The Old Santa Fe Trail: The Story of a Great HighwayInman, Henry
History
The Old Santa Fe Trail: The Story of a Great Highway
Inman, Henry
Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.); New Mexico -- History; Santa Fe National Historic Trail
It was about ten o'clock at night when we arrived at
Satanta's lodge, and we saw thousands of squaws and bucks
dancing and mourning for their dead warriors. At midnight
the old chief said we must eat something at once. So he
ordered a fire built, cooked buffalo and venison, setting
before us the very best that he had, we furnishing canned
fruit, coffee, and sugar from our coach mess. There we sat,
and talked and ate until morning; then when we were ready
to start off, Satanta and the other chiefs of the various
tribes escorted us about eight miles on the Trail, where
we halted for breakfast, they remaining and eating with us.
Colonel Leavenworth was on his way to assume command of one of the
military posts in New Mexico; the Indians begged him to come back and
take his quarters at either Fort Larned or Fort Dodge. They told him
they were afraid their agent was stealing their goods and selling them
back to them; while if the Indians took anything from the whites, a war
was started.
Colonel A. G. Boone had made a treaty with these same Indians in 1860,
and it was agreed that he should be their agent. It was done, and the
entire savage nations were restful and kindly disposed toward the whites
during his administration; any one could then cross the plains without
fear of molestation. In 1861, however, Judge Wright, of Indiana, who
was a member of Congress at the time, charged Colonel Boone with
disloyalty.[29] He succeeded in having him removed.
Majors Russel and Waddell, the great government freight contractors
across the plains, gave Colonel Boone fourteen hundred acres of land,
well improved, with some fine buildings on it, about fifteen miles east
of Pueblo, Colorado. It was christened Booneville, and the colonel moved
there. In the fall of 1862, fifty influential Indians of the various
tribes visited Colonel Boone at his new home, and begged that he would
come back to them and be their agent. He told the chiefs that the
President of the United States would not let him. Then they offered to
sell their horses to raise money for him to go to Washington to tell
the Great Father what their agent was doing; and to have him removed, or
there was going to be trouble. The Indians told Colonel Boone that
many of their warriors would be on the plains that fall, and they were
declaring they had as much right to take something to eat from the
trains as their agent had to steal goods from them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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