In 1876, Congress expressed its determination to appropriate nothing more for the subsistence of the Sioux Indians unless they made certain concessions, including the surrender of the Black Hills, and entered into some agreement calculated to enable them to become self-supporting. Geo. W. Manypenny, H. C. Bullis, Newton Edmunds, Rt. Rev. H.B. Whipple, A.G. Boone, A.S. Gaylord, J.W. Daniels, and Gen. H.H. Sibley, were appointed commissioners to negotiate for the concessions demanded. The following is an extract from their instructions under which they acted:—
"The President is strongly impressed with the belief that the agreement which shall be best calculated to enable the Indians to become self-supporting is one which shall provide for their removal, at as early a day as possible, to the Indian Territory. For the past three years they have been kept from starvation by large appropriations for their subsistence. These appropriations have been a matter not of obligation but of charity, and the Indians should be made to understand distinctly that they can hope for continued appropriations only by full submission to the[Pg 139] authority and wishes of the Government, and upon full evidence of their disposition to undertake, in earnest, measures for their own advancement and support."
The first council was held Sept. 7th, at Red Cloud agency, with chiefs and headmen representing 4,901 Indians then at the agency. Red Cloud and other chiefs met the commissioners with warm welcomes, and said with deep earnestness:—"We are glad to see you; you have come to save us from death." The conditions required by Congress were then submitted to the Indians, with the assurance that the commissioners had no authority to change them in any particular; but that they were authorized to devise a plan to save their people from death and lead them to civilization. The plan decided on was then carefully explained and interpreted, and a copy of the agreement given to the Indians to take to their own council. Other councils were held Sept. 19th and 20th, and after mutual explanations the agreement was signed.
Subsequently, the commissioners visited Spotted Tail agency, Standing Rock agency, Cheyenne River agency, Crow Creek agency, Lower Brule agency, and Santee agency. At all of these agencies the agreement was made plain to the Indians, and after due deliberation and considerable discussion, duly signed. The following are extracts from the report of the commissioners:—
"While the Indians received us as friends, and listened with kind attention to our propositions, we were painfully impressed with their lack of confidence in the pledges of the Government. At times they told their story of wrongs with such impassioned earnestness that our cheeks crimsoned with shame. In their speeches, the recital of the wrongs which their people had suffered at the hands of the whites, the arraignment of the Government[Pg 140] for gross acts of injustice and fraud, the description of treaties made only to be broken, the doubts and distrusts of present professions of friendship and good-will, were portrayed in colors so vivid and language so terse, that admiration and surprise would have kept us silent had not shame and humiliation done so. Said a chief to a member of our commission:—'I am glad to see you, you are our friends, but I hear that you have come to move us. Tell your people that since the Great Father promised that we should never be removed we have been moved five times.' He added, with bitter irony, 'I think you had better put the Indians on wheels so you can run them about wherever you wish.'
"The present condition of the Sioux Indians is such as to awaken the deepest sympathy. They were our friends. If many of this powerful tribe have been changed to relentless foes, we must not forget that it is the simple outcome of our own Indian training-school. Generals Sherman, Harney, Terry, and others, use these words:—
'The moment the war of the rebellion was over, thousands of our people turned their attention toward the treasures of Montana. The Indian was forgotten. It did not occur to any man that this poor, despised red man was the original discoverer, and sole occupant for many centuries, of every mountain seamed with quartz and every stream whose yellow sand glittered in the noonday sun. He asked to retain only a secluded spot where the buffalo and elk could live, and that spot he would make his home. The truth is, no place was left for him. If the lands of the white men are taken, civilization justifies him in resisting the invader. Civilization does more than this—it brands him as a coward and a slave if he submits to the wrong. If the savage resists, civilization, with the Ten Commandments in one hand and the sword in the other, demands his immediate extermination. That he goes to war is not astonishing. He is often compelled to do so. Wrongs are borne by him in silence that never fail to drive civilized men to deeds of violence. * * * But it is said that our wars with them have been almost constant. Have we been uniformly unjust? We answer unhesitatingly, 'yes.'"
"General Stanley in 1870 writes from Dakota, that he is 'ashamed to appear any longer in the presence of the chiefs of the different tribes of the Sioux, who inquire why we do not do as we promised, and in their vigorous language aver that we have[Pg 141] lied.' Sitting Bull, who had refused to come under treaty relations with the Government, based his refusal in these words, sent to the commission of which Assistant Secretary Cowen was chairman: 'Whenever you have found a white man who will tell the truth, you may return, and I shall be glad to see you.'"
