55. Smith, Moon of Popping Trees, 61–62; Starita, Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge, 91; Utley, Last Days of the Sioux Nation, 40–59.
56. These were the conclusions of the Merriam Report of 1928. See Philip Weeks, ed., The American Indian Experience: A Profile, 1524 to the Present (Arlington Heights, IL: Forum Press, 1988), 240.
57. Note in Letters Received, 1881–1907, Box 551, no. 24780, Sept. 2, 1889, RG 75, NARA.
58. Starita, Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge, 91–92; Utley, Last Days of the Sioux Nation, 40–59; Jeffrey Ostler, The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism from Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee (New York: Cambridge, 2004), 235–39; Raymond J. DeMallie, “Teton,” in Handbook of North American Indians, ed. William C. Sturtevant. 17 vols. (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1990–2001), vol. 13, pt. 2: 815.
59. Utley, Last Days of the Sioux Nation, 57.
60. Utley, Last Days of the Sioux Nation, 69.
61. Smith, Moon of Popping Trees, 75, 103–6; Starita, Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge, 100. Other sources for my discussion of the Ghost Dance include James Mooney, The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890 (1896; abridged ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965); Utley, Last Days of the Sioux Nation.
62. James Mooney: “The Sioux nation numbers over 25,000, with between 6,000 and 7,000 warriors. Hardly more than 700 warriors were concerned altogether, including those of Big Foot’s band and those who fled to the Bad Lands. None of the Christian Indians took any part in the disturbance.” Mooney, Ghost-Dance Religion, 98.
63. Starita, Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge, 102. See also Commissioner Morgan, quoted in Mooney, Ghost-Dance Religion, 98.
64. Smith, Moon of Popping Trees, 118–45.
65. Starita, Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge, 103; Utley, Last Days of the Sioux Nation, 110–11.
66. Smith, Moon of Popping Trees, 119.
67. Utley, Last Days of the Sioux Nation, 126. See also Jeffrey Ostler, “Conquest and the State: Why the United States Employed Massive Military Force to Suppress the Lakota Ghost Dance,” Pacific Historical Review 1996, 65 (2): 217–48.
68. Smith, Moon of Popping Trees, 146; Russell, Lives and Legends, 359. On the back of his calling card, which he gave to Cody, General Miles also wrote “Com’d’g officers will please give Col. Cody transportation for himself and party and any protection he may need for a small party.” Russell, Lives and Legends, 359. Typescript of orders is in WFC Collection, MS 6, Series I:B Correspondence, Box 2/23, BBHC.
69. Russell, Lives and Legends, 307–8, 423–24; “Dr. Frank D. Powell as Manager,” Wyoming Stockgrower and Farmer, March 22, 1904, in Robert Haslam Scrapbook, CHS.
70. Corbett, Orphans Preferred, 198–99; and see the testimony of Haslam in CC, File 7-1, p. 133; WFC to Robert Haslam, Jan. 20, 1883; “Soldiers’ Hospital Train Is Expected,” Dayton Daily [no state] clipping, n.d., and “ ‘Pony Bob’ Is Dead,” unattributed clipping, Feb. 29, 1912, all in Robert Haslam Scrapbook, CHS.
71. “The Messiah Found,” Rocky Mountain News, Nov. 25, 1890, p. 1.
72. “Buffalo Bill Ready,” unattributed clipping, n.d., in Robert Haslam Scrapbook, CHS.
73. See Smith, Moon of Popping Trees, 146–49; and David Humphreys Miller, Ghost Dance (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1959), 159–61.
74. James McLaughlin, My Friend the Indian (1910; rprt. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), 209–11; Peter E. Traub, “The First Act of the Last Sioux Campaign,” Journal of the United States Cavalry Association, no. 15 (1905): 872–79.
