CHAPTER XIV.

THE INDIAN POW-WOW.

The Indians of the various tribes of the Upper and Lower Sioux--the Sissitons, the Tetons, the Yanktons and the Yanktonnais and other tribes held a pow-wow to try and force a conclusion of the war, and some of their ablest men, their statesmen, were present, and their views you have here verbatim. More decorum prevailed among them, and they were more deliberate than is observed in the average white man's convention. Little Crow had his supporters present, and a very fluent Yanktonnais Sioux traced on the ground a map of the country, showing the course of the Missouri River and the locality of the different forts. He marked out the mountains, seas and oceans, and stated that an army, great in numbers, was coming from across the country to assist them. This gave rise to the unfounded rumor referred to in another chapter, that emissaries from the South were among them to incite them to war.

John Paul, or Little Paul, was friendly to the whites, and in a speech to the Indians at this pow-wow said:

"I am friendly to the whites, and will deliver these women and children at Fort Ridgely. I am opposed to the war on the whites. You say you are brave men, and can whip the whites. That is a lie--persons who cut women and children's throats are not brave. You are squaws and cowards. Fight the whites if you want to, but do it like brave men. I am ashamed of the way you have acted towards the captives; and, if any of you have the feelings of men, you will give them up. You may look fierce at me, but I am not afraid of you."

Red Iron, one of the chiefs of the Upper Indians, was not friendly. He was one of the principal chiefs of the Sissitons, and at one time was so outspoken against the whites that Governor Ramsey, who was then Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and was at the agency, had occasion to rebuke him in a substantial way--he reduced him to the ranks. In other words, he broke him of his chieftianship. This was in December, 1852.

Red Iron was a handsome Indian, an athlete, six feet in his moccasins, with a large, well-developed head, aquiline nose, thin lips, but with intelligence and resolution beaming all over his countenance.

When brought into the presence of Governor Ramsey he walked with a firm, lordly tread, and was clad in half military and half Indian costume. When he came in he seated himself in silence, which was not broken until through an interpreter the Governor asked him what excuse he had to offer for not coming to the council when sent for.

Red Iron, when he arose to his feet to reply, did so with a Chesterfieldian grace, allowing his blanket to fall from his shoulders, and, intentionally dropping his pipe of peace. He stood before the Governor for a moment in silence, with his arms folded, his bearing betraying perfect self-composure, a defiant smile playing upon his lips. In a firm voice he said:

Red Iron--"I started to come, but your braves drove me back."

Governor--"What excuse have you for not coming the second time I sent for you?"

Red Iron--"No other excuse than I have already given you."

When the Governor, as Commissioner of Indian Affairs, informed this proud chief that, by virtue of his office, he would break him of his chieftianship it appealed to his pride, and he said:

"You break me? I was elected chief by my tribe. You can't break me."

The chief, while surrendering to the powers that be, never felt friendly to the whites, and during this war of which we write he continued stubborn and sullen to the end.

Standing Buffalo, hereditary chief of the Sissitons, was a different type, and counselled living in peace, but desired fair treatment and honest dealings with his people. He was a handsome Indian, and a man of rare ability. General Sibley was anxious to know how he felt on the important question agitating the Sioux Nation, and desired his co-operation in liberating the captives and compassing the capture of Little Crow and his followers. At this Indian convention this noted chief said:

"I am a young man, but I have always felt friendly toward the whites, because they were kind to my father. You have brought me into great danger without my knowledge of it beforehand. By killing the whites, it is just as if you had waited for me in ambush and shot me down. You Lower Indians feel bad because we have all got into this trouble; but I feel worse, because I know that neither I nor my people have killed any of the whites, and that yet we have to suffer with the guilty. I was out buffalo hunting when I heard of the outbreak, and I felt as if I was dead, and I feel so now. You all know that the Indians cannot live without the aid of the white man, and, therefore, I have made up my mind that Paul is right, and my Indians will stand by him. We claim this reservation. What are you doing here? If you want to fight the whites, go back and fight them. Leave my village at Big Stone Lake. You sent word to my young men to come down, and that you had plenty of oxen, horses, goods, powder and lead, and now we see nothing. We are going back to Big Stone Lake and leave you to fight the whites. Those who make peace can say that Standing Buffalo and his people will give themselves up in the spring."

They kept their word, and would have nothing to do with Little Crow.

Standing Buffalo was killed in 1863 by an accident.

Other Day, a civilized Indian, in addressing the council at this time, said:

"You can, of course, easily kill a few unarmed whites, but it would be a cowardly thing to do, because we have gained their confidence, and the innocent will suffer with the guilty, and the great Father at Washington will send his soldiers to punish you, and we will all suffer. I will not join you in this, but will help defend these white people who have always been our friends."

Other Day was a true friend of the whites; he looked it. He was a full-blood Indian, it is true, and the Indians respected and feared him, but his desire to forsake the barbarous teachings of his father inclined him towards the unsuspecting settlers.

In 1863 he was General Sibley's most trusted and confidential scout. In the early outbreak Other Day manifested his loyalty to his white friends by risking his life in their defense, piloting sixty people through the river bottoms during the nights to a place of safety. He traveled with his charge in the night, and hid them in underbrush during the daytime. He was a true-hearted, kind man, with a red skin, who has gone to his reward in a land where there are no reds, no blacks, but where all are white.

Little Crow, who is one of the principal characters in this narrative, was an Indian of no mean ability. He was the commander-in-chief of the hostile tribes, and wielded a powerful influence among all the tribes of this great Sioux Nation. He was a powerful man, and felt his lordly position; was confident of final success, and very defiant at the outset. He had a penchant for notoriety in more ways than one. In dress he was peculiar, and could nearly always be found with some parts of a white man's clothing. He was particularly conspicuous in the style of collar he wore; happy in the possession of one of the old-style standing collars, such as Daniel Webster and other old-time gentlemen bedecked themselves with. He also possessed a black silk neckerchief and a black frock coat, and on grand occasions wore both.

He had strongly marked features, and in studying the lineaments of his face one would not adjudge him a particularly bad Indian. As we had hundreds of these men in our custody, a good opportunity was offered while guarding them to try one's gift as a reader of character as stamped in the face, but Little Crow proved an enigma. It was like a novice trying to separate good money from bad, an unprofitable and unsuccessful task. Little Crow said:

"It is impossible to make peace if we so desired. Did we ever do the most trifling thing, the whites would hang us. Now, we have been killing them by the hundreds in Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa, and I know if they get us into their hands they will hang every one of us. As for me, I will kill as many of them as I can, and fight them till I die. Do not think you will escape. There is not a band of Indians from the Redwood Agency to Big Stone Lake that has not had some of its members embroiled in this war. I tell you we must fight and perish together. A man is a fool and coward who thinks otherwise, and who will desert his nation at such a time. Disgrace not yourselves by a surrender to those who will hang you up like dogs; but die, if die you must, with arms in your hands, like warriors and braves of the Dakotas."

In one of our battles we took some fine-looking bucks prisoners, and the soldiers were for scalping them at once, but we had a little "pow-wow" with them, and found them intelligent and well educated; they were students home on a vacation from Bishop Whipple's school at Faribault, Minnesota, and said they were forced, much against their will, to go on the warpath; that they had not fired a bullet at the whites; that they fired blank cartridges because they felt friendly to the whites, and had no desire to kill them. There were three of them; we told them they could take their choice--be shot or enlist; they chose the latter, and went South with us, staying until the close of the Rebellion, and they displayed the courage of the born soldier.