The Life and Adventures of James P Beckwourth

by James P Beckwourth

  She commenced her address. “Can it be said that there are no virtuous women among the Crows? Can it be true that our medicine men cannot make medicine, nor our prophets prophesy, nor our dreamers dream, because so few of you are virtuous? Oh women! it is shameful to you to be so faithless. Our nation is disgraced because of your conduct, and the Crows will soon cease to be a people. The Great Spirit is angry with you, and has brought disgrace upon our warriors on account of your evil practices. Our prairies will become wastes like yourselves, producing no good thing; and our buffalo will bellow at you, and leave the hunting-grounds of the Crows, and go to the country of a more virtuous people.”

  Then addressing the warriors, she continued:

  “Warriors! I have this day volunteered to carry the sand, the wood, and the elk-chips into the lodge. You are brave warriors, and I hope your tongues are not crooked. I have seen our women attempt to do it, and they have been cut to pieces. I am now about to try it myself. Before I start for the materials at the other end of your extended lines, if there be a warrior, or any other man under the sun, who knows anything wrong in me, or injurious to my virtue, let him speak. I, too, am ready to go to the spirit land, for there is one there who knows me innocent of the bad deeds which disgrace the women of our country.”

  She then passed with a firm step between the lines of the warriors to the sand. Taking the bowl, she dipped a small quantity, and returned with it to the lodge, and then made two other trips for the wood and elk-chips. Returning for the third time, she received the vociferations of the assembled multitude. The functionaries came forth to meet her, and passed their bands over her head, shoulders, and arms, extolling her to the skies, and proclaiming there was one virtuous woman in the Crow nation. She was then presented with my medicine shield by the great medicine chief, to preserve and carry for me, no one but myself having authority to take it from her.

  I trembled while she was passing this perilous ordeal, and its triumphant termination filled me with delight. She was a girl of superior endowments, and, if they had been fostered by a Christian education, I know no woman who would surpass her in worth, elegance, or attainments. Had she ever failed in her conduct, it would have been thundered in her ears when she stooped to gather the sand, and a cry would have arisen that she was polluting the medicine of the nation. If the candidate is killed during the inauguration ceremonies, nothing more is done in the same medicine lodge: it is immediately torn down, and the tribe moves to some other place, where it builds another lodge, and the same observances are again gone through with.

  In the meanwhile, women are engaged cooking and preparing a sumptuous feast of everything in season. All kinds of meats and dried berries, variously cooked, are spread before the partakers, which includes all who can obtain seats, except the medicine men, prophets, and dreamers. Their fast continues for seven days, during which time their inspiration is continually moving them. There are plenty of warriors in attendance to convey messages and execute orders, like deputy sheriffs in a justice’s court; and as fast as an ordinance is dreamed out, prophesied upon, and medicined, the instructions are delivered to the messengers, and away they start, one party in this direction, and one party in another, to communicate the instructions and execute orders.

  While we were yet at the lodge, a deputation of about a dozen Grovan warriors came to solicit our assistance against the Cheyennes and Siouxs, who had made a combined attack upon them, killing about four hundred of their warriors. In reply to the application, we told them that we had lost many warriors during the past winter, and that we must avenge our own men first; but that we would go and see them in the course of the summer, and hold a conference with them on the subject.

  There are two bands of the Grovans: the Grovans of the Missouri, which the Crows sprung from, and whose language they speak, and the Grovans of the prairie, who form a band of the Black Feet. The Grovans of the Missouri were then a weak tribe or band, having, by their incessant wars with the surrounding tribes, been reduced to a very insignificant number of warriors. When the Crows separated from them, the nation was deemed too numerous. This separation was effected, according to their reckoning, above a century since. Those Grovans and the Crows have always been on very friendly terms, and even to this day consider themselves descendants of the same family. They do not move about, like many wandering tribes, but remain stationary and cultivate the ground. Their lodges are built of poles, filled in with earth; they are spacious, and are kept comparatively neat.