75. Smith, Moon of Popping Trees, 146–49; Traub, “First Act of the Last Sioux Campaign.”
76. Clipping from Chicago Herald, Dec. 13, in BBWW 1893 program (Chicago: Blakely Printing), 50.
77. Quote from Traub, “First Act of the Last Sioux Campaign,” 874. See also Maj. M. F. Steel, “Buffalo Bill’s Bluff,” South Dakota Historical Collections 9 (1918): 475–85; E. A. Brininstool, “Buffaloing Buffalo Bill,” Hunter-Trader-Trapper 76, no. 4 (April 1938): 17–18; also Utley, Lance and the Shield, 294; Ostler, Plains Sioux, 313–16.
78. Utley, Lance and the Shield, 265; Stanley Vestal, Sitting Bull (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1932), 251.
79. Stanley Vestal, New Sources of Indian History, 1850–1891 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1934), 2–3.
80. Smith, Moon of Popping Trees, 157–60.
81. Smith, Moon of Popping Trees, 180–200; Utley, Last Days of the Sioux Nation, 209–30.
82. BBWW 1893 program, 53.
83. Thayer’s office was inundated with requests from western Nebraska for food and drought relief through much of the fall. Those requests shifted abruptly, to urgent demands for guns and ammunition, in November. See for example: J. M. Thayer to A. D. Cole, Nov. 21, 1890; “A Homesteader” to John Thayer, Nov. 24, 1890; J. M. Thayer to George M. Sheldon, Nov. 26, 1890; L. P. Sudden to J. M. Thayer, Nov. 26, 1890; J. T. Sumny to John Thayer, Nov. 27, 1890, and Nov. 28, 1890; Neil Brennan to J. M. Thayer, Nov. 29, 1890; J. M. Thayer to Capt. Sidney B. Higgins, Nov. 29, 1890; J. M. Thayer to C. W. Worth, Dec. 13, 1890; J. M. Thayer to S. A. Daly, Dec. 1, 1890; J. M. Thayer to Capt. A. L. Field, Dec. 1, 1890, all in Record Group 1, SG14, Box 7/64, NSHS.
84. Oliver Knight, Following the Indian Wars: The Story of the Newspaper Correspondents Among the Indian Campaigners (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960), 313–15.
85. William J. Adelman, “The Road to Fort Sheridan,” in David Roediger and Franklin Rosemont, The Haymarket Scrapbook (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1986), 130.
86. Utley, Last Days of the Sioux Nation, 271–72; Moses, Wild West Shows and the Images of American Indians, 110–11.
87. Utley, Last Days of the Sioux Nation, 271–72; “Prisoners of War on Exhibition,” Harper’s Weekly, May 30, 1891, p. 399.
88. Smith, Moon of Popping Trees, 201–4; Utley, Last Days of the Sioux Nation, 230, 249.
89. For the egregious propaganda that passed as journalism in the Ghost Dance troubles, see Elmo Scott Watson, “The Last Indian War, 1890–91: A Study of Newspaper Jingoism,” Journalism Quarterly 20 (1943): 205–19.
90. The letters were widely reprinted in show publicity. See for example BBWW 1893 program; and Burke, Buffalo Bill from Prairie to Palace, 258–59. Emphasis added.
91. BBWW 1893 program, 51; Burke, Buffalo Bill from Prairie to Palace, 257.
92. BBWW 1893 program, 44; James Mooney, The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890, 14th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1892–93, Part 2 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1896), p. 657.
93. BBWW program 1893, 61–62. Emphasis in the original.
94. For military officer at Pine Ridge, see Utley, Last Days of the Sioux Nation, 282; for Brown, see George LeRoy Brown to WFC, May 21, 1891, RG 75 Pine Ridge, Misc. Letters Sent, 1887–1891, vol. 7, BOX 342, NARA-CPR.
95. They remained at Fort Niobrara until 1906. Biolsi, Organizing the Lakota, 23.
96. A. C. Belt to Secretary of Interior, Nov. 18, 1890, Correspondence Land Division, Letter Sent, vol. 104, Letter Book 207, pp. 191–201, RG 75, NARA.
97. D. F. Royer to T. J. Morgan, Jan. 10, 1891, no. 3186, Box 699, Letters Received, 1881–1907, RG 75, NARA; Burke, Buffalo Bill from Prairie to Palace, 257.
98. DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 277–78.
99. DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 281.
100. In 1890, bricklayers made on average $3.55 a day: plasterers $3.50 per day. Indian wages amounted to $0.96 per day (assuming a six-day workweek; the Wild West show did not perform on Sundays). Wage information from Scott Derks, The Value of a Dollar: Prices and Incomes in the United States, 1860–1989 (Washington, DC: Gale Research, 1994), 15.
INTERLUDE: STANDING BEAR
1. DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 101, 106, 184–89. Quote from 106.
2. Standing Bear left behind is in D. F. Royer to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Jan. 10, 1891, no. 3186, Box 699, Letters Received, 1881–1907, RG 75, NARA.
3. DeMallie, Sixth
Grandfather, 254.
4. Even while traveling, Indians with Buffalo Bill often received notes about the latest family news from the reservation. I discuss the phenomenon of Lakota correspondence in the next chapter.
5. “Standing Bear Information as compiled by Adrienne DeArmas for the Lakota section of the Changing Cultures in Changing World Exhibition, Dec. 13, 1993,” typescript, copy in author’s possession, courtesy of Arthur Amiotte; author interview with Arthur Amiotte, June 21, 2003, tapes in author’s possession.
6. Interview with Arthur Amiotte, June 21, 2003 tapes.
7. Family tradition tells of how Louise and others adapted to a temporary shortage of tanned soft leather by sewing canvas tops onto rawhide soles, making “the first sneakers.” Interview with Arthur Amiotte, personal communication to author, March 24, 2005; Arthur Amiotte, June 21, 2003.
8. Industrial Status Report for Standing Bear, Wounded Knee District, Allotment No. 936, 1913, Pine Ridge archives, copy in author’s possession. My thanks to Arthur Amiotte for these documents. For a description of the cabin see Hilda Neihardt, Black Elk and Flaming Rainbow: Personal Memories of the Lakota Holy Man and John Neihardt (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1995), 50–51. Average income statistic from Derks, Value of a Dollar, 123.
9. “Even today, among the Lakotas, relatives are people who act like relatives and consider themselves to be related.” Raymond J. DeMallie, in James R. Walker, Lakota Society (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982), 5–7. Quote from p. 6.
10. Charles Eastman, From the Deep Woods to Civilization (1916; rprt. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1977), 125.
11. Amiotte interview, June 21, 2003; Amiotte, personal communication to author, March 24, 2005.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
COWBOYS, INDIANS, AND THE ARTFUL DECEPTIONS OF RACE
1. Standing Bear, My People the Sioux, 259.
2. M. B. Bailey, ed., Official Souvenir, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World 1896 (Buffalo, NY: Courier Co., 1896).
3. Warren G. Vincent to H. H. Vincent, March 1, 1890, M Cody L Box 1, DPL-WHR.
4. Walker, Clio’s Cowboys, 131.
5. Harry Webb, “Buffalo Bill, Saint or Devil?,” typescript, BBHC.
6. Webb, “Buffalo Bill, Saint or Devil?,” 9.
7. Webb, “Buffalo Bill, Saint or Devil?,” 10–11.
8. Webb, “Buffalo Bill, Saint or Devil?,” 6.
9. C. L. Daily to “Dear Folks,” [no month] 22, 1889, copy in BBHC.
10. Standing Bear, My People the Sioux, 261.
11. Standing Bear, My People the Sioux, 264.
12. BBWW 1893 program, 27–28.
13. Arthur Frank Wertheim and Barbara Bair, eds., The Papers of Will Rogers (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996), 1: 222–23.
14. C. L. Daily to “Dear Folks,” n.d. [1889], BBHC.
15. For Pedro Esquivel, see Bailey, Official Souvenir, 14; for gauchos, BBWW 1893 program, 55.
16. Clara Esquivel Parker, “Anthony ‘Tony’ Esquivel,” Oct. 1, 1969, in Clara Esquivel Parker Papers, MS 92 DPL-WHR; Russell, Lives and Legends, 317, 332, 340, 372, 377; also Yost, Call of the Range.
