They took a Pacific Railroad car on the Hudson River Railroad, at eight o'clock in the evening.
Red Cloud in New York.
Red Cloud changed his mind, and came on to New York to attend a great meeting of friends of the red men, at Cooper Institute. On the evening of June 16th, the party were treated to a grand reception, at which it was supposed that no less than five thousand were present. Among other things, Red Cloud said:
"I have tried to get from my Great Father what is right and just. I have not altogether succeeded. I want you to believe with me, to know with me, that which is right and just. I represent the whole Sioux nation. They will be grieved by what I represent. I am no Spotted Tail, who will say one thing one day, and be bought for a fish the next. Look at me! I am poor, naked, but I am chief of a nation. We do not ask for riches; we do not want much; but we want our children properly trained and brought up. We look to you for that. Riches here do no good. We cannot take them away with us out of this world, but we want to have love and peace. The money, the riches, that we have in this world, as Secretary Cox lately told me, we cannot take these into the next world. If this is so, I would like to know why the Commissioners who are sent out there do nothing but rob to get the riches of this world away from us. I was brought up among traders and those who came out there in the early times. I had good times with them; they treated me mostly always right; always well; they taught me to use clothes, to use tobacco, to use fire-arms and ammunition. This was all very well until the Great Father sent another kind of men out there,—men who drank whisky; men who were so bad that the Great Father could not keep them at home, so he sent them out there."
Reception of Red Cloud at Home.
Doubtless speculators and contractors were disappointed when they heard, on General Smith's return, of Red Cloud's satisfaction, and what he said about being peaceable, and using his influence among his warriors. A thousand lodges were gathered to receive him, and the demonstrations made over his return exceeded any the oldest Indian had ever seen before.
On the way out, Red Cloud gave General Smith his reason for asking the government for the seventeen horses. He did not really need them, but made up his mind that if he had been sent back on foot from Pine Bluff, or Fort Laramie, his tribes might think he was lightly esteemed by our authorities, and thereupon they might begin to despise him. His influence would decrease, and he might be unsuccessful in preventing war. He merely wished to accept of them as a tribute to his exalted position as a great warrior among his people. The general said that his appearance, with his whole party well mounted, had the desired effect, and Red Cloud's warriors saw at a glance that the chief was believed to be a great warrior by the Great Father at Washington.
Boys love fair play, and I know they will make every allowance for the poor Indian, who is, in his wild state, indeed a savage, born and bred up among the wild beasts of the forest; untutored and cruel to his enemies, whether man or beast. We must take him as we find him, then, and not as some sensation writers would make us believe, to be more noble and generous than many white men. For we may find many noble examples of generosity among them, in freeing captives and forgiving wrongs done to them; but they have been for over two hundred years victims of the white man's dishonest dealings, and I think that we would do pretty much as the Indian does, if we were Indians, and had been taught the lesson of our forefathers' wrongs. The Indian agents have been in former years mostly dishonest, and cheated those they should have remembered were simple children of the forest; and though they were knowing enough to perceive they were badly dealt with and did not get their due, could not tell just where the cheating came in. You remember the story of a white man and an Indian going a hunting on shares. Well, they killed a wild turkey and a buzzard, the latter good for naught. They sat down on a log to divide the game. "Now," said the white man, "You take the buzzard, and I'll take the turkey; or, I'll take the turkey, and you take the buzzard." The Indian opened his eyes wide, and replied, "Seems to me you talk all buzzard to me, and no talk turkey."
Very little "talk turkey" has the Indian experienced in dealing with the whites. Indeed, you can judge of fair dealing, or want of it, when it is known that an agent came out our way to pay off annuities with blankets, etc. These were "shoddy blankets," and when one tribe was paid off with them, the agent bought them all back again with bad whisky, and went on farther, to pay off other tribes in like manner.