"It has been claimed that all Indians found outside of their reservation shall be regarded as hostile. Gen. Sheridan, June 29th, 1869, says in an official order, that all Indians outside the well-defined limits of the reservation are under the original and exclusive jurisdiction of the military authority, and as a rule will be considered hostile. This order is the more surprising to us when we remember that the treaty made by General Sherman and others expressly provided that these Indians might hunt upon the unceded territory; and we find that so late as its last session Congress appropriated $200,000 to be used in part for the payment of the seventh of thirty installments 'for Indians roaming.' We repeat that, under this treaty, it is expressly provided that the Indians may hunt in the unceded territory north and west of the Sioux reservation, and until last year they had the right to hunt in Western Nebraska. We believe that our failure to recognize this right has led to many conflicts between the citizens and army of the United States and the Indians."
"In 1874, the late lamented Gen. Custer made an expedition to the Black Hills. It was done against the protest of the Indians and their friends, and in plain, direct violation of the treaty. Gold was discovered, white men flocked to the El Dorado. Notwithstanding the gross violation of the treaty, no open war ensued. If our own people had a sad story of wrongs suffered from the Indians, we must not forget that the Indians, who own no telegraph-lines, who have no press and no reporters, claimed that they, too, had been the victims of lawless violence, and had a country of untold value wrested from them by force.
"The charge is made that the agency Indians are hostile, and that they have furnished ammunition and supplies to the Indians with Sitting Bull. There is water-navigation for 3,000 miles through this territory, and an unguarded border of several hundred miles along the Canadian frontier. So long as the Indians will sell buffalo-robes at a low price and pay two prices for guns, the greed of white men will furnish them. It is gross injustice to the agents and the Interior Department to accuse them of[Pg 142] furnishing arms and ammunition for Indians to fight our army and murder our citizens.
"Of the results of this year's war we have no wish to speak. It is a heart-rending record of the slaughter of many of the bravest of our army. It has not only carried desolation and woe to hundreds of our own hearthstones, but has added to the cup of anguish which we have pressed to the lips of the Indian. We fear that when others shall examine it in the light of history, they will repeat the words of the officers who penned the report of 1868:—'The results of the year's campaign satisfied all reasonable men that the war was useless and expensive.'
"We hardly know how to frame in words the feelings of shame and sorrow which fill our hearts as we recall the long record of the broken faith of our Government. It is made more sad, in that the rejoicings of our centennial year are mingled with the wail of sorrow of widows and orphans made by a needless Indian war, and that our Government has expended more money in this war than all the religious bodies of our country have spent in Indian missions since our existence as a nation.
"After long and careful examination we have no hesitation in recommending that it is wise to continue the humane policy inaugurated by President Grant. The great obstacle to its complete success is that no change has been made in the laws for the care of Indians. The Indian is left without the protection of law in person, or property, or life. He has no personal rights. He has no redress for wrongs inflicted by lawless violence. He may see his crops destroyed, his wife or child killed. His only redress is personal revenge. * * * In the Indian's wild state he has a rude government of chiefs and headmen, which is advisory in its character. When located upon reservations under the charge of a United States agent, this government is destroyed, and we give him nothing in its place.
"We are aware that many of our people think that the only solution of the Indian problem is in their extermination. We would remind such persons that there is only One who can exterminate. There are too many graves within our borders over which the grass has hardly grown, for us to forget that God is just. The Indian is a savage, but he is also a man. He is one of the few savage men who clearly recognize the existence of a Great Spirit. He believes in the immortality of the soul. He has[Pg 143] a passionate love for his children. He loves his country. He will gladly die for his tribe. Unless we deny all revealed religion, we must admit that he has the right to share in all the benefits of divine revelation. He is capable of civilization. Amid all the obstacles, the wrongs, and evils of our Indian policy, there are no missions which show richer rewards. Thousands of this poor race, who were once as poor and degraded as the wild Sioux, are to-day civilized men, living by the cultivation of the soil, and sharing with us in those blessings which give to men home, country, and freedom. There is no reason why these men may not also be led out of darkness to light."
