The Mammoth Book of the West

by Jon E. Lewis

  Cochise was not privileged to enjoy his peace for long. In 1874, in his fifty-first year, he was taken mortally ill. He died with Jeffords by his side. Cochise’s warriors painted him in yellow, black and vermilion, shrouded him in a red blanket, propped him on his favourite horse and took him deep into the mountains. His body was buried in a crevice whose location they never revealed.

  The great chief of the Chiricahua Apache was dead, but the peace he agreed for his people endured.

  For a while.

  The Great Sioux Uprising

  In the Civil War summer of 1862, the agricultural state of Minnesota looked to be one of the quieter places on the continent. The bulk of the internecine fighting was going on in the East and in the Missouri–Kansas border country, while the Indian frontiers were far away on the Great Plains and in the Southwest. The most unexpected event was a rising by the peaceful Santee Sioux who lived on a reservation along the Minnesota River.

  The Santee (or eastern) Sioux had remained in Minnesota when their relatives migrated to the buffalo plains in the eighteenth century. Over time, the government had acquired all their land, save for a barren strip 150 miles long and 10 miles wide on the south side of the Minnesota River. The payment for the Santee’s many land cessions, which totalled 26 million acres, was an annual government cash allotment that barely kept them alive.

  In June 1862, the annuity failed to arrive. To make matters worse, cutworms had devastated the tribe’s previous year’s corn crop. Local merchants refused to extend credit, or to equip the Indians for their privilege of an annual summer buffalo hunt on the Dakota range. “If they are hungry,” the trader Andrew Myrick said of the Santee Sioux, “let them eat grass or their own dung.”

  By August, the 12,000 Santee crowded on the reservation were starving. The 52-year-old leader of the Santee, Little Crow (Ta-oya-te-duta), tried to warn the Whites that trouble was coming: “We have waited a long time. We have no food, but here are stores, filled with food. We ask you: make some arrangement by which we can get food, or we will keep ourselves from starving.” On 8 August, bands of Santee at the Upper Agency looted the government warehouse. But still nobody expected an uprising. It began with an incident that would have been trivial but for its bitter consequences.

  On Sunday 17 August, a small group of Sioux warriors returned from an unsuccessful hunt in the “Big Woods” along the Mississippi. As they passed through the settlements, one found some eggs belonging to a farmer’s hen. Another cautioned him against taking the property of a White man. The group then fell to arguing and boasting, with one warrior insisting that he would prove he was unafraid of the White man by killing one – and dared his comrades to do the same. Arriving at a farm where some families had gathered for a Sunday visit, the Santee warriors challenged the White men gathered there to a shooting contest. When the White men had emptied their rifles, the Indians turned on the hosts and killed three men and two women. The murderers then rode to the reservation and reported their crime to Little Crow. A council was called.

  The Indians debated all night. Some chiefs, among them Wabasha and Wacouta, spoke for peace. So did Little Crow. “The White men,” said Little Crow, “are like the locusts when they fly so thick that the whole sky is a snowstorm . . . We are only little herds of buffaloes left scattered.” Some argued that the time for war was never better, with so many able-bodied Whites away on battlefields fighting each other. Finally, the council declared for war. Little Craw, to retain his leadership, put himself at the head of the hostiles. “Little Crow is not a coward,” he said, “he will die with you.”

  At dawn the next day, Monday 18 August, scores of braves attacked the Lower Agency. “Kill the Whites! Kill all the Whites!” shouted Little Crow. Twenty-three White men were shot and stabbed. One of the first to die was Andrew Myrick, his body mutilated, his mouth stuffed full with prairie grass.

  From the Lower Agency, bands of Santee fanned out to the Upper Agency and into the surrounding countryside. Whites were hauled from their homes and fields. Few had time to pull a gun. Men – unless judged to be friends – were summarily dispatched. Women were held captive and raped. “They came down upon us like the wind,” one survivor remembered.

