The Native American Experience

by Dee Brown

  “I don’t know whether it was because I felt it my duty to go, or because I was sixty years old that year and wanted the magic of a journey to Washington, the Great Father’s village. I met Red Cloud at Fort Laramie. He came in with about twenty subchiefs of the Oglalas, all dressed in their finest buckskins except for Red Cloud. He was wearing white man’s clothes—a long-tailed black coat and trousers, a big black cravat knotted around a high white collar, a gold watch-chain hanging over his vest. Except for his Indian face he could have been a commissioner from Washington, and I told him so. He said the Wasicus gave him that fine clothing on his last visit to Washington.

  “We had not seen each other for several years, but he said I appeared to be the same man except for my snow-white hair. Red Cloud had changed considerably. The fierceness was gone from his face, and he was full of petty complaints about things he would not have wasted his breath on when he was a war leader instead of the head of a reservation agency the American government had built and named for him. His voice almost had a whine in it when he complained about the presence of Bluecoats at Camp Robinson nearby his agency, the poor rations the government issued to his people, the unfriendly Wasicu agent, the willful young Oglalas who refused to stay on the reservation and ran off to live with Crazy Horse or Sitting Bull. He was especially provoked by Crazy Horse’s refusal to go with him to Washington. ‘Crazy Horse knows nothing of the white man’s world,’ he said.

  “ ‘He says he will never live on a reservation,’ I replied.

  “ ‘The day will come when his people will be hungry. It is better to eat stringy beef than to starve.’

  “ ‘You speak like a Wasicu,’ I said.

  “He laughed then, and told me that my half-blood son, Pleasant, was happy living at Camp Robinson with the Oglala wiwazica. Pleasant had found employment as a scout for the army, wore a fine blue uniform, and earned enough money to live in a wooden house with glass windows and a wooden floor.

  “Only once did Red Cloud show his old fire, and that was when he talked of the miners invading our sacred Black Hills. ‘If the American government does not send Bluecoats to drive out the miners,’ he said angrily, ‘then the tribes must send warriors to drive them out. The treaty I signed here at Fort Laramie gives me that right. You will help me speak of this in Washington. The Great Father sent me a message on the talking wires, saying it is time for a new treaty.’

  “Before we left Fort Laramie, we met Mr. Adam Beale, who had come from Washington to act as our escort for the journey. Mr. Beale was a lazy man whose clothes always seemed to be rumpled, and he liked to sit with his hands behind his head, his elbows thrust out, and his long legs propped up on something. His lips were large and loose and he was always licking them with his tongue. When he discovered that I could understand and speak English well, he directed many of his remarks to me. I suppose you might say Mr. Beale was a cynical man, not an old man though. He was lively and talkative after he’d been drinking whiskey and he seemed always to have a bottle at hand. He gave us clothing to wear on the journey. ‘Passengers on the cars don’t fancy naked Indians,’ he said. ‘Keep your cods covered with pants and your pods under buttoned coats so’s not to shock the timid white ladies.’

  “We rode in army ambulance wagons from Fort Laramie over to a new town on the railroad that was named for my adopted tribe. On the long journey to Washington I was to think often of how the white men not only stole our land but stole our names to put on the stolen land.

  “Most of us had never seen an Iron Horse before, and when it came whistling in to the Cheyenne station, blowing smoke and steam, clanking and breathing as though alive, some of us would have found it far easier to run away than to stand still while the cars rattled to a stop alongside. But we were soon on our way, enjoying the feeling of flying past places where we had roamed and hunted in our younger days. When we grew weary and cramped on the hard seats, Mr. Beale passed his whiskey bottle around. Some refused to drink, and Beale pretended to be shocked. ‘What!’ he cried. ‘You chiefs going to Washington cold sober? Can’t have that. Wine, women, and song, that’s what we do in Washington.’ I soon found out that Mr. Beale had escorted many visiting groups of Indians to Washington, and in the course of his duties had developed gainful connections with hotel keepers, whiskey dealers, clothing merchants, and whores, putting government money into their hands, a part of which was returned to him.

