Pen and Ink Witchcraft

by Calloway, Colin G.

  The meeting reconvened on Sunday, October 20, but things did not go smoothly. Senator Henderson and General Harney had a “spat.” The Indians drifted in late and some of the warriors were hungover, although the chiefs were not. It was almost noon before the proceedings got under way. The Kiowas and Comanches continued to object to schools and farms. Ten Bears spoke first: “There is one thing which is not good in your speeches; that is, building us medicine houses. We don’t want any. I want to live and die as I was brought up. I love the open prairie, and I wish you would not insist on putting us on a reservation.” If the Texans had been kept out of Comanche country, there might have been peace and the Comanches might have lived on a reservation, he said, but the Texans had already taken the lands where the grass grew thickest and the timber was best and now it was too late to do what the commissioners wanted. The assembled Indians voiced their approval of his words as the old man sat down. Satanta got to his feet and said everything that needed to be said had been said yesterday. But he did demand that the annuities be delivered on schedule for a change and asked for a new agent for the Comanches, in place of Jesse Leavenworth, joint agent for the Kiowas and Comanches. At some point, Satanta and Ten Bears got into a heated argument and the old Comanche said his people liked Leavenworth and did not want him removed. For a moment, it looked like the council might unravel. Nevertheless, by the end of the second day the Kiowas and Comanches agreed in principle to the idea of a reservation in what is now southwestern Oklahoma.53

  Senator Henderson wrapped up the council with a classic expression of United States Indian policy that blended humanitarian concern, paternalism, cultural arrogance, cynicism, hypocrisy, and veiled threats. Stanley thought it so important that he copied it down verbatim:

  You say you do not like the medicine houses of the whites, but you like the buffalo and the chase, and that you wish to do as your fathers did.

  We say to you that the buffalo will not last forever. They are now becoming few and you must know it.

  When that day comes, the Indian must change the road his father trod, or he must suffer, and probably die. We tell you that to change will make you better. We wish you to live, and we will now offer the way.

  The whites are settling up all the good lands. They have come to the Arkansas River. When they come, they drive out the buffalo. If you oppose them, war must come. They are many and you are few. You may kill some of them, but others will come and take their places. And finally, many of the red men will have been killed, and the rest will have no homes. We are your best friends, and now, before all the good lands are taken by whites, we wish to set aside a part of them for your exclusive home.

  The government was offering the Indians an alternative to that bleak future. They must settle down, learn to farm, send their children to school, and take their place in American society. The government would feed, clothe, and educate them, and provide a physician, a blacksmith, and a farmer to instruct them. The Indians, however, did not share the commissioners’ enthusiasm for American-style civilization. Nor did they share their sense of urgency: they would hunt buffalo as long as they could and then worry about making the transition to farming. Henderson assured them they could continue to hunt buffalo south of the Arkansas River. Convinced that the Indians would not accept the treaty without such a provision, and over the objections of the military commissioners who argued that the concession would jeopardize the peace they were trying to establish, Henderson inserted a clause to that effect in the treaty. As Douglas Jones noted, this provision made the treaty “a bit ambiguous.”54 Also ambiguous was the promise of a “permanent” reservation; by their very role in the process of transforming Indians into individual property owners, reservations were designed to be impermanent.55 The commissioners spent most of the next day explaining the terms to the Kiowas and Comanches. Henderson assured them that the purpose of the treaty was to give them more goods than they received before. “It is solely for your good and not for the good of the whites,” he lied.56

  At some point Kicking Bird, the Kiowa peace chief (figure 6.7), made clear his opinion of what the Indians were being offered, in a way that stuck in the memory of artillery officer Edward Godfrey sixty years later. At the end of his speech, the Kiowa chief remained standing, “his gaze fixed on the high silk hat in front of one of the commissioners.” When the commissioner asked what he wanted, he replied, “I want that hat.” Thinking he intended just to look at it, the commissioner handed it over, but Kicking Bird took it and walked away. “Later, he appeared in the immediate vicinity of the council tents arrayed in moccasins, breechclout, and the high hat. He stalked back and forth, telling the tribesmen to look at him; that he ‘was walking in the white man’s ways,’ and using other set phrases that had been used in the council. Finally he grew tired of the burlesque, set the hat on the ground, and used it as a football until he had battered it out of shape, then stalked away.”57

