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(pdf file - requires Adobe Acrobat Reader) (developed by the Scottsbluff/Gering Chamber of Commerce & TCD) (developed by the Scottsbluff/Gering Chamber of Commerce, TCD, & the City of Scottsbluff)
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"INDIAN WARS"
While the settlers were moving westward and the whole country was struggling with many new issues, one nation of Indian people had become the strongest in the west. The people of the Sioux Nation, as it was known then, roamed the country from northern Minnesota, across the plains of North and South Dakota, to the mountains of Wyoming, and southward, over the plains of western Nebraska . There were many tribes and bands of the Sioux Nation, including the Brule and the Oglala, which were among the most warlike and who claimed the area of Western Nebraska as their hunting ground and home. They also claimed Western South Dakota and Eastern Wyoming. Each of these tribes numbered about seven or eight thousand. In the summer they hunted buffalo in the valleys of the Platte and Republican Rivers, and in the winter they found shelter, fuel, and game in the region of the Black Hills, South Dakota and the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming.
Grazing Buffalo "Tatanka"
Two individuals stand out as leaders of their tribes. Red Cloud of the Oglala Tribe and Spotted Tail of the Brule Tribe had early contact with fur traders and continued to have an impact on history throughout those tumultuous years, up to the final settlement of the Sioux Nation in its present home.
Red Cloud Spotted Tail
Red Cloud was born at Blue Creek in what is today Garden County , Nebraska in May 1821. Spotted Tail was born in Wyoming in 1823. When the white people first came to the land, the Oglalas and Brules were at peace with them; however, they were at war with nearly all the other Indian tribes around them. The Sioux Nation people were newcomers and were driving out the earlier inhabitants, the Crows, the Snakes, the Utes, and the Pawnees.
Pawnee Family
Red Cloud and Spotted Tail became leaders during early wars among the tribes. Red Cloud went on his first war party at age 16 and returned victorious. In 1849, Red Cloud crossed the Rocky Mountains and led a war party into the heart of Shoshoni country. Many scalps and ponies were taken. In 1850, a quarrel broke out between members of Red Cloud's tribe, and Red Cloud shot and killed the most noted leader of his tribe. Spotted Tail, an orphan, began carving out a position for himself at an early age. By age 17 he had become a "sure shot" and a clever hunter. He began studying the white man's habits whenever he came in contact with them at various trading posts, especially their intense desire to accumulate property. Long before the older men in his tribe saw any harm in allowing the white man so much freedom, Spotted Tail found it unwise. During this time the great migration along the Oregon Trail began. At first there were only occasional wagon trains consisting of a few wagons each. After the discovery of gold in California , however, the trail became crowded with thousands of wagons, animals, men, women, and children all heading west. These strange emigrants shot the buffalo and other game without asking permission of the Indians, and it soon became evident that if the white men kept coming, the game would eventually be gone, and the Sioux, who lived entirely by hunting, would starve.
Chimney Rock, Near Bayard, Nebraska On theOregon Trail
Fort Laramie, Nebraska Territory at that time, was the most noted name on the map of the West from 1854 to 1863. Founded by early fur traders, it was first called Fort William and was built in the forks of the Laramie and North Platte Rivers. By 1846, it was called Fort Laramie. Here, hunters and trappers for the American Fur Company brought their furs, and here, Indians came to trade.
Fort Laramie, Nebraska Territory
Around 1849 the United States bought Fort Laramie from the fur company, and it soon became the chief post in Indian Country. From the Missouri River, Fort Laramie was 667 miles west. This was where the mountains met the plains. Wagon trains rested and refitted here before starting their journey through the mountains. Great councils were held with the Indians near the Fort, and historic treaties were signed. From Fort Laramie, U.S. regiments marched into the Indian wars that would come later.
Fort Laramie Army Bridge/Laramie River
In 1851, a council was held near Fort Laramie with the Oglalas, Brules, and other plains tribes. A treaty was made and the United States acknowledged and confirmed the land occupied by each tribe. All the tribes agreed to the division of the land made by this treaty. For the first time in the history of the plains Indians, all the great hunting ground between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains was divided among them.
Illustration/Treaty Signing
It was agreed by all the Indians that "The Great Road" along the Platte River and across the mountains should be free and open for the white people. The United States agreed to pay $50,000 worth of goods to the Indians each year for fifty years for the use of this road through their country. In return, the Indians agreed not to rob or attack the white people along this road. The United States also agreed to keep the white people from going elsewhere in Indian country without permission of the Indians. Neither Red Cloud nor Spotted Tail signed this treaty, as they had not yet become chiefs. When the treaty was sent to Washington, however, the U.S. Senate changed the payments of $50,000 worth of goods per year from fifty years to only ten years! The Indians never agreed to this change; however, the white travelers continued to use the road. The United States sent out the first $50,000 worth of goods in the summer of 1854. All the plains Indians from the Sioux Nation arrived near Fort Laramie to receive their portion, but before the Indian Agent from St. Louis arrived to distribute the goods, an altercation took place between soldiers from Fort Laramie and a group of Indians who had killed and eaten a wandering cow owned by Mormon travelers. When the owner complained, Lt. John Grattan, Sixth Infantry, 2 enlisted men, and a half-breed interpreter were sent to arrest the offender; however, after brief negotiations, a fusillade by the soldiers resulted in the death ofChief Conquering Bear and the retaliatory massacre of Grattan, his interpreter and his entire command. The nearby Trading Post was looted and the Fort Laramie garrison threatened, but the Indians moved away, inflicting no casualties. Thus began 25 years of intermittent warfare between the people who lived on the land and those who sought to take it. In 1859, gold was discovered near what is now Pike's Peak, Colorado. Soon thousands of gold hunters filled the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, driving out the game. All the Indians became restless at the invasion of their hunting grounds.
