Three Years on the Plains
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Edmund B. Tuttle >> Three Years on the Plains
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Here I saw an Indian child, five years old, dressed in a most elegant
suit of buckskin, embroidered with beads and horse-hair of various
colors. The frock came below the knees, with a handsome fringe at the
bottom, and underneath the little fellow wore leggins and moccasins. I
never saw any child dressed so beautiful or looking like a little
prince, as he was, of the tribe. I would have given fifty dollars for
the "outfit," if I had a child to wear it. How is it that these rude
children of nature can do such beautiful bead-work,--all of the figures
as regular as if laid out by geometrical rule,--or as perfect as any
lady could make the figures of an afghan?
This station of the Union Pacific Railroad is just beyond the crossing
of the Platte River, of half a mile in width.
It is an important little place of a few hundred people, on account of
the machine-shops and round-house for locomotives, and as one of the
main points where Indians cross from Dakota to the Republican River
when on hunting expeditions. Hence a company of soldiers are stationed
here to protect the railroad and the long bridge just east of the town.
All along the road, at each station, are troops also for protection,
who usually "turn out," range in file, and "present arms" as the train
approaches.
Here we met a white man named Pratt,--that is to say, if he were washed
in the river he would look white,--who said that he had lived with the
tribe for sixteen years, and had nine (half-breed) children, and they
were more filthy and squalid than those of any other lodge.
A squaw had died here, and was buried as usual, by elevating the body
upon upright poles. A stock of food was left with her at night, to eat
on the way to the other country. But lo! in the morning she came down
and ate it all up, saying to her friends, "She wanted to see her aunt
before departing." She lived a week longer, and died, as it was
supposed, again. It is said that her friends got tired of such fooling,
and being determined to end the matter, adopted the white man's mode of
covering her up in the ground! Again she rose up and preferred some new
request; but thinking the old enchantress had stayed long enough this
side the hunting grounds, they forced her down and laid sufficient turf
upon her to keep her quiet for a long last sleep.
Among the Pawnees at Columbus, on the reservation near the railroad, an
Indian trader makes a good thing out of the poor fellows in this way:
For instance, the Indian Bureau pays off the tribe twice a year. In the
spring, blankets, etc.; these are worth at least three dollars each.
The Indians sell these blankets for a double handful of coffee and
sugar. Then they buy them back in the fall with money and buffalo meat,
which they sell to the trader at six cents the pound. He then cures the
meat and sells it back to them for twenty-five cents the pound; thus
making nine per cent. on it. Some one, it is said, complained to the
government about it, and they sent a new agent to them; but the Pawnees
had confidence in the old agent or trader named Platt, and they stoutly
refused to trade with the new man!
ACROSS THE PLAINS.
When Vice-President Colfax and Horace Greeley, and Governor Bross of
Illinois, made the journey overland to California, about twelve years
since, they went all the way by stage from the Missouri River to
Denver, Colorado, to Salt Lake, etc., through the mountains of the
Sierra Nevada. It took them about thirty days to go. Mr. Greeley said
he "could think of these plains (called in your maps the 'Great
American Desert') as fit for nothing but to fill up between commercial
cities!" But he was partly mistaken, as his friends are now planting a
colony (named Greeley) of intelligent settlers on the Cach-le-pow-dre
Creek, south of Cheyenne, fifty-five miles toward Denver, where ninety
thousand acres of land have been secured for tillage, and where
saw-mills and stores and dwellings are to be erected. The success of
this enterprise has led to another one. The railroad _has projected
civilization one hundred years ahead_, opening up a highway for
commerce from New York to the "Golden Gate," to Asia, Africa, and
China, which will astonish the world and divert the course of trade to
the Pacific coast.
But you are interested mainly, I see, in reading about the incidents
which attended the opening up of this great national highway.
The dangers attending the building of the road were sometimes very
great, as the Indians saw very plainly that it was the white man's
encroachment on his hunting-grounds. And when even the telegraph-poles
were being put up, long before, the Indians imagined that the
government was thus putting them up to fence off their hunting-grounds,
so they could not get any more buffalo! And once, after I came to Fort
Sedgwick, the wires were said to be "down," and no communication could
be had with other posts in the upper country. It was feared that the
Indians had been tampering with the wires, and torn them down. But the
operators went out under an escort of soldiers to see what the
difficulty was. They came back again in a couple of days, and reported
that the Indians had not meddled with the wires at all. But it seemed
that some buffaloes in a large drove had taken the privilege of
scratching their rumps against the poles, and thus tore them down; and
getting their horns entangled in the wires, the wild creatures had
carried off about four miles of telegraph-wire!