  I would here remark that the name “Crow” is not the correct appellation of the tribe. They have never yet acknowledged the name, and never call themselves Crows. The name was conferred upon them many years ago by the interpreters, either through their ignorance of the language, or for the purpose of ridiculing them. The name which they acknowledge themselves by, and they recognize no other, is in their language Ap-sah-ro-kee, which signifies the Sparrowhawk people.

  The villages separated at this time. Long Hair went up the Yellow Stone, to Clarke’s Fort, in order to kill buffalo and gather fruit when ripe, while I went with my village on a circuit, and finally rested on the banks of Powder River, a branch of the Yellow Stone. While busy killing buffalo, we were suddenly attacked by the Cheyennes to the number of two thousand warriors. I had been advised by my scouts of their contemplated attack, and was consequently prepared to receive them. They were seriously disappointed in charging upon our empty lodges; and, while they were in confusion, we thundered upon them from our concealment, driving them before us in all directions for upward of two miles. Our victory was complete. We took sixty-three scalps, besides horses and weapons in abundance. We had eighty warriors wounded, principally with lances and arrows, but every one recovered. The heroine did good service, having thoroughly recovered from her terrible wound. She had two horses killed under her, but escaped unhurt herself, using her lance as adroitly as ever.

  The village moved on, directly after the battle, in the direction of our friends the Grovans; but, before we arrived, we rubbed out a party of eleven Cheyennes, who had been to the Grovan village on a war excursion, and we carried their scalps and presented them to the Grovans. When we arrived in sight of their villages — five in number — and halted with our whole force on a small hill which overlooked their towns, on perceiving us they were filled with alarm, believing us to be the Cheyennes, returned with a force sufficient to exterminate them. But they discovered us to be Crow friends, and their joy was now proportionate to their former despondency. We passed through their villages two abreast, and all were out upon the tops of their lodges to welcome us as we rode through. The acclamations resounded on every side. They looked upon us as their deliverers and friends, who had come to protect the weak against the strong, that their wrongs might be avenged, and their faces be washed once more. From their villages we rode on to Fort Clarke through the Mandan villages, defiling before the fort in double columns. Every man in the fort was on the battlements, gazing at our long lines of mounted warriors. While defiling past, we were correctly counted by Mr. Kipp. Several alighted and visited the fort, and Mr. Kipp inquired for the Crow who spoke English. No one understood him until he came across a Mandan who spoke the Crow language fluently. They inquired of him for me. I replied he was somewhere about. I was dressed in full costume, and painted as black as a Crow, and neither the Mandan nor Kipp recognized me. The Mandan informed Kipp that I was present.

  “Yes,” said I, “Beckwourth is present.”

  “Well, well!” exclaimed Kipp, in astonishment; “is that you, Beckwourth?”

  I replied that it was, indisputably.

  “Then why did you not declare yourself when I was inquiring for you? I certainly should never have distinguished you from any other Indian.”

  At this moment my wife entered, carrying my boy in her arms. A great interest was taken in him by all the inmates of the fort, greatly to the delight of his proud mother, and by the time the child had passed through all their hands he had receive
d presents enough to load a pack-mule.

  We stayed with our friends ten days, part of which time was occupied in arranging a combined plan of defense against the Black Feet. When we departed, Long Hair presented us with an ample stock of corn and pumpkins. We passed the Yellow Stone, and traveled on by easy marches to the Mussel Shell River, killing and dressing buffalo during our whole journey. Here we encamped to await the arrival of Long Hair. Our spies kept us advised of the movements of the enemy, and intelligence was brought us that he was manifestly concentrating his forces at the Three Forks of the Missouri for a grand attack. I knew that we were also vigilantly watched by the enemy’s spies, and I determined to make no movement that would warrant the suspicion that their movements were known to us. Long Hair shortly joined us with his whole force, and I felt perfectly at ease now, notwithstanding the most strategical movements of our enemy.

  After various demonstrations on either side, we feigned a division of our forces, and marched one half of them to a spot which concealed them from the tableland, thus leading the enemy to the belief that we were still ignorant of his intentions and his numbers.