  A few fugitives reached Fort Ridgely on the north side of the Minnesota River and raised the alarm. With more courage than judgement, the commander took out 47 of his men – more than half of his depleted force – to engage the Sioux. At the river, he ran into an ambush and his men were all but wiped out. The Santee lost one brave – their only casualty in the whole of the first day. Whites losses ran at 400.

  By Wednesday 20 August, when Little Crow finally mounted an attack on Fort Ridgely, the post had been reinforced. (Among the reinforcements were the guards of the coach carrying the delayed annuity.) The defenders threw back the Santee, who lost over a hundred warriors. As one of the Santee said years later: “But the defenders of the fort were very brave and kept the door shut.” Frustrated at the fort, Little Crow launched an all-out attack on the town of New Ulm. Throughout 23 August, Little Crow’s men besieged New Ulm, despite withering fire from the militia. The town was reduced to ashes. Thirty-six Whites died. The survivors abandoned the town and picked their way eastward to Mankato.

  The settlements of Western Minnesota and Eastern Dakota were now in a state of fear. Thirty thousand settlers evacuated their homes and fled to Mankato and other White population centres. “You have no idea,” wrote General John Pope to the War Department, “of the uncontrollable panic everywhere in this country. The most horrible massacres have been committed; children nailed alive to trees and houses; women violated and then disembowelled – everything that horrible ingenuity could devise.”

  It took two weeks for Minnesota to calm down enough to organize a militia to take the field against the Santee. This was placed under the command of Colonel Henry Sibley, a former fur trader, who advanced towards the Santee at a snail’s pace. The Indians continued their raids, adding more to their toll of dead Whites. By conservative estimate, the Santee eventually killed 500 Whites.

  The Indians won several skirmishes with the slowly approaching militia. Then, on 22 September, after failing to spring a planned ambush, Little Crow was beaten in battle by the 1,600-strong militia near Wood Lake. The warring Santee fled back to the reservation, packed their tipis and debated what to do with their pitiful captives. Eventually, these were left in the care of those Santee who had not embarked on hostilities. Little Crow and most of his warriors left for the Plains.

  If Colonel Sibley was slow to fight, he was quick to avenge. By October 2,000 Santee had been rounded up, many of them Santees from the Upper Agency who had refused to participate in the rising. Four hundred of the gathered Santee were tried by military commission, some cases receiving as few as five minutes. The trials ended with 307 Santee sentenced to die, who were hauled to Mankato for hanging.

  Most Minnesotans were eager to see the convicted Indians hang, but one kept his humanity. Episcopal Bishop Henry B. Whipple appealed to President Lincoln for mercy: “I ask,” he wrote, “that the people shall lay the blame . . . where it belongs, and . . . demand the reform of an atrocious Indian system which has always garnered for us . . . anguish and blood.”

  Lincoln commuted the sentences of those Sioux condemned to die merely because they had partaken of battle. Still, 38 were taken out into the chilly morning of 26 December and hanged from a special scaffold, constructed so that all the traps would drop by the cutting of a single rope. Those who died, their bodies jerking grotesquely in the air, included Cut Nose, who claimed he had killed Whites “till his arm tired.” Alongside him were three innocent men accidentally put to death when their names were confused with those of the condemned. While waiting to die a warrior called Little Six (Shakapee) is said to have heard the shriek of a train whistle in the distance and said: “As the White man comes in, the Indian goes out.”

  Thereafter there were a few desultory raids by Santee still free and hostile, but
in the summer of 1863 two settlers near Hutchinson, Minnesota, caught Little Crow picking raspberries in a field and shot him dead. They shot him not because he was Little Crow but because he was an Indian. When his body was identified, the Minnesota legislature paid $575 for Little Crow’s scalp, and then put it on display in a museum. Another chief was caught and hanged at Fort Snelling.

  The Santee reservation by the Minnesota River was then wiped off the map, and 2,000 Santee – hostile or otherwise – were herded into a tiny reservation along the Missouri River, alongside 3,000 Winnebago Indians. During the first winter, 400 Indians died of starvation and disease.