  “Cheyenne was where we started, and soon we passed Oglala, and then Pawnee Station. The rivers, the towns we passed, the states, kept singing to me with their Indian names—Niobrara, Omaha, Missouri, Iowa, Nishnabotna, Ottumwa, Osceola, Wapsipinicon, Mississippi, Illinois, Winnebago, Ottawa, Seneca, Chicago, Wabash. When the railroad men called the names they were like lost voices singing—Ohio, Muskingum, Chillicothe, Kanawha, Shenandoah, Susquehanna, Potomac.

  “We arrived in Washington late in the day and rode in covered carriages to the Tremont House. Red Cloud, who had been grumbling throughout the journey because he had to sit on a seat like a white man, now complained because Mr. Beale had not taken us to the Washington House, where he had stayed on a previous visit. But Mr. Beale’s bargain was with the manager of the Tremont and that is where we stayed.

  “Next morning Mr. Beale escorted us through the crowded streets to the bureau, and there we were surprised to find other delegations of Sioux—Brules, Minneconjous, Yanktonais, all the subtribes who with the Oglalas owned the Black Hills as a part of the reservation that had been set apart for their ‘absolute and undisturbed use and occupation,’ as the treaty said. We knew that something big was afoot, or the government would not have brought so many delegations to Washington.

  “In a room almost as large as the old Cherokee council house at Okelogee, several well-dressed white men sat around a big table smiling at us as we entered with Mr. Beale. Some of these men were the same commissioners we had seen at Fort Laramie. Mr. Beale whispered to me that the others were congressmen. One of them looked strangely familiar. His hair was as white as mine, he wore spectacles, and his face was flabbier and more mottled with whiskey veins than when I had last seen him at Fort Starke, but there was no doubt that the congressman was Flattery Jack Belcourt. Ah, but I should not have been surprised. I have since observed that you white Americans more often than not choose his sort to represent you in your representative form of government. Scoundrels, thieves, liars, betrayers of those who give them their power.

  “The head commissioner, a handsome man with a gray-sprinkled beard, greeted us in that false cordiality of manner and hearty tone of voice that white men use when they wish to make Indians believe they are their friends. He soon came to the point. White miners had entered the Black Hills to dig for gold and were causing trouble for the Indians. The time had come for a new treaty that would remove the Black Hills from the reservation and so end the trouble.

  “At this remark the response from his audience was a chorus of disapproving hunh-hunhs and a stamping of moccasins. The commissioner smiled his raccoon smile, and invited the chiefs to speak. Red Cloud tapped me on the shoulder, and I arose with him to face the table, my eyes watching Congressman Belcourt. Recognition of me came slowly upon his ravaged face, and for a moment I wondered if he would leap to his feet and demand my arrest as a fugitive from the army, but of course he did not. More than ten years had passed, and now Belcourt wanted something from us, the gold in the Black Hills, or such of it as he could contrive to turn to his pockets without digging for it. He averted his eyes from me when I began putting Red Cloud’s words into English, words of anger and accusation. The Indians had not come to Washington to talk about giving away the Black Hills, Red Cloud declared, but to demand of the Great Father that he keep the promises of the treaty and shield the Black Hills from Wasicu invasion. ‘When I speak I always call on the Great Spirit to hear me, because I always tell the truth. The Wasicus tells me lies, and I came to Washington to see the Great Father himself and to talk with him about the lies. I will speak no mor
e until I see the Great Father.’

  “He started to sit down, and then added: ‘You were raised on chairs here in the East where the sun rises. I come from where the sun sets. I will sit as we do where the sun sets.’ He lowered himself cross-legged to the floor, and this caused some laughter among the commissioners and congressmen.

  “The head commissioner rose up, his false smile reappearing upon his bearded face. ‘Your Great Father, President Grant, will be happy to see his children who came from the place where the sun sets. Tomorrow morning he will welcome you in his white house. Now I want you to hear from a gentleman who is a loyal friend to all red men. For many years his heart has been very warm toward the red men. Because of his high regard for you and his earnest efforts in your behalf, the Congress in its wisdom has made him chairman of its committee to see that justice is done about the Black Hills. Congressman Belcourt.’

