The Native American Experience

by Dee Brown

  When morning came, the soldiers herded 65 Cheyenne prisoners, 23 of them wounded, back into Fort Robinson. Most were women and children. Only 38 of those who had escaped were still alive and free; 32 were together, moving north through the hills and pursued by four companies of cavalry and a battery of mountain artillery. Six others were hidden among some rocks only a few miles from the fort. Among the latter was Dull Knife; the others were his wife and surviving son, his daughter-in-law and grandchild, and a young boy named Red Bird.

  For several days the cavalrymen followed the 32 Cheyennes, until at last they trapped them near Hat Creek Bluffs in a deep buffalo wallow. Charging to the edge of the wallow, the cavalrymen emptied their carbines into it, withdrew, reloaded, and repeated the action until no fire was returned by the Indians. Only nine Cheyennes survived, most of them being women and children.

  During the last days of January, traveling only by night, Dull Knife and his party made their way north to Pine Ridge. There they became prisoners on Red Cloud’s reservation.

  Little Wolf and his followers spent the winter in concealed pits which they dug along the frozen banks of Lost Chokecherry Creek, one of the tributaries of the Niobrara. When the weather warmed slightly in the Sore Eye Moon, they started northward for Tongue River country. On Box Elder Creek they met Two Moon and five other Northern Cheyennes, who were working as scouts for the Bluecoats at Fort Keogh.

  Two Moon told Little Wolf that White Hat Clark was out looking for him, and wanted to hold a council with him. Little Wolf replied that he would be glad to see his old friend, White Hat. They met about half a mile from the Cheyenne camp, Lieutenant Clark disarming himself to show that he had confidence in their friendship. The lieutenant said that his orders were to bring the Cheyennes into Fort Keogh, where some of their relatives had surrendered and were now living. The price of peace, he added, was their guns and ponies; they could keep the ponies until they reached Fort Keogh, but they must surrender their guns now.

  “Since I left you at Red Cloud agency,” Little Wolf replied, “we have been down south, and have suffered a great deal down there. … My brother, Dull Knife, took one-half of the band and surrendered near Fort Robinson. He thought you were still there and would look out for him. They gave up their guns and then the whites killed them all. I am out in the prairie, and need my guns here. When I get to Keogh I will give you the guns and ponies, but I cannot give up the guns now. You are the only one who has offered to talk before fighting, and it looks as though the wind, which has made our hearts flutter for so long, would now go down.” 15

  Little Wolf had to give up his guns, of course, but not until he was convinced that White Hat would not let the soldiers destroy his people. They went on to Fort Keogh, and there most of the young men enlisted as scouts. “For a long time we did not do much except to drill and work at getting out logs from the timber,” Wooden Leg said. “I learned to drink whiskey at Fort Keogh. … I spent most of my scout pay for whiskey.” 16 The Cheyennes drank whiskey from boredom and despair; it made the white traders rich, and it destroyed what was left of the leadership in the tribe. It destroyed Little Wolf.

  After months and months of bureaucratic delay in Washington, the widows and orphans and the remnant of warriors at Fort Robinson were transferred to Red Cloud’s agency at Pine Ridge, where they joined Dull Knife. And then after more months of waiting, the Cheyennes at Fort Keogh were given a reservation on Tongue River, and Dull Knife and the dwindling few at Pine Ridge were permitted to join their people.

  For most of them it was too late. The force was gone out of the Cheyennes. In the years since Sand Creek, doom had stalked the Beautiful People. The seed of the tribe was scattered with the wind. “We will go north at all hazards,” a young warrior had said, “and if we die in battle our names will be remembered and cherished by all our people.” Soon there would be no one left who could care enough to remember, no one to speak their names now that they were gone.

  FIFTEEN

  Standing Bear Becomes a Person

  1879—January 11, British-Zulu war begins in South Africa. February 17, in St. Petersburg, Russia, nihilists attempt to assassinate Czar Alexander. October 21, Edison exhibits his first incandescent lamp. Henry George’s Progress and Poverty is published. First stage production of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House.

