On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

GENERAL CROOK AND THE FRIENDLY APACHE, ALCHISAY.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE DEPARTMENT OF THE PLATTE—THE BLACK HILLS DIFFICULTY—THE ALLISON COMMISSION—CRAZY HORSE AND SITTING BULL—THE FIRST WINTER CAMPAIGN—CLOTHING WORN BY THE TROOPS—THE START FOR THE BIG HORN—FRANK GRUARD, LOUIS RICHAUD, BIG BAT, LOUIS CHANGRAU, AND OTHER GUIDES.

The new command stretched from the Missouri River to the western shores of the Great Salt Lake, and included the growing State of Nebraska and the promising territories of Wyoming, Utah, and part of Idaho. The Indian tribes with which more or less trouble was to be expected were: the Bannocks and Shoshones, in Idaho and western Wyoming; the Utes, in Utah and western Wyoming; the Sioux, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes, in Dakota and Nebraska; the Otoes, Poncas, Omahas, Winnebagoes, and Pawnees, in various sections of Nebraska. The last five bands were perfectly peaceful, and the only trouble they would occasion would be on account of the raids made upon them by the hostiles and their counter-raids to steal ponies. The Pawnees had formerly been the active and daring foe of the white men, but were now disposed to go out, whenever needed, to attack the Sioux or Dakotas. The Utes, Bannocks, and Shoshones claimed to be friendly, as did the Arapahoes, but the hostile feelings of the Cheyennes and Sioux were scarcely concealed, and on several occasions manifested in no equivocal manner. The Utes, Bannocks, and Shoshones were “mountain” Indians, but were well supplied with stock; they often made incursions into the territory of the “plains” tribes, their enemies, of whom the most powerful were the Sioux and Cheyennes, whose numbers ran into the thousands.

There was much smouldering discontent among the Sioux and Cheyennes, based upon our failure to observe the stipulations of the treaty made in 1867, which guaranteed to them an immense strip of country, extending, either as a reservation or a hunting ground, clear to the Big Horn Mountains. By that treaty they had been promised one school for every thirty children, but no schools had yet been established under it. Reports of the fabulous richness of the gold mines in the Black Hills had excited the cupidity of the whites and the distrust of the red men. The latter knew only too well, that the moment any mineral should be found, no matter of what character, their reservation would be cut down; and they were resolved to prevent this, unless a most liberal price should be paid for the property. The Sioux had insisted upon the abandonment of the chain of posts situated along the line of the Big Horn, and had carried their point; but, in 1874, after the murder of Lieutenant Robertson, or Robinson, of the Fourteenth Infantry, while in charge of a wood-chopping party on Laramie Peak, and their subsequent refusal to let their agent fly the American flag over the agency, General John E. Smith, Fourteenth Infantry, at the head of a strong force, marched over to the White Earth country and established what have since been designated as Camps Sheridan and Robinson at the agencies of the great chiefs “Spotted Tail” and “Red Cloud” respectively. In 1874, General Custer made an examination of the Black Hills, and reported finding gold “from the grass roots down.” In the winter of that year a large party of miners, without waiting for the consent of the Indians to be obtained, settled on the waters of Frenchman, or French, Creek, built a stockade, and began to work with rockers. These miners were driven about from point to point by detachments of troops, but succeeded in maintaining a foothold until the next year. One of the commands sent to look them up and drive them out was the company of the Third Cavalry commanded by Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Guy V. Henry, which was caught in a blizzard and nearly destroyed. In the early months of 1875, a large expedition, well equipped, was sent to explore and map the Black Hills and the adjacent country. The main object was the determination of the auriferous character of the ledges and the value of the country as a mining district; the duty of examination into these features devolved upon the geologists and engineers sent out by the Department of the Interior, namely, Messrs. Janney, McGillicuddy, Newton, Brown, and Tuttle. The military escort, consisting of six full companies of the Second and Third Cavalry, two pieces of artillery, and several companies of the Ninth and Fourteenth Infantry to guard supply trains, was employed in furnishing the requisite protection to the geologists, and in obtaining such additional information in regard to the topography of the country, the best lines for wagon roads, and sites for such posts as might be necessary in the future. This was under the command of Colonel R. I. Dodge, of the Twenty-third Infantry, and made a very complete search over the whole of the hills, mapping the streams and the trend of the ranges, and opening up one of the most picturesque regions on the face of the globe.

