I present as an illustration in this book, the little monument erected on the Wounded Knee battlefield by the Sioux themselves some years after the massacre. It was dedicated in the presence of a great concourse of Indians. The inscription is given in Sioux on one side of the shaft, in English on the other. The War Department rather objected to it, so I was told, but it still stands as a monument typifying our treatment of the Indian in these modern days.
Some of the Sioux are still backward, and there are quite a number who do not attend the Protestant or Catholic missions. If one will talk with these so-called “non-progressives,” one may hear them say, “We have not forgotten Wounded Knee.”
A few brief concluding statements are in order. A perusal of this long narrative indicates that at the first the dance was a purely religious ceremony. The Sioux were deadly in earnest, they were sincere. They danced day and night until they dropped from exhaustion. There was nothing like it, so far as I can ascertain, in recent times in North America. They were in a frenzy. Yet there was no thought of war. Revivals among Protestant denominations in this country (especially in remote districts) frequently develop religious mania. Many older persons remember the “Camp Meetings” of the West and South in which people “got religion.” The interference of police or troops at such a gathering would bring on a riot among the white Christians participating in the services.
Negroes of the South have been known to become insensible for hours—to enter a cataleptic state—and to relate visions on recovering. Hysteria at religious gatherings in the South is common among negroes.
In view of these facts, a religious mania is not surprising among Indians, who sought, as we have seen, salvation out of troubles. In fact the craze was induced by their wretched condition.
There was no danger at any time at Pine Ridge. What we did, not once, but on many nights, is proof of the assertion. There were a number of newspaper men in the little log hotel at Pine Ridge, and they sent many sensational accounts to the Eastern papers. Not one of them ever left the agency, until the battle of Wounded Knee had occurred, when a few went out to look over the field. Mr. Bartlett, who spoke Sioux quite well, and myself, were the only men to my knowledge who left the agency and visited the camps in the valley, one or two miles distant. The fact that we were able to do so, is sufficient refutation of the statement that the Indians desired to fight, or were savages. Both of us would have been killed were this statement true. We never experienced the slightest trouble, but on the contrary were afforded every facility. We often felt guns and revolvers under the blankets on which we reclined in the tipis. Force caused Wounded Knee. Humanity would have prevented it.
CHAPTER XIII. THE FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES
This is the largest body of Indians in the United States. They reside in the State of Oklahoma and number, according to the Commissioner’s report,[[20]] 101,216. The Five Civilized Tribes are composed of southern Indians. A consideration of their tribal customs and ethnology will be presented in the next volume of my history. While the Indians follow some of their ancient customs, the bulk of them have so far departed from the faith of their fathers, that it is advisable to consider their present life and needs, rather than their past.
The report on these Indians for the year ending June 30th, 1913, and signed by J. George Wright, Commissioner to the Five Civilized Tribes, Dana H. Kelsey, Superintendent of Union Agency, and John B. Brown, Supervisor of Education, lies before me. According to this, they are divided among the tribes as follows:—
| Cherokees | 41,706 |
| Choctaws | 24,973 |
| Creeks | 18,700 |
| Chickasaws | 10,989 |
| Seminoles | 3,119 |
| Mississippi Choctaws | 1,639 |