17. Bailey, Official Souvenir, 18; for Tony Esquivel as Mexican, see Yost, Buffalo Bill, 208; Russell, Lives and Legends, 377; “Serious Shooting Accident at the ‘Wild West,’ ” Evening News (London), July 14, 1887, clipping in JCG Scrapbook, MS 58, NSHS.
18. Bailey, Official Souvenir, 14, 18; Route Book, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West 1899 (Buffalo: Matthews-Northrup Co., 1899), 7; Official Route and Roster of the Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Season of 1902 (Los Angeles: Los Angeles Printing Co., 1902), 9, BBHC; Russell, Lives and Legends, 442.
19. Vincente Oropeza to Frank Hammitt, Feb. 16, 1895, Misc. Files, “Hammett,” BBHC; Russell, Lives and Legends, 377.
20. Clara Esquivel Parker, “Anthony ‘Tony’ Esquivel.”
21. George Johnson to “Dear Brother Justus and Sister Gussie,” June 21, 1892, Nebraska Prairie Museum, Holdredge, NE.
22. Standing Bear, My People the Sioux, 264; BBWW 1903 program (London: Weiners, 1903), 4.
23. Irving told a fabulous story about running away from home as a little boy with the army and ending up at Pine Ridge. Yost, Buffalo Bill, 186–87.
24. For W. G. Bullock, see Hyde, Red Cloud’s Folk, 174, 183; and Spring, Cheyenne and Black Hills Stage and Express Routes, 24–25, 34, 108. Billy Bullock gives a concise and apparently truthful account of his life in “Camp Sketches—No. 5, Billy Bullock,” Topical Times, July 30, 1887, clipping in JCG Scrapbook, MS 58, NSHS. Also, Russell, Lives and Legends, 308, 317.
25. Russell, Lives and Legends, 308.
26. Bennie Irving photograph is in J. Wojtowicz, Buffalo Bill Collector’s Guide, 68.
27. Havighurst, Annie Oakley of the Wild West, 57.
28. “Camp Sketches—No. 9, John Nelson,” Topical Times, Aug. 27, 1887, clipping in JCG Scrapbook, 54, MS 58, NSHS.
29. “Camp Sketches—No. 5, Billy Bullock,” Topical Times, July 30, 1887, clipping in JCG Scrapbook, MS 58, NSHS.
30. Rocky Bear’s history is in Hyde, Red Cloud’s Folk, 114, 259. His relationship to Ella Bissonett is in Yost, Buffalo Bill, 186. He was in the show contingent in 1888, 1889, 1893, and other years. See Supplemental Agreement, April 10, 1888, in Misc. Letters Sent, 1887–89, vol. 5, pp. 30–32, Pine Ridge, RG 75, NARA-CPR; George LeRoy Brown to WFC and Salsbury, April 19, 1893, Misc. Css. Received, 1891–95 A–C, Folder B May 2– Nov. 23, 1895, Pine Ridge, RG 75, NARA-CPR; Yost, Buffalo Bill, 211.
31. BBDC 1883; BBWW 1883 program, n.p.; BBWW 1888 program (Hartford, CT: Calhoun, 1888), 28.
32. Eric Lott, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Toll, Blacking Up, 200.
33. “Won a White Bride,” New York Times, Aug. 19, 1886, p. 3; “Pushaluck’s Romance,” New York Times, Aug. 15, 1886; “Refused to Tie the Knot,” New York Times, Dec. 10, 1886, reports on the refusal of Jersey City’s “Justice Weed” to marry a Wild West show Indian named Cloud Foot and Annette Copeland, 17, of Brooklyn.
34. “Glasgow,” Glasgow Weekly Mail, Jan. 9, 1892, p. 2.
35. Clara Esquivel Parker, “Anthony (Tony) Esquivel.”
36. “Camp Sketches—No. 5, Billy Bullock,” in Topical Times, July 30, 1887, clipping in JCG Scrapbook, MS 58, NSHS.
37. For Black Elk see DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 252–54; for White Eyes, see Jacob White Eyes to Folco Baroncelli, Aug. 24, 1906, Palais du Roure, Avignon.