  The Great Sioux Uprising – the biggest Indian insurrection since Wampanoag King Philip had set the Massachusetts frontier aflame in 1675 – was over. But the climactic struggle between the Indians and Whites had barely passed its first rounds.

  Sand Creek

  I have come to kill Indians, and believe that it is right and honourable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians.

  Colonel John Chivington, 3rd Colorado Volunteers

  The area around Pike’s Peak in Colorado had long been rumoured to be rich in gold, and in 1858 a small group of prospectors hit pay dirt. The cry went up “Gold in Colorado!” and wagon trains of frenzied prospectors rolled west in wagons daubed with the defiant slogan “Pike’s Peak or Bust!”

  To the prospectors swarming into Colorado one thing was apparent: the region’s Indians were an obstacle, possibly a dangerous one. They would have to go.

  The Southern Cheyenne and the Arapaho were themselves relatively recent arrivals to the plains, both being Algonquin-speakers from the Great Lakes area. Not until the early 1800s had the Cheyenne accumulated enough horses to become a truly equine people of the interior plains. Their nomadic scattered lifestyle meant that the Cheyenne avoided some of the worst smallpox and cholera epidemics. In the mid-nineteenth century their population stood at around 20,000. A people with a highly elaborate moral code, the Cheyenne were relatively free of crime, and any transgressors were more likely to be rehabilitated than punished. But a murderer left undiscovered, they believed, would smell bad and keep away the buffalo.

  The Cheyenne and Arapaho might have been late in getting to Colorado country, but they were determined to keep it. As more and more prospectors swarmed onto tribal land – more than 50,000 of them by 1859 – the Indians became resentful and hostile. Treaty commissioners managed to persuade some Cheyenne and Arapaho to move onto a small reservation in eastern Colorado, but the younger war leaders refused.

  All through the winter of 1864 wisps of rumour of an Indian war floated up and down the Denver road. These were deliberately fanned by Major-General Samuel R. Curtis, Army commander of the Kansas and Colorado department, who wanted any pretext to drive the Indians out. So did Colonel John Chivington, the fiery Methodist-preacher-turned-soldier who had led the Union to victory at Glorieta Pass. Now commander of the District of Colorado, Chivington was eager to try out his new-found appetite for war on the Cheyenne.

  Nothing Lives Long

  The excuse to “punish” the Cheyenne and Arapaho came on 7 April 1864. Chivington reported to Curtis that the Cheyenne had raided 175 cattle from a ranch on the Smoky Hill trail. Later, a thorough investigation would find no evidence of Indian theft.

  Chivington was in the field within days of reporting the “theft”. In his pocket he had an order from Governor John Evans, another ruthless Indian-hater, to “burn villages and kill Cheyenne whenever and wherever found.”

  By early June, Chivington’s brutal campaign had razed four unsuspecting Cheyenne villages. One of his junior officers had also shot Chief Lean Bear, a peaceful Cheyenne who had walked up to the White man proudly wearing a medal the Great Father in Washington had given him. Arapahoes, who had tried to intercede in a dispute between the Army and some Kiowa, were fired on. Soon half the Cheyenne and Arapaho in Colorado were on the warpath.

  The first retaliatory blow was struck at a ranch outside Denver. A family named Hungate was murdered, their bodies mutilated. The corpses were taken to Denver and placed on display. The town went wild with fear and fury. Traffic on the trails was attacked, Cheyenne and Arapaho bands virtually cutting Denver off from the outside world. During three weeks in August, 50 people were killed on the Platte route alone.

  With Denver near famine, the War Department authorized Governor Evans to raise a special regiment of Indian fighting volunteers who would serve for 100 days. The 3rd Colorado Regiment (the “Hundred Dazers”) under the command of “the Fighting Parson” Colonel Chivington was still being mustered, however, when peace suddenly broke out.