Pikes Peak in present day Colorado
In 1862, there was a great Sioux uprising in Minnesota. Although the Oglala and Brule Sioux were hundreds of miles away, their hearts were with their kinsmen in the north. They knew that a great war was going on between the white men of the North and the white men of the South. They were urged by messengers to go on the warpath and drive all the white men out of their country before they became too strong to be driven out. Anticipating open warfare, the Army ordered the construction of a series of new fortified posts. Among these were Camp Rankin (later Fort Sedgwick) near Julesburg, Mud Springs near Courthouse Rock, Fort Mitchell at Scotts Bluff and, to the west, Platte Bridge and Deer Creek Stations. Councils of all the plains Indians were held in 1862 and 1863, the greatest of which was held on May 1, 1863 near what is now the Nebraska/Wyoming border. Many Indians favored a general massacre of the whites, but the plan was postponed for another year. In August 1864, the Sioux and Cheyenne began attacks in Nebraska and Colorado. All of the plains tribes were in sympathy with the war, but not all were active in it. Then came the unauthorized surprise attack in November by volunteer troops under Colonel Chivington on Black Kettle's Cheyenne/Arapahoe camp at Sand Creek in southeast Colorado . The virtual massacre of around 250 men, women and children, far from squelching the Indian spirit, precipitated a powerful and vengeful alliance of all hostile tribes.
Black Kettle - Cheyenne Illustration Sand Creek Massacre
At the same time, a new gold field was discovered in Montana. The most direct route to this new gold field was by way of the Oregon Trail to Fort Laramie, and then from Fort Laramie north, through the "Powder River" country on a new road, the Bozeman Road .
Bozeman Road
In 1865, a campaign against the "hostiles," known as the Powder River Expedition, got under way with a force of 2,500 men, directed by General Connor. Three columns were to converge in Powder River country, one from Omaha and one going directly north from Fort Laramie. The third, under Connor, marched about 100 miles up the Platte from the fort, then north to the headwaters of the Powder, where Camp Connor was established. Descending the Powder, General Connor destroyed a village of harmless Arapahoe, the only Indians he could find. The other columns barely escaped starvation and massacre by the Sioux. The expedition straggled back to Fort Laramie, the crowning failure of a dismal year for the U. S. Army. A peace party with a benign attitude toward the rampaging nomads soon gained ascendancy in Washington. In 1866, therefore, instead of a campaign to crush the Indians there was mounted a "peace offensive," with Fort Laramie as the setting. In January 1866, runners were sent out from the Fort to hostile camps, with invitations to a great "peace" council to be held in June. In the summer of 1866, a commission from Washington traveled to Fort Laramie to make a bargain with the Sioux for the Bozeman Road. Spotted Tail and the Brules were willing to make the agreement, as they did not hunt in that region. Red Cloud and the Oglalas, however, refused, because the " Powder River " country was their best buffalo hunting ground, gained when they conquered the Crow Indians. They had seen the white men pouring in everywhere, the Union Pacific Railroad was in the process of being built, and the buffalo were being killed off. Unlimited access to the Bozeman Road simply meant more of the same. The peace commissioners assembled on June 1st, with the principal chiefs of the Sioux and Cheyenne in attendance. Although some 3,000 Indians showed up for the ceremonies, there were still some die-hard factions missing. Nevertheless, the delegates present signed the treaty and the usual presents of gay-colored cloth, mirrors, cheap jewelry, peace medals, and some weapons were distributed. The treaty had a provision, not clearly explained, which permitted passage of whites over the Bozeman Trail, the new road from Fort Laramie northwestward to Virginia City, Montana and the recently discovered Montana gold mines. While ceremonies were still in progress, Colonel Henry B. Carrington arrived on the scene with 2,000 troops, heavily armed and equipped to set up a chain of posts along the Bozeman Trail. To Red Cloud, leader of the rebels, such armed occupation would make a mockery of any peace treaty, and he withdrew in fury. Construction of the new forts in Sioux territory amounted to a declaration of war. Thus the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1866 was broken faster than any other treaty on record. The new roads were opened and the forts were built in the summer of 1866. Red Cloud became the leader of the war against the whites. Every day news came of fighting on the road to the Montana mines. On December 21, 1866, Red Cloud and his warriors, including Crazy Horse, another young rebel, ambushed Captain William Fetterman and his troops near Fort Phil Kearny in Wyoming, and every white man was killed. Crazy Horse had first encountered U.S. Soldiers on the Oregon Trail in a battle in 1865 when he had acted as a decoy to draw soldiers out of their defenses. Over the next year he honed his military skills as he studied the ways of his adversaries. Crazy Horse put that skill to use in December 1866 when he, as a leader of the decoy warriors, brought Fetterman and eighty men into the ambush that became known as the Fetterman Massacre. Meanwhile, the Union Pacific Railroad advanced to Cheyenne , Wyoming in 1867. The completion of this modern "Overland Route " would lessen the importance of the Oregon Trail or Platte route, and thereby make it less imperative to dispossess the Indians of the Northern Plains. Across the Nation, an outcry grew against the invasion of Red Cloud's country without his consent. Another great Commission was named at Washington, with General W. T. Sherman at its head. In 1867, the Commission traveled to Fort Laramie to negotiate a new treaty, which became known as "The Great Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868." Arriving at Fort Laramie via Cheyenne in November, the Commission under General W. T. Sherman was dismayed to find no Sioux to parley with as planned. Red Cloud refused to come in until the garrisons at Forts Reno, Phil Kearny and C. F. Smith were withdrawn. The Commission acceded and in March, 1868 the President ordered their abandonment. However, it was not until the hated forts were totally evacuated in August and then burned to the ground by the implacable Red Cloud, that he came in to Fort Laramie to affix the final Indian signature. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 gave the Sioux as a reservation all of what is now South Dakota west of the Missouri River. It also gave them hunting rights in the great expanse north of the North Platte and east of the Bighorn Mountains, designated as unceded Indian lands. It provided that every Sioux over four years of age should receive from the United States every year one suit of clothes, ten dollars in money, and rations at the rate of one pound of meat and one pound of flour for each day. To every Indian who began farming, the United States would issue one cow, one yoke of oxen, and twenty dollars. The new road through the Powder River hunting grounds was to be given up, and all the soldiers from that area were to be withdrawn. The Sioux were to have the right to hunt upon the Platte and Republican as long as buffalo were there. Schools were to be established for all the Sioux children. And the Sioux agreed to keep peace with the whites and to permit the Union Pacific Railroad to be built. For more than 40 years, this treaty was regarded by the Sioux as a charter of their "rights." Sioux orators knew it in their own language by heart and repeated it in all speeches during great councils or around the tepee fire. It was to them what the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are to the American people. The Treaty of 1868 was also regarded as a great victory for Red Cloud. He had beaten the white men in battle. They had abandoned their forts and left him his hunting grounds. The signing of this treaty ended the Sioux wars for Red Cloud and Spotted Tail. Now their main concern was securing the rights of their people in council, rather than in war. Since the two tribes were to be fed and clothed by the government, a place was selected where this would be done.
