arapahos. Only ten years after the treaty signing, the Great Council in Washington created the Territory of Colorado; the Great Father sent out a governor; and politicians began manoeuvring for a land cession from the Indians.
Through all of this the Cheyennes and Arapahos kept the peace, and when United States officials invited their leaders to gather at Fort wise on the Arkansas River to discuss a new treaty, several chiefs responded. According to later statements of
chiefs of both tribes, what they were told would be in the treaty and what was actually written into it were quite different. It was the understanding of the chiefs that the Cheyennes and Arapahos would retain their land rights and freedom of movement to hunt buffalo, but that they would agree to live within a triangular section of territory bounded by sand creek and the Arkansas River. Freedom of movement was an especially vital matter because the reservation assigned the two tribes had almost no wild game upon it and was unsuited to agriculture unless irrigated.
The treaty making at Fort wise was a gala affair. Because of its importance, Colonel A. B. Greenwood, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, put in an appearance to pass out medals, blankets, sugar, and tobacco. The Little White Man (William Bent), who had married into the Cheyenne tribe, was there to look after the Indians’ interests. When the Cheyennes pointed out that only six of their forty-four chiefs were present, the United States officials replied that the others could sign later. None of the others ever did, and for that reason the legality of the treaty was to remain in doubt.
Black Kettle, White Antelope, and Lean Bear were among the signers for the Cheyennes. Little Raven, Storm, and Big Mouth signed for the Arapahos. Witnesses to the signatures were two officers of the United States Cavalry, John Sedgwick and J. E. B. Stuart. (A few months rater Sedgwick and Stuart, who urged the Indians to peaceful pursuits, were fighting on opposite sides in the civil war, and by one of the ironies of history they died within a few hours of each other in the battles of the Wilderness.) During the first years of the white man’s Civil War, Cheyenne and Arapaho hunting parties found it increasingly difficult to stay clear of Bluecoat soldiers who were scouting southward in search of Graycoats. They heard about the troubles of the Navahos, and from friends among the Sioux they learned of the awful fate of the Santees who dared challenge the power of the soldiers in Minnesota. Cheyenne and Arapaho chiefs tried to keep their young men busy hunting buffalo away from the white men’s routes Of travel. Each summer, however, the numbers and arrogance of the Bluecoats increased. By the spring of 1864, soldiers were prowling into remote hunting grounds between the Smoky Hill and Republican rivers.
When the grass was well up that year, Roman Nose and quite a number of the Dog Soldier Cheyennes went north for better hunting in the Powder River country with their Northern Cheyenne cousins. Black Kettle, White Antelope, and Lean Bear kept their bands below the Platte, however, and so did Little Raven of the Arapahos. They were careful to avoid soldiers and white buffalo hunters by staying away from forts and trails and settlements.
Black Kettle and Lean Bear did go down to Fort Larned (Kansas) that spring to trade. Only the year before the two chiefs had been invited on a visit to see the Great Father, Abraham Lincoln, in Washington, and they were sure the Great Father's soldiers at Fort Larned would treat them well. President Lincoln gave them medals to wear on their breasts, and Colonel Greenwood presented Black Kettle with a United States flag, a huge garrison flag with white stars for the thirty-four states bigger than glitter stars in the sky on a clear night. Colonel Greenwood had told him that as long as that flag flew above him no soldiers would ever fire upon him. Black Kettle was very proud of his flag and when in permanent camp always mounted it on a pole above his tepee.
In the middle of May, Black Kettle and Lean Bear heard that soldiers had attacked some Cheyennes on the south Platte River. They decided to break camp and move northward to join the rest of the tribe for strength and protection. After one day's march they went into camp near Ash Creek. Next morning, as was the custom, the hunters went out early for game, but they soon came hurrying back. They had seen soldiers with cannons approaching the camp.
Lean bear liked excitement, and he told Bl
ack Kettle he would go out and meet the soldiers and find out what they wanted. He hung the medal from the Great Father Lincoln outside his coat and took some papers that had been given him in Washington certifying that he was a good friend of the United States, and then rode out with an escort of warriors. Lean Bear rode up on a hill near camp and saw the soldiers approaching in four bunches of cavalry. They had two cannons in the center and several wagons strung out in the rear.