  At daybreak the following morning we heard the noise of their innumerable horse-hoofs, and shortly after they burst upon our tenantless lodges like a thunder-cloud. I suffered about one third of their warriors to become entangled in the village, and I then gave the order to charge. The shock was irresistible; their advancing division was attacked on all sides, and the appearance of my concealed warriors sent a panic through the tribe. They fled precipitately without venturing to look round to see if they were pursued. It was a complete rout, and purchased at but slight cost to ourselves. We gathered over four hundred scalps, and took fifty women prisoners; we captured five hundred horses, one hundred guns, and weapons, blankets, and camp equipage beyond enumeration. Our loss was four killed and three hundred wounded, some of whom afterward died of their wounds.

  Our wounded warriors attended to, and our spoils gathered, we moved on without delay to our tobacco plantation, as it was now time to gather our crop. We journeyed by way of the fort, and on our road fell in with a party of fifteen Black Foot warriors, who were driving a large drove of horses they had stolen from the Snakes. We entrapped the enemy into a ditch and killed the whole party, and their recent acquisition came in very serviceably, as our stock of horses was greatly diminished. We found our crop excellent, and, as our numerous hands made light work, our harvest was soon gathered.

  We then passed on at our leisure, killing more or less buffalo daily, until we arrived at Tongue River, about the new moon of Leaf Fall. On our way we lost nearly three hundred head of horses, which were stolen by the Black Feet. We did not trouble ourselves to pursue them, as we felt confident they were but lent them, and that they would shortly be returned with good interest. At Tongue River we confederated with our friends, the Grovans, in an attack upon the Cheyenne village; from thence we returned to the Yellow Stone, when I detached a party of one hundred and sixty warriors on an excursion to the Black Foot village, and they returned bringing six hundred fine horses with them. We then passed on to Fort Cass, where we witnessed much dejection and gloom, occasioned by a serious reverse which they had experienced since our last visit.

  CHAPTER XXI.

  Attacks of the Black Feet on the Fort.—Six White Men killed. —Abandonment of Fort Cass. —Fort constructed at the Mouth of the “Rose Bud”. —Removal of the Village. —Peace concluded with the As-ne-boines. —Hair-breadth Escape. —Death of Mr. Hunter, of Kentucky.

  WHILE we were indulging in a display of our captured horses while encamped outside the fort, the Spotted Antelope, one of my relatives, came to me, and intimated that I had better visit the fort, as they had lost six men by the Black Feet. He was in mourning-paint for the victims, because the whites were his friends. I dismounted, and passed through the encampment on my way to the gate. As usual, I found my father’s lodge, in which my little wife resided, pitched nearest to the fort, with the other lodges of my various relatives grouped in a row, their contiguity to my parent’s lodge being graduated by their propinquity of kin. I found Pine Leaf seated by my wife, amusing herself with the Black Panther (whose civilized patronymic was Little Jim), while almost all the other women were dancing. I delayed a moment to inquire why these two women were not dancing with the others. Pine Leaf, with solemn air and quivering lip, said, “Your heart is crying, and I never dance when your heart cries.”

  “Neither do I,” said the little woman.

  This was a greater concession than the heroine had ever made to me before. She had told me that she would marry me, and she had frequently informed my sisters and my little wife of a similar intention; but this promise was always modified with a proviso — a contumacious “if,” which could never be avoided. “I will marry the Medicine Calf,” she would say, “if I marry any man.” A great many moons had waxed and waned since she first spoke of the pine leaves turning yellow, but they had not yet lost their verdure, and I had failed to discover a red-handed Indian.

  In conversation with Mr. Tulleck, the commandant of the fort, I learned that they had been incessantly harassed by the Black Feet ever since our last visit, who had invested them on all sides, rendering it extremely dangerous for any of the inmates to venture outside the gate. He further informed me that he had had six men massacred and fifty-four horses stolen. He had sent for me, he said, to come and select a new site, where they would be liable to less molestation, and be less in fear of their lives.

  I consulted with our chiefs and braves upon the selection of a more secure location for a new fort, and it was unanimously agreed upon that the mouth of the Rose Bud, thirty miles lower down the river, offered the best situation, as the country was fair and open all round, and afforded the hostile Indians no good places of concealment. There was also a fine grazing country there, and plenty of buffalo, so that a village of the Crows could winter under the fort, and afford them the protection of their presence.

