Part 24

"We are trying to teach them to do the same things, so that they may be as well off as we are. Here [pointing to Commissioner Parker] is the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, who is a chief among us. He belonged to a race who lived there long before the white man came to this country. He now has power, and white people obey him, and he directs what shall be done in very important business. We will be brethren to you in the same way if you follow his good example and learn our civilization."

Red Cloud responded, "I don't blame him for being a chief. He ought to be one. We are all of one nation."

Secretary Cox.--"Those Indians who become chiefs among us do so by learning the white man's customs, and ceasing to be dependent as children. I was glad to hear Red Cloud say he would not go away angry, General Smith will see that you get good presents. But these are small things compared with the arrangements that will be made to make you prosperous and happy. Some of the Peace Commissioners will go to your country to see that you are well treated. I do not want you to think the days coming are black days. I want you to think they will be bright and happy days. Be of good spirit. If you feel like a man who is lost in the woods, we will guide you out of them to a pleasant place. You will go home two days from now. One day will be spent by General Smith in New York to get you the presents."

Red Cloud replied, "I do not want to go that way. I want a straight line. I have seen enough of towns. There are plenty of stores between here and my home, and there is no occasion to go out of the way to buy goods. I have no business in New York. I want to go back the way I came. The whites are the same everywhere. I see them every day. As to the improvement of the red men, I want to send them here delegates to Congress."

Secretary Cox said he would be guided by General Smith as to the route homeward. He was not particularly anxious the Indians should go to New York. This ended the interview. The Indians shook hands with the Secretary and Commissioner Parker, and then hurried from the room, followed by the crowd of persons who had gathered at the door.

Little Swan's Speech.

Little Swan, a Sioux chief, said to the President about the Indian situation:

"What my Great Father asks for, peace, is all very well. If I had my own way, it would be all right, and there would be no more fighting; but I saw in the Congress, when I went there, on Thursday, that all the big chiefs there did not agree very well. It is the same with my young men. They are not all of one mind; but I will do my best to make them of one mind, and to keep the peace. I am a bad young man, too, and have made much trouble. I did not get to be a big chief by good conduct, but because I was a great fighter, like you, my Great Father."

These words were really delivered. The allusion to Congress and to the President hit the nail on the head; at least, it is thought so.

Spotted Tail in New York.

On the 14th of June, the four lords of the desert, Spotted Tail, Swift Bear, Fast Bear, and Yellow Hair, had a busy day. They began in the morning with a visit to the French frigate, Magicienne, where they were received by Admiral Lefeber and his staff, and a salute was fired in their honor. They were conducted to the admiral's state-room and regaled upon cakes and champagne. The latter they enjoyed immensely, but Captain Poole wisely limited them to one glass each, not desiring to witness a scalping scene on his frigate. After this repast, the red men were conducted all over the ship. The admiral then had one of the fifteen-inch guns loaded with powder, and each one of the Indians pulled the lanyard in turn. This was royal sport for the Indians, and as each gun was fired they looked eagerly for the splash of the ball which they thought was in the cannon. It was impossible to explain to them that the gun was loaded with powder only, as when they visited the Brooklyn navy-yard a shotted gun was fired for their especial edification, and their delight was then to watch for the ball striking the water.

After the visit to the frigate, the Indians returned to the Astor House, where a crowd of five or six hundred people was assembled. The private entrance on Vesey Street was besieged by an excited multitude anxious to get a peep at the "red-skins," but they were disappointed, as the stage drove up to the Barclay Street entrance.

Although they had been to a certain extent amused by what they have seen in New York, still, they were all anxious to get back home. Captain Poole says that the crowds which dogged their footsteps wherever they went annoyed them considerably, and it is owing to this that they have departed so abruptly. Many invitations were sent them, including one from James Fisk, Jr., to visit his steamers, and one from the officers of the turret ship Miantonomah. Spotted Tail, however, declined to accept either, being tired of Eastern life. He also refused to take a trip up the Hudson, saying that he and his brethren all wanted to go home.

Before the Indians' departure from Washington, President Grant handed four hundred dollars to Captain Poole, and directed that each chief should choose presents to the value of one hundred dollars. They were accordingly taken to an up-town store, where each filled a large trunk with articles of various kinds. Combs, brushes, umbrellas, blankets, and beads seemed particularly to please their fancy. Swift Bear wanted to take about a dozen umbrellas, but was dissuaded from it by Captain Poole.

They took a Pacific Railroad car on the Hudson River Railroad, at eight o'clock in the evening.