The following is a synopsis of the arrangement agreed on by the commissioners and Indians:—
The Sioux surrender all claim to so much of their reservation as lies west of the 103d meridian of longitude, and to so much of it as lies between the North and South Forks of the Cheyenne River east of said meridian; also all claim to any country lying outside of their reservation. Cannon Ball River and its south branch are to be the northern boundary of the reservation. Three wagon or other roads may be maintained across the reservation from the Missouri River to the Black Hills. All subsistence and supplies which may be hereafter provided, are to be delivered on or near the Missouri River. A delegation of chiefs and leading men from each band shall visit the Indian Territory, with a view to selecting therein a permanent home for the Indians. If such delegation shall make a selection satisfactory to the Indians they represent and to the United States, then the Indians are to remove to the selected country within one year, select allotments as soon as possible afterwards, and use their best efforts to cultivate the same. They are in all things to submit themselves to such beneficent plans as the Government may provide for them in the selection of a permanent home where they may live like white men.
The United States agree to furnish subsistence to the Sioux until such time as they shall become self-supporting—rations to be issued to heads of families; and in case the Indians are located on lands suitable for cultivation, and educational facilities are afforded by the Government, the issue of rations is to be conditioned on the performance of labor by the Indians and the attendance of their children at school. Assistance in the way of[Pg 144] schools and instruction in the agricultural and mechanical arts, as provided by the treaty of 1868, is guaranteed; and the building of comfortable houses on allotments in severalty is provided for. The Sioux are declared amenable to the laws of the United States; and Congress shall secure to them an orderly government and protect individual property, person, and life. The agreement not to be binding on either party till approved by Congress and the President.
With the exception of the Santees, the Indians on the Missouri River objected to visiting the Indian Territory, and were exempted from that part of the agreement by a supplementary clause. A delegation of 90 Indians from the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies visited the Indian Territory in October as provided in the agreement. The following is from the report of Commissioners Boone and Daniels who accompanied the delegation:—
"While travelling through the Territory, Spotted Tail took special pains to inform us that he was not pleased with anything that came within his observation, and his part of the delegation, with but few exceptions, were not disposed to express themselves in any other way. Many of the Red Cloud party were well pleased. Their chief said 'his Great Father asked him to go and find a place where his children could live by cultivating the land. This was the country, and he should go back and tell his people so.' The manual-labor school of 120 scholars at the Cheyenne and Arapahoe agency, was of more interest to them and gave them more pleasure than anything else seen on the journey. They manifested much interest in the progress of civilization among the Sac and Fox, and when passing the Creek country, the delegation was received by these tribes with generous hospitality and a hearty welcome. When we were at Okmulgee, the capital of the Creek Nation, they were invited to the council-house by the Creek chief, where he made a very friendly speech to them. The following is a copy thereof:—
"To the Sioux, my brethren:—I am well pleased to see you here in the Mus-koke Nation, brethren of the same race as ourselves. I was told a long time ago of my red brethren, the[Pg 145] Sioux, that were living in the far Northwest. I had heard of the name of your tribe and of many of your leading chiefs. I have heard of your great men, great in war, and great in council. I have heard of your trouble on account of the intrusion of the white men on your reservation in search of gold. I have heard that the United States Government had determined to remove you from your present home, and, perhaps it might be, to this Indian Territory, to the west of us. When I heard that you might possibly come to this Territory, which has been 'set apart for the home of the Indians forever,' I was glad. I would like to have all our red brethren settled in this Territory, as we have provided in our treaty. We, the Creeks and Cherokees, have the same kind of title and patent for our lands from the United States, which guarantees this Territory to us for a home, under our own form of government, by people of our own race, as long as 'grass grows and water runs.' And I think, therefore, we shall live forever on our lands. I should like—and I express the wish of our people—that every Indian tribe should come here and settle on these lands, that this Territory may become filled up with Indians, to the exclusion of others who may be inimical to our race and interests. We believe our right to our soil and our government, which is best suited to our peculiar necessities, would be safer if all our race were united together here. This is my earnest wish. Then I think the rising generation could be educated and civilized, and, what is still better, christianized, which, I believe, would be the greatest benefit of all. This would be to our mutual benefit and good. I know I express the minds of our people when I give you this welcome to our life of a higher civilization, which is better than the old life so long led by our race in the past."
At the councils held at the different agencies, the chiefs and principal men made numerous speeches, which conveyed a good idea of Indian views and feelings, and were often able and eloquent. The balance of this chapter will be filled up with extracts from some of these speeches.