  You have driven me from the East to this place, and I have been here two thousand years or more. … My friends, if you took me away from this land it would be very hard for me. I wish to die in this land. I wish to be an old man here. … I have not wished to give even a part of it to the Great Father. Though he were to give me a million dollars I would not give him this land. … When people want to slaughter cattle they drive them along until they get them to a corral, and then they slaughter them. So it was with us. … My children have been exterminated; my brother has been killed.

  —STANDING BEAR OF THE PONCAS

  The soldiers came to the borders of the village and forced us across the Niobrara to the other side, just as one would drive a herd of ponies; and the soldiers pushed us on until we came to the Platte River. They drove us on in advance just as if we were a herd of ponies, and I said, “If I have to go, I’ll go to that land. Let the soldiers go away, our women are afraid of them.” And so I reached the Warm Land [Indian Territory]. We found the land there was bad and we were dying one after another, and we said, “What man will take pity on us?” And our animals died. Oh, it was very hot. “This land is truly sickly, and we’ll be apt to die here, and we hope the Great Father will take us back again.” That is what we said. There were one hundred of us died there.

  —WHITE EAGLE OF THE PONCAS

  IN 1804, AT THE mouth of the Niobrara River on the right bank of the Missouri, Lewis and Clark met with a friendly tribe of Indians called the Poncas. The tribe then numbered only two or three hundred, the survivors of a massive epidemic of the white man’s smallpox. Half a century later, the Poncas were still there, still friendly and eager to trade with white men, their sturdy tribe increased to about a thousand. Unlike most Plains Indians, the Poncas raised corn and kept vegetable gardens, and because they were prosperous and owned many horses, they frequently had to fight off raiders from Sioux tribes to the north.

  In 1858, the year when government officials were traveling through the West setting up boundaries on the land for different tribes, the Poncas gave up part of their territory in exchange for promises made by the officials to guarantee them protection of their persons and property and a permanent home on the Niobrara. Ten years later, however—while the treaty makers were negotiating with the Sioux—through some bureaucratic blunder in Washington the Ponca lands were included with territory assigned the Sioux in the treaty of 1868.

  Although the Poncas protested over and over again to Washington, officials took no action. Wild young men from the Sioux tribes came down demanding horses as tribute, threatening to drive the Poncas off land which they now claimed as their own. “The seven years that followed this treaty,” said Peter Le Claire, a member of the tribe, “were years when the Poncas were obliged to work their gardens and cornfields as did the Pilgrims in New England … with hoe in one hand and rifle in the other.” 1

  Congress at last acknowledged the treaty obligations of the United States “to protect” the Poncas, but instead of restoring their land, appropriated a small amount of money “to indemnify the tribe for losses by thefts and murders committed by the Sioux.” 2 Then, in 1876, following the Custer defeat, Congress decided to include the Poncas in the list of northern tribes who were to be exiled to Indian Territory. The Poncas, of course, had nothing to do with the Custer fight, had never engaged in any warfare with the United States, yet someone in Washington arranged for Congress to appropriate twenty-five thousand dollars “for the removal of the Poncas to the Indian Territory, and providing them a home therein, with consent of said band.” That last phrase was as conveniently overlooked as were the promises of the treaty which forbade white p
ersons to settle on Ponca territory; for ten years white settlers had been intruding on Ponca lands, and their eyes were greedy for the rich alluvial fields on which grew the finest Indian corn on the Plains.

  The first news the Poncas had of their impending removal was brought to them early in January, 1877, by a United States Indian inspector, Edward C. Kemble. “A white man came there suddenly after Christmas to see us,” Chief White Eagle said. “We didn’t get any news he was coming; he came suddenly. They called us all to the church and there they told us the purpose of his coming.”

  White Eagle’s account of what followed:

  “The Great Father at Washington says you are to move, and for that reason I’ve come,” said he.

  “My friend, you have caused us to hear these things very suddenly,” I said. “When the Great Father has any business to transact with us he generally sends word to all the people, but you have come very suddenly.”