Red Cloud in New York.

Red Cloud changed his mind, and came on to New York to attend a great meeting of friends of the red men, at Cooper Institute. On the evening of June 16th, the party were treated to a grand reception, at which it was supposed that no less than five thousand were present. Among other things, Red Cloud said:

"I have tried to get from my Great Father what is right and just. I have not altogether succeeded. I want you to believe with me, to know with me, that which is right and just. I represent the whole Sioux nation. They will be grieved by what I represent. I am no Spotted Tail, who will say one thing one day, and be bought for a fish the next. Look at me! I am poor, naked, but I am chief of a nation. We do not ask for riches; we do not want much; but we want our children properly trained and brought up. We look to you for that. Riches here do no good. We cannot take them away with us out of this world, but we want to have love and peace. The money, the riches, that we have in this world, as Secretary Cox lately told me, we cannot take these into the next world. If this is so, I would like to know why the Commissioners who are sent out there do nothing but rob to get the riches of this world away from us. I was brought up among traders and those who came out there in the early times. I had good times with them; they treated me mostly always right; always well; they taught me to use clothes, to use tobacco, to use fire-arms and ammunition. This was all very well until the Great Father sent another kind of men out there,--men who drank whisky; men who were so bad that the Great Father could not keep them at home, so he sent them out there."

Reception of Red Cloud at Home.

Doubtless speculators and contractors were disappointed when they heard, on General Smith's return, of Red Cloud's satisfaction, and what he said about being peaceable, and using his influence among his warriors. A thousand lodges were gathered to receive him, and the demonstrations made over his return exceeded any the oldest Indian had ever seen before.

On the way out, Red Cloud gave General Smith his reason for asking the government for the seventeen horses. He did not really need them, but made up his mind that if he had been sent back on foot from Pine Bluff, or Fort Laramie, his tribes might think he was lightly esteemed by our authorities, and thereupon they might begin to despise him. His influence would decrease, and he might be unsuccessful in preventing war. He merely wished to accept of them as a tribute to his exalted position as a great warrior among his people. The general said that his appearance, with his whole party well mounted, had the desired effect, and Red Cloud's warriors saw at a glance that the chief was believed to be a great warrior by the Great Father at Washington.

CONCLUSION.

Boys love fair play, and I know they will make every allowance for the poor Indian, who is, in his wild state, indeed a savage, born and bred up among the wild beasts of the forest; untutored and cruel to his enemies, whether man or beast. We must take him as we find him, then, and not as some sensation writers would make us believe, to be more noble and generous than many white men. For we may find many noble examples of generosity among them, in freeing captives and forgiving wrongs done to them; but they have been for over two hundred years victims of the white man's dishonest dealings, and I think that we would do pretty much as the Indian does, if we were Indians, and had been taught the lesson of our forefathers' wrongs. The Indian agents have been in former years mostly dishonest, and cheated those they should have remembered were simple children of the forest; and though they were knowing enough to perceive they were badly dealt with and did not get their due, could not tell just where the cheating came in. You remember the story of a white man and an Indian going a hunting on shares. Well, they killed a wild turkey and a buzzard, the latter good for naught. They sat down on a log to divide the game. "Now," said the white man, "You take the buzzard, and I'll take the turkey; or, I'll take the turkey, and you take the buzzard." The Indian opened his eyes wide, and replied, "Seems to me you talk all buzzard to me, and no talk turkey."

Very little "talk turkey" has the Indian experienced in dealing with the whites. Indeed, you can judge of fair dealing, or want of it, when it is known that an agent came out our way to pay off annuities with blankets, etc. These were "shoddy blankets," and when one tribe was paid off with them, the agent bought them all back again with bad whisky, and went on farther, to pay off other tribes in like manner.

So one agent carried out to California some annuity goods to pay off Indians, according to treaty, and among them were several thousand elastics; and yet no Indian wears a stocking!

The bad Indians must be punished, just as bad boys, who do wrong; and the army alone can deal with refractory Indians, whose tender mercies are most cruel to white men, women, and children.

General Sherman came out here in 1868 as one of "the Peace Commission," to personally investigate the whole matter. On his arrival at Cheyenne and at Denver, a large number of pioneers were ready to insult him, because he would not make a speech, and authorize them to band together and kill Indians wherever found!

A man whom I had some respect for, said to me at this time, "If we can get up a smart Indian war now, wouldn't it be the making of Cheyenne?" He had an eye to an army contract. General Sherman would probably have called him a "bummer."