Fig. 44—Dohásän or Little-bluff, principal chief, 1833—1866 (after Catlin, 1834).
In the next few years we find little of importance recorded of the Kiowa beyond concurrent statements of both military and civil officials that they were growing constantly more insolent and unmanageable. In 1856 a war party of nearly one hundred arrived at Albuquerque, New Mexico, having passed through the center of the settlements of that territory, on their way to attack the Navaho. They were turned back by the military commander, committing several depredations as they retired (Report, 5). Two years later another large war party, together with some Cheyenne, passed Fort Garland, Colorado, almost on the great divide, in pursuit of the Ute (Report, 6).
DEFIANT SPEECH OF DOHÁSÄN
On one occasion, during the distribution of the annuity goods on the Arkansas, when fifteen hundred lodges of Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache were encamped along the river, the agent took the opportunity to tell the Kiowa as plainly as possible that if they did not cease their depredations the government would not only withhold their presents but would send troops to punish them. The great chief Dohásän, after listening in respectful silence to the end, sprang to his feet, and, calling the attention of the agent to the hundreds of tipis in the valley below, replied in a characteristic speech:
The white chief is a fool. He is a coward. His heart is small—not larger than a pebble stone. His men are not strong—too few to contend against my warriors. They are women. There are three chiefs—the white chief, the Spanish chief, and myself. The Spanish chief and myself are men. We do bad toward each other sometimes, stealing horses and taking scalps, but we do not get mad and act the fool. The white chief is a child, and like a child gets mad quick. When my young men, to keep their women and children from starving, take from the white man passing through our country, killing and driving away our buffalo, a cup of sugar or coffee, the white chief is angry and threatens to send his soldiers. I have looked for them a long time, but they have not come. He is a coward. His heart is a woman's. I have spoken. Tell the great chief what I have said (Report, 7).
SMALLPOX EPIDEMIC OF 1861—62
In the winter of 1861—62 the smallpox, brought back from New Mexico by a party of Kiowa returning from a trading trip, again ravaged the Kiowa, Comanche, and other tribes of the plains (see the [calendar]). To prevent a recurrence of the disease, the government soon afterward took measures for vaccinating the western Indians. In the summer of 1863 a delegation of Kiowa visited Washington and gave permission for the establishment of mail stations along the roads through their country in southeastern Colorado (Report, 8).
INDIAN WAR ON THE PLAINS, 1864
The chronic raiding still continued. In 1860 the troops had been ordered to chastise the Kiowa and Comanche, but apparently with little effect. Then came the rebellion, involving all the civilized and partly civilized tribes of the south and reacting on the wild tribes of the plains. At the same time the fugitive hostiles from the Sioux war in Minnesota in 1862, who had taken refuge with their western brethren of the same tribe, helped to increase the ferment. There is evidence also that agents of the Confederacy had something to do with this result. In the fall of 1863 it was learned that a combination had been formed by the Dakota, Cheyenne, part of the Arapaho, the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache—all the principal fighting tribes—to inaugurate a general war along the plains in the spring. To meet the emergency, messages were sent out to the different tribes in June, 1864, directing all friendly Indians to repair at once to certain designated military posts, with a warning that all found away from these posts after a certain date would be considered hostile. As it was difficult for troops to distinguish one tribe from another, an order was issued at the same time prohibiting the friendly Indians in eastern Kansas from going out on their usual buffalo hunt upon the plains.
Only a part of the Arapaho, and later some of the Cheyenne, responded and came in. After waiting a sufficient time, Governor Evans of Colorado issued a proclamation in the summer of 1864 designating all Indians remaining out as hostiles, whom all persons were authorized to kill and destroy as enemies of the country, wherever they might be found (Report, 9). In August the agent at Fort Lyon, Colorado, for the Kiowa, Comanche, Apache, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, wrote that "the orders are to kill every Indian found in the country, and I am inclined to assist in carrying the orders into effect" (Report, 10).