“I will not sell,” he answered, and turned on his heel, and they too went away without success.
To his “Silent Eaters” he said that night: “So long as the buffalo do not leave us we are safe. It cannot be that the Great Spirit will permit the white men to rob us of both our lands and our means of life. He made us what we are, and so long as we follow our ancient ways we are good in his sight.”
Nevertheless, his friends saw that he was greatly troubled. The white hunters were then slaughtering the buffalo for the robes. They were killing merely for the pleasure of killing. The herds were melting away like clouds in the sky, their bones covered the plain, and my chief began to fear that the commissioner had told the truth. He began to doubt the continuance of his race.
III
THE BATTLE OF THE BIG HORN
In the spring of 1876, as your count runs, news came to us that the troops were fighting our brethren, and soon afterward some Cheyennes came to our camp and warned the chief, “The soldiers of Washington are marching to fight you. They intend to force you to go to the reservation.”
The Sitting Bull was deeply moved by this news. “Why do they do this? I am not at war with them. They are not good to eat. I kill only game—the beasts that we need for food. I am always for peace. You who know me will bear witness that I take most joy in being peacemaker. I mediate gladly. Now I will make a sign. To show them that we do not care to fight I will move camp. Let us go deep into the West where the soil is too hard for the plow, far from the white man, and there live in peace. It is a land for hunters; those who plant the earth will never come to dispossess us.”
After a long discussion his plan was decided upon. It was a sorrowful day for us when we were commanded to leave our native hills and go into a strange land, far from the graves of our forefathers. Songs of piercing sadness rang through the lodges when the camp police went about ordering the departure, and some of the chieftains wished to stay and fight.
“We are surrendering our land to the enemy,” they said. “We are throwing part of our people to the wolf in order to preserve the rest.”
“The land is wide and empty to the west,” urged the chief. “Washington will now be satisfied. He has eaten hugely of our hunting ground; his greed will now be appeased. He will not follow us into the mysterious sunset, because his plow is useless there.”