To accomplish this object, much depends upon the course pursued by the agents of the United States. If the character of these is dignified, energetic, and fearless, they will certainly meet that respect from the natives which is due to the importance of their missions. But, on the contrary, if their conduct is deficient in promptness, energy, and decision; if their measures are paralyzed by personal fear of the desperadoes, whom they must necessarily encounter in the execution of their duties, their counsels will fall unheeded in the assemblies which they address.[207] The power of some of the former rulers of the Omawhaws is said to have been almost absolute. That of the celebrated Black Bird,[208] Wash-ing-guh-sah-ba, seems to have been actually so, and was retained undiminished until his death, which occurred in the year 1800, of the smallpox, which then almost desolated his nation. Agreeably to his orders, he was interred in a sitting posture, on his favourite horse, upon the summit of a high bluff of the bank of the Missouri, "that he might continue to see the white people ascending the river to trade with his nation." A mound was raised over his remains, on which food was regularly placed for many years afterwards; but this rite has been discontinued, and the staff, that {205} on its summit supported a white flag, has no longer existence. This chief appears to have possessed extraordinary mental abilities, but he resorted to the most nefarious means to establish firmly the supremacy of his power. He gained the reputation of the greatest of medicine men; and his medicine, which was no other than arsenic itself, that had been furnished him for the purpose, by the villany of the traders, was secretly administered to his enemies or rivals. Those persons who offended him, or counteracted his views, were thus removed agreeably to his predictions, and all opposition silenced, apparently by the operation of his potent spells. Many were the victims to his unprincipled ambition, and the nation stood in awe of him, as of the supreme arbiter of their fate. With all his enormities he was favourable to the traders; and although he compelled them to yield to him one half of their goods, yet he commanded his people to purchase the remainder at double prices, that the trader might still be a gainer. He delighted in the display of his power, and, on one occasion, during a national hunt, accompanied by a white man, they arrived on the bank of a fine flowing stream, and although all were parched with thirst, no one but the white man was permitted to taste of the water. As the chief thought proper to give no reason for this severe punishment, it seemed to be the result of caprice.