38. Jacob White Eyes to Folco Baroncelli, Aug. 24, 1906, Palais du Roure, Avignon.
39. There is one account that disputes the authenticity of show Indians. Gordon “Pawnee Bill” Lillie, who became a showman rival to Cody, began his entertainment career with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in 1883. According to Lillie, his job was “to do all the interpreting” for the Pawnees, “and even to make up as an Indian myself and go on with them.” Glenn Shirley, Pawnee Bill: A Biography of Major Gordon W. Lillie (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1958), 99.
40. Standing Bear, My People the Sioux, 252.
41. Standing Bear, My People the Sioux, 254.
42. Amos Bad Heart Bull and Helen H. Blish, A Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967), 450–61; Gordon MacGregor, with Royal B. Hassrick and William H. Henry, Warriors Without Weapons: A Study of the Society and Personality Development of the Pine Ridge Sioux (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946), 38; DeMallie, “Teton,” 816.
43. Peter Iverson, When Indians Became Cowboys: Native Peoples and Cattle Reaching in the American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994), 59.
44. Iverson, When Indians Became Cowboys, 73–76.
45. Iverson, When Indians Became Cowboys, 73.
46. George LeRoy Brown to T. J. Morgan, June 17, 1893, in RG 75, Pine Ridge, Misc. Letters Sent, 1892, vol. 13, p. 119, NARA-CPR; H. D. Gallagher to Charles Foster, Oct. 19, 1889
, RG 75, Pine Ridge, Misc. Letters Sent, 1887–91, vol. 5, pp. 291–92, NARA-CPR; “Col. Cody’s Motley Crowd,” The Times (Kansas City, Missouri), Oct. 19, 1896, NSS, 1896, DPL.
47. George LeRoy Brown to Kicking Bear, May 13, 1892, in RG 75, Pine Ridge, Misc. Letters Sent, 1892, vol. 12, pp. 325–26, NARA-CPR; George LeRoy Brown to John Shangrau, Aug. 9, 1892, RG 75, Pine Ridge, Misc. Letters Sent, 1892, vol. 14, p. 227, NARA-CPR; G. L. Brown to WFC, Sept. 14, 1892, and G. L. Brown to WFC, Sept. 15, 1892, both in RG 75, Pine Ridge, Misc. Letters Sent, 1892, vol. 15, first one on p. 82, other on p. 97, NARA-CPR.
48. Nate Salsbury to the Hon. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, March 1, 1892, in no. 9249, Box 834, Letters Received, 1881–1907, RG 75, NARA.
49. In 1906, Jacob White Eyes sold a beaded vest to a French acquaintance for ninety francs. Jacob White Eyes to Folco Baroncelli, Aug. 24, 1906, Palais du Roure, Avignon.
50. See exhibit 2 and exhibit 3 in Nate Salsbury to the Hon. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, March 1, 1892, in no. 9249, Box 834, Letters Received, 1881–1907, RG 75, NARA.
51. See Register 1883–1892, 226–28, Kelvin Grove Museum, Glasgow, Scotland. Also George C. Crager to Curator Paton, Dec. 17, 1891, in files of the Kelvin Grove Museum, Glasgow, Scotland.
52. After his sentencing, his sister, who was also with the show but who unfortunately remains anonymous in press accounts, handed him a bundle of apples. “The Assault on Buffalo Bill’s Interpreter,” Glasgow Evening News, Jan. 4, 1892, p. 4; “Glasgow,” Glasgow Weekly Mail, Jan. 9, 1892, p. 2; “ ‘Charging Thunder’ Gets Thirty Days. ‘His Lemonade Was Mixed,’ ” Glasgow Evening News, Jan. 12, 1892, p. 5; “Glasgow,” Glasgow Weekly Mail, Jan. 16, 1892, p. 2; “ ‘Charging Thunder’ Sent to Prison,” Glasgow Weekly Herald, Jan. 16, 1892, p. 7.
53. Madra, Glasgow’s Ghost Shirt.
54. Biolsi, Organizing the Lakota, 20.
55. Standing Bear, My People the Sioux, 242.
Louis S. Warren Page 91