Numerous evidences and various authorities go to prove that prior to the discovery of America by Columbus a series of voyages had been made from the old to the new continent. The historical records of the Scandinavians, describing their migratory expeditions, fix not only the dates of such excursions, but also the exact points on the American coast at which landings were made and colonies established. In 1002, Thorwald Ericsson, following the example of his countrymen, began a voyage, during which he landed near Cape Cod. He was afterward slain in an encounter with the natives. Other expeditions were undertaken by the Scandinavians at subsequent periods down to the early part of the fifteenth century, when, owing to various causes of decline, including savage wars and disease, these early explorers lost their foothold on the American continent and disappeared from its limits. But from the ninth to the fifteenth century it is easily proved by their historical records and traditions that the American continent had been visited and occupied by pioneers from the Scandinavians. From the great number of inscriptions, antique utensils, arms, bones, and monuments discovered in the New England States, it is fair to presume that these adventurers had occupied a larger portion of the new continent than their manuscripts would lead us to suppose. At the same time the discoveries in the Western States and territories of mounds containing human bones, earthen vessels, and weapons whose form and structure prove that their original owners belonged to a different people from any with which we are acquainted at the present day, should be received as evidence strongly confirmatory of the early migrations claimed to have been made by the Scandinavians and other nations. Admitting that there are certain physiological attributes common to nearly all the Indian tribes, sufficiently decided and clear to enable them to be classed together as one branch of the human family, yet an intimate study of all the tribes of North America will develop physical diversities sufficiently ample to justify the belief that the various tribes may have sprung from different nationalities. We find them, although generally of a copper color, presenting all shades of complexion from a deep black to a shade of white. Some tribes are of powerful stature, others are dwarfed. So marked are these differences that a person accustomed to meeting the various tribes can at a glance distinguish the individuals of one from the other. Almost every tribe possesses a language peculiarly its own, and what seems remarkable is the fact that no matter how long or how intimately two tribes may be associated with each other, they each preserve and employ their own language, and individuals of the one tribe rarely become versed in the spoken language of the other, all intercommunication being carried on either by interpreters or in the universal sign language. This is noticeably true of Cheyennes and Arrapahoes, two tribes which for years have lived in close proximity to each other, and who are so strongly bound together, offensively and defensively, as to make common cause against the enemies of either, particularly against the white man. These tribes encamp together, hunt together, and make war together, yet but a comparatively small number of either can speak fluently the language of the other. I remember to have had an interview at one time with a number of prominent chiefs belonging to five different tribes, the Cheyennes, Kiowas, Osages, Kaws, and Apaches. In communicating with them it was necessary for my language to be interpreted into each of the five Indian tongues, no representatives of any two of the tribes being able to understand the language of each other; yet all of these tribes were accustomed to more or less intimate association. Between the tribes which inhabited the Eastern States and those originally found on the Plains a marked difference is seen to exist. They have but little in common, while a difference equally marked is discovered between the Indians of the Plains and those of the mountain regions further west, as well as the tribes of both Old and New Mexico.
Inseparable from the Indian character, wherever he is to be met with, is his remarkable taciturnity, his deep dissimulation, the perseverance with which he follows his plans of revenge or conquest, his concealment and apparent lack of curiosity, his stoical courage when in the power of his enemies, his cunning, his caution, and last, but not least, the wonderful power and subtlety of his senses. Of this last I have had most interesting proof, one instance of which will be noted when describing the Washita campaign. In studying the Indian character, while shocked and disgusted by many of his traits and customs, I find much to be admired, and still more of deep and unvarying interest. To me Indian life, with its attendant ceremonies, mysteries, and forms, is a book of unceasing interest. Grant that some of its pages are frightful, and, if possible, to be avoided, yet the attraction is none the weaker. Study him, fight him, civilize him if you can, he remains still the object of your curiosity, a type of man peculiar and undefined, subjecting himself to no known law of civilization, contending determinedly against all efforts to win him from his chosen mode of life. He stands in the group of nations solitary and reserved, seeking alliance with none, mistrusting and opposing the advances of all. Civilization may and should do much for him, but it can never civilize him. A few instances to the contrary may be quoted, but these are susceptible of explanation. No tribe enjoying its accustomed freedom has ever been induced to adopt a civilized mode of life, or, as they express it, to follow the white man’s road. At various times certain tribes have forsaken the pleasures of the chase and the excitement of the war-path for the more quiet life to be found on the “reservation.” Was this course adopted voluntarily and from preference? Was it because the Indian chose the ways of his white brother rather than those in which he had been born and bred?
