Outdoor Life and Indian Stories / Making open air life attractive to young Americans by telling them all about woodcraft, signs and signaling, the stars, fishing, camping, camp cooking, how to tie knots and how to make fire without matches, and many other fascinating open air pursuits. Also, stories of noted hunters and scouts, great indians and warriors, including Daniel Boone, Kit Carson, General Custer, Pontiac, Tecumseh, King Philip, Black Hawk, Brandt, Sitting Bull, and a host of others whose names are famous; all of them true and interesting

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

You have read more than one account in the previous pages of great uprisings and conspiracies on the part of the Indians of our country. Some of them threatened large sections, and at times many cities and towns were imperilled by these plottings and border wars. It seems hard, therefore, to believe that the closing years of the nineteenth century saw the gravest danger of that nature through which we have ever passed. Yet such is the fact. An uprising might have been started by the discharge of a single gun, or the rash act of one private soldier, and once kindled, it would have swept like a cyclone from Canada to Mexico, causing the deaths of thousands and the loss of millions of dollars worth of property.

It need not be repeated that the cause of this fearful state of affairs was the injustice of white men and the shameless treatment of the Indians by our government. It is not necessary to give particulars, but I will illustrate the fact by a single incident, which is a type of scores of others.

BUFFALO BILL

It once became certain that an agent at one of the Sioux agencies had swindled the Indians and our government to the extent of eighty thousand dollars. The offence was so flagrant that a committee was sent from Washington to look into the matter. A friend of the agent notified him of his danger. He bribed one of his interpreters to meet the committee at a point where they had to take a stage to ride to the agency. This cunning fellow did so without a hint of his purpose. It did not take him long to make friends with the visitors. They were pleased to learn that he was familiar with Indian affairs, and still more pleased to find that he could speak the Sioux tongue. They proposed that he should act as interpreter. He agreed, and the bargain was closed by the payment to him of fifty dollars. The man carried out his contract with his dishonest employer. The Indians poured their grievance into his ears and he listened gravely, nodding his head as if in sympathy. Then turning to the waiting members of the committee, he changed those complaints into praise of the faithful labors of the thieving agent. He took care that his face did not betray the truth to either party. The committee, little dreaming of the trick, went back to Washington, wondering how the unjust reports had been spread concerning the model employé of the government.

The inhabitants of Dakota (not then divided into the two present States) wished to open a highway through the Sioux reservation, and have it settled by white men. The work would have been of advantage to the Indians themselves. It was not hard to make them see this fact, and they seemed willing to sell their lands. All they wanted was that they should not be cheated, and if they had not been cheated, they never would have raised a hand against the United States. Negotiations went on for several years, until at last a new Commission, of which General Crook was chairman, persuaded the Sioux to sign a treaty by which they gave up about 11,000,000 acres of their reservation, reducing it one-half.

The chiefs signed their names with misgiving. They had seen so much deception that they had grown suspicious, even though they were argued with by a leading military officer—a class who are always more honest than civilians.

We hear of the Messiah craze about this time. It was the strange belief that the Great Spirit was soon coming to destroy the white people, and to give back the lands they had stolen from the Indians. The faith spread like wildfire, and seemed to rob nearly all the Sioux tribe of their senses. The bucks quickly reached that state of frenzy in which they were eager to attack the whites.

To Sitting Bull this was the golden opportunity for which he had been waiting for years. He could turn the fanaticism of his people to his own account, and he determined to do so. He sent out his runners to the different branches of the Sioux. They made numerous converts everywhere. The heart of the old, brooding pagan must have glowed when he saw everything working out as he wished it to work. Very soon he would be able to launch his warriors against the settlements and agencies, and spread desolation and death among those whom he hated with unspeakable hatred.