  “No; the Great Father says you have to go,” said he.

  “My friend, I want you to send a letter to the Great Father, and if he really says this I desire him to send for us,” I said. “If it be so, and I hear of it the right way, I’ll say the words are straight.”

  “I’ll send a letter to him,” said he. He struck the wire. He sent the message by telegraph and it reached the Great Father very soon.

  “Your Great Father says you are to come with ten of your chiefs,” said he. “You are to go and see the land, and after passing through a part you are to come to Washington. You are to look at the Warm Land [Indian Territory] and if you see any land that is good there you are to tell him about it,” said he, “and also about any bad land there; tell him about both.”

  And so we went there to the Warm Land. We went to the terminus of a railroad and passed through the land of the Osages and on to the land full of rocks, and next morning we came to the land of the Kaws; and leaving the Kansas reservation we came to Arkansas City, and so, having visited the lands of two of these Indian tribes and seen this land full of rocks and how low the trees were, I came to this town of the whites. We were sick twice and we saw how the people of that land were, and we saw those stones and rocks, and we thought those two tribes were not able to do much for themselves.

  And he said to us the next morning, “We’ll go to the Shicaska River and see that.”

  And I said, “My friend, I’ve seen these lands and I’ve been sick on the journey. From this on I’ll stop on this journey, seeing these lands, and will go and see the Great Father. Run to the Great Father. Take me with you to see the Great Father. These two tribes are poor and sick, and these lands are poor; therefore, I’ve seen enough of them.”

  “No,” said he, “come and see these other lands in the Indian Territory.”

  “My friend,” said I, “take me, I beg, to see the Great Father. You said formerly we could tell him whatever we saw, good or bad, and I wish to tell him.”

  “No,” said he, “I don’t wish to take you to see him. If you take part of this land I’ll take you to see him; if not, not.”

  “If you will not take me to see the Great Father,” said I, “take me home to my own country.”

  “No,” said he, “notwithstanding what you say, I’ll not take you to see the Great Father. He did not say I should take you back to your own country.”

  “How in the world shall I act,” said I. “You are unwilling to take me to the Great Father, and you don’t want to take me back to my own country. You said formerly that the Great Father had called me, but now it is not so; you have not spoken the truth; you have not spoken the straight word.”

  “No,” said he, “I’ll not take you to your homes; walk there if you want to.”

  “It makes my heart feel sad,” said I, “as I do not know this land.” We thought we should die, and felt that I should cry, but I remembered that I was a man. After saying this, the white man, being in a bad humor, went upstairs. After he had gone upstairs, we chiefs sat considering what to do. We said, “He does not speak of taking us to see the Great Father or of taking us to our own country. We don’t think the Great Father has caused this.” We had one interpreter there with us, and we said, “As he will not take us back, we want him to give us a piece of paper to show the whites, as we don’t know the land.” The interpreter went upstairs to see the man and came back and said, “He will not give you the paper. He does not wish to make it for you.” We sent the interpreter back again and said, “We want some money from that due us from the Great Father, so we can make our way home.” When he came back, he said, “He does not wish to give you the money.” 3

  White Eagle, Standing Bear, Big Elk, and the other Ponca chiefs who were left stranded in Indian Territory by Inspector Kemble now started back home. It was the Moon When the Ducks Come Back and Hide, and snow covered the Plains of Kansas and Nebraska. As they had only a few dollars among them, they walked the entire distance—more than five hundred miles—each man with one blanket and no spare moccasins. Had it not been for their old friends the Otoes and Omahas, on whose reservations they stopped to rest and obtain food, few of the older chiefs could have survived the winter journey.

  Forty days later, when they reached the Niobrara, they found Inspector Kemble there ahead of them.

  White Eagle’s narrative:

  “Move ye,” said he; “prepare to move.”

  We were unwilling. Said I, “I’ve come back weary. Every one of us is unwilling to move.”

