On this stern land the white man set my people and said, in a terrible voice, “Farm or die!” We tried, but year by year the trial ended in failure. Wrong implements were given us, great plows which our ponies could not draw, and bad seeds, and this outlay exhausted our annuity and cut us off from cattle issues. Our friends among the white people early began to see the folly of trying to force us to till this iron soil, and urged the issue of cattle, but the giving of useless things was thereupon taken as an excuse for not issuing stock, and when at last they were sent—a few cows and sheep—too few to be of any use, they were used as warrant to cut down our rations, which (as the chief constantly asserted) were not a gratuity, but a just payment.
They had never been enough even when they were honestly and fully issued, and when the quality was bad or the issue cut down many of them were actually hungry for three days in the week. You may read in one of the great books of the government these words: “Suddenly and almost without warning they were called upon to give up all their ancient pursuits and without previous training settle down to agriculture in a land largely unfitted for such uses. The freedom of the chase was exchanged for the idleness of the camp. The boundless range abandoned for the circumscribed reservation, and abundance of plenty supplanted by limited and decreasing subsistence and supplies. Under these circumstances it is not in human nature not to be discontented and restless, even turbulent and violent.” So said the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
In spite of all these things I assert my people were patient. The Sitting Bull was careful to do nothing which would harm his people, and often he walked away in silence from the agent’s harsh accusation.
Hunger is hard to bear, but there were many other things to make life very barren and difficult. Around us to north and east and west the settlers were swarming. Our reservation seemed such a little thing in comparison with our old range—like a little island in great water. Every visit our head men made to the east or the west taught them the gospel of despair. The flood of white men which had been checked by the west bank of the Missouri now flowed by in great streams to the west and curled round to the north. Everywhere unfriendly ranchers set up their huts. They all wore guns, while we were forbidden to do the like. They hated us as we hated them, but they had all the law on their side.
Thus physically we were being submerged by the rising tide of an alien race. In the same way our old customs and habits were sinking beneath the white man’s civilization. One by one our songs were dying. One by one our dances were being cut off by the government, and our prayers and ceremonies, sweet and sacred to us, were already discountenanced or positively forbidden. Our beautiful moccasins were tabooed, our buckskin beaded shirts replaced by ragged coats. Our women were foolish in the dress of cheap white women. We became a tribe of ragamuffins like the poor men whom the newspapers make jokes about and call “hoboes.”
Let me tell you farther. You cannot understand my people if you consider the white man’s religion and the white man’s way of life the only ones sanctioned by the Great Spirit.
My friends in Washington, the men with whom I studied, gave me this thought. There is good in all religions and all races and I am trying to write of the wrongs of my people from that point of view. The Sitting Bull loved the old life, but he often said: “We were living the life the Great Spirit outlined for us. We knew no other. If you can show us that your manner of life is better, that it will make us happier, then we will come to your way,” and for a time he thought that perhaps the white man’s way of life was nearer to the Great Spirit’s will; but when he was cold and hungry he felt the injustice of this superior race, and doubted.
We all saw that as the years went on and the old joys slipped away no new ones came to take their places, while want, a familiar foe, remained close to every fireside. Our best thinkers perceived that fine large houses and nice warm clothing were unattainable to vast numbers of the white men, “how then can the simple red man hope to win them?” They began to say: “We have given our freedom, our world, our traditions, for a dark cabin, hard, cruel boots, the settler’s contempt, and the soldier’s diseases.” “Our race is passing away. The new conditions destroy us. If we cannot persist as Sioux, why persist at all? There are enough white beggars in the world, why add ourselves to the army of the poor?”
It was for this reason that the chief opposed the treaty subdividing the reservation. “Our strength is in being a people. As individuals the white man will spit on us.” When the treaty was about to be executed a white man said to him: “What do you Indians think of it?”
He drew himself up and the old-time fire flamed in his eyes as he said: “Indians! There are no Indians left but me.” But later he said, sadly: “It is impossible for me to change. I cannot sign, but my children may sign if they wish.”