Delegation Visiting Washington, DC
Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, and other notables visited Washington in 1870 and met President Grant. The first Red Cloud Agency was established in 1871 on the North Platte River, just 25 miles below the fort, at the present Nebraska-Wyoming line. In 1873, it was moved north to a site on White River in northwestern Nebraska. Here two agencies were established; one was called Red Cloud Agency and was located near the present site of Fort Robinson. The other was called Spotted Tail Agency and was located about 40 miles northeast, near the junction of Beaver Creek and the White River.
Ruins of the First Red Cloud Agency
Red Cloud Agency Near Ft. Robinson Nebraska
Many scattered hostile actions continued in the Fort Laramie region between 1869 and 1873, such as the killing of Lieutenant Levi P. Robinson while he was on a wood-cutting detail near Laramie Peak. Renegades under another Sioux leader, Sitting Bull, harassed surveyors of the proposed Northern Pacific Railroad in Montana. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs thus recommended the establishment of U.S. military forces at the agencies to preserve the law and order and to prevent the Sioux from straying off their reservations. He also wanted those Indians who were off the reservation rounded up, forced back to the reservations, and brought to obedience by the military. No one should have been surprised, however, that the Sioux at the Red Cloud and Spotted tail Agencies were restless. After generations of a nomad-like lifestyle, hunting buffalo and engaging in inter-tribal warfare, they soon felt cramped. They were dissatisfied with their living conditions and the meat they received, and they did not wish to farm. Threatening demonstrations against civilian employees led in 1874 to the establishment of military posts in their midst — Fort Robinson at Red Cloud Agency (named for the slain Lieutenant), and Camp Sheridan at the Spotted Tail Agency further east, both linked to the Fort Laramie command post by the old Fort Pierre Trail.
Fort Robinson, Nebraska
Fort Laramie, Wyoming
In July of 1866, George Armstrong Custer was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Seventh Cavalry. The home of the fighting 7th would be Fort Riley, Kansas. Fort Riley was a part of General Sherman's Military Division of the Missouri. From the fall of 1866, through the winter of 1867 Custer made marches that were considered to be excessive, had some deserters shot, and left his command while under hostile action to ride back to Fort Riley to see his wife. He was court martialed and the verdict was guilty on all charges. He was sentenced to one year suspension from rank and pay. He went home to Monroe, Michigan where he waited out his suspension. On September 24,1868, Custer's court martial was remitted and he rerejoined his troops on Bluff Creek (near present day Ashland, Kansas).
General Custer
Black Kettle, a Cheyenne leader, and other Indian leaders had signed a new treaty in 1865 that exchanged the Sand Creek Reservation in Colorado for reservations in southwestern Kansas. This deprived the Cheyenne of access to most of their coveted Kansas hunting grounds and only a part of the Southern Cheyenne Nation followed Black Kettle and the others to these new reservations. Some instead headed north to join the Northern Cheyenne in Lakota territory. Many simply ignored the treaty and continued to range over their ancestral lands. In 1867 Black Kettle signed the Medicine Lodge Treaty, but after his people had settled on a new reservation, they were not given the provisions they had been promised by the government, and many left the reservation and returned to Sand Creek. In August 1868, a series of raids on Kansas farms provoked another full-scale military response.
General Sheridan selected the 7th Cavalry, commanded by George Armstrong Custer, to take the lead. They were to move southward, and engage the Indians. This column was made up of eleven troops of the 7th Cavalry and five companies of the 3rd Infantry. Setting out in a snowstorm, Custer followed the tracks of a small Indian raiding party to a Cheyenne village on the Washita River. At dawn he ordered an attack. It was Chief Black Kettle's village, well within the boundaries of the Cheyenne reservation and with a white flag flying above the chief's own tipi. Never-the-less, Chief Black Kettle and his wife were killed, the village was destroyed and many women and children killed. Custer's second in command, Major Joel H. Elliot, and 19 men chased after the escaping warriors and were killed and mutilated. Elliot had acted without receiving orders from Custer so, much to the public disgust, Custer did not even send a relief party to the aid of Elliot and his men. In September 1871, the 7th Cavalry was distributed by squadrons and company over seven Southern States to enforce federal taxes on distilleries and suppress the activities of the Ku Klux Klan. Custer was assigned to Elizabethtown, Kentucky where his chief duty was to inspect and purchase horses for the Army.
The completion of the overland railroad link provided an easy means of transportation for gold seekers and farmers to come to the area. As the migration continued, trouble with the Sioux increased. On June 20, 1873 an expedition was ordered to move into the Black Hills of Dakota to provide protection for railroad construction parties. The expedition consisted of 1,451 troopers, 79 officers, and 275 wagons. As a focal point of scouting activities, a permanent encampment was established at Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Yellowstone Territories. From 1873 to 1876, Custer commanded the Seventh Cavalry at Fort Abraham Lincoln, south of Mandan. In 1874, he led his troops south into the Black Hills, which six years earlier had been set aside as part of the Great Sioux Reservation. His orders were to go to the Black Hills (a little-known and mysterious range of mountains in present day western South Dakota), explore the territory, locate a potential site for a fort on the western side, find a connection to a previously known route from Ft. Laramie to the southwest, and report back to Ft. Lincoln by Aug. 30. Unofficially, the expedition was also to confirm or deny the rumored presence of gold in the Black Hills. Until this time, no organized party of whites had traveled into the Black Hills and returned to civilization to tell about it, though several groups had passed around the perimeter of the mountains in earlier years.