WHY DOES NOT THE INDIAN MEDDLE WITH THE TELEGRAPH?
It is said that the pioneer company over the plains got together
several chiefs and explained as well as they could the _modus operandi_
of obtaining electricity from the clouds, and making it useful in
conveying intelligence to great distances. This was hard for them to
believe, because they are superstitious, and attribute all phenomena
they do not fully understand to _conjuration_ or _charms_, such as
their medicine-man practices. However, they concluded to put the matter
to a test.
So it was that two principal Indians, about one hundred miles apart,
agreed to send a message over the lines on a given day, and then they
would travel toward each other as fast as they could to see if the
message (known only to themselves and the operator) should be correct.
Of course it proved as we would expect, and they were satisfied. This
intelligence has spread from one tribe to another, and they, believing
that it is somehow (as it is in truth) connected with the Great Spirit
who controls the winds and the storms; hence they do not meddle with
it.
PLUM CREEK MASSACRE.
But it is not to be supposed that the Indians quietly submitted to the
building of the railroad through their country.
The most formidable obstacle which was met with in building the road
occurred in 1866, by the throwing off the track a train of cars at Plum
Creek, near the Platte River, two hundred and thirty miles west of
Omaha.
The Indians were led on by a half-breed, and probably one or more
scalawag whites were engaged in this diabolical act, as one was found
among the killed with his face painted black and wearing Indian
clothing. Some one having a fertile imagination made a picture of this
scene, and I saw it copied in Philadelphia for some wall-paper to
ornament hotel dining-rooms. Speaking to some ladies there about the
delightful trip to California over the Pacific Railroad, one exclaimed,
"I would like to visit California, but oh, my! I never could venture on
the danger. Just look at the picture in the window, corner Chestnut
Street and Broad. The horrid Indians have thrown the cars off the
track, and killing all the passengers!" I explained to her that it was
a fancy sketch entirely, gotten up for a bar-room wall-paper, and that
it was ridiculous and false; for the picture was made to show the
locomotive off the rail, and the Indians riding round the cars in white
shirt sleeves and bright-red, flaring neckties, like gay cavaliers or
brigands!
PAWNEE INDIANS--YELLOW SUN AND BLUE HAWK.
Both these Indians declare themselves innocent of the crime of murder.
I visited Omaha in the fall of 1869, where they were lodged in jail
awaiting their trial. Just before I came one of them had escaped, and
gone back to the Pawnee reservation, near Columbus. Here the sheriff
and soldiers found him with his squaw, decked out in all their style of
paint and ornament, ready for the sacrifice. He was ready and willing
to be slain _among_ his own people, but to go back and suffer the
ignominy of being hung up by the neck till dead was more than he could
bear. If the Indian dies in this way, all believe they cannot enter
into the happy hunting-grounds.
They were supposed to have murdered Edward McMurty, near Grand Island,
Nebraska, in June, 1868.
After being shut up in a filthy jail about two years, they were
acquitted. This was a sample of the way we dispense justice in our
courts of law.
A TRIP TO FORT LARAMIE.
This post was established a great many years since by the American Fur
Company, to trade with the Indians, buying furs and peltries of them in
return for various articles of merchandise, such as tobacco, sugar,
coffee, blankets, calico, beads, etc. Mr. John Jacob Astor, the
millionaire of New York, made his great wealth by dealing in furs with
the Indians.
It is related of an agent of the company that while weighing the furs,
he would place his foot on the scales and call it a pound! Of course he
could keep it on as long as he chose, and the Indians would be none the
wiser. It is a good story, but in nowise related to Mr. Astor, who was
reputed to be honest, and at one time very poor.