It was never a matter of surprise to me that the Cheyennes, whose corn-fields were once upon the Belle Fourche, the stream which runs around the hills on the north side, should have become frenzied by the report that these lovely valleys were to be taken from them whether they would or no. In the summer of 1876 the Government sent a commission, of which Senator William B. Allison, of Iowa, was chairman, and the late Major-General Alfred H. Terry, a member, to negotiate with the Sioux for the cession of the Black Hills, but neither Sioux nor Cheyennes were in the humor to negotiate. There appeared to be a very large element among the Indians which would sooner have war than peace; all sorts of failures to observe previous agreements were brought up, and the advocates of peace were outnumbered. One day it looked very much as if a general mêlée was about to be precipitated. The hostile element, led by “Little Big Man,” shrieked for war, and “Little Big Man” himself was haranguing his followers that that was as good a moment as any to begin shooting. The courage and coolness of two excellent officers, Egan and Crawford, the former of the Second, the latter of the Third Cavalry, kept the savages from getting too near the Commissioners: their commands formed line, and with carbines at an “advance” remained perfectly motionless, ready to charge in upon the Indians should the latter begin an attack. Egan has often told me that he was apprehensive lest the accidental discharge of a carbine or a rifle on one side or the other should precipitate a conflict in which much blood would surely be shed. Egan has been many years dead—worn out in service—and poor Crawford was killed by Mexican irregular troops at the moment that he had surprised and destroyed the village of the Chiricahua Apache chief “Geronimo,” in the depths of the Sierra Madre, Mexico. Much of our trouble with these tribes could have been averted, had we shown what would appear to them as a spirit of justice and fair dealing in this negotiation. It is hard to make the average savage comprehend why it is that as soon as his reservation is found to amount to anything he must leave and give up to the white man. Why should not Indians be permitted to hold mining or any other kind of land? The whites could mine on shares or on a royalty, and the Indians would soon become workers in the bowels of the earth. The right to own and work mines was conceded to the Indians by the Crown of Spain, and the result was beneficial to both races. In 1551, the Spanish Crown directed that “Nadie los impidiese que pudiesem tomar minas de Oro, i Plata i beneficiarlas como hacian los Castellanos.”—Herrera, Decade, VIII., lib. 8, cap. 12, p. 159. The policy of the American people has been to vagabondize the Indian, and throttle every ambition he may have for his own elevation; and we need not hug the delusion that the savage has been any too anxious for work, unless stimulated, encouraged, and made to see that it meant his immediate benefit and advancement.

During the closing hours of the year 1875 the miners kept going into the Black Hills, and the Indians kept annoying all wagon-trains and small parties found on the roads. There were some killed and others wounded and a number of wagons destroyed, but hostilities did not reach a dangerous state, and were confined almost entirely to the country claimed by the Indians as their own. It was evident, however, to the most obtuse that a very serious state of affairs would develop with the coming of grass in the spring. The Indians were buying all the arms, ammunition, knives, and other munitions of war from the traders and every one else who would sell to them. On our side the posts were filled with supplies, garrisons changed to admit of the concentration of the largest possible numbers on most threatened localities, and the efficient pack-trains which had rendered so valuable a service during the campaign in Arizona were brought up from the south and congregated at Cheyenne, Wyoming. The policy of the Government must have seemed to the Indians extremely vacillating. During the summer of 1876 instructions of a positive character were sent to General Crook, directing the expulsion from the Black Hills of all unauthorized persons there assembled. General Crook went across country to the stockade erected on French Creek, Dakota, and there had an interview with the miners, who promised to leave the country, first having properly recorded their claims, and await the action of Congress in regard to the opening of that region to settlement. As winter approached another tone was assumed in our dealings with the Sioux and Cheyennes: word was sent to the different bands living at a distance from the agencies that they must come in to be enrolled or inspected; some obeyed the summons, some quietly disregarded it, and one band—a small one, under “Sitting Bull”—flatly refused compliance. The Indians did not seem to understand that any one had a right to control their movements so long as they remained within the metes and bounds assigned them by treaty.