  As soon as the Crows had completed their purchases, I started them up the Big Horn on their way back, with the promise that I would rejoin them in a few days. I then took a boat filled with goods, and twenty men, and dropped down the river until we came across a beautiful location for the new fort. We then returned, and removed the effects of the present fort to the new site, and then immediately set about constructing a new post. We measured off one hundred and eighty yards square, which we inclosed as quickly as possible with hewn timber eighteen feet high, and of sufficient thickness to resist a rifle ball: all the houses required for the accommodation of the inmates were commodiously constructed inside.

  Having finished the construction of the fort, I gave full instructions for the management of its affairs, and then departed for the village, where my presence was required to incite the Indians to devote themselves to trapping and hunting buffalo, for which service I was paid by the American Fur Company.

  As I was about starting, a deputation of fifty As-ne-boines came to the post, leaving a letter from Mr. M’Kenzie at the lower fort addressed to me, requesting me to constrain the As-ne-boines into a treaty of peace with the Crows, in order that their incessant wars might be brought to a close, and the interests of the company less interfered with. Had they arrived earlier, while the village was present at the old fort, I would have immediately called a council of the nation, and had the business settled. I seriously regretted their inopportune arrival, as it not only delayed the conclusion of the proposed peace, which was in every way desirable, but it would have saved me a very hazardous and anxious journey with the whole deputation of hostile Indians on our way to the village, where I had but one companion as a guarantee for my security. I was aware that the Indians remembered many a horse-borrowing adventure wherein I had taken an active part, and I had had too much experience of Indian character not to appreciate to the full the imminent danger I incurred in trusting myself with this band of savages in our intended journey across the wilderness.

  Mr. Ke
an, a native of Massachusetts, was my companion on this excursion. We started on foot, in company with the party of As-ne-boines. Everything went well until our fourth day out. We were traveling leisurely along, the Indians in close conversation among themselves, of which I understood but little — not enough to make out the subject of their consultation, though I mistrusted I formed the matter of their discourse. One of the chiefs and his son were a few rods in advance, in close conversation. The party at length halted, and sat down on the grass to smoke. My companion, unsuspicious of evil, started on to kill buffalo while the party rested. The chief and his son, who were in advance, returned, and passed one on each side of me. I instantly heard a gun-click, which I felt certain was the sound of cocking it. I turned my head, and saw the chief’s son with his piece leveled ready to shoot. I sprang to my feet, and grasped the barrel of his gun just as he discharged it, the load passing into the air. I drew my battle-axe, and raised it to strike the treacherous rascal down; but a chief arrested my arm, saying, as nearly as I could understand him, “Hold! Don’t strike him: he is a fool!”

  A general melee then ensued among the party; high words were bandied, and there seemed an equal division among them on the propriety of taking my life. By this time I had withdrawn a few yards, and stood facing them, with my rifle ready cocked. On hearing the report, my companion ran back, and, seeing how matters stood, exclaimed, “There is a fort just ahead, let us run and get into it; we can then fight the whole parcel of the treacherous devils.”

  We started for it, but the Indians were ahead of us; they arrived there first, and took possession of it, and again had a long confab, while we remained at their mercy outside. The party opposed to killing me appeared greatly to predominate, and we were not again molested, though neither I nor Mr. Kean slept one moment during the ensuing night. In the morning we started on our way, but we kept strict watch on their movements. The following afternoon I discovered two Indians on the hill-side, and, although they were at a great distance, I conceived them to be Crows, most likely spies from the village, which proved to be the case. No one had seen them but myself, and I imparted my discovery to my friend. I then told the head chief, who well understood the Crow language, that we were near the Crow village, and that if any of them should visit our camp during the night, he must be sure to call me before he suffered any of his people to speak to them, or they would be all inevitably massacred. He accordingly issued orders to that purport to all his men, and erected his lodge in front of the party, so as to be the first inquired of by the Crows. I and my partner then lay down, and soon were sound asleep.