It was full of curiosity that I started from Fort Russell with the
paymaster, Major Burbank, Inspector-General Sweitzer, Medical Director
J. B. Brown, and others, on the last of May, 1870, with an escort of a
dozen cavalry, to pay a few days' visit to Laramie, ninety-five miles
north-east of our post. Leaving at noon in procession, with three
ambulances and as many army wagons, scaling the bluffs, bare of
everything like trees or shrubs, and only covered with grass and wild
flowers, and now and then sage-bush and prickly-pear cactus, which are
very troublesome to the horses' feet. The roads were, as usual, very
hard and fine, so that up hill and down dale we made six miles to the
hour all the way. Our first station was Horse Creek, twenty-five miles,
where we camped on a fine stream of water for the night. When a party
thus camps out, the wagons are corraled, as it is called,--_i.e._ a
circle is made of them and the horses are tethered inside or _lariated_
with a rope long enough to let them feed, and this is held by an iron
stake or pin driven into the ground. Then the tents are put up in a
line, and at once begins the work of gathering brush and sticks (or
buffalo-chips), with which to cook a savory supper of bacon, potatoes,
and hot coffee. This is the time for cracking jokes, telling stories of
pioneer life,--and the colored boys are full of fun. We had one from
the South named Tom Williams, belonging to Colonel Mason, of the 5th
Cavalry. After enjoying our evening meal and getting ready to lie down
in our tents, spread on the grass, as the evening approached, the sun
was sinking behind Laramie Peak,--a mountain far away in the Black
Hills, towering up eight thousand feet,--and all nature was hushed into
repose, and each one with his lungs full of the light air, and his body
weary with a long ride, just dropping off to sleep,--all at once there
was a yell and halloo outside, which caused me to jump up and look out
to see if any red-skins had broke through the guard and invaded our
peaceful circle. Instead of scalping Sioux, there was nothing the
matter but the return of a drove of large beef-cattle we had passed
grazing on the Chugwater, and which sought our camping-ground on
account of a bare place where they could lie down and be warm for the
night. Our Tom was racing up and down among them, yelling "Hi, hi!" and
shaking his blanket in all directions to stampede the poor cattle, who
had as good a right as we to the soil.
Pickets were stationed all around us, and, save the snoring of some
tired sleeper and the occasional braying of a mule or two, we slept
soundly, with no fear of Indians. Here we met a white man and his wife,
a squaw, and several others, who were waiting for Red Cloud and his
chiefs, who were on their way to Washington from Fort Fetterman. They
were related to John Reichaud, a half-breed belonging to Red Cloud's
party. This Reichaud had lived about Laramie and Fetterman for many
years, and, by raising stock and trading, had accumulated, it is said,
about two hundred thousand dollars. During last winter, while drunk, he
quarreled with a soldier, and a little while after, in passing some
barracks at Fetterman, he aimed his revolver at a soldier, who was
sitting in front of his quarters, named Kernan, and killed him,
supposing it was the same soldier he had just before been quarreling
with. Finding out his mistake, he fled away up to Red Cloud's camp, and
while there incited the Indians to make war upon the whites. At the
time we were going up, General John E. Smith was journeying towards us
with Red Cloud and his band of warriors, and having Reichaud as the
chief's prisoner. It was said he expected to get the President to
pardon him and allow him to establish a trading-post for the
Ogallallas. The feeling against this outlaw was such as to make General
Smith fear that some one at Cheyenne would shoot him, and so the party
turned off to Pine Bluff Station, about forty-three miles east of that
town. We thus missed seeing them. But there were other objects of
interest in our journey, and we went on to the mail station, called the
Chug, a place not of much note,--for beside a company of cavalry, there
were not a dozen ranches there on the beautiful stream, along whose
banks were growing willow-trees, and the cottonwood also. Besides,
there were half a dozen tepees filled with half-breeds, who are herders
and wood-choppers in the mountains.
While the paymaster was dispensing the greenbacks to Uncle Sam's boys,
the doctor and I sallied out with a guide in search of those much
admired
MOSS AGATES,
which are here found in great abundance, even quarried out of a bluff
and carried off by the wagon-load. The guide had been there but once,
and somehow or other he could not locate it exactly, and we had a ride
out of six miles and back without finding the spot. Still, we picked up
a few on the way. As these are now so much the fashion for jewelry, I
will describe them. First, I should say that most suppose they contain
real moss, or fern-leaves, so distinct are they seen in a clear agate
to resemble them. Thus you see imitations of pine-trees, vines, a
deer's head, and sprigs of various kinds; but it is through iron
solutions penetrating them when in a soluble state. If you take a pen
and drop some ink into a tumbler of water, it will scatter and form for
the moment an appearance like a moss agate. These agates, when found on
bluffs or dry places, are coated over with a white covering of lime or
alkali. Those in the beds of rivers found along the line of the Pacific
Railroad, are smooth and transparent. They are called the "Cheyenne
brown agate," "Granger water agate," "Church Buttes light-blue agate,"
and the "Sweet-water agate."
There are great quantities of them near Church Butte and Granger
stations, nearly nine hundred miles west of Missouri River. You have to
poke among cobble-stones, etc. to find them, and when a person comes
upon a handsome specimen, he will shout, as did a minister from
Chicago, one day, with me, when he picked up a nice one as large as an
egg,--"Glory hallelujah!"