  “No,” said he, “the Great Father wishes you to remove at once, and you must move to the Indian Territory.” 4

  The chiefs were united, however, in their determination to hold the government to its treaty obligations, and Kemble decided to return to Washington to report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The commissioner took the problem to Secretary of the Interior Schurz, who in turn passed it to the Great Warrior Sherman. Sherman recommended the use of troops to force the Poncas to move, and as usual Big Eyes Schurz concurred.

  In April Kemble returned to the Niobrara, and by using the threat of troops persuaded 170 members of the tribe to start with him for Indian Territory. None of the leading chiefs would go with him. Standing Bear protested so strongly that he was ordered arrested and taken to Fort Randall. “They fastened me and made a prisoner of me and carried me to the fort,” he said. 5 A few days later the government sent a new agent, E. A. Howard, to deal with the remaining three-fourths of the tribe, and Standing Bear was released.

  White Eagle, Standing Bear, and the other chiefs continued to insist that the government had no right to move them from their land. Howard replied that he had nothing to do with the government’s decision; he had been sent there to go with them to their new home. After a four-hour council on April 15, Howard ended it by demanding a final answer: “Will you go peaceably or by force?” 6

  The chiefs remained silent, but before they returned to their homes, a young Ponca hurried to warn them. “The soldiers have come to the lodges.” The chiefs knew then that there would be no more councils. They would have to leave their homeland and go to Indian Territory. “The soldiers came with their guns and bayonets,” Standing Bear said. “They aimed their guns at us, and our people and our children were crying.”

  They started on May 21, 1877. “The soldiers came to the borders of the village,” White Eagle said, “and forced us across the Niobrara to the other side, just as one would drive a herd of ponies; and the soldiers pushed us on until we came to the Platte River.” 7

  Agent Howard methodically kept a diary of that fifty-day overland journey. On the morning they started, a heavy thunderstorm caused a sudden flooding of the Niobrara, sweeping several of the soldiers off their horses; instead of watching them drown, the Poncas plunged in and rescued them. The next day a child died, and they had to stop for a burial on the prairie. On May 23 a two-hour thunderstorm caught them in the open, drenching everyone throughout the day. A second child died; several Poncas fell ill during the night. Next day they ha
d to ford flooded streams because of washed-out bridges. The weather turned cold. On May 26 rain fell all day and there was no wood for fires.

  On May 27 sickness from exposure was affecting most of the Poncas. Standing Bear’s daughter, Prairie Flower, was very ill with pneumonia. Next day thunderstorms and heavy rain made progress almost impossible in the deep mud of the road.

  Now it was the Hot Weather Begins Moon, with showers falling almost every day. On June 6 Prairie Flower died, and Standing Bear gave her a Christian burial in the cemetery at Milford, Nebraska. “The ladies of Milford prepared and decorated the body for burial in a style becoming the highest civilization,” Howard noted proudly. “Standing Bear was led to say to those around him at the grave that he was desirous of leaving off the ways of the Indian and adopting those of the white man.”

  That night a tornado struck the Ponca camp, demolishing tents, overturning wagons, and hurling people hundreds of feet, seriously injuring several of them. Next day another child died.

  On June 14 they reached the Otoe reservation. The Otoes, taking-pity on the Poncas, gave them ten ponies to aid in the completion of their journey. For three days they waited for high waters to subside; illnesses continued to increase; the first male adult, Little Cottonwood, died. Howard had a coffin made for him and arranged a Christian burial near Bluewater, Kansas.

  On June 24 illness was so prevalent that Howard employed a physician at Manhattan, Kansas, to attend the Poncas. Next day two women died on the march. Howard saw that they received Christian burials.

  Now it was the Middle of the Summer Moon. A child of Buffalo Chief died and received a Christian burial at Burlington, Kansas. A Ponca named Buffalo Track went berserk and tried to kill Chief White Eagle, blaming him for the tribe’s miseries. Agent Howard banished Buffalo Track from the caravan and sent him back north to the Omaha reservation. The Poncas envied him for his punishment.