SPEECH BY A SQUAW.
“You would not give me time to raise children, so I came over here to raise children and live in peace.”
(To allow a squaw to speak in council is one of the worst insults that an Indian can offer.)
CROW’S SPEECH.
After kissing all the English officers, he said: “What do you mean by coming over here and talking this way to us? We were driven out of your country and came to this one. I am afraid of God and don’t want to do anything bad. For sixty-four years you have treated us bad. These people give us plenty to eat. You can go back, and go easy. I come to this country, and my grandmother knows it, and is glad I came to live in peace and raise children.”
After the Crow had spoken, Sitting Bull sat down and said they were done. General Terry then stated that the commissioners had nothing further to say. The Indians then left, after shaking hands with the English officers.
The commission left the following day, and a few days later arrived at Fort Benton. No disappointment was expressed by the citizens of Montana that the commission did not succeed. The average citizen was glad rather than sorry that the old savage, imbued with the blood of Custer and his companions, decided to remain on British soil. To live in peace on their reservation—receiving no punishment for what they had done—board and clothes free—to help to lead them from savage life, were some of the inducements proffered for the return of these hostiles. All offers were not only scornfully rejected, but the commission was treated to studied and offensively displayed insults.
After remaining in Canada nearly three years, and finding that the Canadian government had no use for him and that his people were starving, the old fugitive chieftain now sings a different tune and is anxious to return.
On February 4, 1880, he sent a commission to the agent at Pine Ridge Agency, indicating that he and his followers wanted to make arrangements with the United States government so that they could come back and live in peace, and, as a token of friendship, he sent a pipe hatchet; in case terms could not be had, it was to be returned. But, to his disappointment, the government did not wish to make any terms with him then. His followers kept coming, however, in small parties, and in a destitute and starving condition, to Fort Peck Agency, in northern Montana, turning over their guns and what ponies they had left; the other ponies they had eaten to keep from starving. By May 1st, 1,116 of the refugees had returned.
Again Sitting Bull made an application to the government, through the war department, for permission to return, and all the property he wanted was his horse and gun. After both the Canadian and United States governments had several communications in regard to the matter, and after Sitting Bull had been in Canada five years, he was permitted to return to the United States. He stood his trial and was taken to Standing Rock agency and kept there as a kind of prisoner of war. Now, he was not looked upon as a warrior, even by his own people. But it was not long before he began to gain influence, and many of them looked upon him as a kind of high priest and dreamer. It appears that he was determined to be a leader, if not in one thing he would be in another. The next letter will show him up in his new profession, or whatever you may call it, for he was one of the prime movers in the Indian Messiah craze and the floor manager of the ghost dance, which was finally the cause of his death.