Neither “Crazy Horse” nor “Sitting Bull” paid any attention to the summons; and when early in the summer (1875) a message reached them, directing them to come in to Red Cloud Agency to confer with the Black Hills Commission, this is the reply which Louis Richaud, the half-breed messenger, received: “Are you the Great God that made me, or was it the Great God that made me who sent you? If He asks me to come see him, I will go, but the Big Chief of the white men must come see me. I will not go to the reservation. I have no land to sell. There is plenty of game here for us. We have enough ammunition. We don’t want any white men here.” “Sitting Bull” delivered the above in his haughtiest manner, but “Crazy Horse” had nothing to say. “Crazy Horse” was the general, the fighter; “Sitting Bull” was a “Medicine Man” and a fine talker, and rarely let pass an opportunity for saying something. He was, in that one respect, very much like old “Shunca luta,” at Red Cloud, who was always on his feet in council or conference.

Upon the recommendation of Inspector Watkins of the Indian Bureau, made in the winter of 1875, the War Department was instructed to take in hand the small band of five hundred Sioux supposed to be lurking in the country bounded by the Big Horn Mountains, the Tongue and the Yellowstone rivers. The inspector expressed the opinion that a regiment of cavalry was all that was needed to make a quick winter campaign and strike a heavy and decisive blow. This opinion was not, however, borne out by the facts. The number of Indians out in that country was absolutely unknown to our people, and all guesses as to their strength were wildly conjectural. The country in which the coming operations were to be carried on was as different as different could be from the rugged ranges, the broken mesas, and the arid deserts of Arizona. Topographically, it might be styled a great undulating plain, rolling like the waves of ocean—a sea of grass, over which still roamed great herds of buffalo, and antelope by the hundred. It is far better watered than either New Mexico or Arizona, and has a vegetation of an entirely different type. There is considerable cactus of the plate variety in certain places, but the general rule is that the face of nature is covered with bunch and buffalo grass, with a straggling growth of timber along the water courses—cottonwood, ash, willow, and now and then a little oak. On the summits of the buttes there is pine timber in some quantity, and upon the higher elevations of the ranges like the Big Horn the pine, fir, and other coniferæ grow very dense; but at the height of eleven thousand feet all timber ceases and the peaks project perfectly bald and tower upwards toward the sky, enveloped in clouds and nearly all the year round wrapped in snow. Coal is to be found in wonderful abundance and of excellent quality, and it is now asserted that the State of Wyoming is better supplied with carbon than is the State of Pennsylvania. Coal oil is also found in the Rattlesnake basin, but has not yet been made commercially profitable.

Montana, situated to the north of Wyoming, is perhaps a trifle colder in winter, but both are cold enough; although, strange to say, few if any of the settlers suffer from the effects of the severe reduction of temperature—at least few of those whose business does not compel them to face the blizzards. Stage-drivers, stockmen, settlers living on isolated ranchos, were the principal sufferers. Both Wyoming and Montana were fortunate in securing a fine class of population at the outset, men and women who would stand by the new country until after all the scapegraces, scoundrels, and cutthroats who had flocked in with the advent of the railroads had died off, most of them with their boots on. The Union Pacific Railroad crossed the Territory from east to west, making the transportation of supplies a matter of comparative ease, and keeping the various posts within touch of civilization. South of the North Platte River the country was held by the troops of the United States, and was pretty well understood and fairly well mapped; north of that stream was a terra incognita, of which no accurate charts existed, and of which extremely little information could be obtained. Every half-breed at Red Cloud or Spotted Tail Agency who could be secured was employed as a scout, and placed under the command of Colonel Thaddeus H. Stanton, of the Pay Department, who was announced as Chief of Scouts.