Ten years in the ranks, U.S. Army

by Augustus Meyers

I became acquainted with some of the employees of the American Fur Company, who were mostly French-Canadians, with a few half-breed Indians among them. Some of them were married to squaws and lived at the Indian camp close by. From these men, who were mostly hunters, trappers or guides, I heard many interesting stories of their hazardous lives and their experiences among the Indians, whose language most of them spoke. They were often useful as interpreters.

To me, the most interesting people at Fort Pierre were the Indians, among whom I passed the greater part of my leisure time. This intimate association with the savages continued all through my service on the frontiers, a period of about five years in Nebraska and Minnesota Territories.

I have read the beautiful stories of Fennimore Cooper and other writers of Indian romances. I have also read some of the stories of explorers and the able and interesting works of men who lived among the North American Indians and studied them. But I do not intend to quote from any of them. I shall simply relate here what I learned about the Indians from persons living in close contact with them during my time and the impressions they made on my youthful mind, as I can remember them now, after a period of fifty years since I left the Indian country to take part in the Civil War, in 1861.

Nebraska Territory in 1855, extended from Minnesota Territory, on the east, to the Rocky mountains, on the west; and from Kansas Territory, on the south, to the British possessions, on the north. It has since been partitioned into North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana. The greater part of this immense territory was claimed and inhabited by the Sioux Indians, a name given to them by the French-Canadians, who also gave French names to some of the tribes composing the Sioux, such as the Gross Ventres, Brules, etc. These Frenchmen also named the rivers, streams and mountains, many of which have since been re-named.

The Indians called themselves Dakotas, and did not recognize the name of Sioux. They were divided into a number of tribes, each ruled by a chief. The following are the names of some of the tribes, with the most of whom we came in contact: Poncas, Yanktons, Yanktonnas, Uncapapas, Blackfeet, Rikarees, Minnikanye, Ogallalas, Brules. Certain tribes were sub-divided into bands, such as the "Two-Kettle-Band," and "Smutty-Bear-Band," both of whom were Yanktons.

Lieutenant Gouverneur K. Warren, of the Topographical Engineers, U.S.A., who made surveys in the Dakota country in 1855, 1856 and 1857, and to whom we furnished an escort, estimated the Dakota Indians at about three thousand lodges, which would represent a population of twenty-four thousand, of which five thousand were warriors.

During a decade, their numbers had decreased from wars with the Chippawa Indians and other tribes in the north, while in the south, near the white settlements, the mortality from the small-pox had been very great among Poncas and Yanktons. I noticed that many of them were pock-marked, and some had become blind in one eye from the disease, which their medicine-men could neither cure nor prevent from becoming epidemic.

It was obvious that the more northern tribes of the Dakotas, who had seen but a few whites, were superior to those of the south, near the settlements, whose contact with the whites had degraded them. The Indians who inhabited the more northern and western parts of Nebraska were fine specimens of their race, for they still lived in their aboriginal way. Game was yet abundant. They were proud and warlike and possessed many ponies. Their tepees were larger, finer and more decorated. They were rich in furs of all kinds, which they bartered with the traders for guns, powder, lead, beads, calico, knives, tomahawks, etc. Many of them had guns, but most of these were old flint-locks. Bows and arrows were by no means abandoned and they continued to manufacture and use them. They also had many dogs, which closely resembled wolves, except in color. These dogs, some of them very large, they used in many ways, often as beasts of burden—and as a choice article of food on festive occasions.

The distinctive features of the Dakotas were their broad faces with high cheek bones; their high, broad, receding foreheads and coarse, coal-black hair, slightly wavy like a horse's mane. The men, or bucks, as we called them, wore no beards. The very little hair that grew on their faces, they carefully removed. I often saw them engaged in plucking out hairs from their faces with tweezers and the aid of a small mirror. Some of them even plucked the hair from their eyebrows. The men were generally tall, or looked so because of their erect bearing. Sinewy and slender as a rule, quick and active, they seemed better looking than the women. They wore buckskin leggings and buckskin shirts in winter, fringed and ornamented, moccasins, elaborately beaded, and colored blankets or soft buffalo robes. They wore no head covering, simply a few eagle feathers. Hats or war bonnets were only worn on special occasions. They were fond of wearing large brass rings in their ears, the weight of which pulled the lobes so far down as to be grotesque. Many wore armlets and wristlets of heavy brass wire, wound around many times, and a necklace of bears' claws.

The complexion of the Dakotas ranged all the way from a pale saffron to a deep copper color. When they were decked out in their full paraphernalia, with their faces and upper parts of their bodies painted in various colors, knives and tomahawks thrust into their belts, and bows and quivers slung over their shoulders, they presented a formidable and picturesque appearance.