“I have no hate of them,” replied the chief. “All I ask is to be let alone.”
“Listen, my friend. This is what the white man is doing. A great chief, whose name is Sheridan, followed by many warriors, is killing or subduing all the red people to the south. He has broken the Comanches; the Kiowas and Pawnees—all bend the neck to him. Ferocious leaders have been sent out from Washington with orders to gather all your race into certain small lands and there teach them the white man’s way. Whether they wish to do so or not does not matter. They must go or be blown to pieces by his guns. My friend, that is what they mean to do with you. They want you to come to the mouth of Grand River and to the Standing Rock, there to give up your hunting and learn the white man’s way. The great war chief of the whites has said it.”
The chief’s eyes flamed. “And if I refuse?”
“Then he will send a long line of his horsemen to fetch you.”
The chief grimly smiled. “Hoh! Well, go back and tell them to come. The Sitting Bull has got along very well in the ways of his fathers thus far and in those ways he will continue. The land is wide to the west and game is plenty.”
But The Badger then said: “My brother, you know me well. We can speak plainly. The white chief sent me, I say that now. He asked me to come, and I did so. I came as a friend in order that you might not be deceived. I tell you the truth—the white man is moving westward, like a feeding herd of buffalo, slow but sure. His heart is bitter toward us and we must keep silence before him. He wants all the land east of the Missouri and south of the Black Hills. He demands that you give it up.”
My chief was sitting in his soldiers’ lodge; few were there. My father was looking in at the door and I, a lad, was beside him. I saw the veins swell out in the chief’s neck as he rose and spoke: “My friend, out there” (he swept his hand to the west) “is our land, a big open space covered with game. Go back to your friends, the white men, and say that The Sitting Bull is Uncapappa and free to do as he wills. He chooses to live as his fathers lived. As the Great Spirit made him, so he is, and shall remain.”
II
POLICY AND COUNCIL
Nevertheless The Badger’s talk had enlightened my chief. He pondered deeply over his words and came at last fairly to understand the white man’s demands. He lived by planting; the red man by hunting. The palefaces said: “The red man has too much land. We will take part of it for ourselves. In return we will teach him how to plant and make bread and clothing.” But they did not stop there. They said if the red man does not wish to be a planter and wear our clothing we will send out soldiers with guns and make him do our will.
The chief’s first duty was to reject these terms, and this he did; but a second messenger came bringing tobacco and round disks of bread. The chief ground the tobacco under his heel and his soldiers spun the bread down the hill into the river. The emissary stood by and saw this merry game and was wise enough to remain silent.