Custer Expedition into Black Hills, 1874, photo by William H. Illingworth. (Custer in light colored clothing, in front, to left of center.)
The Custer Expedition of 1874 was a direct violation of the Ft. Laramie Treaty of 1868. The motives of the Custer Expedition to the Black Hills of South Dakota in the summer of 1874 may have been scientific, but the results were cataclysmic. Under the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, the Black Hills, among other places, were set aside "for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians herein named, and for such other friendly tribes or individual Indians as from time to time they may be willing, with the consent of the United States, to admit amongst them; and the United States now solemnly agrees that no persons except those herein designated and authorized so to do, and except such officers, agents, and employees of the Government as may be authorized to enter upon Indian reservations in discharge of duties enjoined by law, shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in the territory described in this article." Custer made the most of the expedition, starting out with a force of 1000 men, 110 wagons, and hundreds of horses, mules and cattle from the vicinity of Ft. Lincoln, Dakota Territory (near present-day Bismarck, North Dakota), as well as a 16-piece regimental band mounted on white horses, 110 Studebaker wagons, scientists, newspaper correspondents, official photographer William H. Illingworth (1842-1893) of St. Paul, and President Grant's son, Fred Dent Grant. After crossing the hot, dry Great Plains, the Black Hills Expedition arrived on the western side of the Black Hills on July 22, 1874. The entire force entered the pine-covered Hills, forging a road, cutting trees, building temporary bridges over gullies and streams - anything necessary to continue on their way with the wagon train. Working their way through the western Black Hills, the expedition eventually arrived at a beautiful valley south of Harney’s Peak, now the site of the town of Custer, South Dakota. Here, and at a “permanent camp” three miles east, they stayed for six days, exploring and mapping the area, and climbing Harney’s Peak, while back at camp, civilian miners tested French Creek for gold, and found some. The discovery of gold led to a far worse violation of the Fort Laramie Treaty, a gold rush into the Black Hills and the settlement of cities such as Deadwood. With the discovery of the gold, Custer dispatched scout Charles Alexander "Lonesome Charley" Reynolds (1842-1876) to Fort Laramie to relay the word by telegraph to Gen. Terry in St. Paul. Members of Custer's own expedition began staking claims. With the word out it was impossible to keep gold-seekers out of the Black Hills. When Custer reported finding gold, the government offered to buy the land from the Sioux, but they refused to sell. The Army then allowed gold prospectors to come into the Reservation's hills by the thousands. The Army's action prompted many Sioux to leave their North Dakota reservations and join with other Sioux in Montana led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, who were resisting white government control.
This expedition set the course for much of what was to follow in this region’s history. News of gold found in French Creek sent tens of thousands of miners rushing for the Black Hills over the next two years, despite some attempts by the U.S. military to hold them back from land which had been promised to the Sioux Nation by the 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty. Eventually, the sheer numbers of invading whites made keeping them out impossible, but lingering resentment over the taking of the Black Hills no doubt contributed to the sweetness of victory by the Sioux and other Indians over General Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. In 1875, the Government sent out a second scientific expedition to the Hills, this time from Cheyenne, to make sure the gold was real. Escorted by Fort Laramie troops under Colonel I. R. Dodge, a New York professor prospected the Black Hills and confirmed the presence of gold.
Black Hills, South Dakota
Many of the Sioux under Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse went on the warpath again. Relations between the Indians and the U.S. Government deteriorated to the point where war was inevitable, and General George Crook was brought in to take charge of the U.S. forces. Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, now older, remained at peace, but hundreds of their young men took the rations from the U.S. and then slipped away at night to join the hostile Sioux in the north. Congress addressed this by voting in 1875 not to feed the Sioux according to the Treaty unless they remained north of the Niobrara River. In May 1875, Red Cloud and Spotted Tail traveled to Washington again and made an agreement for $50,000 a year to give up their hunting privileges south of the Niobrara. Only half was paid, and Red Cloud was urged many times by his warriors to lead them again against the whites. He steadily refused, however. He had been East and had seen the cities full of white people. He had sent his young men over all the hunting grounds, and he knew there were not enough buffalo to continue to feed his people. He knew that change was inevitable. On November 15, 1875, President Grant, without waiting for Congress's approval, secretly gave the order to open the Black Hills to miners. This act violated the measure under the Treaty of 1868 that forbade non-Native Americans to enter the Great Sioux Reservation. The U.S. Government also sent a commission to the Red Cloud Agency to try to buy back the Black Hills, but was unsuccessful. The territory had been guaranteed to the Sioux "forever;" yet there was no serious attempt on the part of the U.S. Government to prevent violations of the treaty. Red Cloud accepted what he knew he could not change, but large numbers of Sioux and Cheyenne expressed their anger and withdrew into the Powder River country. Small war parties attacked travelers, and the land became known for outlaws and thieves. When the Commission failed in its mission to buy back the Black Hills, the Army simply gave up efforts to keep prospectors away. An attempt was made by means of military camps to establish control and force all the Indians to the reservations, and finally an ultimatum was issued: return to the reservations by January 31, 1876 or the Army would take appropriate action. In direct violation of the concession made to the Sioux under the same treaty which had established that they were to roam freely within the Great Sioux Reservation, the United States Government ordered that the Sioux in the area between the Powder River and the Black Hills abandon their lands and move to the different Indian Agencies. The order to move was issued, strategically, on December 3, 1875 and the Sioux were required to reach the Indian Agencies by January 31, 1876. Those who failed to meet this deadline were to be considered insubordinate by the United States Government. It was irrelevant whether the Sioux chose to follow this order or not, because it was physically impossible to move from this area to the different agencies in seven weeks due to the harsh conditions of the winter. The failure of the Sioux to comply with this deadline gave the government the perfect opportunity to declare war on the Sioux. It is an irony that the United States declared a war on the Sioux, because they were occupying the land guaranteed to them under the Treaty of 1868! Black Elk, who was forced to move from his land, expressed the general sentiment of his people when he said: "...all that country was ours. Also, the Wasishus [white person] had made a treaty with Red Cloud [1868] that said it would be ours as long as grass should grow and water flow." The last step the United States Government would eventually take to force the Sioux to sell the Black Hills occurred in 1877. Under the "Sell or Starve" Bill, they stopped sending the food and clothing rations agreed to under Article 10 of the Treaty of 1868. The Sioux Council was forced to relinquish the Black Hills or starve to death. Thus, the Sioux lost the Black Hills and all of the land to the west up to the Powder River.