  On October 21, the chiefs duly made their marks on the treaty.58 It pledged the Kiowas and Comanches and the United States to live in peace. Individual violators of the peace, whether Indian or white, would be dealt with under US law. Annuities would be delivered to the agency every October for thirty years: each male fourteen years or older would receive a suit of good woolen clothing, “consisting of coat, pantaloons, flannel shirt, hat, and a pair of home-made socks”; each female would get one flannel skirt or cloth to make it, a pair of woolen hose, and other material; and there would be clothes for children. The secretary of the interior would be allotted $25,000 each year to spend on necessities for the Indians and Congress was prohibited from changing the amount. The treaty outlined the boundaries of the reservation, for “the absolute and undisturbed use” of the Indians. The Kiowas and Comanches agreed to live on a reservation on lands ceded by the Choctaws and Chickasaws, between the Canadian and Red rivers, west of the ninety-eighth meridian. In effect, they gave up claims to some ninety million acres in exchange for a reservation of less than three million acres in the southwestern corner of Indian Territory, a tiny fragment of the Kiowa and Comanche range.59 The treaty set aside 160 acres of farm land for each member of the tribes on the reservation, and it specified the buildings that would be constructed—an agency building, medical facility, school, sawmill, and buildings for a blacksmith, carpenter, miller, farmer, and engineer. Instead of living at a nearby army post, as was common practice, the Indian agent would live on the reservation. Article 6 of the treaty stipulated that heads of families who wished to farm could select 320 acres with the agent’s assistance, and that tract would be taken out of the tribe’s communal land and became the private property of the individual and his family. The land was not held in fee simple, but the president could give it fee simple status at his discretion. The transactions would be recorded in a land book. This provision was the core of the government’s “civilization program”: the Indians would give up an entire way of life and their former independence in exchange for the right to work and to own a piece of real estate.60 Once an Indian selected land for farming he was entitled to up to $100 in seeds and farming implements for the first year and up to $25 for the next three years. Silver Brooch was the only individual mentioned in the text of the treaty. Because he was already farming in the area set aside for the reservation, the treaty authorized $750 to build a house for him and his family.

  FIGURE 6.7 Kicking Bird. Photograph by W. S. Soule. (Smithsonian Institution, National Anthropological Archives and Human Studies Film Archives)

  Article 7 stipulated that “in order to insure the civilization of the tribes,” children aged six to sixteen would be compelled to attend school. For every thirty students the government would provide a teacher “competent to teach elementary branches of an English education.” Some colonial colleges had recruited Indian students, and some earlier American treaties had included clauses providing for education, but this was a new departure: the government was now committed to making education mandatory for Indian children. Educat
ion had become “an integral part of an aggressive policy of pacification.”61

  In Article 11 the Indians relinquished all rights to permanently occupy the territory outside their reservation, but retained the right to continue hunting south of the Arkansas “so long as the buffalo may range thereon in such numbers as to justify the chase.” They also agreed to stop harassing railroad construction crews, wagon trains, settlers, and army posts. Article 12 stipulated that no part of the reservation could be ceded without the consent of at least three-quarters of the adult male population. It appeared almost as an afterthought in the treaty and the Indians must have thought it sounded like a solid guarantee that they would never lose more land. The newspaper correspondents paid little attention to it,62 but in years to come this provision—or rather the breach of it—would have major repercussions.

  Beyond agreeing to peace, it is difficult to believe that the Kiowas and Comanches understood all the treaty’s provisions or had them fully explained, and it is doubtful that they would have signed it had they done so. At the treaty signing Satanta repeated his sentiment that “this building of houses for us is all nonsense; we don’t want you to build any for us. We would all die.” He wanted all his land from the Arkansas to the Red River, and he did not want houses. Time enough to worry about settling down when the buffalo were all gone. Ten Bears said he wanted the houses built, but only if they were completed before the next summer; so many things had been promised before and not delivered. Kicking Bird asked why they needed a new treaty since they had not broken the one they made on the Arkansas two years before: “I don’t see any necessity for making new treaties. You are piling more papers here, one after another. Are you ever going to get through with all this talk?”63 Ten Kiowas and ten Comanches signed, including Satanta, Satank, Kicking Bird, Stumbling Bear, Fishermore, and Ten Bears. Then annuity goods were distributed: two thousand uniforms, two thousand blankets, tobacco, bolts of cloth, axes, knives, mirrors, needles and thread, and fifty revolvers—an event marred by the fact that three of the pistols exploded when their new owners tried to fire them. The Kiowas and Comanches loaded their ponies and headed back along the creek to their encampment.64

  In the evening an autumn storm hit. That night a group of Cheyennes, blanketed against the wind and rain, emerged out of the dark at the commissioners’ tent and asked for a conference. It was Black Kettle, together with Little Robe, Grey Beard, and White Horse from the Cimarron encampment. The Cimarron chiefs said they were ready to talk peace but they could not begin talks for four days, after they had finished their Medicine Arrow ceremony, and they wanted the Kiowas and Comanches to remain at the treaty to hear what was said. The commissioners reluctantly agreed to the delay, but only after some debate and disagreement—Senator Henderson was anxious to wrap things up and declared he was leaving for St. Louis; General Harney was determined to wait for the Cheyennes and threatened to have Henderson arrested until they arrived! No one could promise that the other Indians would stay to hear what the Cheyennes had to say. Meanwhile, Little Raven told Superintendent Murphy that the Arapahos wanted to negotiate separately from the Cheyennes, and the Plains Apaches told him they wanted to share a reservation with their Kiowa and Comanche allies. The commissioners ignored Little Raven’s request but promptly met the Apache’s request with an appendix to the Kiowa-Comanche treaty. The Plains Apaches agreed to confederate with the Kiowas and Comanches and live on the same reservation.65