  Some of the Cheyenne chiefs had tired of war; some had never wanted it. Using the offices of George Bent, a half-White living with the Cheyenne, the chiefs sent a letter to Major Edward W. Wynkoop at Fort Lyon offering an end to hostilities:

  We held a counsel . . . and all came to the conclusion to make peace with you providing you make peace with the Kiowas, Comences, Arropohoes Apaches and Siouxs. We are going to send a message to the Kiowas . . . about our going to make [peace] with you. We heard that you [have] some prisoners in Denver. We have seven prisoners of you which we are willing to give up providing you give up yours. There are three war parties out yet, and two of Arropohoes; they have been out some time and expected in soon. When we held this counsel there were few Arropohoes and Siouxs present; we want news from you in return. (That is a letter)

  Signed BLACK KETTLE and Other Chiefs

  Wynkoop, a decent and able officer, saw a chance to avert bloodshed. He visited Black Kettle, persuaded him to release four prisoners, and encouraged him to go to Denver and consult with the Governor.

  On 28 September, the genial and aged Black Kettle rode into Camp Weld near Denver to talk peace. After conceding his inability to control some of his younger warriors, Black Kettle agreed to settle at Fort Lyon with those Cheyenne and Arapaho who would follow him. There he would be protected by Major Wynkoop. The Indian left the meeting believing he had made a peace deal.

  Peace was the last thing the Indian-hating Colonel Chivington wanted. If he was to use his hundred-day men he had to use them soon. He complained to General Curtis about Wynkoop’s conciliatory policy and got him replaced at Fort Lyon by Major Scott J. Anthony. In the presence of other officers at Fort Lyon, the newly arrived Anthony told Black Kettle that he would continue to be protected by the Army. Allegedly to enable the surrendered Cheyenne and Arapaho to do some hunting, Anthony directed them to move their village to an almost dry watercourse about 40 miles to the north-east: Sand Creek.

  Anthony had moved the Indians to a place where they could be inconspicuously massacred. Chivington and his 3rd Colorado Volunteers reached Fort Lyon on 28 November. Major Anthony and 125 men of his garrison joined them. Some officers protested violently when they learned what Chivington and Anthony intended to do. Chivington cursed them as spies and traitors, no better than Indians.

  At daybreak on the clear frosty morning of 29 November 1864, Colonel Chivington and 700 soldiers approached Black Kettle’s camp. When a junior officer again protested that the Cheyenne were at peace, Chivington roared back: “I have come to kill Indians, and believe that it is right and honourable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians.” His troops were ordered to “Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice.”

  The sleeping Indians were given no warning, no chance for talk. Chivington’s men simply bore down on them, firing their rifles, slashing into the sleeping tents. There was confusion and noise. Black Kettle, unable to comprehend what was happening, ran up the Stars and Stripes outside his tent. Then a white flag of surrender. Still the killing continued.

  Some of the Indians ran into the sand hills and frantically dug pits in the banks in which to hide. The troops pursued them, and shot into the pits. To prevent an escape, the Americans cut off the horse herd. Nevertheless, a few Indians ran as far as five miles to escape the slaughter – and were st
ill cut down. A lost child crying for its family was used for target practice.

  There was little chance for the dazed Cheyenne and Arapaho to fight back. They had surrendered most of their guns to Wynkoop days before. Those warriors who had arms and could use them fought desperately. Major Anthony himself said: “I never saw such bravery displayed by any set of people on the face of the earth than by these Indians. They would charge on the whole company singly, determined to kill someone before being killed themselves” Chief White Antelope refused to flee or fight. He stood in front of his tipi and sang his death song, “Nothing lives long / Except the earth and the mountains,” until he was killed.

  A few soldiers, almost all from the 1st Colorado, refused to join the slaughter, or the mutilation of the Indians’ bodies which occurred afterwards. “It looked too hard for me,” Captain Silas Soule wrote, “to see little children on their knees begging for their lives, having their brains beaten out like dogs.”

  Another soldier, Lieutenant James Connor, recorded:

  In going over the battleground, I did not see a body of a man, woman or child but was scalped, and in many instances, their bodies were mutilated in the most horrible manner. I heard of numerous instances in which men had cut out the private parts of females and stretched them over the saddlebows and wore them over their hats while riding in the ranks.