Descriptive Catalogue of Photographs of North American IndiansJackson, William Henry
History
Descriptive Catalogue of Photographs of North American Indians
Jackson, William Henry
Indians of North America -- Biography; Indians of North America -- Portraits -- Catalogs
With the exception of the last two numbers the above represent a portion
of a delegation of prominent Sioux chiefs and warriors who visited
Washington in 1872. The portraits were made in Washington, and represent
them in their best attire.
336. CIN-TE-GI-LE-SKA. _Spotted Tail._ (Front.) BRULE.
337. CIN-TE-GI-LE-SKA. _Spotted Tail._ (Profile.) BRULE.
Spotted Tail has long been the chief of the Brule Sioux, and since
his conversion from an intense hostility to an unswerving friendship
for the white people has by them been looked upon and considered as
the great chief of all the Sioux. The honors of this position are
equally divided between Red Cloud and Spotted Tail; each is chief of
his band only, the Indians themselves not recognizing any one man as
chief of the whole nation; but their great executive abilities,
oratorical powers, and popularity with both whites and Indians, have
been the means of putting them forward as the champions of their
people.
In his younger days Spotted Tail was a daring and audacious chief,
murdering and massacreing wherever he went. In 1854, he and his band
attacked a coach, murdered all the passengers, and perpetrated
horrible enormities on the dead. He was eventually captured, and
imprisoned for about six mouths in the guardhouse at Fort
Leavenworth, during which time his feelings underwent a great
change. Instead of a determined foe of the pale-faces, he became
their earnest friend and coadjutor in the work of pacification. It
has been well said of him that "he is worth more to the Government
than a dozen major-generals, with their armies to back them."
The following extract from a speech by Spotted Tail, before a board
of Indian Commissioners at Fort Laramie in 1867, will be read with
interest as showing his ability as an orator: "My father and
friends, your Great Father has sent you here to learn what was going
on. You have come. Your Great Father has sent you to listen. Will
you listen well, or only listen to half that is good and to half
that is bad, and not take the whole to our Great Father? He has sent
you here to hear and talk. We know you have not come with presents,
but you may have a little money in your pockets that you could give
them. They are poor and need help. These men here, and the old men,
women, and children, have not had much to eat since they have been
here, and if you could give them something it would make my heart
glad. Yesterday my friends hit me a good deal; but it does not
matter. I have spoken."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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