  “Well, I could not tell you what Flattery Jack said that day. His honey-mouthed words flowed out like sap from a gum tree, but they had no meaning for me, my eyes being filled with visions of his attempt to swindle Yellow Hawk and his friends at Bent’s Fort, his trading for Red Bird Woman, his treatment of me at Fort Starke, and that awful morning when I came to Jotham’s trading post and found the tortured dead and living. Whether he was there or not, Belcourt was the mover, as he had been at the Hinta Nagi, where my youngest son and some of my cherished friends died from the sabers and bullets of Belcourt’s ruffian soldiers.

  “Next morning we went with Mr. Beale to the White House, some of the chiefs wearing their buckskins and feathers for the meeting with the Great Father. We crowded into a large office room with an armed Bluecoat at each door watching us as though we were dangerous beasts. I had expected to see a tall man with a commanding figure, but the Great Father was shorter than most of the chiefs. He took a big cigar from his mouth and told us he was glad to see us, that he wanted his red children to be contented and happy, and he thought the best way to make certain of that was for us to give up the Black Hills. When Red Cloud had me say to him in English that we would never give up the sacred Black Hills, the Great Father replied: ‘We know what is for your good better than you can know yourselves.’ With that he dismissed us, saying he had many matters to attend to and that we should discuss our opinions with the head commissioner. Red Cloud was enraged, but Mr. Beale with the help of a soldier guard hurried him out before he could start a disturbance.

  “During that afternoon Mr. Beale guided us on a tour of Washington. We visited the great council house of the Congress. Some congressmen slept in their chairs or read newspapers while others talked at great length. We climbed to the dome of the Capitol and looked out upon the great city. Then we went to the arsenal, where a giant cannon was fired for us down the river named for the vanished tribe that had lived upon its banks before the white men came there to destroy them to the last seed.

  “After our dinner that evening, while I was resting on my bed and wishing that I was back on the Powder or the Tongue, Mr. Beale knocked on the door and said that Red Cloud needed me to interpret for him. We went along the hallway to a large room where we found Red Cloud and several other chiefs with the head commissioner, an army colonel, and Congressman Flattery Jack Belcourt. The air in the room was heavy with cigar smoke and the odor of whiskey. One by one, the three white men made their little speeches. The commissioner said it was true the Black Hills belonged to the Sioux, but that so many miners were invading the Hills that the government could not stop them. It was in the best interests of the Indians, he said, for them to give up the Black Hills and avoid trouble with the miners. Then the army colonel spoke, saying he had not enough soldiers to drive out the gold hunters, and as sure as the sun rose each day white settlers would soon be following the miners into other parts of the reservation. The colonel advised the chiefs to take their people south to Indian Territory, where they and their children would be always undisturbed among their own kind. Then Belcourt spoke, saying that Congress was ready to pay money to the chiefs to give up their rights to the Black Hills, money enough to make them happy and safe for the remainder of their lives.

  “To all these remarks, Red Cloud had the same reply: ‘I came to Washington to talk to the Great Father. When he is ready to talk to me, I will talk about the Black Hills.’ The other chiefs said they must go home and consult with their people before talking about giving up Paha Sapa, the Black Hills. ‘The Black Hills,’ the Minneconjou chief told Belcourt quite sharply, ‘are not for sale.’

  “The head commissioner and the army colonel then said that it was all right for the chiefs to return to the West and consult with their people. In a few weeks a peace commission would come and meet with them on White Earth River near the Red Cloud Agency to make a new treaty. The commissioner and the colonel then left, but Belcourt remained. Opening a large leather carrying bag, he gave each of the chiefs a box of cigars and a bottle of whiskey. Then from his pockets he took a handful of greenbacks, handing a roll of them to each chief. ‘We congressmen always treat our friends right and we expect our friends to treat us right,’ he said, and for the first time he looked at me with that cold yellow stare that meant I was not a friend. He knew by this time that I had no power to give away the gold of the Black Hills. Turning back to the chiefs, he said slyly, winking one eye: ‘Any of you chiefs want a woman for the night? White or black. We could find no redskin girls for you. You want a woman, you just say the word to Adam Beale here and he’ll see to it.’ Flattery Jack picked up his empty leather bag. ‘We’ll talk again.’ He bowed, said good night, and left the room.