In early 1876, runners for Crazy Horse brought word from Sitting Bull that all the roving bands of Sioux would converge on the upper Tongue River in Montana for summer feasts and conferences. News from the reservation, however, was conflicting. It was rumored that the army would fight the Sioux to a finish; it was also said that another commission would be sent out to form a new treaty. The Indians came together in early June and formed a series of encampments stretching from 3-4 miles, each band keeping a separate camp. In mid-June, scouts reported the advance of troops under General Crook. Crazy Horse and 700 men set out to attack, but were successful only in driving the troops away in what has been termed the Battle of the Rosebud. The Indians then crossed the divide between the Tongue River and the Little Big Horn, where they felt safe from immediate pursuit. To force the Indian bands back to the reservations, the Army dispatched three columns to attack in coordinated fashion, one of which contained Lt. Colonel George Custer and the Seventh Cavalry. Spotting the Sioux village about fifteen miles away along the Rosebud River on June 25, Custer also found a nearby group of about forty warriors. Ignoring orders to wait, he decided to attack before they could alert the main party. He did not realize that the number of warriors in the village numbered three times his strength. Dividing his forces in three, Custer sent troops under Captain Frederick Benteen to prevent their escape through the upper valley of the Little Bighorn River. Major Marcus Reno's command was to pursue the group, cross the river, and charge the Indian village in a coordinated effort with the remaining troops under Custer's command. He hoped to strike the Indian encampment at the northern and southern ends simultaneously, but made this decision without knowing what kind of terrain he would have to cross before making his assault. He belatedly discovered that he would have to negotiate a maze of bluffs and ravines to attack. The great camp was scattered for three miles or more along the level river bottom, with five circular rows of teepees, ranging from half a mile to a mile and a half in circumference. Large solitary teepees stood alongside; these were the lodges of the young men. According to many reports, Crazy Horse was watching a game of ring-toss when the warning sounded from the southern end of the camp of the approach of troops. The Sioux and Cheyenne were known as "minute men" and instantly reponded, despite being taken by surprise. The women and children were thrown into confusion, and many of the old men were singing their songs of encouragement for the warriors or praising the "strong heart" of Crazy Horse. Reno's squadron of 175 soldiers attacked the southern end. Quickly finding themselves in a desperate battle with little hope of any relief, Reno halted his charging men before they could be trapped, fought for ten minutes in dismounted formation, and then withdrew into the timber and brush along the river. When that position proved indefensible, they retreated uphill to the bluffs east of the river, pursued hotly by a mix of Cheyenne and Sioux. Just as they finished driving the soldiers out, the Indians found roughly 210 of Custer's men coming towards the other end of the village, taking the pressure off of Reno's men. Cheyenne and Hunkpapa Sioux together crossed the river and slammed into the advancing soldiers, forcing them back to a long high ridge to the north. As Crazy Horse and his men started for the south end of the camp, a fresh alarm sounded from the opposite direction. General Custer sat with his troops on a bluff directly across the river. Crazy Horse realized that he planned to attack the camp at both ends at the same time and led his men northward, successfully cutting off General Custer. The Cheyennes followed closely, while Crazy Horse led his men to the greatest victory over the whites in the history of the Sioux Nation, the "Battle of the Little Bighorn." As the Indians closed in, Custer ordered his men to shoot their horses and stack the carcasses to form a wall, but they provided little protection against bullets. In less than an hour, Custer and his men were killed in the worst American military disaster ever. The Indians closed in on the soldiers on three sides and fought until all the white men were dead. Sitting Bull had been napping when Custer and Reno attacked the camp at both ends. Like other men of his age, Sitting Bull got his family together for flight, and then joined the warriors on the Reno side of the attack. He was not in the famous charge against Custer; nevertheless, his voice was heard exhorting the warriors throughout that day.
"Comanche - Sole Survivor"
After the battle, the Indians stripped the bodies and mutilated all the uniformed soldiers, believing that the soul of a mutilated body would be forced to walk the earth for all eternity and could not ascend to heaven. Inexplicably, they stripped Custer's body and cleaned it, but did not scalp or mutilate it. He had been wearing buckskins instead of a blue uniform, and some believe that the Indians thought he was not a soldier and so, thinking he was an innocent, left him alone. Because his hair was cut short for battle, others think that he did not have enough hair to allow for a very good scalping. Immediately after the battle, the myth emerged that they left him alone out of respect for his fighting ability, but few participating Indians knew who he was to have been so respectful. To this day, no one knows the real reason. Little Bighorn was the pinnacle of the Indians' power. They had achieved their greatest victory yet, but soon their tenuous union fell apart in the face of the white onslaught. Outraged over the death of a popular Civil War hero on the eve of the Centennial, the nation demanded and received harsh retribution. The Black Hills dispute was quickly settled by redrawing the boundary lines, placing the Black Hills outside the reservation and open to white settlement. Within a year, the Sioux nation was defeated and broken. "Custer's Last Stand" was their last stand as well. The news of the victory reached the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail Agencies by way of Indian runners. Much excitement among the Indians ensued, and many feared that all the Indians would join the hostiles. Commissioners came once again from Washington, and another council was held in the White River Valley in August and September 1876. On September 23, 1876 Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, and other leaders signed a new treaty. The Black Hills were to be sold to the whites. The United States agreed to issue the Indians more beef, flour, coffee, sugar, and beans, until they were able to support themselves. The Sioux agreed to give up all their claims to Nebraska and move to South Dakota, where new agencies would be established. Red Cloud signed this new treaty in good faith; however, General Crook ordered Red Cloud's camp on Chadron Creek to be taken by surprise on October 24th and the tribe's ponies to be taken. This was the hardest blow Red Cloud received and was an act of war, in violation of agreements by the government. Its object was to keep Red Cloud's warriors from helping hostile Indians. Red Cloud and his people were brought into Fort Robinson, Nebraska and were eventually taken to the Pine Ridge, South Dakota agency, where Red Cloud lived for more than 30 years as a "reservation Indian." U.S. Government authorities wasted no time in proclaiming Spotted Tail, who had already surrendered and maintained a close relationship with the government, as the "head chief" of the Sioux; however, Red Cloud's people never recognized any other chief. After the fall of Custer, the U.S. Calvary killed many Sioux men, women, and children, and Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were hunted throughout the region. In the subsequent campaigns of 1876, troopers of the 5th Regiment pursued the Sioux to avenge the death of their comrades. Sitting Bull consequently attacked a wagon train and soon thereafter sent a letter to the leader, which said:
Although Sitting Bull just wanted the exclusive rights to the hunting ground that had been promised by the Treaty of 1868, the U.S. Government had decided to place all the Indians on various reservations under military control. Sitting Bull finally took refuge in Canada, where he was joined from time to time by others who no longer wanted to be under the control of the U.S. Eventually, however, in 1881, Sitting Bull was forced to report to Fort Buford, North Dakota. The Canadian Government offered protection, but no food. The buffalo were disappearing, and Sitting Bull's starving people were already beginning to desert him. Sitting Bull was placed in a military prison, but was eventually handed over to "Buffalo Bill" Cody and his "Wild West Show." After traveling for several years with the famous showman, Sitting Bull settled down quietly with his people on the Standing Rock Agency in North Dakota. While Sitting Bull was pursued into Canada, Crazy Horse and the Cheyennes wandered about, comparatively undisturbed, during the rest of that year. Crazy Horse's name was held in wholesome respect. From time to time, delegations of friendly Indians were sent to him, to urge him to come in to the reservation, promising a full hearing and fair treatment. For some time he held out, but the rapid disappearance of the buffalo, their only means of support, may have influenced him greatly. In July, 1877, he was finally prevailed upon to come in to Fort Robinson, Nebraska with several thousand Indians, most of them Oglala and Minneconwoju Sioux, on the distinct understanding that the government would hear and adjust their grievances, many of which are still unresolved today. The attention paid Crazy Horse was offensive to Spotted Tail and the Indian scouts, who some say planned a conspiracy against him. They reported to General Crook that the young chief would murder him at the next council, and stampede the Sioux into another war. General Crook was urged not to attend the council and did not, but sent another officer to represent him. Meanwhile the friends of Crazy Horse discovered the plot and told him of it. His wife was critically ill, and he decided to take her to her parents at the Spotted Tail Agency. His enemies then circulated the story that he had fled, and a party of scouts was sent after him. They overtook him and urged him to report at army headquarters to explain himself and correct false rumors. When he gave his consent, they furnished him with a wagon and an escort. It has been said that he went back under arrest, but this is untrue. Some Indians have boasted that they had a hand in bringing him in, but their stories are without foundation. He went of his own accord, either suspecting no treachery or determined to defy it.
Fort Robinson Guardhouse
It was October, 1877 when Crazy Horse returned to Fort Robinson. When he reached the military camp, Little Big Man walked arm-in-arm with him, and his cousin and friend, Touch-the-Cloud, was just in advance. After they passed the sentinel, an officer approached them and walked on his other side. Crazy Horse was unarmed but for a knife carried for ordinary uses by women as well as men. Unsuspectingly he walked toward the guardhouse. Touch-the-Cloud suddenly turned back exclaiming: "Cousin, they will put you in prison!" Crazy Horse stopped and tried to free himself and draw his knife, but both arms were held fast by Little Big Man and the officer. While he struggled, a soldier thrust him through with his bayonet from behind. The wound was mortal, and he died in the course of that night, his old father singing the death song over him and afterward carrying away the body, which they said must not be further polluted by the touch of a white man. They hid it somewhere in the Bad Lands, his resting place to this day, according to legend.
Crazy Horse Memorial - South Dakota
Later that same month, in 1877, Red Cloud and Spotted Tail traveled a third time to Washington to negotiate the future welfare of their people. Also in 1877, the United States Government had introduced the "Sell or Starve" Bill, which tried to force the Indians to relinquish the Black Hills lands or their food would be suspended. The Lakota people starved, but refused to sell their sacred land, so the U.S. Congress illegally took the Black Hills from the Great Sioux Nation. Congress had passed an appropriation act which provided that no further appropriations would be made for the Sioux bands (as required by the 1868 treaty), unless they first relinquished their rights to the hunting grounds outside the Great Sioux Reservation, ceded the Black Hills portion of the reservation, and reached some accommodation with the U.S. Government that would enable them to become self-supporting. A commission, known as the Manypenny Commission, was established to negotiate the sale of the Black Hills pursuant to the act. The commission, however, could only gather signatures from 10 percent of the adult male population of the different Sioux bands instead of the signatures of three-fourths required by Article 12 of the 1868 Treaty .
To resolve the “impasse” created by the public’s demand for opening the Black Hills for settlement and the Manypenny Commission’s failure to obtain the requisite number of signatures necessary to make the 1876 agreement legal, Congress enacted the agreement into law on February 28, 1877. The Manypenny Agreement dispossessed the Sioux of forty-seven million acres of the land best suited to farming. The irony is that the United States claimed that the only chance the hunting tribes had for survival lay in the shift to agrarian subsistence farming! Because of the breaking of the treaty, the survival of the Sioux was reduced to government food and clothing rations and the minimal crops rendered by the poor soil of the lands left to them. The Manypenny Agreement made the once powerful Sioux completely dependent upon the United States Government. The Sioux people eventually were removed from Nebraska on October 27, 1877. A caravan of over 5,000 Indians with 2,000 cattle and two companies of cavalry began a march down the White River Valley toward a winter camp area on the Missouri River in South Dakota. A new Brule Agency was established in 1878 and was named "Rosebud." The new Agency for the Oglalas was established in 1879 and was named "Pine Ridge." It was significant that these agencies were not named for the chiefs, as the previous agencies had been.