In no single instance has this been true. What then, it may be asked, have been the reasons which influenced certain tribes to abandon their predatory, nomadic life, and to-day to influence others to pursue a similar course? The answer is clear, and as undeniable as it is clear. The gradual and steady decrease in numbers, strength, and influence, occasioned by wars both with other tribes and with the white man, as well as losses brought about by diseases partly attributable to contact with civilization, have so lowered the standing and diminished the available fighting force of the tribe as to render it unable to cope with more powerful neighboring tribes with any prospect of success. The stronger tribes always assume an overbearing and dominant manner toward their weaker neighbors, forcing them to join in costly and bloody wars or themselves to be considered enemies. When a tribe falls from the position of a leading one, it is at the mercy of every tribe that chooses to make war, being forced to take sides, and at the termination of the war is generally sacrificed to the interests of the more powerful. To avoid these sacrifices, to avail itself of the protection of civilization and its armed forces, to escape from the ruining influences of its more warlike and powerful neighbors, it reluctantly accepts the situation, gives up its accustomed haunts, its wild mode of life, and nestles down under the protecting arm of its former enemy, the white man, and tries, however feebly, to adopt his manner of life. In making this change the Indian has to sacrifice all that is dear to his heart; he abandons the only mode of life in which he can be a warrior and win triumphs and honors worthy to be sought after; and in taking up the pursuits of the white man he does that which he has always been taught from his earliest infancy to regard as degrading to his manhood—to labor, to work for his daily bread, an avocation suitable only for squaws.
To those who advocate the application of the laws of civilization to the Indian, it might be a profitable study to investigate the effect which such application produces upon the strength of the tribe as expressed in numbers. Looking at him as the fearless hunter, the matchless horseman and warrior of the Plains, where Nature placed him, and contrasting him with the reservation Indian, who is supposed to be revelling in the delightful comforts and luxuries of an enlightened condition, but who in reality is grovelling in beggary, bereft of many of the qualities which in his wild state tended to render him noble, and heir to a combination of vices partly his own, partly bequeathed to him from the pale-face, one is forced, even against desire, to conclude that there is unending antagonism between the Indian nature and that with which his well-meaning white brother would endow him. Nature intended him for a savage state; every instinct, every impulse of his soul inclines him to it. The white race might fall into a barbarous state, and afterwards, subjected to the influence of civilization, be reclaimed and prosper. Not so the Indian. He cannot be himself and be civilized; he fades away and dies. Cultivation such as the white man would give him deprives him of his identity. Education, strange as it may appear, seems to weaken rather than strengthen his intellect. Where do we find any specimens of educated Indian eloquence comparing with that of such native, untutored orators as Tecumseh, Osceola, Red Jacket, and Logan; or, to select from those of more recent fame, Red Cloud of the Sioux, or Sa-tan-ta of the Kiowas? Unfortunately for the last-named chief, whose name has been such a terror to our frontier settlements, he will have to be judged for other qualities than that of eloquence. Attention has more recently been directed to him by his arrest by the military authorities near Fort Sill, Indian Territory, and his transportation to Texas for trial by civil court for various murders and depredations, alleged to have been committed by him near the Texas frontier. He has since had his trial, and, if public rumor is to be credited, has been sentenced to death. Reference will be made to this noted chief in succeeding pages. His eloquence and able arguments upon the Indian question in various councils to which he was called won for him the deserved title of “Orator of the Plains.” In his boasting harangue before the General of the Army, which furnished the evidence of his connection with the murders for which he has been tried and sentenced, he stated as a justification for such outrages, or rather as the occasion of them, that they were in retaliation for his arrest and imprisonment by me some three years ago. As there are two sides to most questions, even if one be wrong, when the proper time arrives a brief account of Sa-tan-ta’s arrest and imprisonment, with the causes leading thereto, will be given in these sketches. One of the favorite remarks of Sa-tan-ta in his orations, and one too which other chiefs often indulge in, being thrown out as a “glittering generality,” meaning much or little as they may desire, but most often the latter, was that he was tired