Wolf Chief, one of the young warriors escorting Lean Bear, said afterward that as soon as the Cheyenne were seen by the soldiers, the latter formed a line front. "Lean Bear told us warriors to stay where we were," Wolf Chief said, “so as not to frighten the soldiers, while he rode forward to shake hands with the officer and show his papers. . When the chief was within only twenty or thirty yards of the line, the officer called out in a very loud voice and the soldiers all opened fire on Lean Bear and the rest of us. Lean Bear fell off his horse right in front of the troops, and Star, another Cheyenne, also fell off his horse. The soldiers then rode forward and shot Lean Bear and Star again as they lay helpless on the ground. I was off with a party of young men to one side. There was a company of soldiers in front of us, but they were all shooting at Lean Bear and the other Cheyenne who were near to him. They paid no attention to us until we began firing on them with bows and guns. They were so close that we shot several of them with arrows. Two of them fell backward off their horses. By this time there was a great deal of confusion. More Cheyennes kept coming up in small parties and the soldiers were bunching up and seemed badly frightened. They were shooting at us with the cannon. The grapeshot struck the ground around us, but the aim was bad.
In the midst of the fighting, Black Kettle appeared on his horse and began riding up and down among the warriors.
“Stop the fighting!" he shouted. "Do not make war!” It was a long time before the Cheyennes would listen to him. “We were very mad” Wolf Chief said, "but at last he stopped the fight. The soldiers ran off. We captured fifteen cavalry horses, with saddles, bridles, and saddle bags on them.
Several soldiers were killed; Lean Bear, Star, and one more Cheyenne were killed, and many were wounded."
The Cheyenne were sure that they could have killed all the soldiers and captured their mountain howitzers, because five hundred Cheyenne warriors were in the camp against a hundred soldiers. As it was, many of the young men, infuriated by the cold-blooded killing of Lean Bear, chased the retreating soldiers in a running fight all the way to Fort Larned.
Black Kettle was bewildered by this sudden attack. He grieved for Lean Bear; they had been friends for almost half a century. He remembered how Lean Bear's curiosity was always getting him into trouble. Sometime before, when the Cheyennes paid a friendly visit to Fort Atkinson on the Arkansas River, Lean Bear noticed a bright shiny ring worn by an officer's wife. Impulsively he took hold of the woman's hand to look at her ring. The woman's husband rushed up and slashed Lean Bear with a big whip'
Lean Bear turned and jumped on his horse and rode back to the Cheyenne camp. He painted his face and rode through the camp, urging the warriors to join him in attacking the fort. A Cheyenne chief had been insulted, he cried. Black Kettle and the other chiefs had a hard time calming him down that day. Now Lean Bear was dead, and his death had stirred the warriors to a far deeper anger than the insult at Fort Atkinson.
Black Kettle could not understand why the soldiers had attacked a peaceful Cheyenne camp without warning. He supposed that if anyone would know, it would be his old friend the Little White Man, William Bent. More than thirty years had passed since the Little white Man and his brothers had come to the Arkansas River and built Bent's Fort. William had married Owl Woman, and after she died he married her sister, Yellow Woman. In all those years the Bents and the Cheyenne had lived in close friendship. The Little White Man had three sons and two daughters, and they lived much of the time with their mother's people. That summer two of the half-breed sons, George and Charlie, were hunting buffalo with the Cheyenne on Smoky Hill River.
After some thought about the matter, Black Kettle sent a messenger on a fast pony to find the Little White Ma. ' "Tell him we have had a fight with the soldiers and killed several of them," Black Kettle said. "Tell him we do not know what the fight was about or for, and that we would like to see him and talk with him about it'"
By chance Black Kettle's messenger found William Bent on the road between Fort Larned and Fort Lvon. Bent sent the messenger back with instructions for Black Kettle to meet him on Coon Creek. A week later the old friends met, both concerned over the future of the Cheyennes, Bent especially worried about his sons. He was relieved to learn that they were hunting on the Smoky Hill. No trouble had been reported from there, but he knew of two fights that had occurred elsewhere. At Fremont’s orchard north of Denver, a band of Dog soldiers was attacked by a patrol of Colonel John M. Chivington’s Colorado Volunteers who were out looking for stolen horses. The Dog Soldiers were herding a horse and a mule picked up as strays, but Chivington's soldiers opened fire before giving the Cheyennes an opportunity to explain where they had obtained the animals. After this engagement Chivington sent out a larger force, which attacked a Cheyenne camp near Cedar Bluffs, killing two women and two children. The artillery soldiers who had attacked Black Kettle's camp on May 16 were also Chivington's men, sent out from Denver with no authority to operate in Kansas. The officer in command, Lieutenant George S. Eayre, was under orders from Colonel Chivington to "kill Cheyennes whenever and wherever found."