Pine Ridge Agency - Pine Ridge, South Dakota
Camp at Pine Ridge
Thus began a 25 year struggle between the Indian people and the agents who headed these agencies. Spotted Tail was killed by Crow Dog in 1881, an Indian of his own tribe. Red Cloud survived for many years, but never reconciled to the new system. He opposed many of the new ways forced upon his people, who came to discard their own style of dress and adopt the white men's clothing. The traditional "Sun Dance" was abolished in 1884, and Indian children began attending schools taught by white missionaries. The Allotment Act of 1888 divided Indian lands into 160-acre lots, which were given to individuals. Farming was encouraged, and the Great Sioux Nation was divided into smaller reservations, the remainder of which exist today at about one half their original size in 1889. After the Agreement of 1889 was signed, the situation of the Sioux worsened when in the same year they lost their entire crop. This loss was due to the temporary abandonment of their lands during the time they were engaged in negotiations for the Agreement of 1889. They also lost the crops of the following year because of a drought. Instead of delivering the food and clothing rations promised to the Sioux in exchange for signing the new agreement, Congress decided to cut government expenses by reducing food rations by ten percent. The beef rations at the Rosebud Agency were reduced by two million pounds and at the Pine Ridge Agency by one million pounds. Also, the quality of the beef received by the Sioux was so poor that they refused to accept it. They were later forced to accept the beef in 1889, because their cattle herd was significantly reduced due to disease and drought. Because they were confined to the reservations, the Sioux had no possibility of improving their situation. They were prohibited from migrating, and it was unlawful for the Sioux to seek employment in order to support themselves. The Sioux came to consider the reservations their prisons. The Agreements of 1877 and 1889 had dispossesed the Sioux of their best farmland and the best cattle grazing grounds. This fact frustrated the Sioux in their efforts to become economically and materially independent and self-sustaining. When the Sioux were in their greatest need in the winter of 1890, the United States Government failed again to fulfill its promises. The Sioux had once been the richest and proudest of the Native American tribes of the northwestern plains. They could no longer endure the humiliation of not being able to support themselves and of being completely dependent on the United States Government.
It was during this time that a half-breed Paiute Indian in Nevada, "Jack Wilson," also known as "Wovoka," began talking about the Messiah, who he claimed appeared to him in the Rocky Mountains, dressed in rabbit skins. Wovoka then began calling himself the Messiah. He prophesied that the dead would soon join the living in a world in which the Indians could live in the old way, surrounded by plentiful game. He predicted that in the Spring of 1891 ". . . the whole Indian race, living and dead, will be reunited upon a regenerated earth, to live a life of aboriginal happiness, forever free from death, disease, and misery." Whites had no place in this new earth and would be annihilated. He brought a message to the "red race." He said his first coming had been in vain; he had been nailed to a cross and defiled. Now he would come again. He would cause the earth to shake, overthrow the cities of the whites and destroy them, and watch the buffalo return to the land. These events would come to pass within two years. Meanwhile, the people were to prepare for his coming by performing ceremonies and dance the "Ghost Dance." Of course the discontented people reacted to this story with eager acceptance. The teachings of Christian missionaries had prepared them to believe in a Messiah, and the prescribed ceremonies were in accord with their own traditions. In a desperate attempt to return to the days of their glory, many sought salvation in this new mysticism preached by Wovoka. Each Native American tribe had its own version of how the whites would be wiped off the face of the earth. Among the Sioux, it was believed that a great mudslide would flow inside the mouths of the whites and cause them to choke. Wovoka prophesied that in order to bring this prediction into action, all of the Native Americans must perform the "Ghost Dance." The tribes who did not adhere to the "Ghost Dance" would suffer the same fate as the white race. The more the dance was performed, the sooner the prediction would come to pass. This need for deliverance from sheer agony explains why the Sioux performed the dance so fervently. The strong emotions transmitted through this dance managed to scare the officials who were in charge of the agencies, but the "Ghost Dance" was not a violent act. On the contrary, Wovoka instructed the Native Americans that until the fateful day arrived, they were to live peacefully with the whites. He said: "Do not refuse to work for the whites and do not make any trouble with them until you leave them. You must not fight. Do no harm to anyone. Do right always."
Ghost Dancers
Chiefs of many tribes sent delegations to visit the Indian prophet. Short Bull, Kicking Bear and others went from among the Sioux. When they returned, they began performing the ritual dances. The Sioux experience with the whites and the desperate situation they were living in when the "Ghost Dance" developed caused a variation in the dance that was not found in any other Native American tribe. This variation was their "Ghost Shirt." They believed that this garment made them invulnerable. Many dancers wore these brightly colored shirts emblazoned with images of eagles and buffaloes. They believed the "Ghost Shirts" would protect them from the white man's bullets.
The Sioux adopted the doctrine of the "Ghost Dance" as an expression of their suffering. Tthe Sioux Nation had lost all faith in the promises made to them by the Government and had lost any hope that their situation would ever improve. The "Ghost Dance" was inaugurated among the Sioux at the Pine Ridge Reservation in the Spring of 1890. At first they tried to keep the matter secret, but once it became generally known, the Indian Agents and others were quick to suspect a hostile conspiracy. There was actually no thought of an uprising. The dancing merely gave the dispirited people hope.
There was great concern on the part of the different agents of the reservations. The reaction of some of the agents was to arrest the leaders of the "Ghost Dance" and to forbid it altogether. The U.S. Government overreacted to the "Ghost Dance" and considered it a hostile act in defiance of the United States authorities. In the short time between the months of October and December of 1890, three thousand troops were moved into the Sioux country. It was in the opinion of General Nelson A. Miles, the director of the campaign, that the "Ghost Dance" would die a natural death when, in the spring of 1891, the Sioux would find the prophecies of Wovoka unfulfilled. Therefore, the movement of the troops to the Sioux territory was unnecessary. But during the fall of 1890, the "Ghost Dance" spread through the Sioux villages of the Dakota reservations, revitalizing the Indians and bringing fear to the whites. A desperate Indian Agent at Pine Ridge wired his superiors in Washington, "Indians are dancing in the snow and are wild and crazy....We need protection and we need it now. The leaders should be arrested and confined at some military post until the matter is quieted, and this should be done now." Authorities soon demanded that the Indians give up the "Ghost Dance." They decided to arrest Sitting Bull, who was still looked upon as a leader among his people. Forty Indian policemen were sent to Sitting Bull's home on December 15, 1890. They were followed, in case of "trouble," by a body of U.S. troops for reinforcement. After the policemen led Sitting Bull from his cabin, he found himself surrounded by armed men. As he cried out, people in neighboring homes began to appear. An Assiniboine shot and killed Lt. Bull Head, who held Sitting Bull by the arm. Following this, a short skirmish occurred, the result of which left Sitting Bull, six of his defenders, and six Indian policemen dead and many more wounded.
