CAUSES OF THE DISSENSION
But events were steadily drifting toward war again and the truce was of brief duration, the unrest culminating in the general revolt commonly known as the outbreak of 1874. As this was the last, and will forever remain the last, combination of the southern plains tribes against the power of the white man, resulting in their complete and final subjection, it merits somewhat detailed attention.
In late raids into Texas several of the Comanche had been killed by the hated Tonkawa, a small cannibal tribe, in their capacity of government scouts (see the [calendar, 1873—74]). The wailing laments of the Comanche women for their dead, and their appeals for vengeance, urged the warriors to go down once more into Texas and exterminate the remnants of the man-eaters who had escaped the massacre of twelve years before. To add to their discontent, a lawless band of hunters organized in Dodge City, Kansas, had, in the spring of 1873, established an adobe fort, known as the "Adobe Walls," on the South Canadian, in the panhandle of Texas, from which headquarters they were making inroads on the guaranteed hunting grounds of the Indians and were slaughtering the buffalo by thousands, in defiance of the government promises that such intrusion would be prevented. It was also charged that they directly incited disorder by selling whisky, arms, and ammunition to the Indians in return for stolen stock. In his official report on the outbreak, General Pope states emphatically that the unlawful intrusion and criminal conduct of the white hunters were the principal cause of the war (War, 1). This is confirmed by the testimony of white men employed at the Cheyenne agency at the time, who stated to the author that just before going out the Cheyenne chiefs rode down and assured them that they need have no fear, as the Indians considered them as friends and would not molest them, but were compelled to fight the buffalo hunters, who were destroying their means of subsistence. "Then they shook hands with us and rode off and began killing people."
Shortly before this the son and nephew of Lone-wolf, the principal chief of the Kiowa, had been killed in Mexico. He went down with a party in the summer of 1874 and buried their bodies, making a solemn vow at the same time to kill a white man in retaliation, and thus communicating to his people the bitterness which he felt himself (see the [calendar, 1873—74]). Lone-wolf is described by Battey about this time as being several years older than Kicking-bird, not so far seeing, more hasty and rash in his conclusions, as well as more treacherous and cunning, but with less depth of mind. He was the acknowledged leader of the war element in the tribe.
While lawless white men were thus destroying the buffalo, the Indians themselves were suffering for food. The agent for the Cheyenne reports that for nearly four months preceding the outbreak the rations had fallen short, and expresses the opinion that if there had been a full supply he could have held the tribe from the warpath. At the same time they were being systematically robbed of their stock by organized bands of horse thieves. The immediate cause of the outbreak by the Cheyenne in May, 1874, was the stealing by these men of forty-three valuable ponies belonging to the chief, Little-robe. In attempting to recover them Little-robe's son was dangerously wounded, in revenge for which the Cheyenne soon after killed a member of a surveying party in the Kiowa country and at once began open hostilities (Report, 34; Battey, 4).
Photo by Bell, 1888.
Fig. 51—Gui-pägo or Lone-wolf, present head-chief of the Kiowa.
Agent Miles thus tersely sums up the provocation:
The lack of power to administer the law—to remove improper characters from this reservation, to break up the various bands of dissolute white men, horse and cattle thieves, known to be operating in our vicinity—is the prime cause that may be assigned for the serious outbreak among the Cheyennes on this reservation. As elsewhere stated, the Cheyennes and Arapahoes were assured by the President, on their recent visit to Washington, that improper white men and buffalo hunters should be kept from their country at all hazards, and they very naturally expected that some effort would be made to keep that promise; but they have looked in vain, and the Cheyennes, being the most restless of the two tribes, grew tired and endeavored to avenge their own wrongs. The result of such a proceeding could have but one ending, and that was to bring them into conflict with the general government (Report, 35).