If such incidents continued, William Bent and Black Kettle agreed, a general war was bound to break out all over the plains. "It is not my intention or wish to fight the whites,” Black Kettle said. "I want to be friendly and peaceable and keep my tribe so. I am not able to fight the whites. I want to live in peace.”
Bent told Black Kettle to keep his young men from making revenge raids, and promised he would return to Colorado and try to persuade the military authorities not to continue on the dangerous road they were taking. He then set out for Fort Lyon.
"On my arrival there," he later testified under oath, “I met Colonel Chivington, related to him the conversation that had taken place between me and the Indians, and that the chiefs desired to be friendly. In reply he said he was not authorized to make peace, and that he was then on the warpath-I think were the words he used. I then stated to him that there was great risk to run in keeping up the war; that there were a great many government trains traveling to New Mexico and other points; also a great many citizens, and that I did not think there was sufficient force to protect the travel, and that the citizens and settlers of the country would have to suffer. He said the citizens would have to protect themselves. I then said no more to him."
Late in June the governor of Colorado Territory, John Evans, issued a circular addressed to the "friendly Indians of the plains," informing them that some members of their tribes had gone to war with the white people. Governor Evans declared that "in some instances they have attacked and killed soldiers." He made no mention of soldiers attacking Indians, although this was the way all three fights with the Cheyennes had begun. "For this the Great Father is angry,"
he went on, "and will certainly hunt them out and punish them, but he does not want to injure those who remain friendly to the whites; he desires to protect and take care of them. For this purpose I direct that all friendly Indians keep away from those who are at war, and go to places of safety." Evans ordered friendly Cheyennes and Arapahos to report to Fort Lyon on their reservation, where their agent, Samuel G. Colley, would furnish them with provisions and show them a place of safety. "The object of this is to prevent friendly Indians from being killed through mistake. . . . The war on hostile Indians will be continued until they are all effectually subdued."
As soon as William Bent learned of Governor Evans' decree he started immediately to warn the Cheyennes and Arapahos to come in to Fort Lyon. Because the various bands were scattered across western Kansas for th
eir summer hunts, several weeks passed before runners could reach all of them. During this period clashes between soldiers and Indians steadily increased. Sioux warriors, aroused by General Alfred Sully's punitive expeditions of 1863 and 1864 into Dakota, swarmed down from the north to raid wagon trains, stage coach stations, and settlers along the Platte route. For these actions the Southern Cheyennes and Arapahos received much of the blame, and most of the attention of the Colorado soldiers. William Bent's half-breed son George, who was with a large band of Cheyennes on the Solomon River in July, said they were attacked again and again by the troops without any cause, until they began retaliating in the only way they knew how-burning the stage stations, chasing the coaches, running off stock, and forcing the freighters to corral their trains and fight.
Black Kettle and the older chiefs tried to stop these raids, but their influence was weakened by the appeal of younger leaders such as Roman Nose and by the members of the Hotamitanio, or Dog Soldier Society. When Black Kettle discovered that seven white captives-two women and five children-had been brought into the Smoky Hill camps by the raiders, he ransomed four of them from the captors with his own ponies so that he could return them to their relatives. About this time, he finally received a message from William Bent informing him of Governor Evans' order to report to Fort Lyon.
It was now late August, and Evans had issued a second proclamation "authorizing all citizens of Colorado, either individually or in such parties as they may organize, to go in pursuit of all hostile Indians on the plains, scrupulously avoiding those who have responded to my call to rendezvous at the points indicated; also to kill and destroy as enemies of the country wherever they may be found, all such hostile Indians." The hunt was already on for all Indians not confined to one of the assigned reservations.