When he heard of Sitting Bull's death, another Sioux leader, Big Foot, led his people south to seek protection at the Pine Ridge Reservation. The army intercepted the band on December 28th and brought them to the edge of Wounded Knee Creek to camp. The next morning, December 29, 1890, the chief, racked with pneumonia and dying, sat among his warriors and pow-wowed with the army officers. Suddenly the sound of a shot pierced the early morning gloom. Within seconds the charged atmosphere erupted as Indian braves scurried to retrieve their discarded rifles, and troopers fired volley after volley into the Sioux camp. From the heights above, the army's Hotchkiss guns raked the Indian teepees. Clouds of gun smoke filled the air as men, women and children scrambled for their lives. Many ran for a ravine next to the camp, only to be cut down in a withering cross fire. When the smoke cleared and the shooting stopped, approximately 300 Sioux were dead, Big Foot among them. Twenty-five soldiers lost their lives. As the remaining troopers began the grim task of removing the dead, a blizzard swept in from the North. A few days later they returned to complete the job. Scattered fighting continued, but the massacre at Wounded Knee effectively squelched the Ghost Dance movement and ended the Indian Wars.
After the massacre at Wounded Knee, Congress awarded the highest distinction to many of the soldiers, the Medal of Honor. The Congressional Medal of Honor is the highest military award for bravery that can be given to any individual in the United States. It was originally authorized to be awarded only to those military persons who distinguish themselves "conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at risk of...life above and beyond the call of duty." The military commander in charge during the massacre at Wounded Knee, Major General Nelson A. Miles, wrote an accounting of the incident in which he stated that he had ordered Colonel George A. Forsyth, Commanding Officer, not to enter the Indian camps. More than 400 men, women, and children had already surrendered to troops under the command of Lt. Col. Whitside. Their weapons were confiscated and they were, technically, prisoners of war. But Colonel Forsyth was convinced the Indians hadn't turned over all their weapons, and so, he chose to ignore General Miles' order. He sent groups of ten troopers into the camps in search of weapons, and thus began the chain of events that led to the massacre of many warriors and innocent women and children. Accounts from others reveal that this "battle" was nothing short of mass murder. The Indians were "disarmed prisoners of war," and they were shot at point blank range. The women and children were not victims of cross fire; they were hunted down and killed, some would say "in cold blood." The dead were then left on the ground for five days, stripped of clothing and accessories, and their bodies froze when a snow storm hit. A mass grave was eventually prepared, with military records showing 84 men, 44 women, and 18 children of Big Foot's Band of Minniconjou Sioux buried within.
Mass Burial at Wounded Knee 1890
One of the survivors of Wounded Knee, Black Elk, told his story in a book entitled Black Elk Speaks.
Twenty Congressional Medals of Honor were then given to the soldiers, the most given. (18 Medals of Honor were given for the Battle of the Little Big Horn.) In 1917, a delegation of the Minniconjou survivors of Wounded Knee visited Washington, D.C. General Miles wrote a letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to tell his side of the story as well. He believed the Ghost Dance movement was a result of "misrepresentations of white men" who "wrote secret messages to different tribes" that promised a return of their "happy hunting grounds" if they participated in the dance. Resentment was perpetrated against the Indians as well by the media, who capitalized on stories about Wovoka, the Paiute who had the original visions that led to the Ghost Dance. As a result of abuses such as these during the Indian Wars, the Army eventually added a new regulation to clarify who was entitled to receive the Medal of Honor award. The following phrase was added to Army regulations: "Neither a Medal of Honor nor a Certificate of Merit will be awarded in any case when the service of the person recommended, subsequent to the time when he distinguished himself, has not been honorable." After the Battle of Wounded Knee, the Indians came in to the reservations and surrendered, and thus ended what is probably the last Indian war in the history of the United States.
In 1899, Red Cloud took part in another council with the U.S. A new agreement was signed, whereby cattle, tools, and seed were given to all Indians who would farm. At the close of this agreement, the Sioux people lost all the land between the White River and the Cheyenne River. Nine million acres of their best cattle range were lost forever. The Sioux Council no longer believed in any promises made to them by the United States Government, who sent a General, ironically named George Crook, a man the Sioux trusted and considered honest, to negotiate the deal for these lands. Crook's procedures with the Sioux were described as follows:
Red Cloud did receive $28,000 for the ponies taken from his people in 1876 by General Crook. Many Indians, however, were opposed to new treaties that reduced reservation land. Rations were cut and there was much dissatisfaction. The once proud Sioux found their free-roaming lifestyle destroyed. The buffalo were gone, and the people were confined to reservations, dependent on Indian Agents for their existence. Of the great Sioux chiefs, only Red Cloud remained. He had lived to see the Ghost Dancing of 1890 and hear the echoes of the last Sioux battle at Wounded Knee. He lived to see an order sent out in January, 1902, stopping the rations of all able-bodied Sioux men and requiring them to go to work on the roads and irrigation ditches at $1.25 for an eight-hour day. He lived to see this order enforced in spite of the orators who pointed to the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. He lived to see the great Sioux reservation surveyed and separate farms of 320 acres each chosen by heads of Indian families, with l60 acres for each child over 18 and 80 acres for each child under 18. He lived long enough to have his eyesight fade away, leaving him in total darkness. He lived long enough to know that the old ways were changed forever. He finally reached the end of his long earthly sojourn on December 10, 1909, the last of the long line of famous Indian chiefs who, in council and on the warpath, had struggled bravely against the inevitable advance of the white man.
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