Part 11

Other officers might be mentioned for similar services, among them Generals Z. Taylor, W. S. Harney, and Alfred H. Terry. The last mentioned, two years ago, with a strong head, heart, and hand, squelched a conspiracy in Montana to exterminate the Crow Indians. Again, the next summer, flying across the plains, and up the Missouri river as fast as steam could carry him, to rescue a Sioux village from the border settlers. This splendid officer was removed from the command of the Department of Dakota, to make room for Hancock.

Captain Silas S. Soule, in Colorado, a few years ago, and Lieutenant Philip Sheridan, in Oregon, ten years since, might also be referred to in this connection, as drawing their swords in defense of the Indians and the right.

WHAT SHALL BE DONE?

The question is, How can the problem be solved, so as to best protect and secure the rights of the Indians, and at the same time promote the welfare of both races?

Within the memory of the writer, the tomahawk once reflected the light of burning cabins along the Tennessee, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri Rivers, and the scalping-knives dripped with the blood of our border settlers, as we have driven the Indians back, back, to the setting sun!

But behold the change to-day, where the church has missions, and the red men are treated like immortal beings, with souls to be saved.

Mr. Wm. Welsh says of what he saw in Nebraska: "The blanket and bow discarded; the spear is broken, and the hatchet and war-club lie buried. The skin-lodge (tepee) has given place to the cottage and the mansion. Among the Santee Sioux, on Niobrara River, in Nebraska, the Episcopal Church has a mission, where one can see the murderous weapons and the conjuror's charms, by aid of which the medicine-man wrought his fiendish arts.

"That is the pipe-stem,--never smoked except on the war-path,--always blackened, being associated with deeds of darkness.

"These," he says, "are laid at the feet of our Christian missionaries, such as Bishops Whipple and Clarkson, and Rev. Mr. Hinman; where school-houses abound, and the feet of many thousand little children, thirsting after knowledge, are seen entering those vestibules of science; while churches, consecrated to the Christian's God, reflect for miles the sun's rays, tokens of a brighter light to their darkened heathen souls!

"Dear children, thanks to our holy religion, a few faithful men, taking their lives in their hands, have gone forth at the church's call,--bearing precious seed,--struggled and toiled, endured severe privations, afflictions, and trials, and saved in tears the germs of light, truth, and hope, which to-day have ripened into a glorious harvest of intelligence and Christian civilization! Christ said, 'It must needs be that offenses come, but woe unto that man by whom the offense cometh.'"

Now, if the wrongs accumulated, done to the poor, ignorant pagan Indians for years and years since the Mayflower landed her pilgrims on these shores, are to be redressed in this world (for there is no repentance for nations after), and if a God of justice so require that we atone to them, or suffer greater torments from their children, who shall say it is not a righteous retribution?

If we find them fierce, hostile, and revengeful, if they are cruel, and sometimes perpetrate atrocities that sicken the soul, and almost paralyze us with horror,--burning and pillaging,--let us remember that two hundred and fifty years of injustice, oppression, and wrong, heaped upon them by our race, with cold, calculating, and relentless perseverance, have filled them with the passion of revenge and made them desperate. If you and I, boys, were Indians, we would do just as Indians do. Their tender mercies are cruel, but there is a reason why it is so.

The former Indian agents, on a salary of eighteen hundred dollars a year, got very rich in a short time. How could they do so but by swindling the poor Indians, who have no idea of the relative value of money, or the cost of goods?

Not long since a tribe just above us was paid off their annuities in shoddy blankets; they were bought back again with whisky, and another tribe was paid with the same blankets; and one agent took out several thousand "elastics" (girls know what I mean) to pay the Indians (among other things), and yet no wild Indian ever wore a stocking!

Again, as the Indian is crowded back beyond the tide of emigration, and hanging like the froth of the billows upon the very edge is generally a host of law-defying whites, who introduce among the Indians every form of demoralization and disease with which depraved humanity in its most degraded form is afflicted. These the Indian see more of than anybody else (except the military, whom they look upon mostly as protectors), as good people come along, the Indian must push on, still farther toward the setting sun!