  “I don’t know how many of the chiefs went with Mr. Beale. Red Cloud got drunk on his bottle of whiskey, roaming from room to room, keeping most of us awake until late in the night. The next morning he lay moaning in his bed, condemning the Great Father because he would not send for him, saying he would trade the Black Hills for enough Texas steers to feed his people for seven generations. He also wanted shelled corn and beans and rice and dried apples and saleratus and tobacco and salt and pepper for the old people, a wagon with a span of horses and six yoke of work cattle for each family, a sow and a boar, and a cow and a bull, a sheep and a ram, and a hen and a cock for each family, white men’s houses with nice shiny black furniture, dishes to eat from, and a scythe and a mowing machine and a sawmill. Poor Red Cloud! He was beginning to love the things of the white man more than our sacred land. The Wasicus had put blinders over his eyes. He would soon be like a grizzly bear with no teeth or claws.

  “I asked him if he was ready to go home. He would wait one more day, he said, for the Great Father to send for him. That afternoon he spent Belcourt’s greenbacks buying presents for his family and relatives, and when no message came from President Grant, he told Mr. Beale he wanted to go back to his agency.

  “We left in the early light of morning. Mists were around the dome of the Capitol, so that it reminded me of one of those wind-carved rock formations I had seen in the deserts of Mexico—dreary, barren, heartless. I shivered in the dampness of the morning, feeling an evil power in the air I breathed, knowing that since I had come there I had seen too much of the darker side of the human heart.

  “Many years had passed since my father, the Runner, had come to Washington from Okelogee to save his Cherokee Nation, only to return home embittered. I could hear his words: The Congress has always claimed to own the Indian tribes, and if they get away with that, someday they will think they own all the whites, too.

  “ ‘What do you think of this place?’ Mr. Beale asked. Standing beside me in front of the railroad station, he too was looking at the swirling mists around the marble dome.

  “ ‘It is not what it was meant to be,’ I replied.

  “ ‘No,’ he said, taking a flask from his coat pocket. ‘They come here to fill their pockets and when they are full, they fill their hats, and then they say good-bye and go away.’

  “A train whistle sounded, followed by a rumble of cars. Mr. Beale took a
long swallow from his flask, licked his lips, and spat on the brick paving.”

  Dane picked up a flat stone and skimmed it over the surface of the stream. “That was thirty years ago,” he said. “But nothing has changed.” He looked at Red Bird Woman. “Here comes that Crow boy with the lodgepoles. Red Bird, I’ll lend my hands to help you build the tipi.”

  53

  IN SEPTEMBER 1875, THE AMERICAN government sent a commission composed of politicians, missionaries, traders, and military officers to the Red Cloud Agency “to treat with the Sioux Indians for the relinquishment of the Black Hills.” Hoping to obtain representatives from the bands who refused to live within the boundaries of the reservations, the commissioners sent messengers to all the camps along the streams that flowed into the Yellowstone, inviting the chiefs to come in and receive presents from the Great Father. Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse both replied that they did not want to sell any land to the government, especially the Black Hills. Neither attended the council on White Earth River, but they sent observers, and they were pleased when their emissaries returned to report that Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, and other agency chiefs who met with the commissioners had resisted all efforts to entice them into giving up the Black Hills.

  During the pleasant days of the Drying-Grass Moon, Dane and Sweet Medicine Woman’s people were again with the Two Moon Cheyennes, traveling leisurely northward along the Powder. While Dane had been away on his long journey to Washington, both War Shirt and Old Two Moon had died. Yellow Hawk, Big Star’s son, was now chief of the small band of former southerners, and Young Two Moon took his father’s place as chief of the northern cousins. Through the years many intermarriages had occurred between the two bands, and several of the soldier societies had combined under one leader, but the older people still preferred to have separate chiefs instead of one. Fortunately Yellow Hawk and Young Two Moon were close friends, and they often joked about which one was the real chief.