Hesperothen; Notes from the West, Vol. 2 (of 2): A Record of a Ramble in the United States and Canada in the Spring and Summer of 1881Russell, William Howard, Sir
History
Hesperothen; Notes from the West, Vol. 2 (of 2): A Record of a Ramble in the United States and Canada in the Spring and Summer of 1881
Russell, William Howard, Sir
United States -- Description and travel
The Indian chiefs have a right, which they often exercise, of visiting
these schools as a Board; and there is an account in the Carlisle paper
of the visit of Spotted Tail, Iron Wing, White Thunder, Black Crow,
and Louis Robideau from the Rosebud Agency; Red Cloud, American Horse,
Red Dog, Red Shirt, Little Wound, and Two Strike from the Pine Ridge
Agency; Like the Bear and Medicine Bull from the Lower Brule Agency;
Son of the Star, Poor Wolf, Peter Beauchamp, and John Smith from Fort
Berthold; Two Bears, John Big Head, Grass, Thunder Hawk, and Louis
Primeau from Standing Rock; Charger and Bull Eagle from Cheyenne River;
Brother to All and James Broadhead from Crow Creek; Strike the Ree
and Jumping Thunder from Yankton; Robert Hakewashte and Eli Abraham
from Santee Agency; Mr. Tackett and his wife and daughter; a daughter
of Spotted Tail, and others. The meeting of the children with their
parents is described as being most touching; and sometimes the pupils
were not recognised, so greatly had they altered. As the chiefs seemed
unwilling to speak when called upon to do so, there was silence for a
time till a little girl, who had been about a year and a half at the
school, expressed her desire to speak in so earnest a way that General
Marshall permitted her to do so; and so, speaking in her own dialect,
her words were translated into English and into Sioux. She declared
that she liked the white man's ways and the white man's language.
Indian words, she said, were down on the ground, but the white man's
language was in his head. The chiefs, who listened attentively, seemed
to understand this curious figure of speech, and nodded their approval.
And then she enlarged upon the advantage of what she learned, and
implored the chiefs to send their children to the school, where she
says she is going to try to be God's daughter. Her words seemed to
kindle the fire within the chieftains' breasts, for Like the Bear, a
Sioux, and father of one of the boys at Hampton School, came forward
and addressed the meeting. "There is no greater power in the world,"
said he, "than the Great Spirit, and we must listen to Him and do
what He wants us to do. When the men who were sent out by the Great
Father the President asked for my children I gave them up. I see you
are making brains for my children, and you are making eyes for them so
that they can see. That is what I thank the Great Spirit for, and it is
that which will make me strong." Then Robert Hakewashte, a chief from
the Santee Agency, spoke, and said that he wanted schools like that
which he saw here on his own reservation, and Spotted Tail wished for
the same thing. "Since I have learned the words of God," he says, "it
makes no difference to me what is the colour of a man's skin; if he
walks like a man it is the same. I do not believe God likes the white
colour only. God likes red and white, for He made them all." And then
the flood of eloquence was loosened, and an old chief of the Sioux,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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