It is like searching for gold and silver,--very exciting, and far more
pleasurable than fishing or hunting. A friend here has about sixty
pounds of agates, for which he was offered by a lapidary in New York
five dollars a pound. A handsome stone for a ring or pin is worth, when
cut into shape, from three to five dollars. The lapidary cuts them with
a steel wheel, about eight inches in diameter, using oil and
diamond-dust in cutting and polishing.
A YOUNG BRAVE.
At Chug Station I met a frontiersman named Phillips, of long
experience, who told me in his new adobe house of an old chief who had
lost five sons, and when the first was slain he cut off a piece of his
thumb, next of his forefinger, and so on, till five told of his boys
killed. The last was a brave, and supposed no ball could hit him,
wearing, he supposed, "a charmed life." He came to the "Chug" and dared
them to shoot. As he and three or four more had killed a white man and
wounded others, the people all turned out, and Phillips shot the bold
young fellow, and wounded the rest of the party so that they died. The
body of the young Indian lay by the roadside for several weeks, till
the wolves and ravens had picked his bones, and I picked up his skull,
pierced through with several balls, to bring back and present to the
post-surgeon.
This grinning skull was lying on the grass which covered the roadside,
and almost beneath towering monuments or bluffs of sandstone, which jut
out at several points on the road, running along for great distances,
and towering up several hundred feet high. We passed soon after several
of these projections, which look like fortifications and baronial
castles of some knights of the olden time. "Chimney Rock" is well known
to travelers as a series of fluted columns, and standing solitary, as
sentinels in the desert, they look solemn, lonely, and sublime. Old
George, the stage-driver, has passed them twice a week for many years,
and the wonder is he has not lost his scalp.
Sometimes the chiefs and old Indians will cut slits in their cheeks and
rub ashes in them, sitting over the fire and bemoaning the loss of
their dead children. They present a horrid appearance to one who looks
at their pagan mode of bewailing the departed.
Arrived at Fort Laramie on the third day, we were courteously welcomed
by Colonel F. F. Flint, of the 4th Infantry, commandant of the post.
Delicacy dictates that we forbear to speak of the charming family which
surrounds him; but the rarity of Christian households in the army made
our visit there like to an oasis in the desert.
To visit the Indian graves surrounding the post was a prominent object
before us in going. Lieutenant Theodore F. True, with an orderly, two
mules, and a horse saddled, found us fording the Laramie River to
inspect the grave,--if such it can be called, as shown in the picture
on this page,--where the body was dried up like a mummy, and nothing
else but fragments of a buffalo-robe dangling in the wind was to be
seen. Relic hunters had carried away everything in the shape of bow and
arrow, wampum, etc.
We moralized over this beautiful feature of Indian superstition,
wherein they are certainly free from the horrid thought that any one is
ever buried alive!
Next we sought the place where the remains of Mon-i-ca, daughter of
Zin-ta-gah-lat-skah, was placed, by her request, in the white man's
cemetery, and alongside of the body of her uncle Sho-ta,--"Old
Smoke,"--an old warrior. The coffin was made at the post, and elevated
on posts about ten feet high. They cover these coffins with handsome
red broadcloth, and deposit in each all the trinkets and valuables
belonging to the departed. One other grave there the Indians visit
annually, and mourn over with their lamentations,--that of a Frenchman
named Sublette, who brought them down and directed them how to vanquish
their enemies, the Pawnees, in a great battle.
THE HEAD CHIEF--RED CLOUD.
Red Cloud is regarded as the head chief of the Sioux nation, and for
over twenty years has been thus venerated. He is fifty-three years old,
and claims to have fought in eighty-seven battles, often wounded, but
never badly hurt. Red Cloud is about six feet six inches in his
stockings (I mean moccasins), large features, high cheek bones, and a
big mouth, and walks knock-kneed, as others do. His face is painted,
and his ears pierced for gaudy rings, which men and women have an equal
pride for. His and other chiefs' robes were beautifully worked with
hair, beads, and jewels. His leggins were red, handsomely worked with
beads and horse-hair and ribbons, and his moccasins were fit for a
prince to wear.
