Three Years on the Plains: Observations of Indians, 1867-1870Tuttle, Edmund B. (Edmund Bostwick)
History
Three Years on the Plains: Observations of Indians, 1867-1870
Tuttle, Edmund B. (Edmund Bostwick)
Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.); Indians of North America; Indians of North America -- Great Plains
"I have tried to get from my Great Father what is right and just. I
have not altogether succeeded. I want you to believe with me, to
know with me, that which is right and just. I represent the whole
Sioux nation. They will be grieved by what I represent. I am no
Spotted Tail, who will say one thing one day, and be bought for a
fish the next. Look at me! I am poor, naked, but I am chief of a
nation. We do not ask for riches; we do not want much; but we want
our children properly trained and brought up. We look to you for
that. Riches here do no good. We cannot take them away with us out
of this world, but we want to have love and peace. The money, the
riches, that we have in this world, as Secretary Cox lately told
me, we cannot take these into the next world. If this is so, I
would like to know why the Commissioners who are sent out there do
nothing but rob to get the riches of this world away from us. I was
brought up among traders and those who came out there in the early
times. I had good times with them; they treated me mostly always
right; always well; they taught me to use clothes, to use tobacco,
to use fire-arms and ammunition. This was all very well until the
Great Father sent another kind of men out there,--men who drank
whisky; men who were so bad that the Great Father could not keep
them at home, so he sent them out there."
_Reception of Red Cloud at Home._
Doubtless speculators and contractors were disappointed when they
heard, on General Smith's return, of Red Cloud's satisfaction, and what
he said about being peaceable, and using his influence among his
warriors. A thousand lodges were gathered to receive him, and the
demonstrations made over his return exceeded any the oldest Indian had
ever seen before.
On the way out, Red Cloud gave General Smith his reason for asking the
government for the seventeen horses. He did not really need them, but
made up his mind that if he had been sent back on foot from Pine Bluff,
or Fort Laramie, his tribes might think he was lightly esteemed by our
authorities, and thereupon they might begin to despise him. His
influence would decrease, and he might be unsuccessful in preventing
war. He merely wished to accept of them as a tribute to his exalted
position as a great warrior among his people. The general said that his
appearance, with his whole party well mounted, had the desired effect,
and Red Cloud's warriors saw at a glance that the chief was believed to
be a great warrior by the Great Father at Washington.
CONCLUSION.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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