A GOOD JOKE BY LITTLE RAVEN.

Little Raven, an Arapahoe chief, laughed heartily when we told him something about heaven and hell; remarking, "All good men--white and red men--would go to heaven; all bad men, white or red, would go to hell." Inquiring the cause of his merriment when he had recovered his breath, he said, "I was much pleased with what you say of those two places, and the kind of people that will go to each when they come to die. It is a good notion,--heap good,--for if all the whites are like the ones I know, when Indian gets to heaven but few whites will trouble him there; pretty much all go to t'other place!"

HOW THE INDIAN IS CHEATED.

It is true, as General Harney remarked, "Better to board and lodge them at the Fifth Avenue Hotel than to fight them, as a matter of economy." Besides depleting the Indian appropriation fund, voted annually by Congress, of millions of dollars, but which was used to carry on elections, and the Indian got what was left; which may be compared to cheese-parings and cheese, or skim-milk and cream. The Indian gets the parings and the skim-milk!

The Quaker agents, as they are called, are doing a good work, because they see that honest dealings are had with the annuities paid them. If the President had done little else, this feature of reform will redound to his credit forever.

BURIAL OF A CHIEF'S DAUGHTER.

Spotted Tail, the head chief of the Brule Sioux, sent a request to the commanding officer at Fort Laramie, saying "his daughter had died in Powder River country (fifteen days' journey), and had begged her father to have her grave made among the whites." Consent was given, she having been known to the officers for several years, and her death was brought on by exposure to the hardships of wild Indian life, and also from grief, that her tribe would go to war.

He was met outside the "Post" by the officers, with the honors due his station. The officer in command spoke in words of comfort, saying, "he sympathized with him, and was pleased at this mark of confidence in committing to his care the remains of his loved child. The Great Spirit had taken her, and he never did anything except for some good purpose. Everything should be prepared for the funeral at sunset, and as the sun went down, it might remind him of the darkness left in his lodge when his daughter was taken away; but as the sun would surely rise again, so she would rise, and some day we would all meet in the land of the Great Spirit."

The chief exhibited great emotion at these words, and shed tears; a thing quite unusual in an Indian. He took the hand of the officer and said, "This must be a dream for me to be in such a fine room, and surrounded by such as you. Have I been asleep during the last four years of hardship and trial, dreaming that all is to be well again? or is this real? Yes, I see that it is,--the beautiful day, the sky blue, without a cloud; the wind calm and still, to suit the errand I came on, and remind me that you offer me peace! We think we have been much wronged, and entitled to compensation for damage done and distress caused by making so many roads through our country, driving and destroying the buffalo and game. My heart is very sad, and I cannot talk on business. I will wait and see the counselors the Great Father will send."

The scene, it is added, was the most impressive I ever saw, and all the Indians were awed into silence. A scaffold was erected (see print) at the cemetery, and a coffin was made. Just before sunset, the body was carried, followed by the father and other relatives, with chaplain, officers, soldiers, and Indians. The chaplain read the beautiful burial-service, interpreted by another to them.

Rev. A. Wright, post-chaplain, U. S. A.

One said, "I can hardly describe my feelings at witnessing here this first Christian burial of an Indian, and one of such consideration among her tribe. The hour, the place, the solemnity, even the restrained weeping of the mother and other relatives, all combined to affect me deeply."

It is added: the officers, to gratify Monica's father, each placed an offering in her coffin. Colonel Maynadier, a pair of gauntlets, to keep her hands warm (it was winter), Mr. Bullock gave a handsome piece of red cassimere to cover the coffin. To complete the Indian ceremony, her two milk-white ponies were killed and their heads and tails nailed on the coffin. These ponies the Indians supposed she would ride again in the hunting-grounds whither she had gone.