He has encountered the Utes, Pawnees, Snakes, Blackfeet, Crows, and
Omahas. Thirty-three years ago, while he was the youngest of the
braves, he engaged with a party of one hundred and twenty-five warriors
of his tribe, and only twenty-five escaped alive. Twice was he wounded,
and so distinguished by his daring that he was made a chief for his
skill in fighting. Then he rose in rank to the highest station, and he
holds it to-day. His people regard him as one of the greatest warriors
on the plains, being skilled with the tomahawk, rifle, and bow and
arrow, and in councils of chiefs, his wonderful sagacity and eloquence
have stamped him, in the eyes of all Indians, as worthy of veneration
and implicit obedience. As I had missed the party on their way to
Washington by a few hours' tarrying on the "Chug," and General Smith
had taken a short cut across to Pine Bluff Station, seventy-three miles
below Cheyenne, to avoid a conflict anticipated about Richaud, I will
give an account gleaned from others, of this expedition, which it is
hoped may result in lasting peace.
The "outfit" assembled in front of General Flint's house, on their
arrival at Fort Laramie, and got up a regular war-dance to amuse the
general's family and others there. This chief, Red Cloud, whose fame
had extended hardly east of the Missouri River, has now spread over the
world; and from his wigwam and hunting-grounds, he is heard of across
the Atlantic as a great man of destiny. He has passed through Omaha and
Chicago to Washington in his war-paint, ornamented with eagle's
feathers, buffalo-skins, horse-hair, bears' claws, and trophies of his
skill, which he values more highly than a brigadier the stars upon his
shoulders!
Along with him were nineteen of his braves and four squaws, which is a
small number, considering that the Indian is a Mormon in the matter of
polygamy. The Indian _buys_ his wife (or wives) by giving a pony for
the prize; and when Mother Bickerdyck, the army-nurse, saw "Friday" in
Kansas, and upbraided him with having _two_ squaws, he said, "Well,
give me one white squaw, and I'll be content; you know one white squaw
is equal to two Indian squaws!"
General Smith was a favorite of Red Cloud's, having met him in the
Powder River country, and under circumstances which made him respected
among the Sioux Indians.
The chiefs on Red Cloud's staff, and going to Washington, were:
Shem-ka-lu-tah, Red Dog.
Mon-tah-o-he-te-kah, Brave Bear.
Pah-gee, Little Bear.
Mon-tah-zia, Yellow Bear.
Makh-to-u-ta-kah, Sitting Bear.
Makh-to-ha-she-na, Bearskin.
Sha-ton-sa-pah, Black Hawk.
Shunk-mon-e-too-ha-ka, Long Wolf.
Me-wah-kohn, Sword.
Ko-ke-pah, Afraid.
Ke-cha-ksa-e-un-tah, The One that runs through.
Ke-yah-lu-tah, Red Fly.
En-ha-mah-to, Rock Bear.
Me-nah-to-ne-ow-jah, Living Bear.
Och-le-he-lu-tah, Red Shirt.
_Squaws of High Blood._
Dah-sa-no-we, The White Cow Rattler, Sword's wife.
Ny-ge-uh-ha, Thunder Skin, wife of Ke-cha-ksa-e-un-tah.
E-dah-zit-chu, The Woman without a Bow (Sansare tribe), wife of
Yellow Bear.
Mak-ko-cha-ny-an-tah-ker, The World Looker, wife of Black Hawk.
[Illustration: ISAAC H. TUTTLE, A CONVERTED INDIAN CHIEF.]
[Illustration: INDIAN BOYS PRACTICING WITH BOW AND ARROW.]
[Illustration: INDIAN BURIAL.]
[Illustration: BISHOP CLARKSON CONFIRMING CONVERTED INDIANS IN
NEBRASKA AND DAKOTA.]
[Illustration: GROUP OF CONVERTED INDIANS WITH THEIR PASTOR.]
[Illustration: SPOTTED TAIL AND HIS SON.]
Along with them were John Richaud, the renegade, and a half-breed,
James McCluskey. Also William G. Bullock, the post-trader at Fort
Laramie, as familiar with the Indians as any one in those parts, unless
it is a wealthy merchant in St. Louis, Mr. Beauvais, a Frenchman.
As the Indians entered the cars at Pine Bluff Station,--and one can
hardly imagine what were their thoughts, because they had never before
seen a train of cars or a locomotive,--a friend who was there said
that, as soon as the cars started, the Indians expressed some terror in
their countenances, and all at once grasped hold of the seats with both
hands to hold on! As they passed through Columbus, on the road, several
of the Pawnees (their deadly enemies) came in and shook hands with
them. Arrived at Omaha, they were quartered at the Cozzens Hotel; but
instead of occupying bedrooms and beds, they spread their blankets and
skins on the floor, and sank down to a rest much coveted after a long
and tedious journey of a thousand miles. Here crowds poured in from
every quarter to interview these noted warriors; but as they did not
speak English, they were only gazed at by curious people.
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