  Stanley summed it all up: “Much breath has been expended, and many fine poetical sentiments wasted on the prairie air. Councils have broken up time and again with eternal promises of love and friendship on both sides, many a shaking of hands and gesticulations, the meaning and the true interpretation of which is only known to the favored few.” On the morning of October 22, the Kiowas and Comanches gathered to receive the treaty presents. Wagonloads of goods were distributed: blankets, army coats, cotton clothes, knives, ammunition, thousands of glass beads, and hundreds of army surplus brass bugles.66 On a one-hundred-year pictorial calendar recorded by the Kiowa artist Silver Horn, the Treaty of Medicine Lodge is represented by a pile of trade goods placed between a Kiowa and a bearded white man in a hat and uniform coat, beneath an American flag.67

  Kicking Bird gave Commissioner Taylor a hunting pony and some Arapahos brought General Harney a gift of buffalo meat. Some Kiowas and Comanches, anxious to reach their winter grazing ranges, took down their lodges and headed south, but others stayed for the next round of talks. In the days that followed whites and Indians visited back and forth. In the Kiowa encampment the newspaper reporters met two white women, one Irish, one German, who had been captured as children and now lived as Kiowas. Neither had any interest in leaving.68

  Satank (see figure 6.8) had not spoken during the negotiations. On October 24 or 25, before he left for the winter hunting grounds, he rode up to the council tent, dismounted, and addressed the commissioners. It is not clear whether he spoke in Kiowa or Comanche, or who interpreted—presumably McCusker was involved—but Stanley told his readers that he took down the old man’s words verbatim in shorthand. George Wills, the commission stenographer, also was there. Standing alone before the Peace Commission, holding the silver peace medal that hung around his neck, the old man said:

  It has made me very glad to meet you, who are the commissioners sent by the Great Father to see us. You have heard much talk by our chiefs, and no doubt are tired of it. Many of them have put themselves forward and filled you with their sayings. I have kept back and said nothing—not that I did not consider myself the principal chief of the Kiowa Nation, but others younger than I desired to talk, and I left it to them.

  Before leaving, however, as I now intend to go, I come to say that the Kiowas and Camaches [sic] have made with you a peace, and they intend to keep it. If it brings prosperity to us, we of course will like it the better. If it brings prosperity or adversity, we will not abandon it. It is our contract, and it shall stand.

  Our people once carried war against Texas. We thought the Great Father would not be offended for the Texans had gone out from among his people, and became his enemies. You now tell us that they have made peace and returned to the great family. The Kiowas and Camanches will seek no bloody trail in their land. They have pledged their word and that word shall last, unless the whites break their contract and invite the horrors of war. We do not break treaties. We make but few contracts, and them we remember well. The whites make so many that they are liable to forget them. The white chief seems not able to govern his braves. The Great Father seems powerless in the face of his children. He sometimes becomes angry when he sees the wrongs of his people committed on the red man, and his voice becomes loud as the roaring winds. But like the wind it soon dies away and leaves the sullen calm of unheeded oppression. We hope now that a better time has come. If all would talk and then do as you have done the sun of peace would shine forever. We have warred against the white man, but never because it gave us pleasure. Before the day of oppression came, no white man came to our villages and went away hungry. It gave us more joy to share with them than it gave him to partake of our hospitality. In the far-distant past there was no suspicion among us. The world seemed large enough for both the red and the white man. Its broad plains seem now to contract, and the white man grows jealous of his red brother.

  FIGURE 6.8 Satank, toward the end of his life. He wears the sash of the Koietsenko Warrior Society, and may have amputated his left little finger at the joint in mourning for the death of his son. Photograph by W. S. Soule. (Research Division of the Oklahoma Historical Society)

  The white man once came to trade; he now comes as a soldier. He once put his trust in our friendship and wanted no shield but our fidelity. But now he builds forts and plants big guns on their walls. He once gave us arms and powder and ball, and bade us to hunt the game. We then loved him for his confidence; he now suspects our plighted faith and drives us to be his enemies; he now covers his face with the cloud of jealousy and
anger, and tells us to begone, as an offended master speaks to his dog. Look at this medal I wear. By wearing this I have been made poor. Formerly, I was rich in horses and lodges—today I am the poorest of all. When you put this silver medal on my neck you made me poor.

  We thank the Great Spirit that all these wrongs are now to cease and the old day of peace and friendship [is] to come again.

  You came as friends. You talked as friends. You have partially heard our many complaints. To you they may have seemed trifling. To us they are everything.

  You have not tried, as many have done, to make a new bargain merely to get the advantage.

  You have not asked to make our annuities smaller, but unasked you have made them larger.

  You have not withdrawn a single gift, but you have voluntarily provided more guarantees for our education and comfort.

  When we saw these things done, we then said among ourselves, these are the men of the past. We at once gave you our hearts. You now have them. You know what is best for us. Do for us what is best. Teach us the road to travel, and we will not depart from it forever.

  For your sakes the green grass shall no more be stained with the red blood of the pale-faces. Your people shall again be our people, and peace shall be between us forever. If wrong comes, we shall look to you for right and justice.