He was greatly chagrined to find himself held a prisoner in the face of all his people, and yet this care of his person—this fear of him on the white man’s part—made some of his subordinates still more jealous of his eminence. They were forgotten, while many strangers came from afar and gave my chief many silver pieces for his photograph. His fame was greater than even I could realize, and chiefs who had no reason to hate him began to speak against him. “Why should the white people send him presents?” they asked, and began to belittle his position in the tribe.
Indians as Soldiers
To the Indian, it was the soldier—the man in blue uniform—not the civil agents sent out from Washington to dole out bad and insufficient rations to a conquered race, that represented courage, justice, and truth. Consequently the Indians took great pride in being soldiers, and experience has shown that they make not only the most efficient but also the most faithful of scouts and the best possible material for light, irregular cavalrymen.
An Indian Dream
Illustration from
HOW ORDER No. 6 WENT THROUGH
by Frederic Remington
Originally published in
Harper’s Magazine, May, 1898
I do not think my chief counseled evil during this time, but it could not be said that he was submissive. He merely waited in his tepee the action of his captors. The news that he got of the condition of the reservation was not such as to encourage him and the roar of his falling world was still in his ears. He was not yet in full understanding of the purpose of Washington. “I do not know whether I am to live or die,” he said to my father. “Whatsoever my fate, I am happier, now that I have seen my child.”
After some three weeks of this confinement we were startled by an order to break camp and get on board the boat again. “You are to go to Fort Randall as military prisoners,” the agent explained to me. “Tell them these are my orders.”
When I told the chief he was greatly troubled and, calling his “Silent Eaters” about him, he said: “This may mean that they are going to take us into the mysterious East to kill us in sport, or to starve us in prison, far from our kind. Now listen, be ready! Our reservation ends at Fort Randall. If they attempt to carry us beyond that point let each man snatch a soldier’s gun and fight. Let no one cease battle till the last man of us is killed. I am old and broken, but I am still a chief. I will not suffer insult and I will not be chained like a wolf for the white man’s sport.”