of making war and desired now “to follow the white man’s road.” It is scarcely to be presumed that he found the gratification of this oft-expressed desire in recently following the “white man’s road” to Texas, under strong guard and heavily manacled, with hanging, to the Indian the most dreaded of all deaths, plainly in the perspective. Aside, however, from his character for restless barbarity, and activity in conducting merciless forays against our exposed frontiers, Sa-tan-ta is a remarkable man—remarkable for his powers of oratory, his determined warfare against the advances of civilization, and his opposition to the abandonment of his accustomed mode of life, and its exchange for the quiet, unexciting, uneventful life of a reservation Indian. If I were an Indian, I often think that I would greatly prefer to cast my lot among those of my people who adhered to the free open plains, rather than submit to the confined limits of a reservation, there to be the recipient of the blessed benefits of civilization, with its vices thrown in without stint or measure. The Indian can never be permitted to view the question in this deliberate way. He is neither a luxury nor necessary of life. He can hunt, roam, and camp when and wheresoever he pleases, provided always that in so doing he does not run contrary to the requirements of civilization in its advancing tread. When the soil which he has claimed and hunted over for so long a time is demanded by this to him insatiable monster, there is no appeal; he must yield, or, like the car of Juggernaut, it will roll mercilessly over him, destroying as it advances. Destiny seems to have so willed it, and the world looks on and nods its approval. At best the history of our Indian tribes, no matter from what standpoint it is regarded, affords a melancholy picture of loss of life. Two hundred years ago it required millions to express in numbers the Indian population, while at the present time less than half the number of thousands will suffice for the purpose. Where and why have they gone? Ask the Saxon race, since whose introduction into and occupation of the country these vast changes have been effected.
But little idea can be formed of the terrible inroads which diseases before unknown to them have made upon their numbers. War has contributed its share, it is true, but disease alone has done much to depopulate many of the Indian tribes. It is stated that the small-pox was first introduced among them by the white man in 1837, and that in the short space of one month six tribes lost by this disease alone twelve thousand persons.
Confusion sometimes arises from the division of the Indians into nations, tribes, and bands. A nation is generally a confederation of tribes which have sprung from a common stock or origin. The tribe is intended to embrace all bands and villages claiming a common name, and is presided over by a head chief, while each band or village is presided over by one or more subordinate chiefs, but all acknowledging a certain allegiance to the head or main village. This division cannot always be accounted for. It arises sometimes from necessity, where the entire tribe is a large one, and it is difficult to procure game and grazing in one locality sufficient for all. In such cases the various bands are not usually separated by any great distance, but regulate their movements so as to be able to act in each other’s behalf. Sometimes a chief more warlike than the others, who favors war and conquest at all times, and refuses to make peace even when his tribe assents to it, will separate himself, with those who choose to unite their fortunes with his, from the remainder of the tribe, and act for the time independently. Such a character produces endless trouble; his village becomes a shelter and rendezvous for all the restless spirits of the tribe. While the latter is or pretends to be at peace, this band continues to make war, yet when pressed or pursued avails itself of the protection of those who are supposed to be peaceable.
Having hurriedly sketched the country in which we shall find it necessary to go, and glanced at certain theories calculated to shed some light on the origin and destiny of the Indian tribes, the succeeding pages will be devoted to my personal experience on the Plains, commencing with the expedition of Major-General Hancock in the spring of 1867.
III.
“There are two classes of people who are always eager to get up an Indian war—the army and our frontiersmen.”
I quote from an editorial on the Indian question, which not long since appeared in the columns of one of the leading New York daily newspapers. That this statement was honestly made I do not doubt, but that instead of being true it could not have been further from the truth I will attempt to show. I assert, and all candid persons familiar with the subject will sustain the assertion, that of all classes of our population the army and the people living on the frontier entertain the greatest dread of an Indian war, and are willing to make the greatest sacrifices to avoid its horrors. This is a proposition, the assertion of which almost carries its proof with it.